Anadolu / Anatolia 44, 2018 A. Gilan IN SEARCH OF A DISTANT PAST: FORMS OF HISTORICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN HITTITE ANATOLIA1 Amir GILAN* Keywords: Hittites • Forms of Historical Consciousness • Anatolia Abstract: The Hittites of the Old Hittite kingdom could only look back on a relatively short past. With time, however, the kingdom ‘without a past’ could finally look back and relate to a distant past of its own. The following paper will survey some of ways the Hittites came into contact, imagined, and represented their distant past. Hittite historiography, one of the most elaborate and highly developed traditions of its kind in the ancient Near East, was mainly concerned with contemporary history and only marginally engaged with the distant past. The more distant past was the subject of literature rather than of historiography. Both in the form of translated Mesopotamian literature or in local compositions. But it was in ritual action, as documented in the ‘Offering Lists’, that long sequences of past names were preserved and performed, constituting a historical scaffold spanning from the earliest phases of the Old Kingdom to the Empire period. The Old Hittite Kingdom began as a ‘Kingdom without a past’, but with time, the Hittites began to relate and to utilize a distant, sometimes even glorious past of, of their own. UZAK BİR GEÇMİŞİN ARAŞTIRILMASI: HİTİT ANADOLU’SUNDA TARİHSEL BİLİNCİN BİÇİMLERİ Anahtar Kelimeler: Hititler • Tarihsel Bilincin Biçimleri • Anadolu Özet: Eski Hitit krallığının Hititleri, göreceli yakın bir geçmişi hatırlayabiliyorlardı. Ancak zamanla, “geçmişi olmayan” krallık geriye bakıp kendine ait uzun bir geçmişi hikaye etmeye başladı. Bu makale, Hititlerin kendi geçmişleriyle kurdukları bağları ve gözlerinde canlandırdıkları uzak geçmişlerini nasıl ele alıp tasvir ettikleri hakkında çeşitli örnekler sunmaktadır. Yakın Doğu’nun en teferruatlı ve gelişmiş geleneklerinden biri olan Hitit tarih yazıcılığı, genellikle hep çağdaş tarihi olaylar üzerine yoğunlaşmış olup uzak geçmişe ait konular çok ender durumlarda ele alınmıştır. Uzak geçmiş, tarih yazıcılığından çok edebi eserlerin konusu olmuştur. Bu konu hem Mezopotamya edebi eserlerinin çevirisinde, hem de yerel kompozisyonlarda ele alınmıştır. Ancak, “Adak Listelerinde” kayıt altına alınan dini merasimlerde, geçmişe ait uzun seriler halinde saklanan ve ortaya konan isimler, Eski Hitit döneminden İmparatorluk dönemine kadar uzanan bir tarihi alt yapının varlığını sağlamaktadır. Eski Hitit Krallığı, “Geçmişi olmayan Krallık” olarak başlamış, ancak zaman içerisinde Hititler, kendilerinden daha da görkemli bir şekilde anlattıkları uzak geçmişleriyle kendilerini ilişkilendirmişlerdir. * Dr. Amir Gilan, Tel Aviv University, e-posta: [email protected]. Gönderilme tarihi: 21.07.2018; Kabul edilme tarihi: 09.10.2018 1 The present contribution is a revised version of a lecture given at Ankara University in April 2018. I would like to thank the University of Ankara for the kind and warm invitation as well as the editors of Anadolu for their kind invitation to contribute to this volume. A longer and more comprehensive overview of Hittite Historiography will appear in Y. Chen ve diğ. (ed.), Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World, Sheffield: Equinox. Both contributions were supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 440/16, ‘The Hittites and Their Past – Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia’). Abbreviations follow the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. 1 In Search of a Distant Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia Written in the first quarter of the fif- ranged as part of the royal ancestor cult6. teenth century BC, the historical intro- In reality the list of names contains not duction to the Telipinu-Text ascribes the only names of kings, but also of queens beginning of the Hittite Old Kingdom to and princes7. Nevertheless, it establishes a king Labarna (I), who ruled only little a long, continuous dynastic history, more than a century before Telipinu him- spanning from the very dawn of Hittite self2. Other Hittite sources demonstrate history in the 17th Century BC to the that Hittite scholars were familiar with a 13th Century BC, when that particular king or two who ruled before Labarna edition of the autumn ‘Festival of Haste’ (I), but hardly anything else seems to text was compiled. The following paper have been known about them3. This rela- will survey some of ways the Hittites tive ignorance of the past may be partially came into contact, imagined, and repre- explained by the modest scope of cunei- sented their distant past. form writing in the earliest phases of the 4 1. The historical introduction of the Old Kingdom , but the overall historical Telipinu-Text, written in the first quarter picture remains. The Hittites of the Old of the 15 Century BC, is the only Hittite