Manly Deeds: Hittite Admonitory History and Eastern Mediterranean Didactic Epic

Bachvarova, Mary R.

doi:10.1002/9781444315639.ch5

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Other elements of the program included the patterning of the king on the Storm-god, who banished chaos by defeating chaotic monsters; festivals, including imported Hurrianized festivals originating in north Syria or Cilicia (Bachvarova 2009); and techniques of ancestor veneration, which were open to influence from other cultures, both Hurrian and Mesopotamian. But, a key tool in the promulgation of the Hittite ideology of kingship was Hurro-Hittite narrative song (Bachvarova 2005;. 25 The songs that are most relevant to understanding the šarrena ritual are the Kumarbi Cycle and possible associated texts, and a fragment mentioning Sargon.…”

Section: The šArrena Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Bachvarova

2012

J Anc Near East Religions

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AbstractI examine the literary and conceptual background of a Hurro-Hittite ritual calling on divinized royal ancestors (dšarrena), 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, thešarrenaritual 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.

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Section: The šArrena Ritualmentioning

confidence: 99%