Religions Of Second Millennium Anatolia

This book examines Hittite religion from a historical point of view, stressing two basically different stages in its development. The Old Hittite pantheon of the capital Hattu'a maintains the indigenous religious tradition of the Hattians without any trace of Mesopotamian, Hurrian or Syrian influence, although Hittite and Luwian deities were worshiped in the family and house cults. The Hittite religion of the Empire period has been examined from a new viewpoint. At the time there were two offi cial pantheons in the state and the dynastic cult respectively. The former is an amalgam of Hattian, Hittite, Luwian, Hurrian, Syrian and Mesopotamian deities organized on a geographical principle, whereas the latter is purely Hurrian, refl ecting the religious beliefs of the new royal family of Kizzuwatnan origin that also infl uenced local pantheons of central and northern Anatolia. Through the Hurrians, Mesopotamian and Syrian cults were adopted. Simultaneously, many aspects of the Luwian religious tradition were absorbed into both the state and local cults.

"Religions" are always costly - one has to give offerings (with material value) to the gods, one has to provide the salary for religious specialists who offer their service for their clients, one has to arrange festivals and liturgies - and of course, one has to provide the material means for building temples or shrines. But these costs also repay - as the gods give health or well-being as reward for the offerings. Even if one can never be absolutely certain about such a reward, one at least might earn social reputation because of one's (financial) involvement in religion. But temples are also economic centres - "employing" (often in close relation to the palace) people as workers, craftsmen or "intellectuals" in different positions whose "costs of living" are supplied by the temple. Individual religious specialists receive payment for their service to cover their own costs of living. Although this might sound "modern", religion and economy were intertwined with each other in ancient society also. For this reason, the papers of this conference volume analyse and discuss how the cults, rituals and institutions in Anatolia in the 2nd and 1st millennium contribute to the economic process in those areas.

The author presents and comments on the divine images and other focuses of worship that have come down to us from Neo- Hittites, Uratians, Phrygians, Lydians and Lycians. Despite the diversity of Iron Age Anatolia, certain threads, such as the worship of a motherly nature goddess, can be followed from one area and period to the next.

In this book devoted exclusively to temples and perceptions of the divine presences that inhabit them, Michael B. Hundley focuses on the official religions of the ancient Near East and explores the interface between the human and the divine within temple environs. Hundley identifies common ancient Near Eastern temple systems and examines issues that include what temple structures communicate, how temples were understood to function, temple ideology, the installation of divine presence in a temple, the connection between presence and physical representation, and human service to the deity. Drawing on architectural and spatial theory, ritual theory, theories of language, art history, archaeology, sociocultural anthropology, and comparative studies, Hundley offers a single interpretive lens through which to view temple worship. Features: A close examination of temples in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine An interdisciplinary treatment of architecture, language, ritual, and art A dual focus on how a deity's divine presence connects to space and art and how human service to the deity maintains the deity's active presence

This book provides a detailed insight into the typology, characteristics and conceptual and iconographic elements of the solar and lunar divinities of Asia Minor. It has a special focus on native or indigenised cults. Furthermore, Anatolian divinities are studied not only in the Roman, but also during the incipient phases of these cults. The main topics include issues of polymorphism, polyonymy and the specific cultural adaptations of the Anatolian deities, the world of the gods, that of mortals and the relations between dedicators and divinities. The first part studies the origin of the name and of the divinity, an attempt to determine the area of dessemination, epithets, attributes, identifications with other gods, myths and the associated divinities, as well as symbolism and iconographical elements. The second part features the economic life of the temples, the organisation of the sacred space, the nature of the priesthood and the categories of dedicators, association patterns, age and kinship, and the alterations that occurred during this period in the perception of the divine world both in the Anatolian area and throughout the Roman empire. In the last part of the volume the reader can find useful information regarding the typology of inscriptions used by the author and the means of communication between the divine world and the terrestrial one.