Cultural Transformations from Mesopotamia to Hatti? The Case of the GALA (original) (raw)
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Sargon and Naram-Sin in Hatti: Reflections of Mesopotamian Antiquity among the Hittites
2001
In the early seventeenth century BC the Hittites united the squabbling polities of central Anatolia to ereate the fint state in the region. By around 1350 this polity, known as Hatti, had eome to dominate much of northern Syria as well. Many different peoples were subject to the empire of the Hittites, and it is perhaps not anaehmnistic to speak of Hani as a multicultural civilization.' The founden of the state were of Indo-European origin, and their language remained in use for administrative purposes until Hatti disappeared at the close of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1180 BC). Several other Indo-European languages, most prominently Palaic and Luwian, were also spoken in second millennium Anatolia, and the latter may indeed have become the vernacular of Hatti during the final deeades of her h i~t o r y .~ ... The Hittite ruling class also adopted many religious and cultural elements from the Hattic people who had preceded them as lords of central Anatolia. The ! ~, Hanic language, which cannot be wmected with certainty to any other, lived j .. on in certain religious contexts, and also provided many loanwords to ~i n i t e. ' f : Another people over whom the Hittites ruled were the Hunians, whose lanf guage is distantly related to tongues still spoken in the Caucasus today. The .-. i Hunian contribution to Hittite civilization lay chiefly in the area of religion. i ' On language usage in Batti, see Gary Beckman, 'The Hittite Language and its Decipherment,"
A comprehensive study dedicated to Akkadian and Sumerian logograms in Hittite texts, also termed Akkadograms and Sumerograms, has long been a desideratum in Hittitology. Be it on the level of grammar, morphology or phonetic pronunciation; their possible origins and diffusion across Mesopotamia and its Western Periphery; and use of logograms as a tool in textual criticism (especially dating of manuscripts and as part of scribal habits). Hence, the book under review, a reworked version of the Author’s 2007 SOAS doctoral dissertation (London), is already impressive by attempting to fill the gap on at least part of these topics, based on analyses of an extensive corpus of Sumerograms and Akkadograms (Other reviews of the present volume are van den Hout, Th. ZA 102 [2013]: 344-347; Torri, G. “Hiding Words behimd the Signs: The Use of Logograms in Hittite Scribal Praxis.” OrNS 81 [2012]: 124-132). The author supplied us with a masterful treatment of an important facet of Hittite lexical and scribal lore. As I have tried to emphasize, this study advances our understanding of some difficult and obscure writings, scribal habits and modes of transmission. The author should be congratulated on his rigorous study and for producing a much needed research tool
The Archaeology of Religion in Hittite Anatolia
Handbook of the Archaeology of Ancient Mediterranean Religions, 2023
Material evidence for the religion of the Late Bronze Age kingdom of Hatti may be found in the remains of places of worship—temples, open-air sanctuaries, and built sacred places, as well as in the artifacts of artistic and craft production—from monumental reliefs carved into living rock, to ritual vessels, small pendants, and figurines. As the Hittite kings looked beyond their natural territory in central Anatolia, they sought to create a visual language—sometimes incorporating foreign elements—to promote a unifying ideology with an iconographic form that was uniquely Hittite. Despite the challenges inherent in locating regional variation within this superimposed material matrix, clues to local traditions emerge from ritual objects such as figurines, from cult stelae, and from the sacred landscapes that shaped both local and official forms of veneration.
Apiculture in Hittite cuneiform texts
The Hittite cuneiform texts dated to the 2nd millennium BCE contain some of the earliest information about the production of honey as an economic product and its consumption in daily life, as well as the theological perception of honey bees. Thanks to the information obtained from the texts, the material and spiritual role of apiculture have been tried to be revealed in this paper. According to laws, honey is a commercial product and is traded at a value. In addition, apiculture is a profession made with expert knowledge and the right of ownership of the honey bee colony and hive associated with this profession is legally protected. In the texts giving information about culinary knowledge, honey is added to bread as a sweetening product and used in the production of various sauces and some beverages. The aromatic properties of honey are also known. In this context, it is included in the mixtures used for incense in rituals. Also in rituals, some of its qualities were used in analogical spells. In mythological/religious texts, the honey bee is a creature that brings abundance and fertility in spring. In this context, it plays an important role in myths of finding the Disappearing Gods, the symbol of fertility. At the same time, it represents fertility, peace, and reconciliation as a creature associated with the Sun Goddess of the Earth, another symbol of fertility.