The Corpus of Hittite Divinatory Texts (HDivT)

Digital Edition and Cultural Historical Analysis

Mathis Kreitzscheck (Hrsg.)

Citatio: Mathis Kreitzscheck (Hrsg.), hethiter.net/: CTH 532.11 (INTR 2024-07-02)


CTH 532.11

Fragments of a ritual text with passages mentioning lunar eclipses

introductio



Kurzbeschreibung

CTH 532.11 consists of a single Hittite fragment in New Script (KUB 57.73). The content is described by A. Archi in KUB 57 as ‘wind and lunar omens follow a ritual.’

Texte

Exemplar AKUB 57.73Bo 621Ḫattuša

Literaturauszug aus der Konkordanz

  • J. Tischler, DBH 49, 2016: 204f.

Inhaltsübersicht

Abschnitt 1ID=11.1Fragments of a ritual text
Abschnitt 2ID=11.2Lunar halo omen?
Abschnitt 3ID=11.3Unclear text concerning lunar eclipses and the gods

History of Publication

The tablet was copied by A. Archi in KUB 57. A transliteration can be found in Tischler J. 2016b: 204-205.

Tablet characteristics

A: Trapezoid piece from the bottom left of a tablet with the edge preserved. The surface of the obverse is mostly broken off, with only 25 signs preserved, the reverse shows 11 damaged lines of tightly written Hittite script.

Paleography and Handwriting

A: New Script/IIIb: New AG (obv. 11‘); DA without broken central horizontal (rev. 4.7).

General information

The obverse contains remnants of a ritual as shown by the use of the measures wakšur and SĀTI, commonly found in rituals. Also, something walks or is driven over a field, but then the text breaks off. The reverse mentions lunar eclipses, but it is in fact uncertain if this is an omen text.

The only line that resembles an omen protasis or apodosis is rev. IV, 1. The phrase IM-anza arāi is also found in the lunar omen text KUB 8.30, where UTU-aš IM-anza arāi likely gives the direction of the wind. Combinations of eclipses and the rise of the North-, South-, East-, or West-wind are known from EAE tablet 16. Also, the text has similarly long paragraphs, and KUB 8.30 and its duplicate both have rituals on the obverse. But the beginning of the omen in CTH 532.11 is lost and the rest of the paragraphs on the reverse do not feature the wind. The second and third paragraph on the reverse rather deal with the moon eclipsing three times in one year (A-NA MU 1KAM an-da 3-ŠÚ pu-uš-zi) and, perhaps, with the splitting of day and night into three. Were it not for the consistent use of the present tense, it faintly recalled the introduction to Enūma Anu Enlil. It may be related to therapeutic texts that as list the cases in which a ritual is to be performed, known from the Mesopotamian namburbû-tradition and KBo 13.29.

Editio ultima: 2024-07-02