UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Hittite Queenship: Women
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Hittite Queenship: Women and Power in Late Bronze Age Anatolia A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures by Michael Moore 2018 © Copyright by Michael Moore 2018 !i ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Hittite Queenship: Women and Power in Late Bronze Age Anatolia by Michael Moore Doctor of Philosophy in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Elizabeth F. Carter, Chair Though scholars have long acknowledged the unusual prominence of royal women in the Late Bronze Age, few studies have examined the relationship between women and power. What were the sources of a royal woman’s power, and how did they differ from those of men? To what extent could a queen exercise control over members of the royal court? What techniques of resistance did royal women adopt to contest the will of the king, and to what extent were those tactics successful? This dissertation seeks to answer these questions. Turning first to the religious sphere, I demonstrate that festivals and religious ceremonies were arenas in which the king and queen displayed royal power and in which the social hierarchies of the Hittite court were created and reinforced. Turning next to conflicts within the royal household, one sees that royal women utilized a variety of tools to resist the will of the king. The power of the king should not be viewed as unidirectional; rather, any attempt of the king to exercise power over members of his family was frequently met with resistance in the form of violence or witchcraft. Though an examination of the life of Pudu"epa, I examine the sources of a queen’s power and how a queen was able to parlay power in some arenas, such as her responsibility for raising children, into political power. Finally, I broach the topic of shifting notions of queenship from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age by studying depictions of royal women in Anatolian monuments. !ii The dissertation of Michael Moore is approved. Kathlyn M. Cooney Gary M. Beckman H. Craig Melchert Elizabeth F. Carter, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 !iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 1 Introduction Chapter 2 11 Pomp and Power: Religious activity as royal legitimization Chapter 3 54 The Power of Poisonous Words: royal women, conflict, and resistance Chapter 4 87 Pudu"epa: a case study from the 13th century BCE Chapter 5 138 Royal women and iconography: From Hittite to Neo-Hittite royal ideology Conclusion 156 Bibliography 179 !iv VITA/BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH EDUCATION 2018 Ph.D. Near Eastern Languages & Cultures (expected) University of California, Los Angeles 2015 C.Phil. Near Eastern Languages & Cultures University of California, Los Angeles 2013 M.A. Near Eastern Languages & Cultures University of California, Los Angeles 2011 M.A. History University of Memphis 2009 B.A. Classics Duke University PAPERS DELIVERED “Festivals and social hierarchies in Hittite Anatolia.” Oxford Postgraduate Conference in Assyriology. April 21, 2017. “Puduhepa, power, and politics in the Hittite royal court.” Annual Meeting of the American Oriental Society. March 19, 2017. “Neo-Hittite to Neo-Assyrian: The sacred precinct at Tell Tayinat in the Iron II/III transition.” Graduate Conference on Religion, UCLA. May 11, 2016. “The production, use, and distribution of honey at Deir el-Medina.” Annual Meeting of the American Research Center in Egypt. April 24-26, 2015. “Tracking the Hittite annexation of Kizzuwatna.” Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Graduate Research Conference, UCLA. January 31, 2015. “The Hittite MUNUS #U.GI and Egyptian tA rxt: the function of ‘wise women’ in the Late Bronze Age.” Graduate Conference on Religion, UCLA. May 30, 2014. !v EXCAVATION EXPERIENCE 2015 Tayinat Archaeological Project (Turkey) Square supervisor 2013 Lycoming College Expedition to Idalion (Cyprus) 2012 Tayinat Archaeological Project (Turkey) Square supervisor 2007 Athienou Archaeological Project (Cyprus) TEACHING EXPERIENCE Instructor Ancient Egyptian Art I Summer 2017 Ancient Egyptian Religion Summer 2016 Teaching Assistant Ancient Egyptian Civilization I Fall 2014 Ancient Egyptian Civilization II Winter 2013, Winter 2015, Winter 2016 Ancient Egyptian Religion Spring 2014 Cinema and the Ancient World Winter 2014 Classical Mythology Fall 2013 Jerusalem: the Holy City Fall 2011, Winter 2012, Spring 2012, Fall 2012, Spring 2013 US History to 1877 Fall 2010, Spring 2011 US History since 1877 Fall 2009, Spring 2010 Visible Language: Study of Writing Spring 2015, Spring 2016 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND FELLOWSHIPS 2017-18 Dissertation Year Fellowship, UCLA 2016-17 Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN) Fellowship for Middle