Cult inventory

(CTH 529.8)

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

Collated (March 2020). Fragment of a thick tablet (max preserved thickness 42 mm), fine-grained clay, now of a reddish color. Script size 3-4 mm.

The colophon of this peculiar cult inventory lists dignitaries responsible for “inventorying” (ḫatiwitae-) selected “districts” (KUR). Specifically, the king of Išuwa is responsible for a district the name of which is lost, the chief of the craftsmen (or of the priests?) for the district of Ḫarziuna, and the chief of the cooks for the district of Dunna (further data may be lost due to the fragmentary character of the tablet); in rev. iv 2′-3′, a possible reference to the process of cult inspection is found (ištarna arḫa=ma= … šanḫuwanzi). For the role of the king of Išuwa, who appears in lines 4 and 5 as well, and other subordinate rulers in the cult administration of the Late Empire period, see Cammarosano and Marizza 2015: 175 fn. 86. On the obverse a number of towns lying in the central districts are mentioned in the locative case (among which Ḫattuša; cf. Forlanini 2008: 150). On the reverse, the divine mountains of several towns are mentioned. Note the many references to the realm of the dead in rev. iv 12′-16′: a ḫekur-building of Pirwa likely dedicated to (or by) Tudḫaliya, possibly a funerary building, a “divine stone house,” another stone installation, a “spirit of the dead,” and the zawalli-deities.

The text touches upon different geographical areas: central (Ḫattuša, Zippalanda, Tawiniya, Wašhaniya, Tanizila), central-western (Ḫarziuna, see de Martino 2017: 259), and southern districts (Dunna, see Forlanini 2017: 242 with fn. 35 and literature; cf. the likely mention of Ḫupišna in rev. iv 10′). The tablet does not represent a cult inventory of these districts in the usual sense, but rather a text aimed at recording those people who were responsible for checking the state of the cult in certain regions. The fragmentary state of the tablet does not allow to understand the details of this operation, but certainly the text does not “handle the rations supplied by personages” (Forlanini 2008: 181 fn. 50), since no mention at all of cult supplies is found in the preserved portion of the text.

i 5: Cf. l. e. 1.

iv 6′: A PN Pika is attested in Dinçol and Dinçol 2008 no. 17.

iv 7′: This GN is attested in KBo 16.58 ii 8 as well.

iv 11′: See CHD L-N 81.

iv 12′: On the ḫekur of Pirwa and the possibility that this line may refer to a mausoleum of Tudḫaliya IV see Imparati 2004: 156-158,168-171.

iv 13′: On the reading and interpretation of the “divine stone house” see van den Hout 2002, especially 81 with fn. 51.

iv 20′: On this DN see van Gessel 1998: 105; a reading KAŠ seems preferable than GA (collated on photo).

l. e. 2: Reading following CHD Š 138 “chief of the priest(s)” (collated), cf. GAL LÚMUḪALDIM on the following line.

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.