Hattian and Hittite
2nd-1st millenniums BCE
|
NOTE |
The Hittites controlled and empire that flourished in Anatolia from the eighteenth century BCE down to about 1200 BCE, after which Hittite culture continued on in smaller city states down to the eighth century BCE. The Hittites were in contact with Mycenaean Greeks in the late Bronze Age, and many scholars believe that elements of Hittite mythology entered into the corpus of Greek myth during this period of contact. Indeed, Jan N. Bremmer and Volkert Haas have both argued that the Hittite myth of the Storm God and the Dragon stands behind the story of Jason, Medea, and the Golden Fleece. Both identify the Fleece with the sacred kursha sack, a bag made of fleece, which was annually rededicated at a New Year's festival in which the story of the slaying of the dragon was retold and stand-ins for the God and his wife contracted a sacred marriage, like that of Jason and Medea.
The Hittite Storm God was known as Tarhun ("The Conqueror") and he was equated with the earlier Hattian god Taru and Hurrian god Teshub, by whose name this deity is commonly known. The Storm God killed Illuyanka, whose name simply means "serpent." The Hittite text relating the two primary myths of the Storm God and the Serpent was discovered only in the 1930s, with the standard English translation published only in 1982. There is no public domain translation of the myth. Below I have paraphrased the sparse inscriptions to indicate their content and provide a summary of the myth. |
Sky god slaying the chaos dragon, Neo-Hittite relief. (© Georges Jansoone / Wikimedia Commons)
The Storm God and the Serpent
Following the 1982 translation of Gary Beckman, available here.
§1-2. The text opens with the priest of the Storm God relating the myths spoken during the New Year’s festival known as purulli.
§3. The Storm God and the Serpent fight in the city of Kiškilušša, and the Serpent defeats the Storm God.
§4-5. The defeated Storm God calls together all the gods and asks his daughter Inara for aid. She prepares a feast with several vats of intoxicating beverages, including wine and beer.
§6-8. Inara travels to the city of Ziggaratta and asks the mortal hero Ḫupašiya to aid her. He agrees to help on the condition that she have sex with him. The two have sex.
§9-11. Inara conceals Ḫupašiya and then invites the Serpent and his sons to the feast. The Serpent and his sons consumed all of the food and drink and became drunk. Ḫupašiya emerged from hiding and bound the Serpent with rope.
§12. The Storm God slays the Serpent.
§13-15. Inara confines Ḫupašiya in a house on a rock in Tarukka. She commands him never to look out the house’s windows lest he see his wife and children. After twenty days, Ḫupašiya looks out the window, sees his family, and demands to be released.
§16-17. Inara asks Ḫupašiya why he looked out the window. The following lines are heavily damaged, so it is unclear why Inara travels to Kiškilušša to give her house and underground spring to its king. Whatever this event is, it is the origin of the purulli festival.
§18-20. Here the second myth starts with a heavily damaged invocation of rain.
§21. The Serpent vanquishes the Storm God and took from him his heart and eyes.
§22. The Storm God marries a poor man’s daughter, and their son married the Serpent’s daughter.
§23-24. The Storm God continuously tells his son to ask his father-in-law to return his heart and eyes. Eventually, the Serpent returns them and the son takes them to his father.
§25-26. Made whole again, the Storm God travels down to the sea, where the Storm God vanquishes the Serpent. His son had joined the Serpent and begged his father to kill him, too; and so the Storm God did. The Storm God is about to take some action when the text breaks off.
§27. This text is too damaged to make clear sense.
§28-35. The remainder of the text deals with the revenues and relative merits of the cults and priests of various gods.
§3. The Storm God and the Serpent fight in the city of Kiškilušša, and the Serpent defeats the Storm God.
§4-5. The defeated Storm God calls together all the gods and asks his daughter Inara for aid. She prepares a feast with several vats of intoxicating beverages, including wine and beer.
§6-8. Inara travels to the city of Ziggaratta and asks the mortal hero Ḫupašiya to aid her. He agrees to help on the condition that she have sex with him. The two have sex.
§9-11. Inara conceals Ḫupašiya and then invites the Serpent and his sons to the feast. The Serpent and his sons consumed all of the food and drink and became drunk. Ḫupašiya emerged from hiding and bound the Serpent with rope.
