he Power of Narrative 4d?PlWl- :*evb 1 - ., T he connectionmay not This is certainly not the correct ."411.710 , _ .O seem obvious, but written impression to give. The Hittites sources are an built no institution that integral approached .A * . m ^ part of the archaeological the functioning of a library.We can- record.In addition to being the not even be sure that the structures cornerstone of any hermeneutical in which tablets have been found process, they are an important tool were actually intended to be tablet in helping us understandthe mute houses, or archives, in the physical archaeologicalremains. Written sense of the word. Thus, in this ar- sources are critical in the study of ticle, the word archive is used to Hittite Anatolia not only because denote the collections of tablets that they provide straightforwardhistori- have been found throughout the cal accounts of the Hittites but also Hittite capital. Relatively few tablets because they illustrate the literary have been found in the provinces values and abstractthought pro- (compareOzguic 1978: 57-58). cesses that pervadedevery aspect of The tablets unearthedat Hattusa Hittite life. The study of Hittite were scattered in buildings through- literature illustrates that archae- out the site. In the LowerCity, tab- ology and philology are indeed lets were found in several rooms of complementary disciplines and that Temple 1, the great temple of the their relationship must be carefully Weather-God(Otten 1955: 72; Bittel cultivated if we are to unravel the 1970: 13-14; Naumann 1971:430; puzzles of the past. In the following Akurgal 1978:302). On the acropolis, pages I will discuss the underlying site of the greatfortress of Biyiikkale, elements of the Hittite literary tradi- tablets were found in three struc- tion and present several passages tures-Buildings A, E, and K (Bittel from various texts to show both the 1970: 84-85, 163).Many tablets were development of that tradition and also found in the so-called House on the power of its prose. the Slope (Schirmer1969: 20), per- haps the scribal school (Macqueen The Hittite Archives 1986: 116, note 71).More tablets are The obvious place to begin any dis- being unearthed in the Upper City cussion of Hittite literature is the (Otten 1984: 50, 1987: 21; Neve archives at the Hittite capital of Hat- 1985: 334, 344, 1987a: 405, 1987b: tusa near the modern-daydistrict 311), among them a sensational tab- town of Bogazkoy/Bogazkale (see let made of bronze that was found Akurgal 1978: 300-01). Although underneath the paving stones along- particularsystem of distribution. little has been written about the ar- side the inner city walls near Yerkapi (An overview of find spots according chives (Laroche1949; Otten 1955, (Neve 1987a:405; Otten 1988, 1989). to CTH numbers can be found in 1984, 1986), it is from these written We can say very little about Cornil 1987.) sources that we get our initial im- the physical structures in which We have determined how the pressions of the role literature played the Hittites kept and stored their tablets were organizedfrom the in the Hittite state. tablets. At Hattusa tablets were structures in which they were We must be cautious, however, found collected in temples, houses, housed as well as from the so-called when speaking of the Hittite ar- magazines, and perhaps special tab- shelf lists (Laroche1971: 154).It is chives. The word archive connotes let houses. Others were discovered presumed that these shelf lists were a building or structure and implies in widely scattered areas and dumps. placed as indices in front of the tab- the notion of a libraryor the like. There does not seem to have been a lets for quick reference. Some of the 130 Biblical Archaeologist, June/September 1989 * - in Hittite Literature by Ahmet Unal Tabletshave been found scattered throughout the Hittite capital of Hattusa, including the great temple of the Weather-God,shown here, located in the LowerCity. The entire complex, including the central courtyardand surroundingstorerooms, measures about 525 feet at its longest point. Visible in the rear of the photo, attached to the central courtyard, is an annex with ritual chamber (adyton). Photo by Ronald L. Gorny. addition to the land grants, Hurro- Hittite bilingual literary texts, rituals, letters, and divination texts have been found as well as the pre- viously mentioned bronze tablet that details the treaty between Hat- tusili IIIand his nephew, Kurunta, the vassal king of Tarhuntassa (Otten in Neve 1987a:405; Otten 1988, 1989). Hittite Scribes and the Pursuit of Writing It appearsthat writing was brought to Anatolia by the Old Assyrian merchants who established trading centers in important cities across the central plateau during the early part of the second millennium B.C.E. The Assyrians brought their own system of writing, called Old As- syrian script, the use of which is thought to have died out with the .