The nuntarriyašḫa- festival, likely meaning “Festival of Haste”, was one of the longest religious observances in the Hittite cultic calendar. It was celebrated in autumn after the king’s return from war and, on occasion, could last for more than forty days.

In many respects, the nuntarriyašḫa- festival mirrors the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festival celebrated in spring. Both were long, multi-day, itinerant observances during which the king traveled across the heartland of the kingdom, visiting various cult centers and celebrating their deities. Both constituted composite 'mega-festivals' that integrated numerous smaller celebrations, many of which had originally existed as independent observances. Moreover, the rites performed on individual days of each festivals could be strikingly similar. Finally, both observances, in their extended forms, appear to originate in the reign of Muršili II or (less likely) Šuppiluliuma I, although the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festival is probably the older of the two. On the dating of the festival see, e.g., Archi A. 2025a: 9; Kryszeń A., StBoT 73, 137–140 (2025); Taracha P. 2009a: 140; Nakamura M. 2002a: 10f. (with previous literature).

The sources offer no explicit explanation of the purpose of the nuntarriyašḫa- festival. The introductory formula merely states: “When the king returns from military campaign, he celebrates the nuntarriyašḫa- festival for the gods.” However, no triumphant processions or distributions of war spoils are mentioned that would suggest the festival functioned as an act of thanksgiving for the king’s successful conquests (Gilan A. 2011b). Given that the festival was invariably observed in the autumn, it seems more plausible that its primary function was to enable the king to fulfill his regular cultic obligations: visiting the gods in their principal sanctuaries, and making due offerings, even if few of the festival’s activities are specifically tied to the autumn season.

The name nuntarriyašḫa- has long been the subject of scholarly debate, with no clear consensus emerging. Proposed interpretations include an allusion to the extensive travel undertaken during the festival (Goetze A. 1957a: 165), a rendering of an obscure Hattian name into Hittite (Nakamura M. 2002a: 10), or a reference to the haste with which the king returned from campaign (Archi A. 2025a: 3). One should also note an intriguing suggestion by Starke F. 1990a: 367, who interprets nuntarriya- as an antonym of ukturi- “eternal, lasting, enduring”, thereby understanding the festival’s name as something like “Festival of the Present” or “Festival of the Moment.” The present study adopts the translation “Festival of Haste” and advances a new interpretation of the character of the festival, and thus of its name (see below).

As with the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festival, the textual evidence for the nuntarriyašḫa- festival consists of two principal document types: outline tablets and day-tablets (for details see Nakamura M. 2001a and Nakamura M. 2002a: 6). The former – grouped under CTH 626.0 – provide a condensed overview of the entire sequence of events, never extending beyond a single tablet, and summarize each day of the festival in a few sentences that list its principal events. Day-tablets, by contrast, offer detailed, instruction-like descriptions of individual segments of the festival, typically organized by day, but in some cases by location (e.g., celebrations in Arinna) or by principal participants (e.g., the queen’s activities on DAY 5 in Taḫurpa). Such accounts often span multiple tablets forming a series and describe the relevant ritual procedures in a chronological order. In the present edition, these texts are grouped under the siglum Tg (for German ‘Tag’) followed by a number corresponding to the day of the festival they describe (e.g., under CTH 626.Tg04 the reader will find all day-tablets referring to DAY 4 of the festival).

Since day-tablets that explicitly name the nuntarriyašḫa- festival are surprisingly few (approx. 15 manuscripts as opposed to ca. 100 for the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM), the reconstruction of the festival’s course relies heavily on descriptions of local autumn festivals. This approach is justified, as some tablets specify that certain autumn festivals were incorporated into the nuntarriyašḫa- festival (e.g. KBo 30.77 iv 20′f.). Moreover, numerous descriptions of local celebrations, designated simply as “autumn festivals”, correspond closely to information preserved in the outline tablets.

It should be noted that not all days of the nuntarriyašḫa- festival are known in detail. The identified outline tablets provide information on 39 days of the observance, but day-tablets have thus far been identified for only 18 of them, namely DAYS 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 13, 22–24, 25–26, 27, 29, 31, 33, and 34 (on the use of the term DAY written with capital letters see the Introduction to CTH 626.0). Some information on the remaining days can be gleaned from documents belonging to other compositions, such as oracle texts (collected under CTH 568), parallel passages in the outline tablets of the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festival, or KUB 25.27 (CTH 629) – the instruction concerning the proper performance of regular festivals.

Despite the many similarities between the nuntarriyašḫa- and the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festivals, the research underpinning the present edition challenges the prevailing view that the former served as an autumnal counterpart to the latter. On the basis of the extant evidence, it is proposed instead that the nuntarriyašḫa- festival functioned as a form of emergency festival, held only when the king returned from campaign so late in the year that there was insufficient time to celebrate the constituent festivals individually before winter rendered travel impracticable. If the campaigning season ended early and time was not a constraint, it is likely that the autumn festivals were celebrated individually, in no fixed order and without being consolidated into an intensive, multi-day nuntarriyašḫa- festival.

Such an interpretation accounts for several otherwise puzzling features of the festival: (1) the otherwise opaque meaning of nuntarriyašḫa- as “haste”; (2) the fact that none of the outline tablets has a duplicate and each presents a distinct version of the festival (see the Introduction to CTH 626.0); and (3) the relative scarcity of day-tablets produced specifically for the nuntarriyašḫa- festival, especially when contrasted with the abundant documentation for the AN.DAḪ.ŠUM festival.