Tarḫunz

The name of the Proto-Anatolian weather god can be reconstructed as *Tṛḫu-ent- ("conquering"), a participle form of the Proto-Indo-European root *terh2, "to cross over, pass through, overcome".

[1][2] The same name was used in almost all Anatolian languages: Hittite Tarḫunna-; Carian Trquδ-; Milyan Trqqñt-, and Lycian: Trqqas (A), Trqqiz (B), who has been identified with Zeus.

In hieroglyphic Luwian, his name was written as Tarhunza- and Tarhunta- or with the ideograms (DEUS) TONITRUS ("God Thunder").

[6] The name Tarhunt- is also cognate to the present participle turvant-, also meaning "vanquishing, conquering", an epithet of Vedic deity Indra.

[12][13] In a 2022 paper, scholar Ignasi Xavier Adiego [es] postulates the existence of "four different Luwian (and Luwic) stems: Tarhu̯ant-/Tarhunt-, Tarhun-, Tarhu- and Tarhunza".

According to the ritual against horse-plague of Uḫḫamuwa in Arzawa, the horses of the weather god were fed and his chariot was oiled with sheep fat.

The weather god is also connected with mountains (cuneiform: ariyattališ dIM-anz; hieroglyphic: aritalasis Tarhunz; "Mountain-Tarhunz").

King Warpalawas II of Tuwana (2nd half of the 8th century BC) had an imposing rock relief with a depiction of this aspect of the god erected near a productive spring at İvriz.

This depiction recalls the Hittite Illuyanka and Hurrian Ḫedammu, a myth which is widespread in Proto-Indo-European religion and in the Near East.

The key locations of the myth also point in this direction: Mount Kasios in northwestern Syria and the area around Corycus in Rough Cilicia, where Luwian religion endured into the Roman period.

[23] In the first type of depiction, he is shown as a bearded god with a horned helmet, short skirt, and a sword hanging from his belt.

This depiction disappeared in the 7th century BC, but reappeared in Northern Syria at the beginning of the Roman Imperial period and was brought to central Europe as Jupiter Dolichenus, whose cult centre lay in Doliche, northwest of Carchemish.

The bronze triangle of Heddernheim [de], in particular, shows obvious similarities to the Luwian depiction of Tarhunz in Northern Syria.