Zalpa
Zalpa or Zalpuwa was a hattic city at the mouth of the Maraššanta ( Kızılırmak ) river in the Black Sea . In pre-Hittite times it was the capital of a powerful city-state. Zalpa was also a larger central place in the Old Ethite period and had close connections with the neighboring cult cities of Liḫzina and Nerikka . This northern Anatolian city must not be confused with cities of similar names in northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
history
Zalpa is mentioned for the first time in ancient Assyrian sources from the 19th century BC. BC and therefore belonged to an important principality alongside Ḫattuša , Kaniš , Purušḫanda and others. The first known king was Uḫna, who destroyed the city of Kaniš and abducted the main deity of this city. Presumably he was responsible for the complete destruction of Kaniš around 1835 BC. Chr. ( Middle Chronology ).
Around 1730 BC King Anitta of Kaniš / Neša moved against Zalpa and took King Ḫuzziya of Zalpa prisoner and brought the statue stolen by Uḫna back to Kaniš / Neša.
Later Ḫattušili I. besieged Zalpa - obviously in connection with rebels from the Hittite royal family - and had the city destroyed after they were captured. Whether the city was rebuilt cannot be determined from the sources, as the name Zalpuwa was also used for the Hittite province. By 1450, the province was Zalpuwa of the Kaškäern conquered.
Legends
A Hittite legend, the so-called Zalpa text ( CTH 3), brings the ancient royal cities of Kaniš and Zalpa closer together. After that, the Queen of Kaniš gave birth to thirty sons at the same time, but they abandoned them on the Maraššanta river because this seemed outrageous to her. They were washed up to the sea and raised in Zalpa. The same queen later gave birth to thirty daughters at the same time, but she raised them herself. The adult sons came to Kaniš in search of their mother and married their thirty sisters without being recognized, despite warnings from the youngest sister. The rest of the legend is lost.
Religious Cults
The Zalpa pantheon belonged to the Hattic religion . The main deity of Zalpa was the divine grandmother Ammamma . In addition to several local deities, the Hattic deities Šulinkatte and Ḫalipinu are also mentioned. According to a Hittite autumn ritual, the Hittite prince made a pilgrimage to Zalpa to offer sacrifices to the gods of Zalpa, namely a piglet, six fish, six frogs and a snake, which, with the exception of the piglet, were extremely unusual sacrificial animals.
location
The Bronze Age Zalpa has not yet been archaeologically proven. The Turkish archaeologist Bahadır Alkım suspected the ruins of İkiztepe in the mouth of the Kızılırmak as a possible location and began the first excavations. His successor Ö. Bilgi came to the conclusion that the findings spoke against the identification with Zalpa, but this possibility is still being discussed. Other candidates are Paşaşeyh Tepesi and Oyamaağaç . However, according to new findings, the latter seems to be identical with the Hittite city of Nerik .
literature
- Volkert Haas : History of the Hittite Religion (= Handbook of Oriental Studies . Dept. 1, Vol. 15). Brill, Leiden / New York / Cologne 1994, ISBN 90-04-09799-6 , pp. 608-609 and. a.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Şevket Dönmez: The Central Black Sea Region. In: Anatolia and the Jazira during the Old Assyrian Period. Leiden 2008, ISBN 978-90-6258-322-5 .
- ↑ www.nerik.de