Faculty of Classics, 66 St. Giles', Oxford, OX1 3LU
Thursday 7 November 2024 (Week 4), 5pm
Faculty of Classics
All welcome
Speaker: Mark Weeden (University College London)
The Hittite Song of Emergence which includes the violent succession story of Anu, Kumarbi and Teššob, has been compared to the succession story in Hesiod’s Theogony and is often discussed in terms of its mythographic meaning, and possible political overtones. Last year, excavations conducted by the Japanese Institute of Anatolian Archaeology at the site of Büklükale on the western Kızılırmak produced a tablet which may refer to this mythological complex in the context of a prayer to Teššob that is to be performed in a particular place, and also mentions individuals, some of whom are datable. Even though the language of the text still resists a complete understanding in many respects, it is possible that this text and others like it document a practical use of originally Hurrian mythological material in the context of a time of crisis.
