Hittite Religious Rituals and the Ideology of Kingship

Hittite Religious Rituals and the Ideology of Kingship

Amir Gilan*Tel Aviv University

Abstract

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

What did the victorious Hittite king do upon his return from war? Surprisingly perhaps,Hittite sources offer different, even contradictory answers to this question. For a study ofthe relations between ritual practices and political power in the Hittite Kingdom, how-ever, the question is not without interest. The occasion of the victorious return of theking from battle lends itself splendidly to, even calls for, a conscious use of ritual activityfor the manifestation of political power.

As I will show, the evidence concerning the ritual activities of the Hittite king on hisreturn from war show no conscious attempt whatsoever to mould ritual practices intopolitical 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 powerin the context of the Hittite empire and its characteristic textual inheritance.

Some short introductory remarks on the Hittite Kingdom may be in order (Bryce1998; Collins 2007; Klengel 1999; Klinger 2007). The Hittite Kingdom was an Anatolianbased empire dating back to the Middle and Late Bronze Age, to the second half of thesecond millennium BCE. Hittite history is usually divided into two periods. The so calledOld kingdom emerged in the 17th century BCE in central Anatolia, when kings of theruling Hittite Dynasty, based in

�Hattusa, modern Bogazkoy, north east of modern

Ankara, began to rule an ever growing network of territories outside of its kernel withinthe basin of the Kizilirmak river. The Old Hittite kings were also conducting daring mili-tary campaigns southwards into Syria. This enterprise was crowned by king MursiliI conquest of the city of Aleppo, the royal capital of the powerful kingdom of Yamhad.Moreover, this conquest of Aleppo was promptly followed by an amazing military expe-dition down the Euphrates River to Babylon, situated some 800 km away from Aleppo.This expedition, which took place in 1595 BCE (according to the middle chronology),brought about the fall of Babylon and the demise of the dynasty of Hammurabi. How-ever, Mursili was murdered shortly after his return and the Kingdom began to decline.

Seen from a cultural perspective, the Old kingdom remained bonded to local centralAnatolian traditions (Klinger 1996). This manifest itself especially in a cult of strictly local

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ª 2011 The AuthorReligion Compass ª 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Anatolian deities, that goes back to Hattian and Luwian traditions. Old Hittite culture isinterpreted as a product of a long-term transculturation process of a variety of culturaland linguistic elements (Klinger 2003, p. 95; Melchert 2003, p. 21), a process that contin-ued throughout Hittite history.

After a century of relative decline began the Hittite kingdom to rise again. This drivetook place in the 15th century BCE and is usually attributed to king Tud

�haliya I. Within

this new phase of political ascent began also a new phase in the history of Hittite religion,script and literature. In this period acquired the Hittites new literary and religious tradi-tions, mostly in Hurrian, originating from the south, from Syria and especially fromKizzuwatna, classical Cilicia. In this period underwent Hittite culture a downrightrenaissance of new cultural practices and traditions (Miller 2004; Archi 2003; but see nowalso Wilhelm 2008).

The Hittite Kingdom reached its political peak in the so called Empire period – in the14th century BCE and onwards. Stretching between the Aegean coast, the black sea andwell into Syria through to the Euphrates River, the Hittite Empire became the supremepolitical power of the region, a global player in the political balance of powers in theAncient Near East, second perhaps only to Egypt of the 18 dynasty.

This glorious phase did not last long, though, due to internal strife and the rise of theAssyrians. The Hittite capital

�Hattusa was finally abandoned at the beginning of the 12th

century BCE for reasons that are still debated by modern scholarship. Syro-Hittite centerssuch as Carchemish and Aleppo, however, survived the demise of the empire. These andmany other Neo-Hittite kingdoms flourished well into the first millennium BCE.

The Hittite kings, as it were, had their fare share of military exploits (Goetze 1963).Indeed, Hittite royal inscriptions often describe large contingents of spoils of war – cap-tives, livestock and inanimate booty – that were transported back to the homeland aftervictorious military campaigns (Hoffner 2006, pp. 61–5). Following is one typical examplefrom the annals of the Empire Period King Mursili II (Beal 2000, pp. 82–90):

The Sun Goddess of Arinna, my lady, the victorious Storm god, my lord, Mezzulla (theirdaughter) and all the gods ran before me. (So) I vanquished Mt. Arinnanda. The deporteesI brought back to the palace numbered 15,000. However, the deportees, the cattle and thesheep, which the generals, the infantry, and the chariotry of

�Hattusa brought, were beyond

count. Then I sent the deportees to�Hattusa and they were led away

Bryce (2002, pp. 104–5) provides an even livelier account of the return of the army andthe logistical problems involved than the Hittite original, paraphrasing a historical inscrip-tion, the ‘manly deeds’ of the Old Hittite King

�Hattusili I (newly translated by Beckman

2006, pp. 219–22, and see below).

