The Master of Animals in Old World Iconography Edited by DEREK B. COUNTS and BETTINA ARNOLD BUDAPEST 2010 With the generous support of the Center for Etruscan Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst Cover illustrations Glauberg Schnabelkanne. Landesamt für Denkmalpfl ege Hessen, Wiesbaden Volume Editor ERZSÉBET JEREM ISBN 978-963-9911-14-7 HU-ISSN 1215-9239 © The Authors and Archaeolingua Foundation All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without requesting prior permission in writing from the publisher. 2010 ARCHAEOLINGUA ALAPÍTVÁNY H-1250 Budapest, Úri u. 49 Copyediting by Julia Gaviria Desktop editing and layout by Rita Kovács Printed by Prime Rate Kft Hero, Field Master, King: Animal Mastery in Hittite Texts and Iconography BILLIE JEAN COLLINS Sources of Evidence The historical record begins in central Anatolia in the period of the Assyrian merchant colonies (ca. 1974–1740 BC), when Hattian, Hurrian, and Indo-European ( Hittite, Luwian, and Palaic) populations are documented in the region. The written records testify to a mixed and dynamic pantheon appropriate to such a heterogeneous population. After a gap of only a few decades, a Hittite kingdom was established on the central plateau, with its capital at Hattusha within the southern bend of the Kizil Irmak. At the start of the fourteenth century, this kingdom began its rise to empire. Most of our records – textual and material – date to the latter half of the Empire period (1400–1180 BC). The Hittites left behind a rich and varied body of cuneiform documents from which we may extract considerable information about animal exploitation in Anatolia in the Late Bronze Age (1690–1180 BC). Most important for our purposes are texts prescribing the performance of rituals and festivals designed to placate and supplicate the gods. Hittite iconography, although entirely religious in its focus, more often complements than corroborates the textual evidence. The most plentiful source for animals in art are seals and seal impressions, but relief vases, relief sculptures, and animal-shaped drinking vessels are also informative. It is the task of scholars, and the goal of this paper, to connect the art and the texts in a meaningful way. Mastery and the Sacred The glyptic assemblage from the Anatolian city of Kanesh (modern Kültepe, located in Kayseri Province in central Turkey) (Fig. 1) dating to the period of the Assyrian merchant colonies displays a rich menagerie, both wild and domestic. The scenes of worship, war, hunting, and myth that are their subject belong exclusively to the supernatural world. The animals populating them either are divine attributes or represent the sphere of infl uence of whatever deity they are associated with in the scene (POPKO 1995:59; TARACHA 1987:263–273, 1988:111–121). Abounding in themes of mastery, from divine hunters to heroes in hand-to-hand combat with monstrous creatures or dangling animals from their hands to deities mounted on animals they control with a rein, these seals and seal impressions are a bridge to nowhere. Aside from those deities who are recognizable from Mesopotamian glyptic, in the absence of epigraphs, we can only guess at the identity of the divine fi gures and the signifi cance of the animals with which they coexist in varying degrees of connectedness. Among these is the Mistress of Animals, who is typically shown seated over a goat and holding a cup and a bird, often surrounded by an animal entourage (TARACHA 1988:115–118). A god seated over a lion or with a lion at his feet seems to offer a male counterpart to the goddess (TARACHA 2009:32). Other gods are depicted standing on bulls, lions, and stags and remind us of similar divine types known from Hittite iconography. But trying to match divine types from the Assyrian Colony period with specifi c deities attested in later Hittite sources is a tricky enterprise (POPKO 1995:58–59; TARACHA 2009:32). For example, Hattian Inar ( Hittite Inara), the patron goddess of Hattusha, is attested at Kanesh in the texts and, like the unidentifi ed goddess depicted on the seals from Kültepe, was connected with wild 60 Billie Jean Collins nature. But the goddess associated with the goat and bird in a Hittite cult inventory from the thirteenth century is Iyaya (KUB 38.1 iv 1–7). Fig. 1. Map showing location of sites mentioned in the text. By the Late Bronze Age in Anatolia, when the Hittite kings controlled all forms of artistic expression, the bearded hero dangling animals and other Mesopotamian types are gone. The familiar motifs and busy scenes of the Assyrian Colony period are replaced on Hittite-period seals