Hittite Cult Inventories – Part Two: The Dating of the Texts and the Alleged ‘Cult Reorganization’ of Tudḫaliya IV
✍ Scribed by Cammarosano, Michele
- Book ID
- 120524104
- Publisher
- Akademie Verlag
- Year
- 2012
- Tongue
- German
- Weight
- 183 KB
- Volume
- 39
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0232-8461
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✦ Synopsis
The Hittite cult inventories constitute a corpus of ca. 550 fragments dating to the Late Empire period, dealing with local offerings and festivals in provincial towns. They are commonly viewed against the background of an assumed reorganization of local cults promoted by Tudh ˘aliya IV. Within such an extensive operation, local festivals would have been restyled and standardized to some degree. The paper aims at casting doubts on these assumptions, presenting a reappraisal of the questions concerning the dating of the texts and a minimalist interpretation of Tudh ˘aliya's 'cult reorganization'. It also provides an overview of the extant Middle Hittite fragments and on restorations of local cults pre-dating Tudh ˘aliya IV. The main conclusions are that (1) the arguments behind the assumption that the majority of the surviving fragments should be dated to Tudh ˘aliya IV are debatable;
(2) the measures taken by Tudh ˘aliya reflect practices that are attested from at least the Middle Hittite period, without any substantial innovation; and (3) despite their stylistic similarities, the texts tend to treat the local festivals, the origins of which in all likelihood go back to ancestral times, in a faithful way.