Hittite Sources Research Articles

LÚuri(y)anni: AN OLD HITTITE OFFICE

This article explores the role played by a Hittite official during the Old Hittite Period. We also evaluatean old hypothesis according to which the term LÚuri(y)anni could match the Akkadogram LÚABUBĪTUM, a term employed in Hittite sources to indicate a similar office

الترتيبات العسكرية لمعركة قادش في 1274 ق.م في عصر الدولة الحديثة

تزخر معركة قادش بالعديد من الترتيبات العسكرية التي تعكس التطور الهائل في الاستعداد للحروب في القرن الثالث عشر قبل الميلاد؛ إذ تظهر الصور الناطقة التي تركها المصريون على بعض جدران معابدهم القدرة الهائلة على تنظيم القوات وتقسيمها والتطور الكبير الذي طال آلة الحرب، كما تسجل النصوص المصرية المصاحبة لتلك المناظر المصورة على جدران المعابد المصرية الرئيسة وبعض النصوص الحيثية التي كشف عنها في بوغاز كوي أخبار تلك المعركة التي عُدّت من أهم الحروب في العالم القديم. وتكمن أهمية الدراسة في أنها تبحث في واحدة من أهم معارك الشرق الأدنى القديم، والتي كان لنتائجها انعكاسات كبيرة على المنطقة، كما أنها أكثر معارك العصر البرونزي وفرةً في المصادر من الجانب المصري في مقابل ندرة المصادر الحيثية المتعلقة بالمعركة. ومن هنا جاءت مشكلة البحث، ففي حين تندر المصادر الحيثية المتعلقة بأحداث معركة قادش والمتاح منها يعود لأزمنة تالية للمعركة، تتوافر المصادر المصرية بدرجة كبيرة. وفي ظل عدم وجود مصادر محايدة، فإن هناك صعوبة كبيرة في التحقق من الترتيبات التي قام بها الطرفان والتأكد من ادعاء كلا الجانبين الانتصار. ويهدف البحث إلى تسليط الضوء من جديد على الترتيبات العسكرية لذلك الصراع الذي دار بين المصريين والحيثيين عند قادش والذي انتهى بعقد معاهدة سلام في عام 1270ق.م، ومحاولة التغلب على نقص المصادر الحيثية، وتجنب الوقوع فريسة لأبواق ادعاء النصر من الجانبين في ظل صمت المصادرة المحايدة، وذلك من خلال القيام بقراءة جديدة لواقع منطقة النزاع عقب الحرب من أجل الخروج بنتائج حقيقية وواقعية للمعركة. واعتمدت الباحثة في دراستها على المنهج التاريخي والوصفي والتحليلي القائم على استرجاع أحداث المعركة ووصف المناظر المصور للحصول على أكبر قدر من البيانات وتحليلها للوصول إلى النتيجة المرجوة. وخرج البحث بعدة استنتاجات تتعلق بتطور الفكر العسكري في إدارة الحروب، واستعادة توازن القوى في منطقة الشرق الأدنى القديم.

Ancient Cults in Ḫattuša (I)


 
 
 The present essay explores the question of continuity and change between Kaneš and Ḫattuša in the cultic sphere, reviewing the cult of Parga, probably a fertility goddess of local Anatolian origin, in the Hittite sources. It reveals that Parga appears in several different cultic contexts but within a relatively invariable sequence of offerings, often appearing with the same, often “exotic” deities, such as Zūluma, Šišumma/i, and Šurra. The probable location for performance of many of these cultic sequences in the lower town of Ḫattuša, one of the most ancient parts of the city, shows a great deal of continuity between the Old Assyrian and the Old Hittite periods, and may further highlight the antiquity of these cults. Since some of the cultic action considered in this essay took place in close proximity to the ašuša-gate, the evidence concerning the location of that gate, probably at the western or northwestern section of the fortification wall and near some of the institutions located in its vicinity, will be examined.
 
 

Jumalad sõjas: jumalik toetus ja sõdade teoloogiline õigustamine muistses Anatoolias ja Põhja-Süürias

Jumalad sõjas: jumalik toetus ja sõdade teoloogiline õigustamine muistses Anatoolias ja Põhja-Süürias

Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East

Ist Troja das Wilusa der Hethiter? Über Namensassoziationen und ihre fatale Rolle bei der Historisierung Hisarlıks