Eastern studies 2015 Summer dissertation research grant, Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, UCLA 2014 Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA 2013 Graduate Summer Research Mentorship, UCLA 2011 Steinmetz Travel Fund grant, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA !vi !vii ABBREVIATIONS CTH Catalogue des textes hittites KBo Keilschrifttexte aus Boghazköi KUB Keilschrifturkunden aus Boghazköi !viii Chapter 1 A Prolegomenon on Women and Power Studies of women in the ancient Near East Beginning with the 1902 publication of Victor Marx’s dissertation on Babylonian women from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to Darius I, Assyriologists produced sporadic studies of women in ancient Mesopotamia.1 For ancient historians familiar with the limited legal and economic rights of women in classical Athens, the legal rights of women in Mesopotamia seemed remarkable. Women were, generally speaking, quite as independent in Babylonia as in Egypt: they could own property, whether in houses or slaves, and could personally plead in the courts. Also, we find there a remarkable class of honoured women, votaresses who in some ways resembled the Roman Vestals and possessed unusual rights and privileges.2 Men and women in ancient Near Eastern societies never had equal legal standing, however, nor did women did have full control over their persons. Male heads of households could have their wives executed for offenses or slights. The Middle Assyrian Laws dictate that a woman who aborts her fetus should be impaled. A ¶53 If a woman aborts her fetus by her own action and they then prove the charges against her and find her guilty, they shall impale her, they shall not bury her. If she dies as a result of aborting her fetus, they shall impale her, they shall not bury her.3 In the Old Babylonian period, men were able to sell their wives into slavery in order to pay their debts. In a letter from Mari, the official Yaqqim-Addu wrote to the king about Ili-šakim, a supervisor of irrigation works who owed the king five minas of silver. Ili-šakim had dared send 1 Victor Marx, “Die Stellung der Frauen in Babylonien gemäss den Kontrakten aus der Zeit von Nebukadnezar bis Darius (604-485),” Beiträge zur Assyriologie und Semitischen Sprachwissenschaft 4 (1902): 1-77. 2 H.R. Hall, The Ancient History of the Near East from the Earliest Times to the Battle of Salamis (New York: Macmillan, 1913), 205. 3 Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1997), 174. !1 the king only two minas in payment and begged him to set the matter to rest. The king refused to accept any amount other than full payment, however, and sent Yaqqim-Addu to acquire the silver. In his report to the king, Yaqqim-Addu writes that Ili-šakim proposed selling his wife into slavery to pay for his debt. ARM 14 17 16-36 Having arrived at Saggarātum, according to the instructions my lord had given me, I confronted Ili-šakim with these words: “I spoke in your favor in the presence of my lord, and he gave me the following instructions: ‘Get him to pay 5 minas in exchange for his debt and free him!’ Now pay 5 silver minas if you want me to release you.” That's what I said to Ili-šakim. He gave me the following answer: “So take my house and my property to the palace!” I said, “Your house is worth (only) 1 silver mina.” He replied: “I want to sell my wife, a male slave, and a female slave, who belonged to me, in order to obtain two minas. Now here is my property: 7 cattle, which are worth 1 mina; 30 male sheep at 1 piece each and 60 ewes at 1/2 each, total 90 sheep, 1 silver mina. 2 silver minas of pure metal and the value of 2 silver minas, 7 oxen and 90 sheep, this makes a total of 4 minas, one in the other.” Despite the early interest in women exemplified by Marx’s study, however, Assyriological publications on the topic of women were relatively rare for much of the twentieth century. Ancient Near Eastern historians were drawn to the kings, priests, and merchants ubiquitous in the cuneiform documents excavated in the remains of cities such as Ur, Nippur, Laga", and Nineveh. Although monographs on kingship and royal ideology appeared, such as Henri Frankfort’s seminal Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature (1948) and Myth, Ritual, and Kingship: Essays on the Theory and Practice of Kingship in the Ancient Near East and in Israel edited by S.H. Hooke (1958), little attention was paid to the political, economic, and cultic activities of royal women or to the significance of the royal court and the extended royal family as the interface between the king and his subjects. !2 Assyriology began incorporating feminist theories and approaches in the 1970s. The first wave of feminist scholarship focused on finding and identifying women in the historical record, a response to the works of military and political history that focused on the activities of men.