The Realm of All Things Geek

while realism means--exactly that, adherence to the specific logics of actual reality and its physics, logistics, etc.

There's a particular recurring discussion of "realism" in media that goes something like this: "okay, but realistically the heroes would always win because they'd just shoot the villain while they're monologuing" – while refusing to acknowledge the obvious follow-up question: "wait, but if monologuing reliably gets you shot, where do all the monologuing villains come from?"

i.e., what we're really discussing is not a milieu which has adhered to some notional model of "realism" ab initio, but one which was apparently governed by the conventional tropes of its genre right up until the moment the character the person framing the scenario wants to win walks into the room, whereupon "realism" asserts itself.

Heck, there were folks doing this song and dance in the notes of the post this one is following up on, trotting out hypotheticals like "in a realistic fantasy setting the twelve-year-old chosen one would always lose because experience trumps skill and the power of friendship isn't real", implicitly taking it as given that in a milieu where this is true, people would still be handing out magic swords to twelve-year-olds.

Ištanu, the Sungoddess of Arinna

𒀭𒌓𒌷𒇥𒈾

The Sungoddess of Arinna is the most important Hittite solar deity, and overall one of the most important deities in the Hittite pantheon. Originally, she was worshipped by the Hattians, the pre-Hittite people of central Anatolia (modern Turkey). Her cult centre was the town of Arinna, the ruins of which are yet to be discovered. As the Hittite kingdom developed, the Hittites incorporated her, along with many other Hattian deities, into their pantheon, and she kept a prominent place there until the collapse of Hittite civilisation in the early 12th century BC.

Names

In Hittite texts, the Sungoddess is usually referred to by the logograms ᴰUTU ᵁᴿᵁTÚL-na, or ᵁᴿᵁTÚL-naš ᴰUTU-uš, meaning “Sungoddess of Arinna” (Arinna itself means “source” or “spring”). In Hittite, this would have been read as Arinnaš Ištanuš. Ištanu is a Hittitisation of the Hattian name Eštan. It’s the most commonly used name for the Sungoddess, and is also the Hittite word for “sun”.

She is also referred to as Arinniti, Arunniti or Ariniddu, meaning “the Arinnian” in Hattian. Another name is Urunzimu, or Wurušemu in later texts. The meaning of this word is unclear; it has variously been interpreted as “šemu of the land”, “mother of the earth” or “queen of the earth”.

Mythology

Unlike other deities, the Sungoddess is hardly featured in mythology (or at least in the texts that have survived). Her parents are unknown. Her consort is the Stormgod Tarḫunt (Hattian Taru), the other most important deity of the pantheon. They are known to have a son, Telepinu, a daughter, Mezzulla, and a granddaughter, Zintuḫi.

Role and attributes

The Sungoddess is heavily tied to royalty. A prayer by King Ḫattušili III says that “whoever you set up, Sungoddess of Arinna, my lady, as king or queen of the land of Ḫatti, they are right with you, Sungoddess of Arinna, my lady, and you are the one who lifts them up or abandons them”** (CTH 383 i 5-10). Hittite kings called themselves by the title ᴰUTU-ŠI, or “My Sun”, and used a winged sun disc as part of their iconography.

Detail of the seal of King Muršili II, showing a winged sun disc. The Sungoddess of Arinna was also Muršili’s personal deity. (x)

While not a warrior deity per se, the Sungoddess is also responsible for military success. She was said to run in front of the king on the battlefield: “the Sungoddess of Arinna, my lady, the Powerful Stormgod, my lord, Mezzulla, and all the Gods ran before me.” (CTH 61.I ii 3-4) King Muršili II and King Tudḫaliya IV both prayed to her for victory against their enemies.

Due to her associations with kingship as well as influence from the Mesopotamian Sungod Šamaš (see below), the Sungoddess is responsible for divine justice. “You are the lord of just justice”, says a hymn to her (CTH 376.A i 35′). In particular, she is described as bringing justice to the most disfavoured and isolated people of society: “Ištanu, to the oppressed and lonely person you are both father and mother; for the bereaved and oppressed person you compensate grievances.” (CTH 372 i 35-38)

Her mercy, or compassion (both are the same word in Hittite), is one of her most frequently mentioned attributes. To quote just a few passages:

Ištanu, you are the shepherd of all, and your message is sweet to everyone. (CTH 372 i 61-63)

Since childhood, my God’s mercy, I recognise and acknowledge it. (CTH 373 obv. 10′)

Now, before my God, I call for mercy. My God, hear me! (CTH 373 rev. 22)

You listen to invocations. You, Sungoddess of Arinna, are a merciful deity, and you have mercy. (CTH 376.A i 38′-40′)

The person whom the Gods are angry with and whom they reject, you, Sungoddess of Arinna, have mercy on him. (CTH 376.A ii 1)

The Hittite word for mercy, genzu, is etymologically connected to genu, “knee” or “lap”. Being merciful, then, means taking someone onto your lap. Notice how the Sungoddess is holding the child in the statuette above.

