In Anatolia itself myth seems to have remained on a rather primitive level. Such myths are found embedded in magical or ritual texts, aimed at curing diseases, ensuring good fortune, and the like.
A particularly well-attested type of myth occurs in connection with the invocation of an absent god and tells how the god once disappeared and caused a blight on Earth, how he was sought and found, and eventually returned to restore life and vigour. In one such myth the weather god withdraws in anger and the search is conducted by the sun god (whose messenger is an eagle), the father of the weather god, his grandfather, and his grandmother Hannahanna. In another, it is Telipinu who is angry, and the gods who search are the sun god, the weather god, and Hannahanna, the grandfather being omitted. In both these versions, the missing god is found by a bee sent forth by Hannahanna. In another similar story, the sun god and Telipinu are both missing, not from anger, but because they have been seized by “Torpor,” which has paralyzed nature. In yet another version, the weather god of Nerik is said to have gone down to the netherworld through a hole in the ground, apparently the hole from which the river Marassantiya (modern Kızıl Irmak) gushed forth, which suggests that this weather god may really have been a god of the underground waters.
Another myth, “The Slaying of the Dragon,” connected with the Hattian city Nerik, was apparently recited at a great annual spring festival called Purulli. It tells how the weather god fought the dragon and was at first defeated, but subsequently, by means of a ruse (of which there are two quite distinct versions), succeeded in getting the better of him and killing him.
Other mythological tales of Hittite and Hattian deities existed, but they are too fragmentarily preserved to give any connected story.
The elaborate epic of the struggle against Ullikummi, and the Theogony, though written in Hittite, are Hurrian in origin and refer to Hurrian and even Mesopotamian deities. The Theogony tells of the struggle for kingship among the gods. Alalu, after holding the kingship for nine years, was defeated by Anu (the Babylonian sky god) and went down to the netherworld. Anu in his turn, after nine years, gave way to Kumarbi, a Hurrian god, and went up to heaven. Eventually the weather god Teshub was born, and though the god KAL apparently reigned for a period, and the end of the tale is lost, it is certain that Teshub was the final victor, for there are many allusions to the “former gods” who were banished to the netherworld by him. The conception itself derives from Babylonia.
The “Song of Ullikummi” tells of a plot by Kumarbi to depose Teshub from his supremacy by begetting a monstrous stone as champion. Ullikummi, the stone monster, grows in the sea, which reaches his waist, while his head touches the sky; he stands on the shoulder of Upelluri, an Atlas figure who carries heaven and earth. Teshub is warned of the danger and goes out to battle in his chariot drawn by bulls, but he fails and appeals for help to Ea (Babylonian god of wisdom). The latter orders the “former gods” to produce the ancient tool by which heaven and earth had once been cut apart (the only surviving hint of a Hittite creation myth), and with this he severs Ullikummi from the giant and so destroys his power. Again the end is lost, but it is certain that the final victory went to Teshub.
Religions of successor states
When Hattusa fell, in about 1180 bc, the Luwians moved eastward and southward into Cappadocia, Cilicia, and North Syria. Here they formed a number of small successor kingdoms. Shortly afterward the Phrygians crossed the Bosporus from Thrace and occupied the centre of the Anatolian plateau, cutting off in the extreme southwest a remnant of the Luwian people, who became known as the Lycians and maintained their reverence for the Luwian gods Tarhun, Runda, Arma, and Santa into classical times.
The East Luwians, whose rulers used the Hittite hieroglyphic script to record their deeds, worshiped these same deities; but their chief goddess was Kubaba, who hardly appears in the archives of Hattusa except as the local goddess of Carchemish in Syria. Her prominence was due to political factors, for Carchemish was then the leading Hittite city.
The traditional Hittite iconography survived but was gradually permeated by Aramaic and Assyrian influences. Orthostats (stone slabs set at the base of a wall) from Malatya on the Euphrates show Tarhun in his bull-drawn chariot receiving libations from a king dressed in his traditional robes, and there is a relief showing his battle with the dragon. At Carchemish was found a representation of the winged moon god with the sun god, both standing on a single lion. Kubaba appears enthroned, the throne resting on a lion. Runda (the Hittite Kurunda or KAL) is regularly symbolized by a stag’s head or antler.
