Anatolian Seals and Deities of Kültepe

Arnhem (nl) 2015 – 5 Anatolia in the bronze age. © Joost Blasweiler student Leiden University - [email protected]

Anatolian seals and deities of Kültepe

Part 4 of the royal clan of Kanesh and the power of the cult

1. The Anatolian seals of Kültepe. Many books and articles are written about the seals found in Cappadocia, in particular the seals from Kültepe and Acem Höyük. Most of them try to get some grip on the hundreds of seals to classify them in styles: Old Assyrian(OA1), Old Babylon, Old Syrian, Anatolian, and in mixed styles, like Assyro-Cappadocian (OA2) and in sub-styles.

However a splendid array of sequels from the seals reveal in the first place sacral events and symbols in which deities, daemons, (sacral) animals, humans, trees and vegetation, spirits, sacral attributes are acting on this cylinder and stamp seals. I think that the owner or the users of the seals saw the narratives and the sacral meaning of the pictures. And apparently he accepted the narrative of the seal, that sacral meaning to use it in his business or in official acts and documents. The people of Kanesh worshipped their deities, probably one more intensively, than the other. I will not exclude that the seal users where much concerned by their business or administration: to gain profit, to get more power or that they feared the loss of their silver, their goods or their position. But these motivations and feelings occurred in their awareness, that they were depended of the acts and powers of their deities or the deities of the land in which they were founding themselves. They feared the daemons and the danger by deemed locations or by impure acts, but supposedly not all in so intensively or in the same way. An Old Assyrian incantation1 to the danger of the evil eye, found in Kültepe, may indicate the urgency to have a good relation with the Gods: “Oh, eye, eye! aluštu eye! Truly – malicious birru-disease!, Truly- carried away sleep! Trembling ! She dispersed the ingathered fire place of the man’s house. She brought about the ruin of the noisy household. She has seized. She has seized the cow from the shed. She has seized the sheep from the watering place. She has seized the young man form prayer. She has seized the maiden in dance. She has seized the child from the nurse’s embrace. You are the veil eye! The incantation is not mine, it is the incantation of Ea, lord of incantations. You are cursed by Anum and Antum, Lahmum and Dūrum, the Underworld, and those who lie in it, that you shall not return, and that you shall not seize her!”.

The seals of Kanesh contain much information about the beliefs of inhabitants and merchants of Kanesh in the supernatural forces. But it appears very difficult to recognize these scenes.

1 Gojko Barjamovic- Mogens Trolle Larsen 2008, An Old Assyrian Incantation against the Evil Eyfe, AoF 35-I, 147.

The few scholars who tried to explain the meaning of the seals were often criticized by scholars, who argued that these explanations would have been too simple or can be doubted.

One can see much observations about seals, which are very useful to know how they were made, by whom and when they were used etc. The research phase of the seals of Cappadocia is that one knows much how they are made, from which materials and in which time period. And it is often known by whom and why, however at the same moment it is very hard to explain what is told in the seal pictures. Seals printed in texts of tablets are sometimes ignored and often they are not described in the transliterations and translations. The narratives and meaning of the pictures of the seals can often not been explained. Nevertheless in an almost illiterate society seals are important and have not to be underestimated in the communication of the ancient communities. According to Tom van Bakel, who examines usually Mesopotamian seals, the narrative on cylinder seals image mostly sacral actions in a sequence. So he proposes to examine the cylinder imprint not as a static picture, but as a pictured narrative. He stated that the seals pictures say much about the constellations of stars and the seasons, the birth of goddess children, sacral marriages, the time that the king got his rule from his sacral father etc. He suggests to look more the texts of Sumer and Babylon, in which for example to sit on the throne not only means to rule, but also has a meaning of fate2:“When Mother Nintur (lady birth) sat upon the throne-dais on the holy seat of joy, the seat from which she has made everything numerous, it was then that the highest divine powers, which are golden, the glory of the numerous people -- the en priesthood and the kingship -- were created for Enlil. When Nintur, Mother Nintur, sat upon the throne-dais on the seat of joy, the seat from which she has made everything numerous, it was then that the highest divine powers, which are golden, the glory of the numerous people -- the en priesthood and the kingship -- were created for Enlil.” The studies to the ancient Mesopotamian cosmology are probably very important to understand the narratives of the seals3. When it is of significance in the translation or in the explanation of cuneiform texts, I think it will be important in the (cylinder)seals, too.

2 Title poem: A tigi to Nintur (Nintur A): c.4.26.1 Published: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature.