The widely accepted link of Homer’s town with the land of Taruwisa and/or the land of Wilusa in Hittite sources is based on little other than name associations: firstly that of Alaksandu, king of Wilusa, with Alexandros or Paris, the Trojan prince (1911), then of Wilusa with Ilios, another name for Troy, and, independently, of Taruwisa with Troy itself (both 1924). Also ]appaliunas, in a list of Wilusian gods, was identified with Apollo (1931). None of these equations is cogent, and if a Wilusian king and a Wilusian god really had Greek names, it would not strengthen the localization of Wilusa in the Troad. Homer’s town was indeed localized there, but the efforts to prove the existence of a town around the stronghold on the hill of Hisarlık have failed. This stronghold was neither Troy nor the capital of Wilusa, and there is no connection with Hittite history or culture. Monuments and inscriptions in Hittite style exist in West Anatolia, but farther to the south, and until now none of the western kingdoms attested primarily in Hittite sources has been confirmed by excavation. The equation of Ephesos with Abāsa, the town of Uhhazidi, the last king of Arzawa, is phonetically even worse, and Ephesos is probably a genuine Greek name.

Apollo – Greek god

The names of Troy and Ilion (Τροία, Ἴλιον/Ἴλιος) go back to the toponyms Taruisa and Wilusa of the Hittite sources. The Trojan prince Paris, whose second name is Ἀλέξανδρος (Alexandros) has a historical prototype in the person of King Alaksandu of Wilusa, who sealed a treaty with the Hittite king Muwatalli II circa 1280 BC and thus lived for several decades before the date ascribed to the legendary Trojan War. In the treaty of Alaksandu and Muwatalli the gods of Troy-Wilusa are evoked: the first is the thunder/storm god of army, the name of the second is erased and the third one is Appaliuna (KUB 21.1 iv 27-28). Alaksandu and Apaliuna have no analogues in the onomastics of ancient Anatolia. Obviously, they are the cuneiform renderings of the Greek Alexandros and Apollo (Ἀπόλλων < *Apelyōn).

Das Land Tumanna und sein König in den hethitischen Quellen

Summary The article investigates the history of the “Land of Tumanna”, known from Hittite sources, based on a new appraisal of the available evidence. First conquered by ˇSuppiluliuma I, the region underwent a change of status with the creation of a vassal kingdom in the Late Empire period. By that time, the growing political and economical importance of the king of Tumanna emerges from his role as provider of cult supplies and as eligible commander for military campaigns. The parallel disappearance of the Land of Pala fromthe written sources suggests that the latter territory was largely, if not totally incorporated in the kingdom of Tumanna. Besides the political history of the region, the article addresses the geographical setting of the area and presents a critical edition of the oracle report IBoT 1.32.

Anadolu’nun İlk Yazılı Belgelerinde Büyü ve Kehanet

There are only eight incantation texts among 23500 Kultepe tablets. Some researches assert that these incantation texts were exercising documents belong to people who were trying to learn literacy, and should be accepted as school texts. This opinion can be suit for some of the incantation texts but it is clear that most of these texts were written by professional scribes and were used for their actual purpose. Especially, the text Kt 94/k 821 was shaped to use as an amulet. The tablet has a hole on top to reeve a rope for hanging it on a wall or a door. Comparing to the dark magic or binding spell which are very common in Mesopotamian and later Hittite sources, none of these Kultepe incantations are vicious. These incantations are positive used as protection against illnesses and demons. Hence, these texts can be compared with objects called “amulet” which are still used against all kind of evil.

Hitit-Kaška İlişkilerinde Yanıtı Aranan Bazı Sorular

There is not enough informations about Kaskas living in the North of the Hittite State. According to the information obtained from the Hittite cuneiform texts, these people are nomadic, grabber and barbaric tribes. However, the accuracy of this information has not been investigated enough. In this study, informations that collected from the Hittite sources are compared with the adverse informations that collected from the same sources and tried to make some determinations about the subject. As a result, understood that at least portion of these people are community that have settled life and producing. For this reason, should be evaluated that Kashkans are as a people, civilized the period up to other communities in Anatolia.

Hittite Religious Rituals and the Ideology of Kingship

AbstractWhat did the victorious Hittite king do on his return home from battle? Surprisingly perhaps, the pertinent Hittite sources offer different, even contradictory answers to this question. For a study of the relations between ritual practices and political power in the Hittite Kingdom, however, the question is not without interest. The occasion of the victorious return of the king from battle lends itself splendidly to, even calls for, a conscious use of ritual activity for the manifestation of political power. It will be argued that the evidence concerning the ritual activities of the Hittite king on his return from war show no conscious attempt to mould ritual practices into political goals or to exploit the glory of battles just won for a demonstration of power. This fact may shed a new light on the relations between ritual activity and political power in the context of the Hittite empire and its characteristic textual inheritance.