Urartu
In the far east of Anatolia, the Hurrian nation formed around Lake Van a new kingdom, which rose to considerable power, from about 900 to 600 bc. With few exceptions, the cuneiform inscriptions of this kingdom of Urartu are historical and reveal nothing of its religion, except the names of deities. The national god was Haldi, and he is associated with a weather god, Tesheba, a sun goddess, Shiwini (compare Hurrian Teshub and Shimegi), and a goddess, Bagbartu (or Bagmashtu). Haldi is represented standing on a lion, Tesheba on a bull, Shiwini holding a winged sun disk above her head. The cult was practiced not only in temples (one of which is shown in detail on an Assyrian relief) but also in front of rock-hewn niches in the form of gates through which the deity was probably believed to manifest himself.
The Phrygians
Little would be known of the religion of the Phrygians but for the fact that in 204 bc the Roman Senate, on the instructions of the priests, who had consulted the Sibylline books, had the sacred black stone of the Phrygian Mother goddess, Cybele, or Cybebe, transported from Pessinus, together with her priests, and installed in a temple on the Palatine. As a result, there is much information about the cult and its mythology, though it must be remembered that during 200 years of Persian rule Anatolia had been exposed to many alien influences from the east, which may have affected this cult.
The high priest of Cybele was given the name of Attis, and—at least in later times—she was attended by a band of fanatical devotees called Galli, whose orgiastic dancing, at the climax of which they castrated themselves in their ecstasy, was notorious.
The cult myth of these rites told how Cybele (known at Pessinus as Agdistis, from Mount Agdos [or Mount Agdistis] in the vicinity) loved a beautiful youth named Attis. According to the earliest version, Attis was killed, as was the Syrian Adonis, by a boar. All later versions, however, refer to wild revelry and castration. Agdistis is a bisexual monster who is trapped by Bacchus and castrated; Attis is betrothed to a daughter of Midas (or Gallus, the king of Pessinus); the wedding guests are driven mad by Cybele, and first Midas, then Attis, castrates himself, the latter as he lies beneath a pine tree; in one version Attis is turned into a pine tree. A poem by Catullus describes how a young Greek wanderer named Attis was caught up in the revels and sacrificed his virility, only to be prostrated later with remorse. The “Phrygian rites” introduced into Rome by Claudius included the ceremonious felling of a pine tree to represent the dead youth and its transport in procession to the temple. Still later, the sacrifice of a bull and the belief in the resurrection of Attis were added to the cult.
How much of this myth belonged to the original cult of the Phrygian Mother goddess is questionable. Herodotus, in describing the celebration of the rites by the legendary Scythian sage Anacharsis, mentions only that he did so in a grove, that he carried a timbrel (a small hand drum or tambourine), and that he fastened images about his person. There is no suggestion of orgiastic rites.
In Asia Minor itself, the cult of Cybele is marked by carved rock facades with niches or by rock-hewn thrones, on which the statue would be set; in front of these, the rites were celebrated in the open air. Cybele was a goddess of the mountains, out of which she was believed to manifest herself to her devotees. Representations of the goddess show her in her niche, sometimes flanked by lions, draped in a long garment and wearing a high polos (cylindrical crown or headdress) or with bared breasts and flanked by musicians. Her name and her association with the lion cannot be separated from the Hittite Kubaba, whose cult had spread from Carchemish to the borders of Phrygia, but the process by which this matronly figure was transformed into the Mountain Mother of the Phrygians can only be surmised.
The goddess Ma of Comana, despite her name (Mother), was regarded at least by the Romans as a deity distinct from Cybele and was identified with the war goddess Bellona. Her relationship to the ancient Hittite-Hurrian goddess Hebat of Kummanni (= Comana) remains obscure, for there is no evidence that the latter was a goddess of war.
The god Men, who appears on numerous monuments of the Hellenistic period, was an equestrian moon god, later identified with Attis and with the Thracian Sabazius. He is basically the Persian moon god Mao, as (Artemis) Anaitis is the Persian Anahita.
Conclusion
Asia Minor shows a remarkable continuity in its worship. From the Neolithic Period, for 6,000 years, the population venerated a divine pair, mother goddess and weather god, the former in association with the lion, the latter with the bull; a divine son, associated with the panther; and a god of hunting whose symbolic animal was the stag. To the ancients, for whom the essence of a thing lay in its name, this continuity was less obvious than it is today. The many names under which the deities were known at different times and places appear to us of less significance, in a religious sense, than the constancy of the types.
Oliver Robert Gurney