3 For instance Francesca Rochberg described in 2010 the God-talk and Star-talk in cuneiform (Gazing on the Deep,190-191). She stated: “The relation between divine and the celestial, the gods and the stars, is one that seems to manifest itself in a variety of ways

Professor Klaas Veenhof described in 2008 the straitened situation of the research of the seals of Kültepe in his book Mesopotamia (OBO160/5-114) :”the seal impressions have to be studied in combination with the texts form the same archives, which will allow more identification. There are valuable publications and descriptions of large numbers of seals, but most of the inscribed envelopes on which they figure unfortunately are still unopened and unpublished, so that the owners of many seals remain unknown and in many cases we cannot date the seal impressions more accurately or connect the quality and iconography of a seal with the status and the role played by the person who owned it4”. Texts from Kanesh are not only a rich source of seal impressions, they contained a lot of data on seals and their use, and they informed us on the stones they were made of, how they were inherited and transferred. Seals were valuable and a seal in wrong hands was dangerous.

The dissertation of Agnete Wisti Lassen (Glyptic Encounters 2012) gives much information about the seals of Kültepe and in particular the Anatolian styled seals. Some texts5 show that seals could indeed been used for acknowledgment in legal contexts: “Anupiya said: “Does the tablet not bear your seals ? “Galgaliya answered: “They are my sealings” .

in cuneiform texts”. A connection between the heavens an divine has been continuous in the history of the Mesopotamian gods. Inanna, for example, seems to have had an astral aspect going back to Uruk IV cult offerings to the morning star (Inanna of the morning) and the evening star (Inanna of the evening. The divine name itself is furthermore etymologically suggestive of a astral deity ‘Lady of Heaven’ as is her temple é-an-na House of Heaven “. Despite the close association of the divine with heaven, the relationship seems to be one between certain deities and the heavenly region rather than a notion of a cosmic divine unity. Instead of a notion of heaven itself as divine, the evidence attest rather to an association or even identification of heavenly bodies with gods. Perhaps polytheism itself forestalled a unified view of ‘cosmos’ in favor of cosmic regions that were drafted into mythological stories. An early Dynastic mythological texts personifies heaven as ‘a youthful man’, a primordial divinity in existence before any other god but already with earth (or perhaps ‘underworld’). The personification of heaven and earth/underworld occurs in other compositions such as Lugale, which indentifies the parentage of the demon Azag as divine sky and earth/underworld themselves, i.e. An and Ki. The sky god had his own ancestry, given in the Enūma Eliš. The divine pair AN.ŠAR ‘totality of heaven’ and KI.ŠÁR ’totality of earth/underworld’ are the third pair produce in the divine genealogy, and the parents of the divine skygod Anu. It is perhaps worthy of mention that the meaning of ŠÁR as totality comes not from the idea of oneness but if many and, therefore, connotes a unity comprised of plurality, i.e. ’all things’ or ‘everything’. “The divine name Aššur is written with the logograms for a divinity whose identity is cosmic and heavenly, but who belongs to a cosmic pair that belongs to a cosmic disunity, above and below. Aššur was said to be one of the who dwells in the clear starry heavens, not that he was the starry heavens”. 4 Beatrice Teisier, Sealing and seal on texts from Kültepe Karum Level II 1994, 6 : “Kültepe continues to offer an unparalleled opportunity recording the storage and filling systems of a merchant community, but what is sadly lacking, or is simply unpublished, is precise data on what kind tablets were found in what locus and batch. Labels are mentioned as having been found beside tablets (Ozguz 1986a:14) but they are not illustrated nor do we know what they labeled. To my knowledge the jars in which some tablets were stored were not inscribed. 5 Dissertation Agnete Wisti Lassen Glyptic Encounters 2012,14. And a statement by Agnete Wisti Lassen about Seal Collecting and Recarving in the Old Assyrian period (an article from her on academia.edu 2013) : "The cylinder seal was a personal object in ancient Mesopotamia, and on a legal/bureaucratic level - but also on a symbolic level - closely associated with the persona of the seal owner. In some contexts, the seal imagery was even used to reflect the seal owner’s status, gender or institutional affiliation.

She showed by some other texts that seals could given to another person by the original seal owner to do some business for him and that they sometimes were obliged to re-seal the bundle of good or gold, if this was found necessary by officials. Lassen stated that men were told to re-seal it with their own seals, and to write the author’s name next to the seal impression. This means that the name written in the sealing would not correspond to the seal impressions it accompanies.

We already knew (Albrecht Goetze 1957, Kulturgeschichte Kleinasiens, 70) the phenomenon that some very old seals of the UR III time period in Kanesh were reused. Presumably as a family tradition or that the old seal gave the new owner a great prestige. She pointed also to a Middle Assyrian letter in which the merchant ordered to open the warehouse and the lean-out to taken some goods out of it. And he commended “Seal them with your seals and send them to me. Reseal all the chests and warehouses with my seals cylinders and send them back to me under your own seals”. So like today business can be get much complicated and it can get (almost) impossible afterwards to establish which seal owner belongs to which product or event.