~~~ .A'~~~ - C --i demise of the karum system around 1750 B.C.E. The Old Babylonian script, on which Hittite was based, structures, especially Buildings A zation of the city in the final phase is generally thought to have been and K in Biiyiikkale, had rooms with of the empire (Laroche1975: 57; first used somewhat later by Old parallel rows of stone pillars that Bittel 1970: 85). This may be illus- Babylonianscribes who are said to might have supportedwooden racks trated by the discovery of Old and have been brought t9 Hatti during or shelves for the tablets rather than Middle Hittite land grants dating to the campaigns of the first Hittite a second story (Neve 1982: 106, 108, the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries kings into northern Syria (Beckman and plans 41, 45). At one time the B.C.E. in the newly excavatedtemples 1983: 100, note 17). tablets may have resided in a few in the Upper City (Otten 1987), It has always been thought that specially established tablet houses, which date to the thirteenth the use of these two scripts was but it is possible that some tablets century B.C.E. mutually exclusive because they were moved to secondary locations Other types of tablets have also pertained to different eras that were during the rebuilding and reorgani- been found in the Upper City. In several hundred years apart. Such a Biblical Archaeologist, June/September1989 131 Most of the best-preservedclay tablets in the Hittite archives were found in this structure, Building A in Byuiikkale, the fortresslocated southeast of the great temple at Hattusa. About 105 feet long, Building A consisted of four storeroomsand a long lateral corridor.Pictured in the storeroomsare the remaining rectangularlimestone bases that once supportedparallel rows of pillars, which might have supportedwooden racks or shelves for the tablets rather than a second story of the building. Stone bases were not found in the long, outer room to the east of the storerooms.Courtesy of PeterNeve and the GermanArchaeological Institute. bullae from Acemhoyuk suggest 1 I II (N. Ozgufc1986: 48), non-Assyrian scribes could have been plying their trade in the central Anatolian High- lands long before the alleged impor- tation of the Old Babylonianscript during the reign of Hattusili I. This would suggest that the origins of Hittite literature could go somewhat fartherback than originally thought, possibly pulling the date of Anitta's reign closer to the supposed origins of Hittite history. This theory remains vague, however,and still offers no clue as to Anitta's ethnic origin. Contacts between central Ana- tolia and northern Syria are known to have alreadytaken place in the last half of the third millennium B.C.E.(T. Ozgui 1986:31). The city of Kanes was probablya principal partner in this trade, so it is not un- reasonable to think that the cradle of Anatolian literary development could be found there. The fact that the language of the Hittites is called nesumnili-"in the language of Nesa"- lends credibility to this sug- gestion. Could it be that the Hittites were alreadydeveloping the rudi- ments of a written language during the period of the Assyrian mer- chants? There is no evidence to sub- stantiate this suggestion at present, but excavations in the non-Assyrian scenario would leave a literary gap The Anitta Text (CTH 1),one parts of Kultepe may eventually bear of between one and two centuries of the oldest Hittite texts, may be the it out. in central Anatolia. In the view of translation of a text originally writ- The heyday of the Babylonian Hans Guterbock (1983a:24-25), it is ten in Old Assyrian, then the only scribes in Anatolia seems not to have possible that the princes of the early literary language in central Anatolia. occurreduntil after the period of the city-statesemployed Assyrian-trained Some scholars suggest, however,that Assyrian trade settlements, however. scribes to document their dealings the piece displays none of the quali- There is well-documented evidence with the Assyrian merchants and ties generally found in a translation for such a presence in the late four- Babylonian-or Syrian-trainedscribes (Neu 1974: 132; see overview in teenth and the thirteenth centuries for documents written in Hittite. Unal 1983b)and that it may have B.C.E.,but the traditionprobably dates Examples to support this idea, how- been originally written in Hittite by even earlier since a Babylonianscri- ever, have not turned up in any Anitta's Babylonian-trainedscribes bal school had apparentlybeen es- excavation. (Guiterbock1983a: 24-25). As the tablished at Hattusa by the late fif- 132 Biblical Archaeologist, June/September1989 The heyday of the Babylonian scribes seems to have occurred after the Assyrian settlements. Tabletsmay have once resided in specially established tablet houses, but it is possible that was practiced by the Hittites is the some might have been moved to secondary locations during the rebuilding and reorganization so-calledLuwian hieroglyphs.