with royal insignia such as the double-headed eagle as well as geometric patterns and hieroglyphs. Scenes on seals consist almost exclusively of gods and adoration scenes, a refl ection of the royal house’s preoccupation with securing the protection of the divine world (HERBORDT 2005:57). Within the limited range of subjects sanctioned by the royal house, images of animal mastery may nevertheless be found. For the Hittite Old Kingdom (1690–1400 BC), when iconographic evidence of any description is scarce, the earliest text copies describing the three-day KI.LAM ( Hittite hilammar, “gatehouse”) festival celebrated in the Hittite capital at Hattusha are an important source of information. The fi rst day featured a procession, at the head of which were carried wild animal fi gures made of silver; they originated from the temple of the goddess Inar (KBo 20.33 obv 13–16; cf. ABoT 5+ ii 13’–18’; for both texts, see SINGER 1983:95). These must have included a leopard and boar, as these animals (i.e., their images) are described as receiving a libation prior to the procession. As the city goddess of Hattusha, Inar was the protector of the state as well as of wild nature. In the old Anatolian myth of Illuyanka, whose subject is the battle between the forces of the upper world, championed by the Storm God, and those of the underworld, symbolized by the serpent Illuyanka, she is the daughter of the Storm God, who is instrumental in helping him overcome the forces of destruction. The procession of animals remained the focus of the fi rst day of the KI.LAM festival in its later form in the Empire period. The text describes the presentation to the king of a ceremonial iron spear at Hero, Field Master, King: Animal Mastery in Hittite Texts and Iconography 61 the start of the proceedings. The procession is preceded by ox-drawn carts and dancers. Two priests of the Tutelary Deity and a crier lead the procession. Sacred spears and copper hunting bags are followed by the “animals of the gods” – a leopard, wolf, lion, two boars, and a bear. The “dog-men,” or hunters, follow. After some singing in Hattian by the men of the town, Anunuwa, and a singer of the Tutelary Deity (written with the logogram LAMMA), four deer standards made of precious metal are carried out. The text is very specifi c here: one stag is made of gold, one of silver with antlers, one of silver with gilded antlers, and one of silver without antlers. Each is drawn by a different set of functionaries. The procession of animals exits through the upper gate. The text also mentions images of Sherri and Hurri, the sacred bulls of the Hurrian storm god Teshub, in silver with gilded horns. At this point, the king is divested of the iron spear and given in its place an iron ax, decorated with an image of the Storm God/Teshub in anticipation of subsequent activities at the huwasi (cultic stela) of the Storm God. The ax is the instrument of sacrifi ce, the spear the instrument of the hunt. The changeover from spear to ax symbolizes the king’s mastery of the animal world in both its aspects, the wild symbolized by the animals of the gods and the stags and the domestic represented by the bulls. Arnold (ARNOLD, this volume) notes that in Iron Age Europe, the ax was an insignia of religious practitioners of high rank while elite hunting was represented by the bow and arrow. As in Iron Age Europe, the Hittite paramount leader and ritual practitioner combined in their person the dual role of a Sakralkönig. The animals of the gods mentioned in the texts must refer to those animals that symbolize the sphere of infl uence of the gods and simultaneously the quarry of the divine hunt, sandwiched as they are in the procession between the hunter and his equipment. These are the same animals that are mimicked in ritual performance, on occasion in what appear to be dramatic reenactments of hunts (COLLINS 2002:328 –329; HAAS 1994:686–687; JAKOB-ROST 1966). Note in particular that leopards and bears are featured together in a ritual combat described in KBo 23.55 i 10’–11’ and separately in ritualized dramas of the hunt in Bo 6594 i 11’ (leopard man) and KUB 58.14:24’–28’ (bear man). Iconographic testimony for the hunt in this early period is limited to an Old Kingdom or early Empire period seal (Fig. 2) that depicts a sequence of discrete iconographic groups in its outer ring (BERAN 1967:135; GÜTERBOCK 1967:no. 220; VON DER OSTEN-SACKEN 1988:Fig. 2.3). On one end, a goddess seated over a goat and holding a bird and cup (the Mistress of Animals?) receives offerings. On the opposite end, a crouching archer shoots arrows at a stag and lion(?) who fl ee from him.