HITTITES – Hittite reliefs and bilingual inscriptions (Phoenician and Hittite-hieroglyphic) discovered at Karatepe in Turkish excavations of the period 1947–48.
RELIGION OF THE HITTITES – The Hittites called themselves Hattu or, more precisely, “men of the land of the city of Hattu,” or “Hattusas,” the name of their capital. They were of Indo-European speech, of mixed race, and they superimposed themselves upon the autochthonous populations of another language and culture, among whom the city of Hattu already enjoyed great prestige. The Hittites adopted as their national name that of the conquered people. The inhabitants of Hattusas prior to the Hittites are usually called Hattians; they spoke a language entirely different from that of the Hittites, which nevertheless continued to be spoken after the Hittite conquest and remained as the language of certain religious ceremonies. Nothing precise is yet known about how the Hittite Empire was founded. It is possible that Anittas of Kussar (roughly contemporary with Hammurabi of Babylon) played a major role in this. It seems that the successors of this king, conqueror of various regions of Asia Minor, including the kingdom of Hattusas, all belonged to that dynasty which held power in the Hittite Empire until its collapse around 1200 BC. The apogee of its power came toward the end, from 1400 to 1200 BC, notably under the kings Suppiluliumas and Mursilis II, when the struggle in Syria with the Egyptians rendered the Empire formidable and a danger to Egypt.
Like the Hittites had their own civilization, so too they had a particular religion, which, although in its fundamental traits it resembled those of the other polytheistic nations of the ancient Near East, and in the first place those of the Babylonians and Assyrians, presented several peculiarities entirely its own. It was polytheistic, with a very large number of deities of diverse origins: autochthonous deities prior to the Hittites, deities from the pantheons of the subject peoples, and finally divine figures proper to the Hittites and shared with other Indo-European stocks. The pantheon of the Hittite Empire was therefore quite composite, all the more so since it also underwent the influence of that of the Babylonians through the pantheon of the Hurrians, who inhabited the regions between Hittite Asia Minor and Babylonia and Assyria. Hurrian influence is rather strong, not only in the pantheon but also in the myths, many of which are of Hurrian origin, though transmitted only in Hittite versions.
The national and chief god’s name is still unknown, but that he was a storm god, of lightning, rain, and the sky is attested already by his ideogram, which shows him to correspond to the Mesopotamian god Adad. Beside the storm god stands as his consort a goddess, the first in the Hattian pantheon, the sister-goddess of Arinna, who does not, however, seem to have been a sun goddess, since the Hittites had a different sun god; she had her great sanctuary in the city of Arinna. She is called “queen of the lands,” “queen of heaven,” “lady of just judgment.” To her the kings of the Hittites submitted reports of their military campaigns and swore in international treaties. Another very important goddess was one whom the Babylonians and Assyrians called Ištar. Besides the sun, the Hittites also worshipped the moon; the moon god was Arma. A son of the supreme god was Telipinus, an agricultural and vegetation deity, of fertility, corresponding to the Mesopotamian god Tammuz. The name of the god Inanras may perhaps be connected with that of the Indian Indra. The god Hasamilia had the power to hide people. Very ancient was the god Halmasuittis, deity of Anittas of Kussar. The Hittite protective deities were called Kulses. The Hittites also personified certain abstract or moral concepts, such as Sin, Sincerity, Right, Exaltation, and others.
Certain important divine figures of the Luvians, such as Santas and Kupapa, and of the inhabitants of the land of Palā, had entered into the Hittite pantheon. The Babylonian and Assyrian deities of the pantheon included Anu with his wife, Enlil and his wife, Ea and Damkina, Išhara, and not a few other divine figures. The Hittites also held rivers, mountains, and the sea in great veneration, of which they kept images in their temples.
Like their neighbors, the Hittites had a rich flowering of myths, partly of Indo-European origin, partly deriving from Mesopotamian mythology through Hurrian mythology. Notable among these is the myth of Telipinus, according to which this god disappeared one day, whereupon life of vegetation and generation ceased on earth. A search is made for the god, and finally the bee succeeds in finding him. The influence of the myth of Tammuz on this Hittite mythical tale is evident. Also preserved is the tale of the storm god and the serpent Illuyankas. Of other myths only fragments remain. The Hittites had translated into their language the Babylonian myth of Gilgamesh, i.e., the Epic of Gilgamesh; of this, the Hittite version has preserved certain passages not yet found in the Akkadian recension.
Below the gods in the hierarchy of beings stood numerous demons; below these, men, among whom kings occupied a very prominent position, since they were the earthly vicars and representatives of the gods, and in the first place of personal deities, such as the goddess Ištar, who was the personal deity of King Hattusilis, by her therefore favored in all his undertakings.
What was to happen and the will of the gods the Hittites sought to learn through mantic arts or divination, no less important among them than among the ancient Mesopotamians. Very many mantic texts in Hittite have been translated from Babylonian; others are based on texts composed in that language. Prominent among the mantic arts were hepatoscopy, extispicy, astrology, predictions from the flight of birds, and from defective births. The communal gods also revealed their will in dreams and sent birds to signify what men were to do. The future was also predicted from fevers that struck the Hittite king. Ominous signs were seen in changes that befell the statues of the gods.
The religious literature of the Hittites was very rich in magical and incantatory writings. Magic and incantations played a very large part in their religion, a side of their religious life that brings them close to the Babylonians and to primitive peoples. Especially sympathetic magic was much in vogue. Clay tablets inscribed with Hittite texts have preserved many incantatory writings, describing exorcistic ceremonies, all full of prototypical magical acts.
The H. also knew how to summon deities from enemy cities in order to bring them over to their own side, as the Romans did, as well as the practice of cursing conquered cities. Special prohibitions protected the person of the king, who had to submit frequently to purificatory acts to render himself immune from contact with foreign lands. The H. had a highly developed doctrine of sin, which was thought to affect, with its consequences, sometimes only the successors of the actual sinners. Sacrifice was similar to that of the other peoples of Palestine-Syria: it had the character of a meal and an offering presented to the god. The composition of the numerous and influential priestly caste did not differ greatly from that of the priests among the Mesopotamians. Religious literature was rich in rituals with minute descriptions of religious festivals and ceremonies. In these rites, several of Hittite origin can still be discerned.