When encumbered with booty, the army’s return to their homeland may well have taken agreat deal longer than their outward journey. Carts stacked with the glittering trophies of vic-tory, including the images wrought in precious metals of the vanquished cities’ gods, life- sizebulls of gold, chariots of silver, boats with silver-plated prows, must in themselves have substan-tially slowed each day’s progress.

�Hattusili I’s inscription is rather singular in its careful listing of the kidnapped images ofgods and other treasures stolen in various campaigns and their allocation in the capital(for ‘god-napping’ in Hittite sources see now Schwemer 2009). Most of them were dis-tributed to temples of important deities in

�Hattusa. The Empire Period inscriptions, on

the other hand, tend to describe the spoils of war in rather formulaic terms as dominantlyconsisting of animate booty – human deportees, sheep and cattle – and tend to be laconic

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about their allocation. Some were taken to the king’s estates; others were left to thetroops; others were presented to the gods (Hoffner 2006, p. 63).

Such a case is recorded in KUB 23, 13, a fragment belonging to the A�h�hiyawa dossier

and concerning the relations of the Hittite Kingdom with the Mycenaean world and itswest Anatolian periphery. The fragment, dating to the Empire Period, describes the resto-ration of legitimate kingship in the Land of the Se

�ha River (Guterbock 1992; see now

Popko 2009, p. 18). We are told that Tar�hunaradu, a previous ruler of the land,

attempted to wage war against the Hittite king but was captured by him on the mountainof

�Harana (Eagle Peak). The actual action and Tar

�hunaradu’s fate are narrated in lines

5–9 (Translation and restorations follow Guterbock 1992, p. 242):

[Thereafter Tar�hunaradu] waged war and relied on the king of A

�h�hiyawa. [And] he took refuge

[on Eagle Peak]. However, I, the Great King, set out […] and raided Eagle Peak. In addition,five hundred (teams of) horses [and troops] I brought [home to the Land of

�Hattusa], and

Tar�hunaradu together with his wives, [children, his goods etc.] I transported [to the Land of

�Hattusa] and led him to Arinna, the city of the Sun goddess.

The passage above provides rare information about the exact destiny of Tar�hunaradu, his

family and belongings. They were taken to the city of Arinna (for this city see now Pop-ko 2009), the seat of the Sun goddess of Arinna, who headed – together with her spousethe Storm-God of

�Hattusa – the Hittite pantheon.

In order to understand what exactly awaited them there, one should take into consid-eration the Hittite ideology of Kingship (on Hittite Kingship see Guterbock 1954;Gurney 1954, pp. 63–79; Goetze 1957; Gurney 1958, 1979; Haas 1994, pp. 181–229;Beckman 1995; Haas 1999; Imparati in Klengel 1999, pp. 320–87; Surenhagen 2001;Bryce 2002, pp. 11–31; Collins 2007, pp. 92–5). The sacral foundations of early Hittitekingship are mostly found in short benedictions (for a partial collection of them see Archi1979, 1988; Klinger 2000) and mythological passages (Starke 1979) that were performedin rituals (Kellerman 1978). A famous recitation, recited by the priest during an olderfestival of the local Anatolian tradition contains the crux of this concept (Beckman 1995,p. 530; Gilan 2004, p. 190):

May the Tabarna, the king, be dear to the Gods! The land belongs to the storm-god alone.Heaven, earth and the population belong to the storm-god alone. He has made the Labarna,the king, his administrator and given him the entire land of

�Hattusa. The Labarna shall continue

to administer with his hand the entire land. May the storm-god destroy whoever shouldapproach the person of the Labarna, [the king] and the borders of [

�Hattusa].

According to the Hittite ideology of kingship, the gods – headed by the Storm-Godand his spouse, the Sun Goddess of Arinna – were the true proprietors of the land andguaranteed success in battle. The King was their administrator on earth and wasresponsible for taking care of, expanding and increasing their property, the land of

�Hattusa.

