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CLT3378: Ancient Mythology: East and West Summer C 2017

Lecture 4: The Kumarbi Cycle

Historical Background We encountered the Hittites in our last lecture (Lecture 3), where we saw the Hittites

sacking Babylon in around 1600 BCE. The Hittite king in charge of the raid

on Babylon was Mursilis I; his father and predecessor as king, Hattusilis I, had founded what

would become the Hittite Empire, which lasted from around 1700 to 1200. Hattusilis had

established Hattusa (pronounced “hah-TOO-sha”), located in the heartland of the Hittites in

central Anatolia (modern day Turkey), as the capital city of his new realm, and had even

renamed himself “Hattusilis” (or “man of Hattusa”) in its honor. Mursilis had been away

from Hattusa for two years campaigning in the east when he descended on Babylon. The attack

on Babylon seems to have been an opportunistic afterthought for Mursilis; his real objective had

been the kingdom of Aleppo in modern day Syria, which had managed to resist Hattusilis’

attempts at conquest. Mursilis did what his father could not and destroyed Aleppo, and it was

only then that Mursilis set his sights on Babylon to the south. For centuries afterward, Hittites

still proudly recounted Mursilis’ capture of the wealthy city of Babylon. Mursilis himself,

however, did not get to enjoy his victories for long. On the way back home from

Babylonia, Mursilis’ army was nearly overwhelmed in northern Mesopotamia by the Hurrians, a

people who had only recently built up an empire of their own called Mitanni. Once he had

escaped back to Hattusas, Mursilis found that his prolonged absence had strained the internal

stability of the new Hittite kingdom; he was soon killed in a palace coup by his brother-in-

law. Mursilis’ murder ushered in a period of anarchy among the Hittites. Seizing upon both the

destruction of Aleppo, which left a power vacuum in Syria, and the weakness of the Hittites,

whose rulers were now paralyzed by palace intrigue, the Hurrians increased their empire

in Mitanni even further.

Map of the Near East. Note that Mitanni is between Assyria (to east) and the Hittite Empire (to west).

The name “Hittites” comes from the Bible, where it is used to refer to the inhabitants of

minor kingdoms in Syria during the early first millennium BCE. This was all scholars knew

about the Hittites until the late nineteenth century CE, when archaeologists excavated Hattusa. In

the royal library at Hattusa were found thousands of clay, cuneiform documents written in

several different languages, including Akkadian. (Remember that cuneiform is not a language; it

is just a script or method of writing. Different languages could use the same cuneiform

script.) Documents written in Akkadian, which scholars could already read at the time, quickly

revealed the existence of Hattusilis, Mursilis, and the kings who succeeded them in the Hittite

Empire. The Hittites’ own language was soon deciphered and turned out to be an Indo-European

language. (Originating probably in eastern Europe [c. 3000 BCE], the Indo-Europeans are the

hypothetical linguistic ancestors of most of the languages of Europe—the Germanic languages

such as English, Latin and the romance languages, and ancient Greek—and also of Sanskrit in

India.) It was discovered that the name which the Hittites themselves applied to their land and

empire—and which we also find in native Assyrian records—was Hatti. Scholars finally

renamed the Hittites in the Bible Neo-Hittites to distinguish them from their more notable

forebears.

After the temporary decline in Hittite fortunes upon the death of Mursilis, the Hittites

rebounded and even extended their empire. The height of Hittite prosperity occurred between

1400-1200, during which time the Hittites and the Egyptians were the two “superpowers” of

the Near East and eastern Mediterranean. Around 1286, the Hittites under their

king Muwatallis fought a momentous battle against Ramesses II and the Egyptians at the Syrian

city of Kadesh (or Qadesh); the two sides would each declare victory, but the Hittites seem to

have actually come out ahead.

Map of the Hittite Empire at its furthest extent.

Map showing places mentioned in Hittite documents.

The Assyrians took advantage of the Hittites’ preoccupation with the Egyptians, however, to

move in and conquer the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni for themselves. Alarmed at the increasing

power of the Assyrians on the Hittites’ eastern frontier, Muwatallis’ successor, Hattusilis III, in

around 1260 made a peace treaty with Ramesses II that still survives today in copies found

at Hattusa and on the walls of Ramesses’ temple the Ramesseum in Egypt. This is the earliest

treaty in existence. To cement the treaty, Hattusilis would even give his daughter to Ramesses in

marriage.

