Volume 39, Issue 1 -

The Hittite cult inventories constitute a corpus of ca. 550 fragments dating to the Late Empire period, dealing with local offerings and festivals in provincial towns. They are commonly viewed against the background of an assumed reorganization of local cults promoted by Tudḫaliya IV. Within such an extensive operation, local festivals would have been restyled and standardized to some degree. The paper aims at casting doubts on these assumptions, presenting a reappraisal of the questions concerning the dating of the texts and a minimalist interpretation of Tudḫaliya’s ‘cult reorganization’. It also provides an overview of the extant Middle Hittite fragments and on restorations of local cults pre-dating Tudḫaliya IV. The main conclusions are that (1) the arguments behind the assumption that the majority of the surviving fragments should be dated to Tudḫaliya IV are debatable; (2) the measures taken by Tudḫaliya reflect practices that are attested from at least the Middle Hittite period, without any substantial innovation; and (3) despite their stylistic similarities, the texts tend to treat the local festivals, the origins of which in all likelihood go back to ancestral times, in a faithful way.

Since its publication, the recently expanded Hittite text KUB 19.15+ has drawn scholarly attention mainly because of its mention of an individual named Arma’a, whose tentative identification with Pharaoh Horemheb has compelled significant revisions of the Late Bronze Age chronology of the Ancient Near East. This document, however, also provides new evidence on the status of Amurru prior to its annexation to the Hittite kingdom, which begs for a reconsideration of the relevant sources as well as of the different hypotheses that have been put forward in order to explain the apparent contradictions among them.

The present article offers a current edition of the Akkadian medical text KUB 37.1 from Ḫattuša, first published by F. Köcher in 1952. It assesses interpretations proposed by other scholars and examines some aspects of the professional and cultural environment in which the text was composed.

The present paper focusses on some details of a text group recently discussed in this journal by Š. Velhartická. First, her newly proposed equation of PA-NI DINGIR- LIM GIŠ DAG- TI (sic) with taršanzipi peran is shown to be erroneous. Second, it is suggested that the small group of texts KBo 41.35 with duplicates KBo 41.36 and KBo 41.37 be added to CTH 652 due to the clearly identical and otherwise rarely used cultic paraphernalia in both groups. By doing so the person of the author is ascertained in the Hittite king Ḫattušili III, and it is argued that the use of Hattic recitations in the freshly composed text may stem from the background of the regained city of Nerik and its cult of Hattic origin.

Ma-na-aḫ-pi-/ir-/ja of the Amarna letters can be identified as Mn-ḫpr-r‘ , the throne name of Thutmosis III, rather than Mn-ḫpr.w-r‘ , the throne name of Thutmosis IV. This equation is supported by the un-etymological writing of Thutmoses III’s throne name as Mnḫ-p3-r‘ in hieroglyphic and Demotic sources. The Hellenistic renderings of Mn-ḫpr-r‘ as Mesphres and of Mnḫ-p3-r‘ as Μεχφρης indicate that Μισαφρις, as Africanus renders the throne name of Thutmosis III in his copy of the Manethonian king list, is corrupt. It remains an open question whether ḫpr in Thutmoses III’s throne name is the same as ḫpr in related names, like Ḫpr-ḫpr.w-r‘ , the throne name of Aya.

Both Ĝirsu tablets DP 655 and VS 14, 100 (= AWL 001) deal with the same dikes to be built or repaired and, as argued in this study, refer to the same total length. It is therefore possible to improve our understanding of the tablet VS 14, 100, which seems to show an aberrant mathematical notation that does not correspond to the standard length measures in other pre-Sargonic texts.

In this paper, a description of the Middle Assyrian provincial system arranged geographically, beginning with the heartland and continuing to the west, north and east, and chronologically, from the 13 th to the 11 th centuries BC, is undertaken. The expansion of this system was directly linked to the territorial expansion of the Middle Assyrian kingdom. Whereas most of the provinces can be followed from the 13 th to the 11 th century, some of them appear only for a shorter, limited period of time. According to present evidence, it seems that the term ḫalzu (district) was substituted by the concept pāḫutu (province) at the end of the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I (1233–1197 BC) or shortly after his death.

The present paper aims to contribute to a solution for the chronological ordering of the stelae found at Assur. It is shown that form and content of the inscriptions as well as their size and position all changed concurrently. In particular, stelae from before and after the reign of Tukultī-Ninurta I can be reliably differentiated, in some cases improving the distinction among homonymous eponyms. The position of many stelae also allows for an historical interpretation. New petrographic investigations and 3D documentation are needed to resolve a number of remaining issues.

This paper examines a passage in the letter that Pudu-Ḫepa wrote to Ramses II concerning the arrangements for the political marriage with her daughter. In this passage (KUB 21.38 obv. 14’) the sequence iš-ḫa- x[ ]x(-)x -aḫ-mi is partly missing, and has hitherto been reconstructed as iš-ḫa-a [ n-n ] a tar-aḫ-mi , e.g., in Elmar Edel’s 1994 standard edition of the correspondence between Ḫattuša and Egypt. A more probable reading of the missing signs that alters both the grammatical and contextual interpretation of the passage is suggested here. As a consequence, the meaning of both kuwapi UL and kattan išḫaššarwaḫḫ- are reassessed.

During the second millennium BC cultural development reached a unique peak in Central Anatolia, as centralized monumental arts become visible in the region for the first time in the Hittite Period. The present article discusses the chronological as well the stylistic and iconographical development of the known monuments in the light of the discovery of an orthostat from Kayalıpınar. In addition to an updated chronological framework importance is placed on the changing social functions of the arts within the framework of the evolving empire. Several steps of artistic development can be identified, steps that reflect the different social environments in which the monuments were used.

The identification of the region Sura mentioned in the Hieroglyphic Luwian inscription KARKAMIŠ A4b is still disputed, though the toponym is attested in other Hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions as well. After a philological analysis of all attestations, which involves excluding those entities that have been falsely read as Sura, it will be suggested on the basis of the geographical, historical and philological evidence that Sura of KARKAMIŠ A4b and A6 as well as the Anatolian Syrians of Greek sources refer to the same region, also known as Cappadocia, and that it was the indigenous name of Tabal.