When the king was away in Battle, the priest of the Sun-Goddess of Arinna recited anincantation to the deity, standing on the roof of the temple of the Sun Goddess at day-break, in front of the rising sun (Popko 2009, p. 44). In the incantation, the royal coupleis specifically instructed to deliver the war booty to their true owners, the gods (KUB57.63, Singer 2002, p. 26):

She (the Sun-goddess of Arinna) gave them (the Hittite royal couple) a battle-ready, valiantspear saying: ‘‘May the hostile foreign lands perish by the hand of the labarna (the Hittite king),and let them take goods, silver and gold to

�Hattusa and Arinna, the cities of the gods!’’

278 Amir Gilan


May the land of�Hattusa graze abundantly in the hands of the labarna and the tawannanna (the

queen), and may it expand!

The dedication of deportees and war booty to the gods was an important part of whatwar and victory was all about. This is also shown, as Hoffner (2006, p. 63) notes, in min-iature by a famous description of a mock battle that was performed to amuse the deity onan autumn festival to a provincial Storm God (KUB 17.35, Gilan 2001, pp. 119–21 withprevious literature):

They divide the young men in two groups and name them. The one group they name theMen of

�Hattusa, the other group they name the Men of Masa. The Men of

�Hattusa get weap-

ons of Bronze whereas the Men of Masa get weapons of reeds. They combat and the Men of

�Hattusa win. They take a prisoner and dedicate him to the deity.

It should be clear by now just what awaited Tar�hunaradu and his family in Arinna. On

arrival, they were very likely dedicated to the Sun Goddess, to be assigned to work inone of her temple estates or later redistributed elsewhere.

Unfortunately, no further documentation of the exact fate of Tar�hunaradu or his family

is available. Empire Period administrative texts that deal with the resettlement of populaceand the organization of cult practices in the northern regions list, however, many depor-tees of more modest circumstances (Haas 1970; Hazenbos 2003). Deportees were embed-ded into existing households, grounding new ones or where attached to different culticestablishments. Other administrative documents list the distribution of booty and tributeto various palaces, temples and other economic centres (for a typical text see Archi &Klengel 1980).

However, the accretion of deportees and war booty was not only a vital component ofHittite economy. The victorious return of the king from war constituted a central, deci-sive, ratifying moment in Hittite Ideology of Kingship, an event that could have easilylend itself to the presentation and celebration of power in form of victory parades or tri-umphal ceremonies. The roman triumph comes to mind in this context (for which seenow Beard 2007; Holkeskamp 2007)

Iconographic and epigraphic evidence concerning triumphs in the Ancient Near Eastdoes not abound. Some data exists, for example, on triumphs that took place within thecelebrations of the ak�ıtu-Festival in Assyria (Pongratz-Leisten 1994, pp. 79–83, 1997;Villard 2008). In one of his inscriptions narrates Assurbanipal that he forced the defeatedand captured kings of Elam and Arabia to drew his carriage on a procession accompany-ing the goddess Istar to the ak�ıtu-house in Nineveh. Another inscription of Assurbanipalmentions a similar display of captive kings, including the severed head of the Elamiteking Teumman, at the ak�ıtu-festivities held at the city of Arba’il (Pongratz-Leisten 1997,pp. 249–50 with references).

A similar, but rather singular, triumphal display is mentioned at the epilogue of themanly deeds of the old Hittite king

�Hattusili I, summarizing his greatest conquests in

Syria (Beckman 2006, p. 221):

§19 No one had crossed the Euphrates River, but I, the Great King, the Tabarna, crossed it onfoot, and my army crossed it on foot behind me. Sargon (also) crossed it. [He] fought thetroops of

�Ha

�h�ha, but [he] did not do anything to

�Ha

�h�ha. He did not burn it down; smoke was

not visible to the storm-god of Heaven.

§20 But I, the Great King, the Tabarna, destroyed�Hassuwa and

�Ha

�h�ha, and [burned] them

down with fire. I [showed] smoke to the sun-god of Heaven and the Storm god. I hitched theking of

�Hassuwa and the king of

�Ha

�h�ha to a wagon.



