Sun goddess of Arinna

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Possible representation of a sun goddess with child; 15-13 Century BC Chr.

The sun goddess of Arinna is the main goddess and wife of the weather god Tarḫunna in Hittite mythology . She led the kingdom and was considered the "queen of all countries". Their cult center was in the holy city of Arinna .

In addition to the sun goddess of Arinna, the Hittites also worshiped a sun goddess of the earth and the sun god of the sky , while the related Luwians originally only knew the ancestral Indo-European sun god Tiwaz . It seems that no male sun god was worshiped in the northern beliefs of the ancient Ethite times.

The differentiation of the various sun deities in the texts is difficult, as the names were mostly written with the sumerogram d UTU "sun deity". As a result, the interpretation of the sun deities is not without contradictions to this day.

Family and myth

The sun goddess of Arinna formed a couple with the weather god Tarḫunna and both together occupied the highest position in the Hittite state pantheon. The couple's daughter is Mezulla . The sources also name the granddaughter Zintuḫi , the two weather gods of Nerik and Zippalanda and the grain god Telipinu can be named as their sons. The eagle was their messenger.

In myths, the sun goddess of Arinna plays a modest role. A hattic fragment of myth tells of their house building in Laḫzan . Another myth fragment relates to an apple tree:

“An apple tree stands on a spring and is blood red all over. The sun goddess of Arinna saw (him), and she covered (him) with her shiny robe. "

- KUB 28.6 Vs. I 10'-13 '= II 10'-13'

Origin and development

The sun goddess of Arinna is originally of Hattic origin and was worshiped as Eštan by the Hatti people . One of their hattish nicknames was Wurunšemu ("mother of the country"?).

She was the main goddess of the Hittite state already in the ancient times and the "city of gods" Arinna was not only the coronation site of the first Hittite kings, but also one of the three holy cities. The Hittite names were adopted by the Hittites as Ištanu and Urunzimu. In addition, she was also called as Arinitti "Arinnaean". The epithet "von Arinna" only appears from the Middle Hittite period to distinguish the sun goddess from the male sun god of the sky , who at that time came to the Hittites through Hurrian mediation.

During the great empire she was equated with the Hurrian-Syrian goddess Ḫepat and the great queen Puduḫepa called on her in her prayer under both names:

“Arinna's sun goddess, my lady, queen of all countries! In the Ḫatti country you set [test] yourself the name of the sun goddess of Arinna, but furthermore (in the) country that you made the cedar, you set yourself the name Ḫepat. "

- CTH 384

Royal ideology

Since ancient times, the sun goddess of Arinna together with the weather god Tarḫunna legitimized the king's power. The land belonged to the two deities and they installed the king, the sun goddess could be called "mother" by the king. The sun goddess put the great king Ḫattušili I on her lap. Several queens donated cultic sun disks to the sun goddess in the city of Taḫurpa. During the time of the Great Empire, the sun goddess was in charge of king and queenhood, with the king being her priest and the queen her priestess. The Hittite king worshiped the sun goddess with daily prayers at sunrise. The Hittite texts contain several prayers to the sun goddess of Arinna: The oldest is that of King Arnuwanda I , the best known is probably the prayer of the Great Queen Puduḫepa.

cult

About the cults of the sun goddess in Arinna see also the article Arinna .

The most important temple of the sun goddess was in the city of Arinna, a second in the castle of Ḫattuša . It was represented as a solar disk. Several such sun disks, donated by Hittite queens, were venerated in the city of Tarḫurpa. King Ulmi-Teššup of Tarḫuntašša donated a sun disk made of gold, silver and copper to her every year, as well as a bull and three sheep. Occasionally she was portrayed as a woman. It is possible that the statuettes of a seated goddess with aureole also represent the sun goddess.

Apparently the deer was sacred to her and Queen Puduḫepa vowed to donate several deer to her. Cult vessels in the shape of a deer should belong to the worship of the sun goddess of Arinna. It is also believed that the early Bronze Age deer statuettes made of gold, which were found at the middle Kızılırmak and which are assigned to the Hattic cultural class, belonged to the cult of the sun goddess.

Ištanu

The name Ištanu is the Hittite form of the Hattic name Eštan and denotes the sun goddess of Arinna. While the older research assumed that Ištanu was the name of the male sun god of the sky, the more recent research tends to recognize only the sun goddess of Arinna in the name. Volkert Haas, however, still differentiates between the male Ištanu as the star of the day and the female Wurunšemu as the nocturnal sun goddess of Arinna in the underworld.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Maciej Popko: On the Luwian component in the religions of ancient Anatolia ; AOF 34: 63-69 (2007)
  2. ↑ Jörg Klinger: Investigations into the reconstruction of the hattic cult class . Studies on the Boǧazköy texts, Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-447-03667-2
  3. ^ Piotr Taracha: Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia . Wiesbaden 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05885-8 . P. 89
  4. ^ Dietrich Sürenhagen: Two prayers Ḫattušilis and the Puduḫepa. Textual and literary historical studies ; Aof, 8 : 83-168 (1981).
  5. ^ Maciej Popko: Arinna. A holy city of the Hittites ; Studies on the Boğazköy Texts Vol. 50, Wiesbaden 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05867-4 . P. 28
  6. ↑ Volkert Haas : History of the Hittite Religion ; Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1, Vol. 15; Brill 1994. ISBN 90-04-09799-6 . P. 585
  7. ^ Maciej Popko: Arinna. A holy city of the Hittites ; Studies on the Boğazköy Texts Vol. 50, Wiesbaden 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05867-4 . P. 30
  8. ^ Maciej Popko: Arinna. A holy city of the Hittites ; Studies on the Boğazköy Texts Vol. 50, Wiesbaden 2009. ISBN 978-3-447-05867-4 . P. 27
  9. ↑ Einar von Schuler : Asia Minor: The mythology of the Hittites and Hurrites ; in: Dictionary of Mythology ; Stuttgart 1965. pp. 198 f.
  10. ↑ Jörg Klinger: Investigations into the reconstruction of the hattic cult class ; Studies on the Boǧazköy texts 37, Wiesbaden 1996, ISBN 3-447-03667-2
  11. ^ Volkert Haas: Religions of the Ancient Orient: Hittites ; Göttingen 2011. ISBN 978-3-525-51695-9 . P. 226