The “Sun-goddess of the earth” and the less clearly defined category of “chthonic solar deities” of Hittite religion have been the objects of various studies in recent years. This paper aims to examine the significance of these categories of deities within the Hittite festival texts. Although the Sun-goddess of the earth achieves some prominence in local cult contexts, such as at Zippalanda and Nerik, she otherwise remains a marginal deity. This contrasts with her general significance in Hittite magical rituals. The chthonic solar deities represent a less tangible deity type that is associated with death and the netherworld, but that also does not attain overarching significance in the Hittite state pantheon. Finally, the paper addresses the question, to what cultural milieu can we trace the beginnings of the Sun-goddess of the earth? Efforts to identify her origins in the Hattian milieu of north-central Anatolia will be critiqued, favoring the Luwian milieu instead as the most likely from which the tradition of the Sun-goddess emerged, and later flourished in the magical traditions especially that became widespread in Hittite society of Late Bronze Age Anatolia.
Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur Mainz, Germany - ORCID: 0000-0003-2387-6833
Titolo del capitolo
Solar and Chthonic Deities in Ancient Anatolia: The Evolution of the Chthonic Solar Deity in Hittite Religion
Autori
Charles Steitler
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0109-4.15
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Theonyms, Panthea and Syncretisms in Hittite Anatolia and Northern Syria
Sottotitolo del libro
Proceedings of the TeAI Workshop Held in Verona, March 25-26, 2022
Curatori
Livio Warbinek, Federico Giusfredi
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
194
Anno di pubblicazione
2023
Copyright
© 2023 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0109-4
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0108-7
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0109-4
Collana
Studia Asiana
ISSN della collana
1974-7837
e-ISSN della collana
2612-808X