Lassen stated (2012:41) that the Anatolian tradition for cutting seals is very old, stretching back at least to the sixth millennium BC. At Kültepe cylinder seals are most common in the lower town level II phase. Practically the entire glyptic corpus is known through impressions on cuneiform documents. And she remarked stamp seals are present throughout the material, and there is nothing to suggest that cylinder seals at some point displaced the more traditional type of seal. When employed in Old Assyrian cuneiform documents, the use of stamp seals seems to be confined to Anatolians (2102:42). The imagery of the level II stamp seals follows the veins of earlier tradition, and show simple geometric patterns and the occasional animals.

However, seals were also commonly reused, with all or parts of the original carving left intact. In these cases, the imagery was to some degree decided by somebody else than the present owner, and the correspondence between the seal owner’s identity and the glyptic imagery (and sometimes even legend) was less than ideal. The three cases emphasize the importance of not only age, but especially the pedigree of the seals for their new owners, even at the expense of providing correct and legible information about the seal user. This suggests that a principle of ‘honor by association’ was in play, i.e. that the prestige of the previous owner would reflect on the new owner in his use of the seal. An ideal correspondence between seal owner and imagery and legend is less common than often assumed. Antique seals were collected, reused and enhanced to convey particular messages in a new context, which suggests that the primary function of seal imagery and legends was not always identification."

However, also more complex designs are found, like the two-headed eagle and or an encircling guilloche. Other designs include masks, the so called animal whorls and animal scenes. Very important are her observations that cylinder seals with an Anatolians style could be owned and used also by non-Anatolians, like Assyrian merchants. She stated that in case of the Assyrian merchants during the OA period glyptic style was clearly not used as ethnic indicator (2012:254). There is no doubt that practical circumstances resulted in a loose correspondence between some localized sub- styles and population groups e.g. that only ethnic Assyrians owned seal of the Assyrians style (OA1 style). She did not suggest that the seal digging was completely random : “Rather, like all visual culture, it would rely on tradition and cultural convention for providing a range of choices for the seal cutter and the prospective owner”. (2014:55)“the occurrence of seals with complete imagery and a blank space where the legend would be located suggest that the imagery could beforehand by the artisan, and the personal legend added when the seal was purchased. On the other hand the high frequency of re-cutting suggest that the seal owners changed details of the imagery to personalize their seal and alter it to fit their taste. This is often seen when a seal moves from one to another to the next, and it seems that that a very high percentage of the seal were reused”.” Finally the Cappadocian seal styles and sub-styles as a whole may be viewed as an expression of the multi- cultural and highly mobile context which they were part of. Not only are almost all imaginable styles represented in the corpus, but also the imagery seems to flow freely between them in the Level II period. Whether these iconographic entanglements operated on a visual level only, or whether the period also saw the sharing of religious and mythological elements between the cultures , is unclear”.

“There may have been moments of ambiguity in the cross-cultural transfer of visual culture – for example was the bull altar conceived as the bull deity in the eyes of an Anatolian beholder, but as a

6 manifestation of the god Aššur for the Assyrians – but in general, the written records suggest that deeper cultural exchanges took place in the encounter. The Anatolian deities appear to have been incorporated into the Assyrian onomasticon, and invoked alongside Aššur in oaths” (2012- 255).

An example of the cooperation of the believes in Kanesh can been seen in my opinion in an OA document in which an river ordeal is mentioned6. An Assyrian, Salim Aššur and an Anatolian, Ašuwan have appealed to the king of Kanesh and his chief officer, who have down a verdict. To avoid the river ordeal the two men submitted their case to a group of ‘colleagues’, the two men swore an oath to Anna and Assur, by the king and by his chief office, and finally, by the men who had mediated the agreement. If this accord should be violated, it would then constitute an “evil’ to the gods, the king and his officer. Nine high ranking men have witnessed this agreement, four Anatolians and four Assyrians as well as Asuwan(zi), the Anatolian litigant. So we see a close cooperation of the highest royal officials, with important Assyrian and Anatolian merchants, but also a close “cooperation” of the Goddess Anna and the God Assur. Not only Anatolians swore to Assur, also Assyrians swore to the Goddess Anna of Kanesh. The pictures of the tablet show 8 cylinder seal imprints, 4 has an important place, almost dominate positions, and 4 are placed on the edges. It is a pity that the narrative in this seals cannot explained yet. I think especially the large cylinder seals will have had a clear meaning on the tablet ! They occupy almost 50 % of the front and back side of the tablet.