This copy of the peace treaty between the Hittites and Egyptians, often called by scholars the “Treaty

of Kadesh,” was found at Hatussa. It is written in Akkadian (using the cuneiform script), the international

diplomatic language, or lingua franca, of the day.

Around 1200 the Hittite Empire came to a sudden end. Hattusa was burned and was never

inhabited again. The fall of the Hittite Empire was one of a series of destructions that swept over

the eastern Mediterranean area between 1200-1100. Scholars are still trying to figure out the

causes of the destructions, which were accompanied by mass migrations of peoples. Was it

famine, drought, climate change, or political and economic collapse? (There is evidence that the

Hittite kingdom was embroiled in civil war at or near the end of its history.) Egypt was one of

the few places that survived the turmoil. Hordes of what Egyptian inscriptions call “Sea

Peoples”—perhaps consisting of dispossessed Hittites and other peoples—attempted to invade

Egypt by sea, and the Egyptians barely managed to ward them off in several battles.

Hittites and Hurrians The documents found at Hattusa reveal the polyglot nature of the Hittites. Palace scribes,

at the very least, could read and write Sumerian and Akkadian, Hittite and several other

Anatolian languages, and Hurrian. Texts written in Sumerian and Akkadian, such as the Epic of

Gilgamesh (see Lecture 13), were duly copied by Hittite scribes; the presence of such texts far to

the west in the land of Hatti demonstrates just how influential Mesopotamian culture was. As

much as the Hittites may have been influenced by Mesopotamian literature and mythology, the

culture of the Hurrians had perhaps an even greater effect on the Hittites. As the power

of Mitanni grew, so did Hurrian influence on Hittite culture. In the last years of the Hittite

Empire, queen Puduhepa, wife of Hattusilis III, who was herself of Hurrian origin,

spurred Hurrian influence on the Hittites still further. The Hittites increasingly

adopted Hurrian gods and myths. In fact, the best preserved and most literary of the non-

Mesopotamian mythological texts found at Hattusa are Hurrian in origin. Scholars sometimes

term such texts and the myths they tell “Hurro-Hittite.” Such are the myths in the so-

called Kumarbi Cycle of poems, which include the Song of Kumarbi and the Song of Ullikummi,

the two texts we read for today’s lecture. (The word “cycle” here just means a “group of

poems.”) Featured prominently in the Kumarbi Cycle is the Hurrian storm

god, Tessub (pronounced “TEH-shoob.”) (Note that, just as with Marduk, the storm

god Tessub is NOT binatural.)

This Hittite stone pillar depicts the Hurrian storm god Tessub; in his upraised right hand Tessub holds an

axe or mace, and in his left hand he holds a thunderbolt. In ancient iconography, a thunderbolt was not

depicted as a jagged line (such as appears on Harry Potter’s forehead). Instead, thunderbolts were three

pronged objects, with a handle in the middle.

Song of Kumarbi The Song of Kumarbi is a very fragmentary poem (as I am sure you noticed in your reading of

the text!) that tells of the rise (and fall) of the Hurrian god Kumarbi. Kumarbi overthrows the

king of the gods, and then at the end of the poem appears to be overthrown himself. Thus, the

poem is structured around a succession myth. When the poem opens, Kumarbi’s father Alalu

(a Hurrian god associated with the underworld) is king of the gods. Alalu only reigns for 9 years

before he is overthrown by Anu. (Who is Anu? Yes, he’s the same Mesopotamian god that is

featured in the Enuma Elish. Why would a Mesopotamian god appear in a Hurrian literary work,

the Song of Kumarbi?) Defeated, Alalu flees to the “Dark Earth,” which seems to mean the

underworld; remember that Alalu is an underworld god. (This does not mean that Alalu is THE

god of the underworld; he is merely a god associated with the underworld.) Anu in turn rules for

9 years before he is overthrown by Kumarbi. When Kumarbi attacks, Anu tries to

escape Kumarbi by fleeing. (To where does Anu try to escape?) Kumarbi pulls Anu down,

however, and for good measure bites off and swallows Anu’s genitals. What are two possible

reasons for why Kumarbi castrates Anu?