§12. The Storm God slays the Serpent.
§13-15. Inara confines Ḫupašiya in a house on a rock in Tarukka. She commands him never to look out the house’s windows lest he see his wife and children. After twenty days, Ḫupašiya looks out the window, sees his family, and demands to be released.
§16-17. Inara asks Ḫupašiya why he looked out the window. The following lines are heavily damaged, so it is unclear why Inara travels to Kiškilušša to give her house and underground spring to its king. Whatever this event is, it is the origin of the purulli festival.
§18-20. Here the second myth starts with a heavily damaged invocation of rain.
§21. The Serpent vanquishes the Storm God and took from him his heart and eyes.
§22. The Storm God marries a poor man’s daughter, and their son married the Serpent’s daughter.
§23-24. The Storm God continuously tells his son to ask his father-in-law to return his heart and eyes. Eventually, the Serpent returns them and the son takes them to his father.
§25-26. Made whole again, the Storm God travels down to the sea, where the Storm God vanquishes the Serpent. His son had joined the Serpent and begged his father to kill him, too; and so the Storm God did. The Storm God is about to take some action when the text breaks off.
§27. This text is too damaged to make clear sense.
§28-35. The remainder of the text deals with the revenues and relative merits of the cults and priests of various gods.
|
Teshub (Tarhun) was a god of storm and thunder, and as such he is typically identified with the Greek Zeus. As a god intimately bound with a story of dragon-slaying, his myth has an interesting parallel to the Greek myth of Cadmus. American Orientalist and clergyman WILLIAM HAYES WARD (1835-1916) discussed the connection between the war god Ares (chief god of the Cadmus myth) and the Hittite god Teshub in 1911, two decades before the myth of Teshub and the dragon came to light:
|
From "Greek and Hittite Gods"
William Hayes Ward
A most extraordinary figure of Teshub which Professor Sayce, following Miss Dodd, takes to be an Amazon, has lately been discovered at Boghaz-keui, perfectly preserved, and giving details of his embroidered garments. He corresponds very closely in form and function with the Greek Ares, the Roman Mars. Like Aphrodite, Ares was so far recognized as an Asianic god that he fought on the side of the Trojans at the siege of Ilium. According to Hesiod and Aeschylus he was the father of the race of Kadmos, for his daughter Hermione was the wife of Kadmos, and the warriors of Kadmos came from the teeth of the dragon of Ares, which Kadmos sowed. Thebes was thus particularly sacred to him, and Thebes was a city of the Pelasgians. He corresponds very exactly to Teshub-Adad. Teshub is figured definitely as the god of war, is helmeted like Ares, and the only helmeted god in the Hittite or Assyrian pantheon, as Ares was the only helmeted among the Greek gods. Both gods are heavily armed. The Hittite Teshub if found depicted on a Greek vase would instantly be recognized as Ares. I think it certain that the Greek Ares was not borrowed from the Babylonian Nergal, god of war, nor from the later Babylonian Adad, but directly from the corresponding Asianic god of war, or at least drew from him his form and attributes. The Hittite Teshub was introduced into Babylonia as Adad and there took the purely Babylonian weapon, the thunderbolt, which the Hittites themselves later adopted and gave to Teshub.
While Teshub-Adad is probably to be identified with Ares, the Hittite god in any region where he was worshiped as chief deity would be later identified by Greeks and Romans with their chief deity Zeus or Jupiter. Thus we have Jupiter Dolichenos worshiped in Kommagene, in just the region that belonged to Teshub. He is another form of Teshub, with axe and the later thunderbolt, with the short garment about his loins, and standing on a bull. But he lacks the helmet.
While Teshub-Adad is probably to be identified with Ares, the Hittite god in any region where he was worshiped as chief deity would be later identified by Greeks and Romans with their chief deity Zeus or Jupiter. Thus we have Jupiter Dolichenos worshiped in Kommagene, in just the region that belonged to Teshub. He is another form of Teshub, with axe and the later thunderbolt, with the short garment about his loins, and standing on a bull. But he lacks the helmet.
|
Source: William Hayes Ward, "Greek and Hittite Gods," in Essays in Modern Theology and Related Subjects: Gathered and Published as a Testimonial to Charles Augustus Briggs (1911), 127.
|