The Sungoddess is rarely depicted in cult statues. More often, she’s represented as a sun disc. Other imagery associated with her is lions (also a symbol of royalty) and the apple tree, which is mentioned in a brief mythological passage about her.

Connections

The Hittites called their land “the land of a thousand Gods”, due to their habit of adopting local deities and viewing them as separate from (though often overlapping with) other, similar deities. As a result, there isn’t just one Sungoddess but many. Most notably, the Sungoddess of the Earth is the Sungoddess of Arinna’s chthonic counterpart - the sun that travels to the Underworld during the night. The Sungoddess of the Earth is herself associated with Lelwani, an Underworld deity also linked to healing.

In the 13th century BC, the Sungoddess of Arinna was syncretised with Ḫebat, a Hurrian Goddess, thanks to the influence of Queen Puduḫepa, who was herself Hurrian. Another Eastern deity closely related to the Sungoddess is Šamaš, or the Sungod of Heaven. She adopted many of his attributes, including justice, and various Mesopotamian hymns to Šamaš were adapted for the Sungoddess, to the point that it’s often hard to determine which sun deity a text is referring to.

Gender

You may have noticed that some of the above quotes refer to the Sungoddess using male terms. In particular, CTH 376.A, while naming the Sungoddess of Arinna specifically, addresses her multiple times as “lord”. One explanation for this is that the hymn was originally written to the Sungod of Heaven, and the scribe simply forgot to change the male terms to female ones.

However, it may also be that the Sungoddess, by absorbing some aspects of the Sungod of Heaven (and possibly also of an Indo-European sky deity), becomes male in certain contexts. She wouldn’t be the only Hittite deity to do so; Ištar is also depicted as both male and female in Hittite iconography (as well as in Mesopotamia, where she was worshipped by a gender-non-conforming priesthood). To quote Trevor Bryce (Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 143): “… the Hittites had no difficulty with the notion that deities who performed both male and female roles had both male and female sides to their persona, and it was appropriate to address and depict them as male or female according to the particular role in which they were engaged at the time.”

First picture: my altar to the Sungoddess of Arinna. Second picture: a gold pendant likely depicting the Sungoddess, 14th-13th century BC (x).

“The Telegony’s ending, though much ridiculed, should be contextualized by various epichoric [local] legends about the death and burial of an exiled Odysseus far from Ithaca.¹

Attributed to Eugammon of Cyrene, the Telegony can be securely dated to the early sixth century BCE (Tsagalis 2015: 384). For many, this date is after the Homeric poems were created, and this naturally encourages the belief that the Telegony is a sequel to the Odyssey. That may well be, for all we know, but it has been assumed rather too routinely. I would date the composition of the Iliad and Odyssey to the early to middle seventh century, with limited influence occurring by the late seventh or early sixth centuries. I have favored the viewpoint that the Epic Cycle poems represent a strong pre-Homeric tradition that remained largely free of Homeric influence.² The Telegony offers perhaps the most difficult challenge for such an argument, but a non-Homeric Telegony is entirely plausible.³

My dating of the Homeric poems may be imprecise, but I eschew over-positivistic metrics. I also assume that there were evolving epic performance traditions in the archaic age, which would challenge the very notion of an absolute dating. On this basis, some argue for the possibility of mutual influence between performance traditions during an oral phase of publication (see “Introduction,” this volume). But this is not my position for the Odyssey and the Telegony (pace Ballabriga 1989: 297–301). In my view, the very fluidity and multiplicity of epic performance works against possible intertextuality between our surviving epic texts. The existence of an epic does not necessarily mean widespread knowledge of it.”

Like this. And it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful to hear a soliloquy I loved so much already, and have it come to life in a way it never, ever, did before. I feel like I grasp his motivations, his twists and turns, no longer on an academic level but on a visceral, instinctive one. Because he’s presenting his mental and emotional journey in a way that speaks honestly, like a real person.

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Also prev tags:

- Cleobulina (~600 B.C)

- Telesilla (6th-5th cent. B.C)

- Myrtis (5th cent. B.C)

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their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.

longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years

toxic flesh

has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.

lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion

largest genome of any shark

eats everything including moose and polar bears

what's your favourite kitchen appliance?

do you have a collection of anything?

what's the best job you've ever had?

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what's your favourite piece of furniture and where did you get it?

what's your go-to recipe when you want to make something that requires minimal effort?

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are you on good terms with your parents?

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do you vote?

what's the biggest purchase you've ever made?

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how long have you known your oldest friend?

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have you ever changed fields in your career or education?

how many wisdom teeth do you have and have you had any removed?

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do you have nieces/nephews/godchildren/other kids in your life that aren't yours?

what's the coolest place you've visited?

what's your most recent degree and has it been useful to you?

would you rather own a dishwasher or a laundry machine if you could only have one or the other?

do you make a list before going to the grocery store or just wing it?

what's your favourite household chore?

what chore do you hate the most?

do you have houseplants and how are you at keeping them alive?