Cécile Michel7 stated that Assyrians could use cylinder seals of an Anatolian style, Anatolians could use seals of an Old Assyrian styles. A (cylinder) seal had the function as a personal signature or mark.

Not everybody was fearful and respectful to the Gods, for instance the karum of Ursa wrote to the karum of Kanesh :”What was never happen before, thieves have broken into the temple and have stolen the Sword of Aššsur and the golden Sun, which was lying on the breast of Aššur” 8.

6 Mogens Trolle Larsen, Going to the River, oi.uchicago.edu. 7 Cécile Michel 2014, Considerations on the Assyrian Settlement in Kanesh, JCS supplemental series no. 4, 77. 8 G. Kryszat 1995, Ilu-šuma und der Got aus dem Brunnen, AOAT 240, 204.

In the discussion about the “ethnic styles” of the seals, found in Kültepe, Lassen stated : “It stands to argue that both Anatolian seals and their Syrian counterparts portray the same mythological scene involving the Storm God, a snake and a female figure. In fact, a number of mythological figures recur in both Anatolian and Syrian versions, where they are characterized by identical attributes and actions. Therefore, instead of arguing for a specific ethnic origin for such motifs, we may suppose that there existed a shared corpus of mythological ideas, which in turn led to the sharing of a select iconography in the Syro-Anatolian horizon”.

I think this approach gives possibilities to develop the explanations of the stamp and cylinder seals. More over the worshipping of stormgods, sacral snakes, sacral women can differing between areas in Central Anatolia or in North Syria it selves. And the worshiping and imagination of the deities were changing during the time periods of the research area.

Lassen stated recently that the production of cylinder seas in Anatolia was undoubtedly caused by the presence of the Assyrian merchants 9. A tradition of stamp seals was in existence before the Assyrians entered the area. An Anatolian workshop in Kanesh manufactured high-quality seals directed at two consumer groups, Assyrians and Anatolians. Both groups have owned and used seals of different styles. However Assyrians preferred the Mesopotamian tradition and Anatolians owned mostly seals that show both ritual/mythological and frieze-like animal scenes of local origin.

Although there are certainly important differences in culture of for instance Yamkad and Mari in North Syria and the land of Kanesh, we do not know how intensive the influences was between these regions through the millennia. How significant are the similarities or parallels between the beliefs and deities of these regions 10 ? One can think to the goddess Anna, and Piotr Taracha mentioned also Nisaba (i.e. Halki) and Kubaba.

9 Mogens Trolle Larsen and Agnete Wisti Lassen 2014, Cultural Exchange at Kültepe, Extraction & Control, 186. 10 Taracha 2009, Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia,28: “The following divinities are mentioned in texts from Level II, thus providing confirmation of their worship in this period: a solar deity concealed under the ideogram DUTU, most probably the Sun-god Tiwad, Anna, Nipas, Higisa, Nisaba, Harihari, Ilali, Kubabat, Parka, Per(u)wa, Tuhtuhani. While there is no influence of the northern Hattian in this pantheon, it apparently reveals ties with southern Anatolia and even northern Syria (Nisaba, Kubabat). Most of them are connected with an early central Anatolian substrate. Some of them were worshiped in the land of Hatti as early in the Old Hittite period (Harihari), but they were more frequently the object of veneration in Luwian circles in Hittite times (Anna, Parka, Perwa)”.

Nimet and Tahsin Özgüç11 described the deities of Kanesh on the seals of an Anatolian style; they did research in Anatolia for 57 years (2003, Kültepe Kanis Nesa, 304-306):

11 J. David Hawkins 2005 :” Professor Tahsin Özgüç’s (1916-2005) long career spanned the entire post-war period up to the present and made him the doyen of Anatolian archaeology in Turkey. He and his wife Nimet, also a famous professor of archaeology at Ankara University, formed a remarkable team, dominating Turkish field archaeology and its university teaching. Özgüç will be principally remembered as the excavator of the great site of Kültepe, ancient Kanesh, where his 57 years of continuous excavation produced sensational architectural artefacts and texts, revealing in extraordinary detail the first historical period of Anatolia, that of the Assyrian merchant colonies, c2000-1700BC. He was among the earliest intake of students to the newly founded Ankara University (in the Language, History and Geography Faculty) which he entered in 1935, graduating in 1940. He studied principally under the foreign professors recruited by Atatürk, the archaeologist H.H. von der Osten and George Rohde and the Turkish Semsettin Günaltay, and the philologists Benno Landsberger and Hans Gustav Güterbock. A fellow student was Nimet Dinçer, whom he married in 1944. Tahsin Bey was a very courteous man with a suave and pleasant manner. He was notably open and welcoming to foreign archaeologists and supporters of their work and many remember gratefully his assistance, advice and hospitality”.

