Hittite mythology and religion
[4] Some religious documents formed part of the corpus with which young scribes were trained, and have survived, most of them dating from the last several decades before the final burning of the sites.[when?]
The scribes in the royal administration, some of whose archives survive, were a bureaucracy, organizing and maintaining royal responsibilities in areas that would be considered part of religion today: temple organization, cultic administration, reports of diviners, make up the main body of surviving texts.
[7] Unfortunately, much of the knowledge about the Hittites has come from artistic, rather than textual, sources, making it difficult to ascertain specific details on this topic.
There are no known details of what the Hittite creation myth may have been but scholars speculate that the Hattian mother goddess who is believed to be connected to the "great goddess" concept known from the Neolithic site Çatalhöyük may have been a consort of the Anatolian storm god (who is believed to be related to comparable deities from other traditions like Thor, Indra and Zeus).
[1]: 101 The Hittites did not perform regularly scheduled ceremonies to appease the gods, but instead conducted rituals in answer to hard times or to mark occasions.
[12] Many of the rituals were performed at pits, sites that were created to represent a closeness between man and the gods, particularly those that were chthonic, or related to the earth.
[9] Traditions and the status of local cults were constantly changing due to the lack of a national standard for ritual practice.
"[1][a][full citation needed]Obviously, the preservation of good relationships with deities that were closely affiliated with nature and agriculture, such as Arinna, would have been essential.
The Hittites also utilized associations with the divine in a way similar to the ancient Egyptians, using the will of the gods to justify human actions.
[1]: 99 ff Many of the Hittite myths involve a large cast of characters, usually because the central problem in the story has widespread effects, and everyone has a stake in the issue(s) being resolved.
Usually the solution can only be found by working together to overcome the issue, although these are not so much wholesome morality tales, but rather more like action-based epics with an ensemble cast.
For example, the Hittites believed the Bronze Age cult centre of Nerik,[17] to the north of the capitals Hattusa and Sapinuwa, was sacred to a local storm god who was the son of Wurusemu, sun goddess of Arinna.
In the end, the goddess Kamrusepa uses healing and magic to calm Telipinu after which he returns home and restores the vegetation and fertility.
Similar to other kingdoms at the time, the Hittites had a habit of adopting gods from other pantheons that they came into contact with, such as the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, who is celebrated at her famous temple at Ain Dara.
Since mythology was a large part of Hittite cult practice, an understanding of Ishtar's powers and history was essential to the development of rituals and incantations invoking her.
One innovative way that she was utilized was in purification rituals such as Allaiturahhi's, in which her affinity for the underworld was exploited and interpreted in a way that benefited the reader and cast her as a protector, rather than a victim, as in Mesopotamian myth.
Ishtar's relationship with the underworld also made her a valuable chthonic deity, especially when her other affinities for war, sexuality, and magic were considered.
It is lists of divine witnesses to treaties that seem to represent the Hittite pantheon most clearly,[20] although some well-attested gods are inexplicably missing.