�Hattusili I’s manly deeds are likewise unique in their meticulous listing of the kid-napped images of gods and other treasures stolen in his various campaigns and theirredistribution in the capital. The paragraphs describing the booty from the city of

�Ha

�h�ha contain rare information concerning the fate of the population of the city

(Beckman 2006, p. 221)

§16 Then I went to�Ha

�h�ha and at

�Ha

�h�ha I gave battle three times in the city gate. I destroyed

�Ha

�h�ha. I took its goods and brought them to my city

�Hattusa (two pairs of waggons were

loaded with silver):

§17 one palanquin, one silver stag, one golden table, one silver table; these deities if�Ha

�h�ha:

one silver Bull, one boat with prow inlaid in gold, I the Great King, the Tabarna, brought from

�Ha

�h�ha and carried off to the sun-goddess of Arinna. I, the Great King, the Tabarna, removed

the hands of its slave girls from the grinding stone. I removed the hands of its slaves from thesickle. I freed them from compulsory services, and I ungirded their loins. I turned them over tothe sun-goddess of Arinna, my lady. And I made this golden statue of myself and set it upbefore the sun-goddess of Arinna, my lady. And I plated the wall above and below with silver.

One can safely assume that the presentation of the booty to the sun goddess of Arinna,like similar other occasions, involved elaborate festive ritual activities. The persisting for-mulaic descriptions of war spoils in royal inscriptions throughout Hittite history attest tothe great importance of the issue to Hittite ideology of kingship. Yet, although the Hit-tite material contains a plethora of state-cult related texts, none of them to my knowledgeseems to prescribe such a ceremony.

This is the more striking as the Hittite archives offer one of the richest collections ofreligious literature in the ancient world.

It is as the steward of the divine, that the Hittite king held office as chief priest of themain deities and was responsible for their cult (Klinger 2003, pp. 109–10; Taggar-Cohen2006, pp. 369–446). Celebrating the festivals of the gods as well as observing the regularmaintenance of their cult was perhaps the most important task of Hittite society as such,(general surveys on Hittite religion include Gurney 1977; Haas 1994 and now Taracha2009). In the land of the 1000 gods, as the Hittites sometimes referred to their kingdom,maintenance of the cult was a very expansive and complex matter (on the finances ofHittite cult see Gilan 2007 with ample references). Neglecting the cult of a certain deitycould have caused terrible consequences, as numerous passages from Hittite royal prayers(Singer 2002) demonstrate. The following passage from a prayer of the Empire Periodking Tud

�haliya to the Sun goddess of Arinna (Singer 2002, pp. 108–9) may serve as an

example:

I have sinned [against the Sun-goddess of Arinna], my Lady, and I have offended the Sun-goddess of Arinna, [my Lady]. [And when] I began to get oracular guidance, (it turned out that)I neglected your festivals. [If you], O Sun-goddess of Arinna, my Lady, became angry with[me] on account of some festivals, take care [of me] again, O Sun-goddess of Arinna, my Lady!May I defeat the enemy! [If you, O Sun-goddess] of Arinna, my Lady, will step down [to me],and I shall defeat the enemy, I shall [confess] my sin [before you] and never again [shall I omit]the festivals. I will not again interchange the spring and [autumn festivals]. [The festivals ofspring] I shall perform only in the spring, [and the festivals of] autumn I shall perform only inthe autumn. I shall never leave out [the festivals] in [your] temple.

Hittite rulers usually took the cult seriously. Extensive oracular investigations wereconducted in order to find out, whether and which festivals were neglected (for Hittiteoracular practices see now Haas 2008). Hittite kings were even forced sometimes to break

280 Amir Gilan


a siege or a military campaign so that they could return home on time for the festivals.The fate and prosperity of the land depended upon it.

In a typology of rituals genres, most Hittite state cult practices could be identified asrituals of exchange. In these rituals, writes Bell (1997, pp. 108–9),

people make offerings to a god with the practical and straightforward expectation of receivingsomething in return – whether it be as concrete as a good harvest and a long life or as abstractas grace and redemption…; one gives in order to receive in return (do ut des). Direct offeringsmay be given to praise, please, and placate divine power, or they may involve an explicitexchange by which human beings provide sustenance to divine powers in return to divine con-tributions to human well-being.

However, a Hittite festival had a political dimension as well, in that, quoting Bell again(1997, p. 128) it ‘‘constructs displays and promotes the power of political institutions…’’It does this, to use Stanley Tambiah’s famous ritual definition, in that it ‘‘symbolicallyand ⁄ or iconically represents the cosmos and at the same time indexically legitimates andrealizes social hierarchies’’ (1979, p. 153).

The Hittite state cult, in which the gods are fed and placated by a hierarchical struc-tured effort headed by the king or other representatives of the royal family, achieve pre-cisely that (on some political aspects of Hittite festivals see recently Gilan 2004; Hutter2008 and Gorke 2008). This rather effective discourse gave the Hittite kings legitimationand enabled them to mobilize the whole society.

