Were Hittite Kings Divinely Anointed? A Palaic Invocation to the Sun-God and Its Significance for Hittite Religion

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of a difficult Palaic invocation to the Sun-god, and to elucidate its implications for the study of Hittite religion. The first part of my account contains linguistic and philological discussion that concludes with a new translation of the scrutinized fragment. According to my interpretation, the Sun-god is requested to anoint the Hittite king and to exalt him. This is the only clear evidence that the gods were thought to be personally responsible for the anointment of Hittite kings. A counterpart to this nontrivial concept is well known from the Hebrew Bible and is inherited by the Christian tradition.The second part of this paper, which is meant to be accessible to all the historians of religion, discusses the anointment as a rite of passage among the Hittites, as well as the relevant parallels in other Ancient Near Eastern cultures. I am arguing that anointment with oil was extended to both Hittite priestly kings and certain other categories of Hittite priests, and that the underlying purpose of this act was ritual cleansing. The spread of this rite to those cultures where kings were not at the head of the religious hierarchy boosted the secondary association of divine anointment with empowerment rather that purification.

Accented Clitics in Hittite?

“…‘The conditional particle, then, […] appears to behave sometimes like a clitic and sometimes like a prosodically autonomous word’ (Spencer & Luís : 88). Among Anatolian languages an analogous distribution is described for Palaic nū vs nu by Yakubovich (). This type of behaviour could underlie the alternation between 1/2 and pure second position effects on Hittite correlatives.…”

The Hurrian Language in Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age

“…(They beat themselves six times, each one pierces his own hand, and each one pierces his own foot.)" Yakubovich 2006 and2010: 351-353. However, parwalaš probably contains the suffix -ala-for agent nouns and, therefore, a genitival construction 'man of x' is unlikely.…”

Abréviations

“…4 Ilya Yakubovich kindly reminds me of the possibility that the common gender nominative forms in -aš of the words for functionaries listed here ( LÚ.MEŠ parwalaš MUNUS.MEŠ dammaraš, MUNUS.MEŠ tapdaraš) could rather be interpreted as genitives depending on the nouns behind LÚ.MEŠ and MUNUS.MEŠ (i. e. LÚ.MEŠ parwalaš, MUNUS.MEŠ dammaraš, MUNUS.MEŠ tapdaraš, respectively); cf. also Yakubovich 2006 and2010: 351-353. However, parwalaš probably contains the su昀케x -ala-for agent nouns and, therefore, a genitival construction 'man of x' is unlikely.…”