Cult inventory

(CTH 528.107)

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: Taggar-Cohen 2002: 139-43 (KUB 44.21 only).

On the preserved portion of the obverse we find the description of the “festival of the purification of the altar.” The context makes it clear that this rite was performed when a new priest got his position. The festival can therefore be grouped together with other rites connected with the installation of a new priest, like the “festival of the lots” treated in KUB 17.35 i 17′-36′ (see Cammarosano 2018: 168-69, 182-84 with literature). Besides the “new priest,” the festival involves the GUDU12-priest and the local community (the “town”), who take part in a cult meal in the house of the new priest while he washes himself, possibly in the house of the ḫazkara-women or the old priest. After the ritual washing, the new priest “dresses himself like a SANGA-priest” and receives a “present” (uppeššar). When the text resumes after a gap, we find rites which involve a “new temple” and again the “new priest” as well as the GUDU12-priest and the ḫazkara-women, thus likely representing a continuation of the festival.

Palaeography and orthography: Clear, non-cursive script. Late QA (iii 15′).

ii 4/2′, 8/6′: The formulation is here more detailed than is usual in cult inventories; note the information on the cutting and distribution of the meat, inserted between the lists of offering “at the altar” and the “provisions.”

ii 4/2′ and passim: Note the use of null objects.

ii 12/10′: This passage shows that Hittite priests had a characteristic attire, see CHD Š 192 and Mouton 2017: 105-106.

iii 8′: The tentative reading is based on the role played by lots (pula-) in the frame of priestly inauguration rites, on which see Cammarosano 2018: 182-83, commentary on KUB 17.35 i 18′.

iii 10′: Cf. KUB 56.39 iv 22.

iii 15′: For this spelling, see Soysal 2010: 347.

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.