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Habilitation Project by Dr. Susanne Görke

The Palaic and Luwian Festival Ritual Texts from Hattusa

In addition to numerous Central Anatolian and Hurrian-influenced Hittite ceremonial rituals, there are also texts from the Hittite capital Hattusa that are attributed to a Luwian and Palaic cultural sphere. This attribution is mostly based on the language of the recitations that have survived within these texts. Thus, Palaic texts have recitations “in Palaic”; they are commonly associated with the land of Pala, located northwest of the Hittite capital Hattusa. Luwian festival rituals mention the villages of Istanuwa and Lallupiya, areas to the south of the land of Pala.

According to the numbering of text groups in CTH numbers common in Hittitology – following the “Catalogue des textes hittites” by Emmanuel Laroche from 1970 – the following text groups will form the textual basis of the work: the Palaic text groups CTH 750–754, which contain festival descriptions, a myth and fragments with ritual descriptions. In addition, purely Hittite-language descriptions of festivals in which Palaic deities are mentioned are included in the study, e.g., CTH 643 “Fragments naming god Ziparwa” as well as sections of the major Hittite festivals (AN.DAH.SUM festival, CTH 610 with descriptions of the 12th and 13th day, and the nuntarriyasha festival, CTH 626 with the description of the 8th, 9th and 10th day). The Luwian texts include the tablet of Lallupiya (CTH 771), the festival descriptions of Istanuwa (CTH 772), and the chants of Istanuwa (CTH 773). Furthermore, the Luwian ritual fragments (CTH 770) probably still contain numerous items that can be assigned to a Luwian festival ritual.

Initial investigations show that the Palaic texts have strong connections to Luwian texts from Anatolia. For example, CTH 752 describes ritual acts in the 1st Ps.Pl., which has otherwise only been found in the Arzawaian rituals of Anniwiyanni and Paskuwatti and in the Luwian texts of Kuwatalla and Silaluhhi. The deglazing of hot stones with wine, also described in CTH 752, is otherwise not found in Hittite rituals; the rituals of Ambazzi and Tunnawi, which also point to the Luwian tradition, exhibit remotely comparable rites. However, there are also ritual descriptions that find parallels in Hattic texts. For example, sections of CTH 752, which describe an arrangement with a chariot of the weather god pulled by cattle, are comparable with sections of the ritual following the myth of “The moon that fell from the sky”. In addition, the names of the Palaic gods such as Zaparwa or Katahzifuri can be explained in Hattic terms. The Palaic texts are also important due to the fact that they have been handed down in Old Hittite tablets and can therefore shed light on the development of Hittite texts.

Overall, the study of these text groups, which have hardly been examined so far, will show the significance of texts that probably originated in north-central Anatolia and thus make an important contribution to the formation of Hittite religion, especially in the development of various festival traditions as early as the Old Hittite period.