Kryszat and Dercksen also mentioned other Anatolian deities from the OA texts: Bēl qablim (the Lord of the Battle), Harihari, Higisa, Ilali(anta), Narum, Parka, Tuhtuhani and the Sun God, Nipas.12

Remarkable is that Nimet and Tahsin Özgüç established three forms of the Nude Goddesses in the seals. Also is several times a goddess seated on perhaps a throne pictured.

Old Babylon style seal level II Kültepe. 2003, Tahsin Özgüç Kültepe Kanis Nesa.

The nude goddess one can see in many little sculptures , which remained in Kültepe. Also she is seen in seals and sculptures of many other cultures like Babylon, Syria, Crete, Cyprus, Hellas, Egypt, Balkan and perhaps everywhere in the world.

12 G. Kryszat 2006-I, AoF 33, 117 and J.G. Dercksen, Some elements of Old Anatolian Society in Kanis,138.

2.Sculptures and seals of the Nude Goddess.

1. 2 . 3.

Fig. 1 (9.4 cm high) from Kanesh shows a nude goddess sitting on a throne, she has according to Tahsin Özgüç (2003:234) the characteristics of Kubaba. Fig. 2. from Kanesh has also an high head like a Kubaba in the 1st millennium. Fig. 3. Drawing of Kybele by A. Hofstetter. The sculpture was found in Büyükkale in Hattusa.

4 5 Fig. 4 Cylinder seal Kanesh level 1B (dissertation Winter 1983, Abb. 296). Fig. 5 Old Syrian Cylinder seal. Speleers, catalogue 205 nr. 518 (dissertation Winter 1983 Abb.294).

Professor Nannó Marinatos described the naked goddess and mistress of animals in the Near East and Greece (2000, The goddess and the Warrior,1-11). She wrote:“On cylinders or their imprints, the naked females do not stand alone but are associated with other figures , animals and symbols”.”Some of the naked figures are inactive, others draw their dress to the side in order to reveal their public triangle”. “it must admitted that regional and chronological variation affects the interpretations of glyptic scenes as does also context. Further, not all naked females are unanimously accepted as goddesses, but good arguments have been made to the effect that they are”. Many of them have a pattern in which sexuality is coupled with power.”One frequent assumption must be challenge. If the naked figures are goddesses, they are for the most part not major figures of the pantheon, Ishtar or Anat. On Old Babylon seals the naked goddess has only a minor role but her status is higher in Syria where she was obviously considered more important. On seals we often meet with a minor naked goddess, whose name we do not even know, but who seems to be linked with sorcery and magic, and who has the role of an intermediary. She makes contact between the worshipper and his gods possible” (2000:1). She did not say how the position is of the naked goddess in Anatolia, if one look to the seals and sculptures of Kanesh, I think we can assume that the naked goddess have at least the same position as in Syria and supposedly on some seals and sculptures an even higher position.

On seals in Anatolian style we see according to Marinatos the naked women portrayed as an intermediary to the gods or she is by herself an important deity. The female deity is often figured which link her with nature, which means that she cannot completely detached from the concepts of fertility/nature. Goats, fish and birds designate the different realms of the natural world (Marinatos 2000:5). She can pictured passive or active. When is she active she is never fully naked and often a (seated) male normally revived her attentions. He may be a ruler of a king and some both a god and a ruler are present. In many case the goddess who lift her skirt stands on a bull, which shows her divine nature and which also may represent the attribute of her male divine partner. Marinatos stated: “In short the function of the goddess revealing her genitals is to activate the sexuality of the male god, although on some cases, she uses her sexuality to medicate or placate on behalf of the worshipper. The small naked divinity, on the other hand, is sometimes not participant in the narrative. Her function is to guarantee the efficacy of the encounter and reinforce sexuality. Sexuality has therefore a double meaning on the cylinders seals. It may signify ‘sacred marriage’ or it may be magic, ensuring success (and by extension protection) to the owner of the seal”.

Marintos (2000:7) pointed to another aspect of the naked goddess on the seals of in particular Old Babylon, Mitanni and Ugarit: aggression and danger revealed by the accompanying filling motifs on the field of cylinders. She stated that the sexuality of females in the ‘Near East’ has an ambiguous and highly dangerous character.

However Marintos gives no examples of aggression of nude goddesses in seals of Kültepe or i.e. the Land of Kanesh. In 1983 Urs Winter described in his throughout dissertation Frau und Göttin (OBO 53), the seals of the Nude Goddess. It shows that for an explanation of the seals an immense knowledge is necessary of other seals, the pictured deities, the old texts and myths, the religion of the area in which the seal was found.

Seal 70 Winter Kültepe Level II Özgüç 1949- 693 Seal 73 Winter level II, Hronzy, Kültepe I text 30a.