Moreover, political rites do not only symbolizes and demonstrate power, they con-struct it in the first place. ‘The king’s cult’, writes Bell (1997, p. 129) following Geertz,‘‘creates the king, defines kingliness and orchestrates a cosmic framework within whichthe social hierarchy headed by the king is perceived as natural and right’’. Seen in thislight, Hittite state-cult festivals do not only symbolize or demonstrate the power of theking, they are, among other things, what Hittite kingship is all about. The king’s appear-ance in the rituals does not only represent royal power, it constructs his power in the firstplace (for intentional uses of rituals for the legitimation of kingship see, for example,Bloch 1986, 1987).

However, despite this bulk of theory, a closer look at the Hittite festival texts mayleave a different impression altogether, namely that its ‘authors’ were not interested at allin the propagandistic possibilities the festivals offered. Whereas processions – ceremonial,ritualized ‘public’ appearances of the king – are amply attested in Hittite festival texts (seenow Gorke 2008), there is no mention whatsoever of the audiences that supposed toview the spectacle.

To my knowledge, the only text in which spectators are indeed mentioned is signifi-cantly not a festival text, but the Middle Hittite instructions text to the royal guards(Guterbock & van den Hout 1991). Among other procedures, the texts prescribe theexist of the king from the palace, an event that involved dozens of guards, soldiers anddifferent experts forming a ca. 90 m long and 30 m wide procession. The whole proces-sion was accompanied by soldiers from a field-battalion whose orders were to ‘‘keep thepeaceful [population] lined up on the sides. The left ones keep (it) lined up on the left,and the right ones keep (it) lined up on the right’’ (§27, lines 60–63, translated by Guter-bock & van den Hout 1991, p. 23). Apart from keeping the crowds out of the way thesoldiers are instructed to prevent anything – such as stray oxen or horses – from disturb-ing the procession (§28).

One can easily imagine the effect that this kind of a military procession had in the roadsand villages of rural Anatolia. Yet there is nothing to suggest that festivals like the festival



of ‘haste’, which involved numerous trips by the king and his retinue were designed toportray, or even to construct political power in other ways than by parading the king inthis fashion.

However, the Hittite king was not allowed to rest after his return from battle either.On the contrary, upon his arrival the king was involved in intense ritual activity. Accord-ing to several colophons of the autumn nuntarriyas

�ha-festival – the festival of ‘haste’, the

king celebrated this festival in autumn upon his return from the battlefield (Taracha2009, p. 140 with references).

The festival of ‘haste’ (recently edited by Nakamura 2002) as well as its spring pendant,the festival of the AN.DA

�H.SUM plant (Haas 1994, pp. 772–826; Taracha 2009, pp.

138–41), dominated the Hittite cultic calendar during the Empire Period. Both great fes-tivals were calendrical in nature, marking the passage of time in the agricultural cycle (forcalendrical rites see now Hazenbos 2004). They were probably formed by the incorpora-tion of local rites celebrated independently in different towns into the programme of onegreat festival (Taracha 2009, p. 139). Both lasted up to 40 days and included, like mostHittite festivals, countless offerings and rites to an almost endless number of deities innumerous sanctuaries. During both festivals, the king or other members of the royal fam-ily took elaborate trips to cult centres in central and northern Anatolia or visited differenttemples and shrines in the capital itself.

Both festivals belong to the best-documented festivals found in the archives of Hattusa.In fact, there are so many, mostly tiny fragments of different versions and copies of festi-val texts or of different rites within the two festivals, that a definite edition of both festi-vals is still a thing of the future. Luckily, however, the Hittite scribes produced alsooutline tablets, some of which have survived in relatively good shape to this day, so thatan overview of the different rites and ceremonies is possible. Detailed versions of singledays or ceremonies also exist, but it is often difficult to ascribe them with certainty to acertain festival.

Unfortunately, the amplitude of the festival texts do not stand in a favourable relationto the quality of the information that could be yielded from them (Klinger 2003, pp. 96–7). The genre is very repetitive, mostly consisting of long lists of deities and their offer-ings and is written in a rather manual like, technical language. The texts are only zoomedon the movements ⁄ actions of the king or other members of the royal family, their retinueand on the immediate ritual action taken immediately around them by different cultfunctionaries. Of the actions and reactions of other participants ⁄ audiences on the fringeof the main cultic actions we are rarely ever told. Furthermore, the texts only prescribethe desirable and correct order of events – of what really happened – of the illuminatinggap between plan and performance – we know nothing, as we do not possess the impres-sions of participants or eyewitness descriptions. All we possess are the scribal, official,technical transcripts. The question as to the exact function of the festival texts and theirexistence in so many copies is still debated.

