From “Kingship in Heaven” to King Lists: Syro-Anatolian Courts and the History of the World

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title><jats:bold>Abstract</jats:bold></jats:title><jats:p>I examine the literary and conceptual background of a Hurro-Hittite ritual calling on divinized royal ancestors (<jats:sup>d</jats:sup><jats:italic>šarrena</jats:italic>), characters from Hurro-Hittite song, members of the Sargonic dynasty, a variety of kings from far-off lands, and the “lord of Hatti” (KUB 27.38). I show that the ritual provides a unique glimpse of the complex Near Eastern tradition telling the history of the world from its beginning. The ritual also helps us to understand how historical memory informed ritual behaviors that legitimated the kingship of regional rulers, allowing them access to the distant past and connecting them to world events. Overall, the<jats:italic>šarrena</jats:italic>ritual suggests that the histories of the divine and human worlds were linked into a single master narrative by the middle of the second millennium BCE.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Greek and Canaanite Mythologies: Zeus, Baal, and their Rivals

“…55–56), in a culture where ‘the break between the spheres of myth and legend and history was never quite achieved’ (Glassner , p. 3). Like in Mesopotamia, in the Hittite world ‘the histories of the divine and human worlds were linked into a single master narrative by the middle of the second millennium BC’ (Bachvarova , p. 97). The direct influence of Mesopotamian traditions about famous antediluvian (and postdiluvian) kings cannot be underestimated here.…”

“…In the Hittite succession or ‘Kingship in Heaven’ myth (originally entitled ‘Song of Birth’), the gods are kings in Heaven whose dethronement comes by way of a political coup by their cupbearer: Alalu is dethroned by Anu and Anu by Kumarbi. Hittite records prove the position of cupbearers as high court officials who occasionally seized the throne (Bryce , 23; Van de Mieroop 2007, p. 120), but the dialog with the Sumerian Sargon Legend is also evident, as the famous king was represented as a cupbearer in that tradition (Bachvarova , pp. 102, 113; for other myths where banqueting is at the center of power struggles, see López‐Ruiz ).…”

“…102, 113; for other myths where banqueting is at the center of power struggles, see López‐Ruiz ). Moreover, Alalu (the first ‘king in Heaven’) might be an adaptation of Alulim, the first king mentioned in the Sumerian King List (Bachvarova , pp. 112).…”