Religions of the Hittites, Hattians, and Hurrians

The pantheon

The most widely worshiped deity of Hittite Anatolia was clearly the weather god, as befits a country dependent on rain for its fertility; and under the title “weather god of Hatti” he became the chief deity of the official pantheon, a great figure who bestowed kingship, brought victory in war, and probably represented the nation in its dealings with foreign powers. Thus the treaty with Egypt is said to be “for the purpose of making eternal the relations which the sun-god [of Egypt] and the weather-god [of Hatti] have established for the Land of Egypt and the Land of Hatti.” His name in Luwian, and probably also in Hittite, was Tarhun (Tarhund); in Hattian he was called Taru, and in Hurrian, Teshub. He is associated with the sacred bull and appears on monuments either attended by a pair of divine bulls or driving over mountains in a chariot drawn by bulls. In the cult itself Tarhun might even be represented by a bull.

As Tarhun’s spouse, the great goddess of the city of Arinna was exalted as patroness of the state. (Arinna has not been located, but it was situated somewhere in the heartland of the Hittite kingdom, within a day’s journey of the capital.) Her name in Hattian was Wurusemu, but the Hittites worshiped her under the epithet Arinnitti. She is always called a sun goddess, and sun disks appear as emblems in her cult, but there are indications that she may originally have had chthonic, or underworld, characteristics. As “sun goddess of the earth” she might be identified with Lelwani, the ruler of the netherworld. The king and queen were her high priest and priestess.

The weather god of another city, Nerik, was regarded as the son of this supreme pair, and they had daughters named Mezzulla and Hulla and a granddaughter, Zintuhi. Telipinu was another son of the weather god and had similar attributes. He was a central figure in the Hittite myths.

There was also a male sun god, distinct from the sun goddess of Arinna, a special form of whom was the “sun god in the water,” probably the sun as reflected in the waters of a lake. His name in Hittite was Istanu, borrowed from the Hattian Estan (Luwian Tiwat, Hurrian Shimegi). There was also a moon god (Hittite and Luwian Arma, Hurrian Kushukh), but he plays little part in the texts. In the iconography, the sun god was represented in the robes of the king, whose title was “My Sun”; the moon god was shown as a winged figure with a crescent on his helmet, sometimes standing on a lion. According to official theology there also existed a sun god or goddess of the underworld. In this place resided the Sun on its journey from west to east during the night.

The god of hunting appears frequently on Hittite monuments; he holds a bird and a hare, as on the Kültepe seals, and he stands on a stag, his sacred animal. From descriptions of the statues it appears that this is the deity denoted in the texts by the logogram KAL, to be read Kurunda or Tuwata, later Ruwata, Runda. The war god also appears, though his Hittite name is concealed behind the logogram ZABABA, the name of the Mesopotamian war god. His Hattian name was Wurunkatti, his Hurrian counterpart Hesui. His Hattian name meant “king of the land.”

The Hittite goddess of love and war is similarly disguised under the logogram of the Babylonian ISHTAR; she was evidently much revered and was the special protectress of Hattusilis III. Her Hurrian name was Shaushka. As a warrior goddess she was represented as a winged figure standing on a lion with a peculiar robe gathered at the knees and accompanied by doves and two female attendants.

There was a mother goddess, Hannahanna “the grandmother,” closely associated with birth, creation, and destiny, but the theologians appear to have regarded her as a minor deity.

It is impossible to enumerate the lesser deities, many of whom are mere names to us. Among them were many mountains, rivers, and springs, and the spirits of past kings and queens who had “become gods” at death. Demons are conspicuous by their absence; sickness and misfortune were ascribed either to sorcery or to divine retribution.

During the later years of the Hittite kingdom, the state cult came under strong Hurrian influence. The sun goddess of Arinna and the weather god of Nerik were identified with the Hurrian queen of the gods, Hebat, and her son, Sharruma; and at Yazılıkaya, where a rocky outcrop forming a natural open chamber was adorned with a series of 64 bas-reliefs that represented the national pantheon, every identifiable deity bears a Hurrian name written in Hittite hieroglyphs. The central group is recognizable as the family of the sun goddess, but she is named Hepatu, her son Sharruma. They both stand on felines, she, perhaps, on a lion or lioness, and he on a panther. The Hittites had here already begun a process of assimilation.