Urs Winter describes the Syro-Anatolian seals with the nude goddess (1983: 144): “On a seal (seal 70) from Karum Kanesh is pictured a ‘double adoration’. In the first image it concerns an ’inauguration scene’ . A bearded god13 is sitting on a throne with a low backrest and is holding a pair of scales. A tutelary goddess, clothed in a stepped- or fable dress, leads by hand a worshipper to the God. Adoration scenes arise from the time period of Akkade and were the main theme in the preceding Ur III period. In Syria is developed a typical Syrian invention, that the usually text part next to the adoration scene, was replaced by a second worship scene. The seal shows a bearded man in a king of stepped robe and a peculiar headwear. He offers a libation to a smaller nude goddess,

13 Winter remarked that it is not clear on the seal if a god or a ruler was sitting on the throne. Probably a deified king is represented, this is appearing by the round cap, which is typical for rulers in the Ur II time period and the stepped-dress, which only gods or their representatives were allowed to wear. In the Old Babylonian time period a pair of horns were add on round cap, when the king is represented as a god.

13 whom is pictured elevated. She shows herself to her worshipper frontally, only het face is en profile. In this way her Chignon- hairstyle, which is typical to the Syrian glyptic, is more prestigiousness. She is stretching her right arm to her worshipper”. On the seal no. 73 the “nude woman” is placed on a bull; Winter wonders if in this situation a goddess is pictured ? He stated that the seals with an Anatolian style are mostly developed from the Mesopotamian style ( 1983-148). Local attributes are often added, an sometimes the “nude woman” is placed on other animals, like the deer and a donkey. She has in her hands on several seals a bird, and a fish in her hands (or an Antelope her arms). Winter remarked that the “nude women” often is connected with the weather or stormgod, in particular in the seals of Level 1b karum Kültepe .

Seal no 75 Level II Seal 77 Level Ib

A seal (no. 75) of Level II has again two scenes. A god is ‘throning’ on a lion. Before him stands a lower god, which is greeting him. Both have a cup in their hand; between them an altar, and next of it an incensory. Above the scene the moon crescent into the sun disc. On the second scene stand the ‘Nude woman’ opposite two gods. The first one stand on a Lion-dragon with small wings, which form originates from Mesopotamia. In his right hand he holds a flash fork and the rope of the Lion-dragon and in his left hand a spear. The second god stands on a bull and the god belongs to the local pantheon. The head of the women is en profile and she holds a bird of prey.

A mold (goats) from Assur has found in Kültepe EBA. © Levent Atici, Fikri Kulakoğlu, Gojko Barjamovic 2013.

There was a discussion if the god on the bull is pictured a stormgod or not. In Mesopotamia the stormgod was imaged in the Akkadian glyptic on a Lion-dragon. However Winters reported that in the Old Babylon glyptic of the Old Assyrian time period the stormgod stands also on a bull in Mesopotamia (1983:149). Winter concludes that the Nude women on the seals has to be connected with the stormgod and that in general the seals in the Anatolian style the Nude woman is often conscious pictured together with the Mesopotamian or the Anatolian variant of the stormgod.

Seal 76 Level II.

Kültepe Seals of the Nude Goddess with other gods:

Seal 78 images an Old Babylonian initiation scene, the Nude Goddess bears the same horned head as the deities behind her. Behind the Nude Goddess stands a tutelary goddess( with a stepped mountain dress ?) and after her a bearded god, which is indentified as the god Amurru (Winter 1993:151).

Seal 78 Hrozny Kültepe I- 12a) Babylonian style Seal 73 Syro-Cappadocian style level II

Seal 74 Syro-Cappadocian style Level II

2. 1 Pictures of dressed goddesses in seals and sculptures Kanesh: This would give some hope to find once a picture of the Goddess Anna, the goddess of Kanesh, the Goddess of the City. It is plausible that Anna was a Queen deity and a daughter of the Mother- goddess, a daughter of a DINGIR.MAH, a mighty Goddess. Supposedly she was connected with the springs, fertility and the animals.

1. 2. 1. Seals of Kültepe, plate IX Maurits Van Loon 1985. 2. Seal on a tablet of Kültepe (?)

3. 4.

3. Lead figure, a goddess of Level II, she looks similar to a goddess of level I, in moulds with two deities according to Tahsin Özgüç (2003:271). 4. Seal of Acem Höyük, mistress of the animals and a mountain goddess(A. Gilibert 2011 Die anatolische Sfinx, 42).

A mold found in Kültepe OA time period, which show the Stormgod and the Mother-god. Does in this mold the city goddess Ana (=mother) of Kanesh pictured?

2. 2 The war god of Kanesh.

