In search of a distant past: forms of historical consciousness in Hittite Anatolia

The Hittites of the Old Hittite kingdom could only look back on a relatively short past. With time, however, the kingdom ‘without a past’ could finally look back and relate to a distant past of its own. The following paper will survey some of ways the Hittites came into contact, imagined, and represented their distant past. Hittite historiography, one of the most elaborate and highly developed traditions of its kind in the ancient Near East, was mainly concerned with contemporary history and only marginally engaged with the distant past. The more distant past was the subject of literature rather than of historiography. Both in the form of translated Mesopotamian literature or in local compositions. But it was in ritual action, as documented in the ‘Offering Lists’, that long sequences of past names were preserved and performed, constituting a historical scaffold spanning from the earliest phases of the Old Kingdom to the Empire period. The Old Hittite Kingdom began as a ‘Kingdom without a past’, but with time, the Hittites began to relate and to utilize a distant, sometimes even glorious past of, of their own. UZAK BİR GEÇMİŞİN ARAŞTIRILMASI: HİTİT ANADOLU’SUNDA TARİHSEL BİLİNCİN BİÇİMLERİ Anahtar Kelimeler: Hititler • Tarihsel Bilincin Biçimleri • Anadolu Özet: Eski Hitit krallığının Hititleri, göreceli yakın bir geçmişi hatırlayabiliyorlardı. Ancak zamanla, “geçmişi olmayan” krallık geriye bakıp kendine ait uzun bir geçmişi hikaye etmeye başladı. Bu makale, Hititlerin kendi geçmişleriyle kurdukları bağları ve gözlerinde canlandırdıkları uzak geçmişlerini nasıl ele alıp tasvir ettikleri hakkında çeşitli örnekler sunmaktadır. Yakın Doğu’nun en teferruatlı ve gelişmiş geleneklerinden biri olan Hitit tarih yazıcılığı, genellikle hep çağdaş tarihi olaylar üzerine yoğunlaşmış olup uzak geçmişe ait konular çok ender durumlarda ele alınmıştır. Uzak geçmiş, tarih yazıcılığından çok edebi eserlerin konusu olmuştur. Bu konu hem Mezopotamya edebi eserlerinin çevirisinde, hem de yerel kompozisyonlarda ele alınmıştır. Ancak, “Adak Listelerinde” kayıt altına alınan dini merasimlerde, geçmişe ait uzun seriler halinde saklanan ve ortaya konan isimler, Eski Hitit döneminden İmparatorluk dönemine kadar uzanan bir tarihi alt yapının varlığını sağlamaktadır. Eski Hitit Krallığı, “Geçmişi olmayan Krallık” olarak başlamış, ancak zaman içerisinde Hititler, kendilerinden daha da görkemli bir şekilde anlattıkları uzak geçmişleriyle kendilerini ilişkilendirmişlerdir. * Dr. Amir Gilan, Tel Aviv University, e-posta: agilan@tauex.tau.ac.il. Gönderilme tarihi: 21.07.2018; Kabul edilme tarihi: 09.10.2018 1 The present contribution is a revised version of a lecture given at Ankara University in April 2018. I would like to thank the University of Ankara for the kind and warm invitation as well as the editors of Anadolu for their kind invitation to contribute to this volume. A longer and more comprehensive overview of Hittite Historiography will appear in Y. Chen ve diğ. (ed.), Historical Consciousness and the Use of the Past in the Ancient World, Sheffield: Equinox. Both contributions were supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant No. 440/16, ‘The Hittites and Their Past – Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia’). Abbreviations follow the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. In Search of a Distant Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia 2 Written in the first quarter of the fifteenth century BC, the historical introduction to the Telipinu-Text ascribes the beginning of the Hittite Old Kingdom to a king Labarna (I), who ruled only little more than a century before Telipinu himself. Other Hittite sources demonstrate that Hittite scholars were familiar with a king or two who ruled before Labarna (I), but hardly anything else seems to have been known about them. This relative ignorance of the past may be partially explained by the modest scope of cuneiform writing in the earliest phases of the Old Kingdom, but the overall historical picture remains. The Hittites of the Old Hittite kingdom could only look back on a relatively short past. The notion of a kingdom with almost no past is strengthened by the almost complete silence of Hittite texts of all sorts concerning the origins of the Hittites themselves. Two centuries later, in the 14th Century BCE and onwards, in the so-called Empire Period, Hittite kings could finally look back and relate to an ancient history of their own. In a ceremony that was conducted on the thirty-second day of the nuntarriyašha-Festival (‘Festival of Haste’), the great Empire-Period autumn festival, wickerwork tables representing forty-four deceased ‘Kings’ were ar2 Edited by Hoffmann 1984. The most recent English translation is provided by Goedegebuure 2006a, 228-235. See Gilan 2015, 137178. 3 Sürenhagen 1998; Beal 2003; Forlanini 2010; Gilan 2014. 