Hittite kingdom could only look back on narrative preserved so far depicting the a relatively short past. The notion of a very beginning of the Old Hittite king- kingdom with almost no past is strength- dom. The main fragments of the Text ened by the almost complete silence of were already published by Emil Forrer Hittite texts of all sorts concerning the 5 (1926), who immediately recognized the origins of the Hittites themselves . immense historical significance of the Two centuries later, in the 14th Cen- prologue for the reconstruction of the tury BCE and onwards, in the so-called history of the Hittite kingdom – especial- Empire Period, Hittite kings could finally ly for the reconstruction of the sequence look back and relate to an ancient history of kings and the events following of their own. In a ceremony that was Muršili’s assassination, a period which is conducted on the thirty-second day of otherwise poorly attested. Early scholar- the nuntarriyašha-Festival (‘Festival of ship was usually well aware of the ten- Haste’), the great Empire-Period autumn dentious nature of the historical narrative festival, wickerwork tables representing introducing the Telipinu-Text, as did the forty-four deceased ‘Kings’ were ar- bulk of commentators on the text that 8 followed . The text begins with a formu- 2 Edited by Hoffmann 1984. The most recent English laic depiction of the beginning of the Old translation is provided by Goedegebuure 2006a, Hittite kingdom: 228-235. See Gilan 2015, 137178. 3 Surenhagen̈ 1998; Beal 2003; Forlanini 2010; Gilan 2014. 4 The beginning of cuneiform writing in Hattuša has 6 Nakamura 2002, 137; Archi 2007, 51-52. been the subject of controversy in recent scholars- 7 KUB 11.8 + KUB 11.9, edited by Otten 1951, 67- hip. See Popko 2007; van den Hout 2009; Archi 89; Nakamura 2002, 268-275. 2010; Weeden 2011, 57-80; Gilan 2015, 11-20. 8 Archi 2003, 1-2. For the tendentious nature of the 5 One possible exception, the Zalpa-Text, will be text see especially Hoffner 1975 and Liverani 1977. presented below. See Gilan 2015, 137-177. 2 Anadolu / Anatolia 44, 2018 A. Gilan §1-4 [In] the past, Labarna was portees (and) its goods [in] Hat- Great King. His [son]s, his [brother]s, tu[ša]10. and also his in-laws, his kin and his The story goes on to depict Muršili’s troops were united. assassination. Muršili I was murdered by The country was small but wher- Hantili (I), who was married to Muršili’s ever he went on campaign, he held sister – hence the importance allocated to the enemy lands subdued by force. the loyalty of in-laws in the prologue – He destroyed the lands one by and by Zidanta, Hantili’s son-in-law. The one, he made the lands powerless, narrative continues to portray a history of and he made them the borders of the failure, conspiracy, usurpation and mur- sea. And each time he returned from der within the Hittite royal family that campaign, each of his sons went characterized the reigns of Hantili, Zi- somewhere to a country. danta, Ammuna, and Huzziya. The mis- fortunes of these reigns were caused by To Hupišna, to Tuwanuwa, to the punishment of the gods for the ‘orig- Nenašša, to Lānda, to Zallara, to inal sin’ of the Old Hittite Kingdom – Paršuhanta, to Lušna. They governed the murder of Muršili by Hantili and Zi- each a country and the great cities danta. The strife within the royal family were (well) supplied9. continued well into Telipinu’s own reign, The narrative continues with an al- causing the death of his wife Ištapariya most identical, formulaic description of and his son Amunna, finally inducing the reigns of Hattušili (I) and Muršili (I). Telipinu to act by summoning the as- However, during the reign of the Hat- sembly in Hattuša and issuing a series of tušili, the peace and the prosperity of the reforms, most notably regulating the suc- kingdom were damaged by the corrup- cession to the Hittite throne (section 28). tion of certain ‘subjects of the princes’ The purpose of the historical introduc- (§7 21–23). Muršili’s achievements, mark- tion is laid out several paragraphs later: ing the culmination of the Old Hittite §30 Furthermore, whoever becomes Kingdom, are tersely narrated in section king and seeks evil against (his) nine: brother and sister, now you are his §9-10 [And] he (Muršili) went to council, and you must speak freely to Aleppo. He destroyed Aleppo and him: ‘This is a matter of blood. Read brought Aleppo’s deportees (and) its the tablet! Formerly bloodshed in goods to Hattuša. Afterwards, he Hattuša was excessive, and the gods 11 went to Babylon, and destroyed took it out on the royal family’ . Babylon. He also struck the Hurrian [troops]. He presented Babylon’s de- 10 KBo 3.1 ++ i 27’-30’, Hoffman 1984, 18–19; Goe- degebuure 2006b, 230; Gilan 2015, 141. 9 KBo 3.67 ++ i 2-12, Hoffman 1984, 12-13; Goede- 11 KBo 3.1 ++ ii 46-49, Hoffman 1984, 34–35; Goe- gebuure 2006b, 229-230; Gilan 2015, 138-139.