Yet, a close examination of the festival of ‘haste’ show no inclination whatsoever toexploit the glory of battles just won. Among the numerous rites that were performedwithin the festivals – in the capital as well as in other important Anatolian cultic centres,such as Arinna, Ziplanda, Katapa and Nerik – not even one specifically involves warbooty or its festive presentation to the gods. The king does indeed travel to Arinna, thecity of the sun goddess of Arinna, upon his return from war. Yet he travels there not as avictorious king, leading columns of deportees and carts loaded with treasures, but merelyto participate in the local cult, just as he was doing in spring and in other important cult

282 Amir Gilan


centres too. There is no evidence suggesting that the king used the opportunity to pres-ent the Sun Goddess with the spoils of war that that were rightfully hers.

How could this discrepancy between the ideology conveyed by the royal inscriptionsand cult incantations, pertaining to the dedication booty and the total lack of triumphs orsimilar ceremonies in the Hittite ritual literature be accounted for? Is it a discrepancyat all?

The absence of such rituals cannot be easily explained by the contingencies of preser-vation due to the richness of the Hittite material. Hittite literature abounds with festivaltexts, which form the largest category of texts found in Bogazkoy, ancient

�Hattusa. It

even became a joke during the excavations that in every 9 out of 10 cases, fragmentsturned out to be festival texts (Guterbock 1970, p. 175). However, there are several pos-sible ways to account for this phenomenon. Possibly, triumphs were not among the festi-val genres that were recorded on clay by erudite scribes. Hittite sources mention dozensof festivals, which are known by name only (Guterbock 1970), and were possibly neverwritten down. Alternatively, triumphs and dedication of booty ceremonies may havebeen envisaged as part of the conduct or logistics of war, a domain that was seldom putdown to writing.

As I have tried to argue, the Hittites had the material and ideological resources formore splendiferous demonstrations of power than the festivals texts pertain. But insteadof celebrating his victory in the capital and presenting the booty to the gods – grandlyratifying Hittite ideology of kingship – the Hittite king was ‘hastily’ sent on the roadagain, to pay his tribute to different deities in religiously important sanctuaries, templesand shrines in the capital and its surroundings.

In his recent edition of the festival of ‘haste’ notes Nakamura two important featuresof the festival, which may be pertinent to its interpretation. First, the trips taken by theking and his retinue as well as the deity Zit

�hariya, who travels independently, are lim-

ited to cult centres in central and northern Anatolia, the ‘original’ kernel territory ofthe Hittite Kingdom. Second, the cult is offered almost exclusively to native, localAnatolian deities (Nakamura 2002, pp. 13–4). A third aspect could be added, some ofthe rites seem to relate to the ancestor cult of the royal family. These features may indi-cate, in my opinion, that the ‘festival of haste’ should be interpreted as a ‘re-inventionof tradition’ or as a ritual manifestation of ‘coming home’, rather than as a ritual dem-onstration of power. There seem to be no evidence that the ‘festival of haste’ wasusurped by the Hittite kings for any purposes other than its apparent one – the venera-tion of the gods and the perpetuation of the cult. The organizers of the ritual as well asthe deities themselves, which were probably involved in its arrangement through oracleinquiry beforehand, had clearly something else in mind than an intentional manifestationof political power.

Scholarly treatments on Hittite kingship usually utilize all the available information athand to construct an ideal and coherent depiction of that institution. As I hope to haveshown, the search for breaches, inconsistencies and contradictions in this conform repre-sentation of Hittite kingship may open new research perspectives as well.

Short Biography

Dr Amir Gilan received his PhD from the University of Leipzig, Germany with a disser-tation on the Old Hittite Historiographical Tradition. Since 2009 he is a lecturer of Hit-tite and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures in Tel Aviv University. He has publishedextensively on Hittite historiography and literature. Other venues of research include the



construction of ethnic identities in Hittite Anatolia, the interfacing of political power andritual practices as well as studies in the cultural and social history of the Hittites.

Note

* Correspondence address: Amir Gilan, Gilman Building, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. E-mail: [email protected]

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Hittite Religious Rituals and the Ideology of Kingship

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