Fikri Kulakoğlu (2008, OOAS Vol. 4:12-18) tells us about a golden folio of the war god standing on a lion. The object was found in 2006 in the Karum of Kanesh. In his right arm he holding a axe and in his left hand he holds the hind legs if a smaller lion. Kulakoğlu stated that the deity

18 represents one of the war gods, and portrays the prototype of the Hittite ZABABA. It was found in the building level Ib of the karum and the item displaying entirely Hittite stylistic features. According to Kulakoğlu it shows once again that Hittite art originate from Kanesh. Volkert Haas (1994 GHR 365) mentioned 10 Zababa deities connected with cities and lands, 7 of them in Anatolia. Zababa is the city god of Kish and the consort of Ishtar. Zababa brings success in wars and to weapons. According to Haas the cult of Zababa is mainly found in the south of Anatolia.

Maurits Van Loon 1985: War god and helpers. In the sword-god list of the kingdom of Hattusa several Zababa’s gods are mentioned after the tutelary deities and the vegetation gods. The same order is described in the large offer list of the cult of Ša(w)oška of Samuha, 60 km from Kanesh. Volkert Haas (1994:366) mentioned that Zababa has in the city Kish also a close connection with the vegatation god Ninuarta. A parhedra of Zababa is the goddess Ningal. Piotr Traracha stated that:“the War-god and the throne-goddess (Halmasuit) were connected in particular with the ideology of kingship in the original Hattian tradition. The War-god’s position emphasized by his proud appellation Wurunkatte, ‘King of the Land’, probably goes back to an earlier stage of local beliefs, prior to the emergence of the worship of storm-gods” (2013, Political Religion and religious Policy, AoF 40-2, 374). On the seals of Kültepe, for instance a seal of the plate IX of Maurits Van Loon 1985, the pictured war god is probably not Zababa, but a local war god. It is even possible that other Mesopotamian gods are pictured. In these seals the mistress of the animals is often dominate pictured together with the war god (if a war god is pictured).

Nimet and Tahsin Özgüç stated that the native gods would be easily to distinguish from the Babylonian deities (2003: 303): The Sun god (Šamas): on the Anatolian seals the Sun God is shown in three types: 1 he holds a ring scepter, rays emerging from his shoulders 2. He god with the saw, raising his foot as if stepping on a mountain.3. a god with flames emerging from various parts of his body. The weather god (Adad) with his thunderbolt and lion-dragon. The stormgod is most often seen in processions of deities. He stands on a lion which sometimes is winged. The War Goddess (Ishtar), she holds a lion-headed mace in her hand. She is a prominent deity in the Old –Babylon style, but she is represented once in the Anatolian style. The God of Water and Wisdom Ea, he is worshipped as the principal god. The Two-Faced God (Usmu). He is an important god in the seal impressions of the local group, appearing in divine processions. He has various attributes and costumes. Usmu on native seals is an armed or standing on a wild boar. This new image must have originated in Anatolia. The God with the Dragon (Marduk), the chief god of Babylon, he is less often represented that the other gods. The God of the West (Amurru) Only one example among the local seals can be indentified with this god. Besides these chief deities the supplicant gods, the nude heroes, and bull-men are among the most important motifs on the seal impressions. It would be of great help as other scholars, like Urs Winters did for the goddesses in seals and sculptures, made a throughout study to the War gods, the Stormgods and the Water deities of the seals and sculptures of Kanesh and Cappadocia. Actuality there is overwhelming amount of seals, which makes it difficult to get the stories of the seals clear. Fortunately specialists publish sometimes very impressive articles and book, like “The Four Winds and the Origins of Pazuzu by Frans A.M. Wiggermann

2.3 The seal of the Great king Zuzu. In several OA tablets the king authorized an agreement. Almost never a OA seal of a king is recognized of Kültepe, only the seal of king Zuzu has been established on a tablet kt.89/k369 (level Ib). The tablet found in Kanesh is sealed according the text itself with the seal of Zuzu, great king of Alahzina. The geographical meaning of Alahzina is not established. It was probably the new name of the great kingdom, which king Zuzu of Kanesh had conquered.14

Nimet Özgüç stated that the figure before the Bull is perhaps a deity. The figure is rather stylistic, so it seems to be a proto-hieroglyph.

On the seal of Great King Zuzu8 there is a depiction of the Stormgod, probably his personal god. The proto-hieroglyph is perhaps an epithet of the bull. We do not know if it was written in Luwian, whether in Kanesite or another language. But some Luwian hieroglyphs from several centuries after the reign of Zuzu might have been similar as the sign which is pictured on the seal of Great King Zuzu:

No *318 No* 285

14 Joost Blasweiler 2015, A Hurrian attack at the city Kanesh c. 1710 BC ?, www. Academia.edu , in which the historical and geographical relations between Kanesh-Alahzina and Ala Land and Alalakh are discussed.

