The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Eighteen, the Hittite Earth Mother

 This essay will be the last in this particular series. For a background to Hittite religion it is important to read my previous essay, The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Seventeen, the Hittite Sky Father , where I discussed the alien accretions layered onto the original Hittite gods and the reasons for this. I do not intend to go over old ground in this post.

The Hittite Earth Mother is syncretic, layered and multi-cultural, consisting of the following elements:

. Hattian earth cults

.Hurrian cosmic mothers

. Indo-European fertility concepts.

There is not one single deity or theonym which embodies the functions of the Hittite Earth Mother, but for the purpose of this essay, I have identified and focused purely on the deities which can be viewed as Indo-European in nature and function, albeit not in name. The original Earth Mother and her functions may be identified through an analysis of the two goddesses:  Hannahanna and Wurunšemu; their names are Hattian but their functions are Indo-European.

Hannahanna

The meaning of Her name is 'Grandmother' and She represents the earliest maternal power as is evident in Her name. She is the Mother of the Gods and commands all divine beings, spirits and animals; her authority is unquestionable. She is the restorer of fertility. In her functional Indo-European analogue She mirrors Gaia, Prithvi, Zemyna and Mat Zemlya; She restores life and maintains cosmic balance, and is highly interventionist. Her profile is one of deep Indo-European maternal sovereignty and She aligns with:

. Vedic Aditi (mother of the gods and cosmic order)

. Greek Gaia (senior maternal authority)

. Baltic Laima (the goddess of fate, birth and fortune)

. Celtic Danu (ancestral mother of the gods) 

Of the aforementioned four deities, Laima would appear to be the 'odd one out'. She is not an Earth Mother like Gaia or the mother of the gods like Aditi, but She maintains moral and existential order.

Wurunšemu

The meaning of Her name is 'Earth' and She represents the chthonic, territorial and political dimension of the Earth Mother. She symbolises the embodiment of the Earth and for this reason Her name is invoked in boundary rituals, land grants, treaties and agricultural consecrations. She has queenly authority and is often paired with the Storm God, Tarḫunna/Tarḫunt/Tarḫunz/Tarḫunnaš. She is the witness of truth and the binding power of oaths sworn on the land.

Although She is an aspect of the Earth Mother, She is solar in nature but only in a moral sense; She is the illuminating truth rather than the physical sun. She shines upon right conduct. She is the source of royal legitimacy in two ways, both of which express Her dual nature:

. Her solarity expresses sovereign radiance.

. Her earth-nature expresses sovereign grounding.

Although Her earth-bound and solar natures may appear contradictory at first glance, they are in fact complementary aspects of Her essence.

Dual Nature of Indo-European Goddesses

The dual nature of the Earth Mother is not unique to the Hittites: other Indo-European cultures experienced the same thing.

Baltic Parallel

. Saulė - female sun and moral order.

. Zemyna-earth mother and fertility.

Wurunšemu combines both roles into one goddess.

Vedic Parallel

. Aditi- mother of the gods, associated with the infinite sky, the earth, law and cosmic order.

. Varuṇī / Sūryā (moral order/solar sovereignty)

Greek Parallel

. Gaia- earth.

. Themis- justice, order and oaths.

  Wurunšemu fuses the functions of these two goddesses.

In summary, Hannahanna and Wurunšemu form a two-tiered system of maternal power, the primordial-chthonic of the former and the solar-juridical of the latter. Wile the former repairs order, the latter maintains it.

The Sky Father and Earth Mother: the Basis of All Indo-European Religions, Part Seventeen, the Hittite Sky Father

Unlike previous essays in this series, I only intend to explore the Hittite Sky Father in depth, not other related Indo-European Anatolian Sky Fathers for the simple reason of a paucity in evidence beyond the purely linguistic. I intend to do the same for the Anatolian Earth Mother essay which follows in the next and final post in this series. As a brief overview of the related Anatolian cultures, I will briefly mention the linguistic evidence:

The Palaic Tiyaz

Although not a Sky Father, the Palaic Tiyaz is a deity whose name means 'day' or 'sun'. The name is cognate with the Hittite šiu (day/sky) and the Luwian tiwad (sun/day). Although it is a reflex of the PIE *dei‑ / *dyeu‑ ('to shine, be bright'), it is not a reflex of the PIE Sky Father *Dyēus ph₂tḗr. Tiyaz cannot be considered to be a Sky Father in the Palaic tradition because His name is not a shared Sky Father theonym (divine name) among the Anatolian Indo-European related cultures, but a shared solar theonym. He is not a sky patriarch, but a god of the daylight/sun. 