4 The beginning of cuneiform writing in Hattuša has been the subject of controversy in recent scholarship. See Popko 2007; van den Hout 2009; Archi 2010; Weeden 2011, 57-80; Gilan 2015, 11-20. 5 One possible exception, the Zalpa-Text, will be presented below. ranged as part of the royal ancestor cult. In reality the list of names contains not only names of kings, but also of queens and princes. Nevertheless, it establishes a long, continuous dynastic history, spanning from the very dawn of Hittite history in the 17th Century BC to the 13th Century BC, when that particular edition of the autumn ‘Festival of Haste’ text was compiled. The following paper will survey some of ways the Hittites came into contact, imagined, and represented their distant past. 1. The historical introduction of the Telipinu-Text, written in the first quarter of the 15 Century BC, is the only Hittite narrative preserved so far depicting the very beginning of the Old Hittite kingdom. The main fragments of the Text were already published by Emil Forrer (1926), who immediately recognized the immense historical significance of the prologue for the reconstruction of the history of the Hittite kingdom – especially for the reconstruction of the sequence of kings and the events following Muršili’s assassination, a period which is otherwise poorly attested. Early scholarship was usually well aware of the tendentious nature of the historical narrative introducing the Telipinu-Text, as did the bulk of commentators on the text that followed. The text begins with a formulaic depiction of the beginning of the Old Hittite kingdom: 6 Nakamura 2002, 137; Archi 2007, 51-52. 7 KUB 11.8 + KUB 11.9, edited by Otten 1951, 6789; Nakamura 2002, 268-275. 8 Archi 2003, 1-2. For the tendentious nature of the text see especially Hoffner 1975 and Liverani 1977. See Gilan 2015, 137-177. Anadolu / Anatolia 44, 2018 A. Gilan 3 §1-4 [In] the past, Labarna was Great King. His [son]s, his [brother]s, and also his in-laws, his kin and his troops were united. The country was small but wherever he went on campaign, he held the enemy lands subdued by force. He destroyed the lands one by one, he made the lands powerless, and he made them the borders of the sea. And each time he returned from campaign, each of his sons went somewhere to a country. To Hupišna, to Tuwanuwa, to Nenašša, to Lānda, to Zallara, to Paršuhanta, to Lušna. They governed each a country and the great cities were (well) supplied. The narrative continues with an almost identical, formulaic description of the reigns of Hattušili (I) and Muršili (I). However, during the reign of the Hattušili, the peace and the prosperity of the kingdom were damaged by the corruption of certain ‘subjects of the princes’ (§7 21–23). Muršili’s achievements, marking the culmination of the Old Hittite Kingdom, are tersely narrated in section nine: §9-10 [And] he (Muršili) went to Aleppo. He destroyed Aleppo and brought Aleppo’s deportees (and) its goods to Hattuša. Afterwards, he went to Babylon, and destroyed Babylon. He also struck the Hurrian [troops]. He presented Babylon’s de9 KBo 3.67 ++ i 2-12, Hoffman 1984, 12-13; Goedegebuure 2006b, 229-230; Gilan 2015, 138-139. portees (and) its goods [in] Hattu[ša]. The story goes on to depict Muršili’s assassination. Muršili I was murdered by Hantili (I), who was married to Muršili’s sister – hence the importance allocated to the loyalty of in-laws in the prologue – and by Zidanta, Hantili’s son-in-law. The narrative continues to portray a history of failure, conspiracy, usurpation and murder within the Hittite royal family that characterized the reigns of Hantili, Zidanta, Ammuna, and Huzziya. The misfortunes of these reigns were caused by the punishment of the gods for the ‘original sin’ of the Old Hittite Kingdom – the murder of Muršili by Hantili and Zidanta. The strife within the royal family continued well into Telipinu’s own reign, causing the death of his wife Ištapariya and his son Amunna, finally inducing Telipinu to act by summoning the assembly in Hattuša and issuing a series of reforms, most notably regulating the succession to the Hittite throne (section 28). The purpose of the historical introduction is laid out several paragraphs later: §30 Furthermore, whoever becomes king and seeks evil against (his) brother and sister, now you are his council, and you must speak freely to him: ‘This is a matter of blood. Read the tablet! Formerly bloodshed in Hattuša was excessive, and the gods took it out on the royal family’. 10 KBo 3.1 ++ i 27’-30’, Hoffman 1984, 18–19; Goedegebuure 2006b, 230; Gilan 2015, 141. 11 KBo 3.1 ++ ii 46-49, Hoffman 1984, 34–35; Goedegebuure 2006b, 232; Gilan 2015, 150. In Search of a Distant Past: Forms of Historical Consciousness in Hittite Anatolia 4 The tablet which Telipinu refers to here is the text itself. Thus, we are given the ‘manual’ to the use of the text as it was intended by its ‘author’. The text was apparently designed to instruct future kings as well as the assembly about the cautionary lesson to be drawn from the misfortunes of the past. The text also records the t