Cult inventory

(CTH 526.40)

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

Previous editions: Hazenbos 2003: 83-85.

Edited based on the copy only (VBoT 26 with the collations and corrections of Beckman and Hoffner in HFAC 15).

The fragment preserves descriptions of seasonal festivals. Noteworthy are the intervention of the king, including the institution of a pithos with a capacity of three BÁN-measures (obv. 6′-7′), the use of É “house” in the sense of É DINGIR-LIM “shrine” (obv. 6′), and the exceptional information on the slaughtering taking place “in the garden” (obv.? 12′-13′, reading uncertain). Importantly, the preexisting cult image in form of a wooden bull is replaced by a bull of iron (obv.? 5′-6′): this is not only an interesting attestation of a cult image made of iron, but also a further confirmation that there was no tendency from aniconic and theriomorphic cult images towards anthropomorphic ones (see for discussion Cammarosano 2018: 62-63).

Palaeography and orthography: Late QA (rev. 5′). Note the unusual spelling GAR-an-zi in rev. 1′.

obv. 6′: Cf. e.g. KBo 26.149 r. col. 5′.

obv. 12′: The form ḫukanzi must be restored at the beginning of line 13′ , since it always precedes the formula šuppa tiyanzi. The restoration GIŠKIRI6 (or perhaps KIRI6.GEŠTIN) at the end of line 12′ is required by the traces in the copy and configures an exception to the usual pattern: based on the bulk of the other texts as well as on the space in the gap, one would expect here the mention of the altar (GIŠZAG.GAR.RA).

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.