Tiyaz looks remarkably similar to the Proto-Germanic *Tiwaz and there is a good reason for that. Both theonyms have a shared PIE root *dei‑ /*dyeu‑, which I have already said means 'to shine, be bright'. The Palaic is a divine lexical reflex indicative of a solar deity, whereas the Germanic *Tiwaz had the original meaning of 'god' from the PIE *deiwos ('celestial one'). This theonymic reflex is cognate with:

. Vedic Deva

. Latin Deus

. Greek Theos

. Baltic Dievas

The Luwian Tiwad

The Luwian Tiwad, like the Palaic Tiyaz is a solar deity, but not a Sky Father. The meaning of the term is 'sun, day, shining sky' and like the Palaic is derived from the PIE *dei‑ / *dyeu‑.

The Carian Tiβas/Tiwas/Tivas

These orthographic variants descend from the same root as the Palaic and Luwian reflexes: *dei‑ /*dyeu‑ and thus are Carian reflexes of a solar deity.

The Lycian Tiwaz/Tiwata/Tiwati

The Lycian orthographic variants descend from the same root as the Palaic, Luwian and Carian and thus have the same meaning.

The Hittite Sky Father

 The pantheon of the ancient Hittites was a complex one, because they absorbed, merged and layered deities from multiple cultures: Hattic, Hurrian, Mesopotamian, Syrian and Indo-European, forming a living archive of all the cultures which they interacted with. Consequently, there is not a single deity who one can point to and say, 'this is the Sky Father'. Anatolia, the homeland of the Hittites was a geographical crossroads which allowed the importation of cultural influences from Mesopotamia, the Levant, the Aegean and the Caucasus. The conquering by the Hittites of foreign peoples facilitated the importation of foreign gods, the continuance of regional cults and the adoption of parallel gods with similar functions. Thus new gods were added on top of their own existing gods. For this reason, the Hittites speak of 'the thousand gods of Hatti' in their texts. While they syncretised gods, they never fully fused them together. Different gods with similar functions were treated as being equivalent, but they remained with distinct cults and their own separate rituals. Thus, the same deity may have a different name depending on the context. When the Hittites agreed treaties with other peoples, the gods of both parties were invoked and this caused foreign gods to be added to the pantheon, and these deities had to be appeased to avoid divine wrath and be honoured in state rituals along with their own native gods.

The Hittites, although they were an Indo-European people, split off very early from the Proto-Indo-European stock, and their Indo-European pantheon became overwritten by the Hattic religion of pre-Indo-European Anatolia and the Hurrian religion. The Hattians were the original non-Indo-European population native to central Anatolia, whose language was a linguistic isolate, neither related to Indo-European nor Semitic. The Hurrians probably originated in the vicinity of the Caucasus, and spoke Hurrian, an extinct Hurro-Urartian language, not related to Indo-European or Semitic. These two peoples were of particular influence upon the Hittites.

