Cult inventory

(CTH 526.19)

Textual tradition

Basis of the edition

The present edition is based on the photographs available at the Mainzer Photoarchiv of the Hethitologie Portal Mainz, as well as the available hand-copies and relevant secondary literature up to 2019. When the original manuscripts have been collated, this is noted in the commentary.

Commentary

The principal deity treated in this text is the Storm god of Ariuwa, suggesting that the tablet constitutes a cult inventory of this town. This geographical name is attested only here. The text shows the classical structure of cult inventories, with a section listing the cult images, a section stating which offerings have been newly established by the king, and a section with festival descriptions. An important peculiarity of this tablet is the presence of an introductory preamble (Cammarosano 2013: 72), in which the state of decadence of the local cults prior to the restoration taken over by the king is stressed.

The “spouse” of the Storm god of Ariuwa, whose statuette is described in obv. 9, is in all likelihood a sun goddess (see DUTU in obv. 16). The preexisting cult images are two stelae, and the king orders the construction of a bull and a statuette; additionally, a mace (probably with a statuette “on top” of it) is made for mount Ḫuitnanta (literally “Wildlife”). As usual, the counterpoint between preexisting and new cult images is marked by the use of annalla/i- vs. GIBIL (obv. 8, 11).

Whether obv. 4 is a reference to a town named Tudḫaliya or to a visit by king Tudḫaliya (IV?) to the “town,” i.e. Ariuwa, is unclear. The former option, which does not require any intervention on the text, seems preferable (contra my previous assumption, Cammarosano 2012: 22 with fn. 55). In this case, such a town was perhaps a minor settlement gravitating on Ariuwa.

Palaeography and orthography: Peculiar variants of ALAM (ALAMx, obv. 9, “halved” variant, as in KBo 2.1, KUB 17.35, and KUB 38.34) and URU (passim, with broken horizontal). Use of both AŠ and phonetic spelling for Akkadian INA. Note the unusual NÌTA in obv. 9, and the mistaken NI in place of DÙ in obv. 14.

obv. 3: The reference to Ḫattuša was probably part of a divine name.

obv. 5: For katta pai- in the sense of “to be lost/destroyed,” here perhaps “to be neglected,” see CHD P 39 and cf. the similar preamble in KUB 38.35 i 1-4.

obv. 9: The traces at the end of the line do not fit the reading pá[r-ka4-aš-ti] proposed by Rost 1963: 175 (similarly Otten: pár-g[a- etc). In the gap we expect the name of the “spouse” of the Storm god, who according to obv. 16 is a solar deity.

obv. 12: The fact that the smaller quantity (2? BÁN) is listed before the larger one (1 PA) contradicts the standard usage and suggests that in the latter occurrence BÁN-measures are actually meant instead of PARĪSU (or vice versa). The Winkelhaken of the copy at the end of the line may reflect a crevice in the clay.

obv. 15-16: For the tentative restoration cf. e.g. KBo 26.160 11′.

obv. 16: What may be interpreted in the copy as traces of a Winkelhaken at the end of the line may reflect a crevice in the clay.

CC BY-SA 4.0 Michele Cammarosano | Produced as part of the research project Critical edition, digital publication, and systematic analysis of the Hittite cult-inventories (CTH 501-530), funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – project number 298302760, 2016–2020.