The Cuneiform Tablets from Tell Nebi Mend

Excavations at Tell Nebi Mend recovered five clay tablets inscribed in Akkadian in Babylonian cuneiform. They come from a Late Bronze Age deposit, the contents of two of them linking with information from Hittite sources to give the name of its king, Niqmadda, and a date near the end of the 14th century BC, and assure the identification of the site as the famous Qadesh on the Orontes. Although only partially understood, these documents show the place was as cosmopolitan a centre as any other royal seat at the time. A sixth tablet has no writing, but bears the remains of a sealing.

Sargon, Anitta, and the Hittite Kings against Purušḫanda

This article aims at showing how the juxtaposition of several manuscripts and oral stories that originated in different cultural and chronological layers formed the Hittite legend of Sargon’s expedition to Purušḫanda. Comparing the examples connected with the fall of Purušḫanda in the Hittite historical literature, it is possible to trace back the insertion of the city into the legend. In Hittite sources the conquest of Purušḫanda is evoked in the first lines of the proclamation of Telepinu (CTH 19) and in the historical fragments KBo 3.28 and KBo 3.46+ referring to the military campaigns of the first Hittite kings. The echo of this war is possibly reflected in the Hittite composition of the šar tamḫāri. In particular the choice of inserting the fall of Purušḫanda into the Sargon story could have been stimulated by the narration of the deeds of Anitta in the most ancient Hittite period.

Troy in recent perspective

AbstractThe historic series of excavations of Hisarlik-Troy have been continued over the last 15 years by a collaboration between teams from the universities of Tübingen and Cincinnati with fruitful results. Over the year 2001 however the director, Manfred Korfmann, attracted sharp criticism from colleagues, largely through the medium of the press, for his methods and publications. He was accused of exaggerating the importance of the site in the Late Bronze Age, particularly as a political capital and trading centre of Anatolia, and more specifically of unduly inflating the results of his investigations of the lower city. A symposium was convened by the University of Tübingen in February 2002 with a view to discussing these criticisms and the defence in an academic atmosphere. The four authors of this article attended the Tübingen symposium. After listening to the contributions it seemed to us that an assessment of the issues from our respective view-points would be timely: thus a detailed consideration of the archaeological questions, a review of the notable recent progress in Hittite sources firming up the historical geography of western Anatolia, and an evaluation of Troy's position in Late Bronze Age trade. In all these areas we conclude that the criticisms of Korfmann are themselves considerably exaggerated.

Western Anatolia in the Thirteenth Century B.C. according to the Hittite Sources

The redating of certain Hittite texts – notably the Indictment of Madduwatta and the annals of Tudhaliya and Arnuwanda – from the end of the thirteenth century to the turn of the fifteenth has been one of the most discussed Hittitological subjects in recent years. The sudden availability of sources covering a previously poorly known period in Hittite history has naturally brought about an intense preoccupation with the Early Hittite Empire, largely overshadowing the less “fortunate” side of the redating, the “deprivation” of the main body of sources relating to western Anatolia in the second half of the thirteenth century. The situation is aptly demonstrated in the most recent comprehensive study on Arzawa, where the chapter dealing with the period after Muwatalli to the end of the Hittite Empire barely covers 16 pages, in contrast to the far more abundant documentation on the fourteenth century.

The Migrations of Tribes Speaking the Indo-European Dialects from Their Original Homeland in the Near East to Their Historical Habitations in Eurasia

The historical distribution and routes of migration of the principal ancient Indo-European ethnic groups who first appear in ancient written records - the Hittite-Luwians, Indo-Iranians, and Greeks (the Cretan-Mycenae an Greeks and the Achaeans of Hittite sources) - can be explained more easily if one assumes that the territory of the original Indo-European homeland coincided with a region contained within eastern Anatolia, the southern Caucasus, and northern Mesopotamia in the fourth to fifth millennia B.C. (1) To determine the routes of migration of these peoples to their historical habitations, it is not necessary to assume that they covered huge distances in moving from the region of their original homeland. It is sufficient to assume only minor displacement away from that original region. It is noteworthy that the dialects which presuppose only minimal displacement relative to this area are the most ancient documented Indo-European languages.

Doctrines of Causality in Hittite and Biblical Historiography : a Parallel *)

The increasing number of Hittite texts has furnished some important comparative material for the study of the Bible. This is especially true of the field of historiography, which was a literary genre in the Ancient Near East, apparently introduced by the Hittites and brought to artistic perfection by the Israelites. Hittite historiography 1) was the prototype of the later Assyrian annalistic literature and possibly influenced the historical writing of the Bible as well, in spite of the latter's uniqueness. 2) The present paper attempts to point out a parallel between Hittite and Biblical historiography involving similar methods, based on the doctrine of causality 3), which explain national catastrophy. We shall deal first with the chronologically earlier example, taken from the Hittite sources.