Anu warns Kumarbi not to gloat too much in his actions, however, because, by

swallowing Anu’s genitals, Kumarbi has made himself pregnant. (In ancient times, the

reproductive role of women was improperly understood. Often women were seen just as

“incubators” for the seed of men. Now, Kumarbi takes on this role for Anu’s seed.) According

to Anu, Kumarbi is pregnant with several gods including the storm god Tessub. Kumarbi tries to

spit out Anu’s semen onto the earth, which apparently results (the text is fragmentary at this

point) in the birth of at least one god. At this point, the god Ea enters the scene; Ea will act as an

advisor to Kumarbi and even as a sort of midwife to the pregnant king. (Who is Ea? Why is it

appropriate that Ea act as an advisor?) When Ea arrives, it seems (again the text is fragmentary)

that Kumarbi believes he has already given birth to Tessub because he commands Ea, “Give me

my child that I may eat him up. . . . Give me Tessub.” Instead, Ea gives Kumarbi a stone (the

“basalt” in the translation), which Kumarbi attempts to eat, thinking it is Tessub, but the stone

only hurts Kumarbi’s teeth. (Has Ea tried to trick Kumarbi with the stone? Again, the text is too

fragmentary to be sure of Ea’s intentions here.) Finally, Tessub is born from Kumarbi’s “good

place,” which is apparently a euphemism for Kurmarbi’s penis. The ending of the poem is

fragmentary, but we can fairly safely assume that Tesssub overthrows Kumarbi and becomes

king of the gods in his place since Tessub is king in all the subsequent poems in the Kumarbi

Cycle (including the Song of Ullikummi). Thus in this succession myth we have an alternation

between sky gods and underworld gods. Who are the two sky gods, and who are the two

underworld gods in this scheme?

Song of Ullikummi When the Song of Ullikummi opens, Tessub is firmly installed as king of the

gods. The Song of Ullikummi appears to depict events that are later chronologically than the

events in the Song of Kumarbi, even though several other (even more fragmentary) poems in

the Kumarbi Cycle may have intervened between the two poems in question. The basic plot of

the Song of Ullikummi is centered on the attempt of Kumarbi to get his throne back

from Tessub. In order to accomplish this, Kumarbi plans to use a monstrous child of his to storm

heaven.

To produce his child, Kumarbi impregnates a huge, three mile long rock.

(Note Kumarbi’s attempt to eat the stone that he thought was Tessub. Just what is it

with Kumarbi and rocks?) Kumarbi names the child that results from the sexual union between

himself and the rock Ullikummi. Kumarbi wants this “stone child” to grow up unnoticed

by Tessub and the gods allied to him; accordingly, he has Ullikummi taken down

to Ubelluri. Ubelluri is the Hurrian-Hittite sky supporter; Atlas is the sky supporter in Greek

mythology. Whereas Atlas just holds up the sky (and not the earth), Ubelluri has the sea floor

resting on his head (probably), and in this way holds up both earth and sky. Kumarbi has gods

attach the little Ullikummi to the giant Ubelluri’s right shoulder. Ullikummi grows

rapidly. Istanu, the sun god sees the stone child rising up menacingly toward Tessub’s realm in

the sky and alerts Tessub to the danger. (Why is the sun god an appropriate ally for Tessub?)

Ea, who in the Song of Kumarbi helped king Kumarbi, now serves as a helper to

king Tessub. He goes to Ubelluri to question him. (Why is it fitting that Ea figures out exactly

where Ullikummi is attached?) Ubelluri says: “Whey they built heaven and earth upon me, I was

aware of nothing. And when they came and cut heaven and earth apart with a copper cutting tool,

I was even unaware of that. But now something makes my right shoulder hurt, and I don’t know

who this god is.” (For more on the idea, found in several ancient cultures, that the sky and earth

were once joined as one, see Lecture 6.) Ea peers around at Ubelluri’s shoulder and sees the feet

of the now enormous Ullikummi firmly attached there. Using the very copper cutting tool

that Ubelluri had mentioned, Ea cuts Ullikummi off of Ubelluri’s shoulder; this is presumably

because Ullikummi will be easier for Tessub to defeat that way. The text of the Song

of Ullikummi breaks off just after Tessub and Ullikummi have begun to engage in battle against

one another. The end of the poem is therefore missing. Why can we safely conclude that it

is Tessub, who comes out victorious?