In order to identify the original Indo-European pantheon of the Hittites we need to peel off all the later foreign accretions. The original Hittite pantheon was small, sky-focused and closely based upon the Proto-Indo-European one. It contained the following:

. a Sky Father-  nepišaš Ištanu  Partly Indo-European/partly Hattic name

. a Storm God- Tarḫunna / Tarhunt

. a Sun Deity- Indo-European name unknown

. a Dawn Goddess-Ḫilamma

. Divine Twins-Šiwattanna and Šiwaliya

. an Earth Mother-Daganzipa

. a Fire God-Ishara

. a River God-Maršantiya

. a Fate/Underworld Goddess-Gulš- / Gulšeš

The primary focus of this essay is of course, the Sky Father, so I am going to focus upon nepišaš Ištanu, meaning 'Sun-god of the Sky/Heaven'. The PIE root of His name is  nébʰos, meaning 'sky, cloud'. Ištanu, however is from the Hattic eštan, meaning 'sun'. Although the Hittites lost the Dyeus name, they retained the attributes of the Proto-Indo-European original. The Hittite Sky Father was a celestial overseer, protector of kings and a moral witness. No mythic narratives survive, because He was overshadowed by the Hurrian Storm God, Teshub and the Hattic Sun Goddess, Arinna.

Under the name of MEŠ ŠA DINGIR, the Hittite Sky Father was invoked in rituals concerning oath-taking, boundary agreements, royal succession and international diplomacy. An example of ritual formula: 'The Sun-god of Heaven, lord of the sky, shall witness.' It should be pointed out that the name MEŠ ŠA DINGIR was written entirely in Sumerograms, so the etymology is Sumerian, not Hittite. The meaning of the name may be broken down as follows: 

. MEŠ= 'many'

. ŠA= 'of'

. DINGIR= 'god'

Thus, 'the things of god' (divine ordinances, cosmic laws, sacred order). The Hittites inherited Sumerian writing, Akkadian scribal conventions and Mesopotamian legal terminology. Although they used Sumerograms, they applied them to their own religious concepts. The meaning of  MEŠ ŠA DINGIR aligns with the Indo-European cosmic order, which is found in other Indo-European cultures:

. Ṛta (Vedic)

. Díkē (Greek)

. Fides (Roman)

. Dieva's moral order (Baltic)

. Týr’s oath law (Germanic)

The Hittite Sky Father was regarded as the second most important deity after the Sun Goddess. From the reign of Tudhaliya III (c. 1380-c. 1350 BCE), He became the protector of the King and was represented on royal seals as a winged solar disc embracing the King. From the reign of Suppiluliuma I (c. 1350- c. 1322 BCE), He became the most important god to be invoked in interstate treaties. This was an ancient Indo-European function of the Sky Father and is also to be found in the Greek Zeus Horkios, the Italic Iupiter Dius Fidius, the Vedic Varuṇa and the Baltic Dievas. He embodies the daylight, the bright sky, cosmic order and heavenly oversight. As is the case in other Indo-European traditions (e.g. the Germanic, Vedic and Baltic) the Sky Father became ritually central but mythically quiet, with His role being overtaken by the Storm God. Ritually speaking, the Sky Father appears in royal prayers as the King's protector, treaty ceremonies as the primary oath witness, legal and purification ceremonies as the guarantor of truth, and in daily solar rites in which the King greets the sun.

When invoking the Sky Father as the Sun-god of Heaven, the King stood before the divine statues in the temple, burned incense, poured libations, raised his hands towards heaven and invoked the god first among the male celestial gods. The King would have begun with a declaration along the lines of: 'O Sun-god of Heaven, lord of the sky, father of the land, you who see all things.' The King would have referred to Him as 'My Sun', 'Lord of Heaven' and 'Father'. The following are typical ritual expressions used by the King:

Celestial overseer- 'You who see all things.'

Guardian of cosmic order- 'You, O Sun-god of Heaven, see and know the truth.'

Protector of kingship- 'Guard my throne.'

Oath witness-'The gods see; the gods know; the gods witness this oath.'

Purifier-'See it, O gods; cleanse it; restore the ordinances of the gods.'

The Hittite Sky Father formed a pair with the Earth Mother, Dagan-zipa. They were complementary cosmic principles, the heaven symbolising light, truth, order and witness, while the earth symbolised stability, fertility and nourishment. They were ritual partners and invoked together ('Heaven sees; Earth receives'). This is an expression of cosmic balance. They are the foundational cosmic parents and joint witnesses of oaths. I do not wish to go into any further detail about the Earth Mother or Her relationship with the Sky Father as I intend to cover this in my next post.