Hittite prayers were at first heavily influenced by Babylonian and Hurrian prototypes, but soon developed their own creative style, highly emotional and rich in metaphors. The twenty-four prayers assembled in the volume cover the entire span of Hittite literary history.
Selected Writings of Itamar Singer on the End of the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia and the Levant
In a career that so far has spanned nearly four decades, more than thirty of them as Professor of Hittitology in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv University, Itamar Singer has had a profound impact on the field of ancient Near Eastern studies, and Hittite studies in particular. His wide-ranging contributions have nowhere been more deeply felt than in the historical reconstruction of the international affairs of the thirteenth century B.C.E.—the end of the Bronze Age in the eastern Mediterranean. The essays collected in this volume are a testament to the impact of his research on understanding Hatti's diplomatic relations with the other great powers in this critical period of human history and on elucidating the complex dynamics that led to the disintegration of the Hittite Empire.
Hittite festival texts, the largest among the groups of documents in the libraries of Hattuša, are extremely lengthy compositions. Previous studies have either given general overviews of whole festivals, or have chosen individual tablets for in-depth philological investigations. This is the first comprehensive study of a large festival text, revealing its basic threepart structure: a detailed scenario of the festivities, the liturgy recited, and the logistic directives. The “Gatehouse (KI. LAM) Festival” lasted for three days and included pompous processions to public buildings in the capital (temples, palaces, magazines) and its vicinity. It culminated in a great assembly held at a sacred locale outside the city, with celebrations dedicated to all the gods, with feasts and sports events. The commentary (Part I, ISBN 978-3-447-02243-9) focuses on matters pertaining to the ancient topography of Hattuša (and nearby Yazilikaya), the cultic insignia carried along in the ceremonial procession, and the rations allotted to the participants (food, festive garments and ornaments). The restored text included in this volume comprises about one hundred fragments belonging to different redactions of the text; they were written in the Old, Middle and Late Hittite scripts.