Volume 38, Issue 2 -

During the second half of the 14 th century BC the Hittites conquered Northern and Central Syria. Although this wide region remained under the control of the Hittite Empire until its last days some 150 years later, the process of the installation of a new provincial administration was longer and more complex than scholars have assumed until recently. Two issues contributed to the complexity of the process: the dynamic between centre and periphery and that between indigenous administrations and new Hittite officials in charge in Syria. The present contribution gathers a number of clues for the identification of three phases in the existence of this new administration, the first two centred on the negotiation of the political space and the third on its proper realisation.

This study explores the personal copyist statement in the tablet colophons, the scribes who appear in them and the tablets’ findspots in order to demonstrate the relationships between text, scribe and the scholarly work environment of Ḫattusa in the late Empire period (second half of the 13 th cent. BC). It is initially demonstrated how Hittite scribal statements were appended to specific types of texts and had a recurring structure that reflects their purpose. A look at festivals follows. Two large Hittite festivals, the ḫišuwa and AN.TAḪ.ŠUM SAR , were both prepared by scholars related to or working under Walwaziti, the chief scribe of Ḫattusili III, and his family. However, at some point, perhaps during the reign of Tudḫaliya IV, the complex work on the AN.TAḪ.ŠUM SAR festival came under the authority of another scribal group, that of Anuwanza. In this context it is also considered whether certain shelf lists may have been accounts of tablets removed from an archival section.

Through the signs that express or describe space in the Anatolian hieroglyphic writing, this study examines the process of creating signs. To do this, it is imperative to consider the materiality of the sign and to envisage signs not only in their context of appearance, their relations with other signs (integration into the system), their relationship with language (the linguistic Signified), but also with a non-linguistic Signified, and finally in their relationship with the society that gave birth to them. The limited scope of this study will not allow us to take into account all parameters, and thus only ideograms / logograms were selected. We have identified three groups of signs that seem to correspond to different types of procedures: (i) the pair ORIENS-OCCIDENS, (ii) signs which designate space or a portion of space (road, river, etc.) and (iii) the space words (that express spatial relationships).

During the Late Hittite Empire, in the second half of the 13 th century BC, there is a change in the way history is written, as the Anatolian hieroglyphic script seems to become the privileged medium for communicating royal ideology. Hieroglyphic was considered the most appropriate means for the diffusion of the most important messages, i.e. who the true king was and who his protective god was. The present paper deals with the contemporary use of two writing systems by the last Hittite kings and with the association between hieroglyphic inscriptions and the monuments called NA4 ḫekur SAG.UŠ documented in a few Hittite texts. Additionally, it discusses some hypotheses on the location of the NA4 ḫekur SAG.UŠ mentioned in the preserved cuneiform sources.

This paper suggests that following the death of Tudḫaliya II (Tašmišarri) his family was divided into two parties, one led by Tudḫaliya ‘the Younger’ and the other by Suppiluliuma. It then tries to identify the members of each group and to determine their kinship, clarifying the relationship between Suppiluliuma and the royal family. Further, based on newly available evidence concerning Suppiluliuma’s accession, the paper suggests a possible restoration of the so-called ‘Cruciform Seal’.

This paper discusses the alleged one-year length of the campaign led by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I against Tušratta of Mittani. Some structural similarities between the introduction of the Šattiwaza treaty (CTH 51) and Mursili’s Annals, such as the mention of booty, suggest that the so-called One-year War lasted up to five years. A rearrangement of its events, as they can be reconstructed by comparing CTH 51 with other documents dating to the same period, over a time span longer than the traditional one seems to be best suited to the number and the importance of the deeds accomplished by Suppiluliuma.

The recently published Hittite cuneiform fragment KBo 50.182 appears to be the remainder of a vassal treaty concluded between Ḫattušili III and a king of the land of Išuwa, whose name is not mentioned in the preserved text. This article argues that the persons mentioned in this fragment, i.e. especially Ališarruma but probably also Ḫalpašulupi, both well known from other cuneiform and hieroglyphic Luwian sources, can be identified as hitherto unrecognized predecessors of the treaty’s addressee on the throne of Išuwa. Identifying the presumable addressee thus leads to a reconstruction of the Išuwian dynasty from its founding until its demise.

This article deals with newly found duplicates and joins to Hittite mythological texts and prayers. Additionally some fragments previously thought to be prayers or mythological texts have been reclassified.

The Hurrian version of the Song of Release is shown to have the same metrical structure as the Hittite version. Therefore, it is argued that the meter of the Hittite instantiation of Hurro-Hittite narrative song is adapted from the Hurrian tradition.

Archaeological data on streets and open spaces in Mesopotamian cities and thus present knowledge about the layout of urban street networks are still rather limited. The textual sources, on the other hand, although offering much information on topographic features, often provide insufficient clues to identify these with certainty on the ground, due to a lack either of specificity or of archaeological information. In the first section of this article, the Akkadian vocabulary for city streets will be discussed, concentrating on the semantics of the term ribītu . Textual examples from the 2 nd to the 1 st millennium BC will be presented, pointing to the polysemy of the word ribītu , meaning both ‘broad street’ and ‘(open) space’, but also to the development of more extended meanings, such as ‘district’ and ‘circumference’. The polysemy of ribītu can be correlated with a lack of other words for public ‘open space’ (‘square’) in Akkadian. In a second part, archaeological evidence for streets and open spaces in Mesopotamian cities will be presented, and it is suggested that this evidence accords with the Akkadian terminology.

1. There are clear indications that two eponyms recently dated to the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I in fact held office under an earlier king. 2./3. Three loan contracts and further administrative documents from Aššur are discussed in detail in light of the cultic requirements implied by them. 4. A recently proposed argument for dating two administrative records from Kār-Tukultī-Ninurta is shown not to be valid.