#telipinu

But this only, once again, points to the transitory character of most scholarly categories. More urgent, in the present context, is another phenomenon: the migration and wholesale acceptance not of a single story, but of an entire body of stories, a mythology. The archives of Hattusha not only contained the different versions and translations of Gilgamesh, they presented an extraordinary collection of mythical texts written in Hittite, Hurrian, and Akkadian and concerning divinities who were Hittite (such as Telipinu), Hurrian (such as Kumarbi), Mesopotamian (such as Anu or Enki/Ea), and Ugaritic (such as Baal or Anat). One reason for this variety seems to lie in the character of Hittite domination: the empire was multicultural, and the cults that the king attended to were not just his own ancestral cults, they comprised the worship of various divinities all over his kingdom. Myths were indispensable for the performance of cult- hence their presence in the royal archives. Not that this explains everything; the versions of the Gilgamesh story, for example, must have been collected for reasons not very different from those that make the story still worth reading and thinking about some millennia later: the story has no connection whatsoever with cult but talks about general themes- the quest for friendship and the urge to overcome mortality.

oh telipinu, he who is out of his own

The Babylonian creation epic was recited (or even enacted) at least once during the New Year Festival: on a surface level, the myth talks about the foundation of the temple in which the audience was assembled- as the Homeric "Hymn to Apollo" narrates the foundation of Apollo's temples on Delos and in Delphi (it presumably was composed from two hymns, one addressed to an audience on the island of Delos, a second one in Delphi.) The Delphic myth also explains the lavish sacrifices connected with the performance of the oracle: Apollo instituted them in order to feed His priests. Somewhat more complex is the ritual connection of the Hittite myth of Telipinu (Hoffner 1998:15-20). For some unknown reason, Telipinu disappeared and "removed grain, animal, fecundity, luxuriance, growth, and abundance." A catastrophe ensues: "Humans and Gods are dying of hunger." The Gods search for Him, finally find Him, and seem to perform a rite to make Him come back ("I have just sprinkled your paths with sweet oil.") Telipinu returns, seething with anger: a second ritual is needed to banish His anger into bronze vats in the underworld: "That which goes into them doesn't come up again." Finally, prosperity and peace return, and Telipinu again "looks after the king and the queen." The text ends with what looks like a further description of ritual: before the God stands a pole or tree on which a sheepskin bag is suspended; it contains every desirable thing, from "animal fecundity and wine" to "plenty, abundance, and satiety."...[I]t seems obvious that it gives a divine history to a set of rituals performed in connection with the royal couple.

ONE OF OUR GODS IS MISSING