15 It is striking that No. 318 is pointing to Tessub, the Stormgod, the sacred bull. And even the statement of Nimet Özgüç that the figure before the bull on the seal of Zuzu might have pictured a deity, would fit wonderfully. The seal of Great King Zuzu might have pictured the Stormgod of Alha as his personal god, who had sustained him in his life and actions. The proto-hieroglyph before the bull seems to point to what kind of Stormgod, king Zuzu had worshipped, perhaps the Tessub of the Alha Land.16

In the OA time period in Kanesh an išurtum (a text drawing) was often made. Mostly the išurtum was a debt-note of Anatolian buyers. According to Klaas Veenhof “it embodies the obligation or promise to pay a certain amount of money/goods (frequently copper)”. Also in other kingdoms from the Near East, like Babylon and Mari, an išurtum (Old Assyrian) and eşērum (Akkadian) has been used on tablets and a giš.hur (drawings/design on wood)17. Even in Hammurap’s Code it is mentioned that his išurātum (that what he engraved/his reliefs) had not to be changed/discarded.

Many cuneiform OA texts from Kanesh mentioned the išurtum. Apparently drawings on clay, wood and leather were used by Anatolians, it is most likely that these were tokens and proto-hieroglyphs, which could be read by Assyrian merchants and by Anatolians themselves. It fits into an old th Anatolian tradition from at least the 4 millennium (Arslantepe) for their local administration. On bullae of clay they had developed as system of symbols, that did not represent speech but which could be used for surprisingly detailed and efficient bookkeeping. In this system a symbol or even an abstract design could stand for a person or a group of individuals. 18In OA texts of Kanesh is often mentioned “his” išurtum (his debt-note) and the išurtum is also mentioned in a memorandum on the acquisition of merchandise by a local palace.19

15 The hieroglyphs no*285 and no*318 are described in the book of Annick Payne 2010, Hieroglyphic Luwian. The E is a mark, which points to the Empire time period. 16 Joost Blasweiler 2015,The great king Zuzu of Alahzina ,the Goddess Allani and the Stormgods of Kussara and Alalaḫ, www.academi.edu,18. 17 Klaas Veenhof has made in 1995 an hypothesis that an išurtum would be a written text and not a drawing in his article” Old Assyrian ISURTUM, Akkadian ESERUM and Hittite GIS.HUR”, Studio Historiae Ardens, Ancient Near Eastern Studies Presented to Philo H.J. Houwink ten Cate on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. 311 – 332 (editor Theo P.J. van den Hout and Johan de Roos. PIHANS LXXIV). 18 Theo van den Hout 2010, The rise and fall of cuneiform script in Hittite Anatolia, Visible Language,100 19 Klaas Veenhof 1995:324: ”62 textiles are taken in the temple of the weather god (É dIŠKUR) by the head of the storage, next some tin and 2 donkeys. All this the palace bought; its silver is owed by the palace. I have an išurtum of the textiles, but not of the tin”.

On some of the vases of Kanesh (OA time-period) Luwian hieroglyphs were incised. John David Hawkins described them in 2011. On the vase below are written the signs BONUS= good, VITA= life and SCRIBA=scribe, and Hawkins explained that “the accompanying signs clearly represent the name of the owner in some way”.20 In Ankuwa a seal imprint on a bulla has been found with proto- hieroglyphs, too.21

In later time periods seals with bulls have been attested from kings of Hattusa. Next the bull hieroglyphs are written, which indicate names and epithets of these kings :

S. Herbordt, D.Bawanypeck, J.D.Hawkins 2011, Die Siegel der Großkönige und Großköniginnen (Nişanteppe- Archiv Hattusa).

20 J.D. Hawkins 2011, Early recognizable Hieroglyphic signs(?) in Anatolia, Anatolia’s Prologue Kültepe Kanesh Karum,96. 21 Theo van den Hout 2010, Visible Language, Oriental institute Chicago,100 : Alishar Höyük OIMA 10994

Stamp seals found in Hattusa MDOG März 1936. 75. Suzanne Herbordt 2005 Prinzen- und Beamtensiegel Nişanteppe Archiv.

Hieroglyphs on Hittite stamp seals

Nancy Leinwand described the Bull-god history and identity in relation with the seals of Level II at Kültepe22: The bull is one of the most important animals in the imagery of the metal standards and sistra form the north central region of the third millennium Anatolia (150)”.

Acknowledgement: I like to thank Didi Nguyen (Ho Chi Minh City) for the improvements of the English text.

22 Nacy Leiwand 1992, Regional characteristics in the styles and iconography of the Seal Impressions of Level II at Kultepe , JANES 21, 141-172.