The texts in this group are all myths of foreign origin, and unlike the native Anatolian mythological material, they are fTee-standing compositions (Guterbock 1961: 143-4; Beckman 1997b: 565) that most likely had no function in Hittite society beyond their use as the substance of exercises in the scribal academy. Many of these tales are cosmological; no individual human being plays a role here.
4.1 In the Kumarbi Cycle (Lebrun 1995) we find an explanation of the state of the divine hierarchy current in Hittite times. The Storm-god Tessub reigned as king of the gods, having displaced Kumarbi in that role, and having resisted successfully several attempts of the latter to regain his position. Each component of the overarching narrative is known as the ‘‘Song’’ (SIR) of a particular deity.
4.1.1 The Song of Kumarbi or Kingship in Heaven (Laroche 1971: no. 344; translation Hoffner 1998a: 42-5) is attested in only a pair of mutilated manuscripts, one very small. The text relates the succession of gods at the head of the pantheon:
Once upon a time Alalu was king in Heaven. Alalu sat upon the throne, while mighty Anu, foremost of the gods, stood before him. He bowed down at his feet and placed the drinking cups in his hand.
For nine measured years Alalu was king in Heaven, but in the ninth year Anu gave battle to Alalu. He defeated Alalu and he fled before him and went down to the Dark Earth. While he went down to the Dark Earth, Anu took his seat upon the throne. Anu sat upon his throne, and mighty Kumarbi provided him with drink. He bowed down at his feet and placed the drinking cups in his hand.
In turn, Kumarbi rebels against Anu, driving him from the throne. Adding injury to insult, he bites off and swallows the genitals of his predecessor. But Alalu enjoys a sort of revenge: within Kumarbi his seed develops into five gods, among whom are Tessssub, his brother Tasmisu, and the Tigris River. It is not entirely clear just how these deities are born from the male Kumarbi, but we do read that TeSsub successfully emerges from ‘‘the good place.’’ The parentage of the Storm-god is significant: while Alalu is his father, Kumarbi is in a sense his mother! Thus the following supplanting of Kumarbi by Tessub and the repeated efforts of the former to reverse the situation may be understood as a continuing family quarrel.
4.1.2 Although the sequence of his schemes is uncertain, it seems likely that the first of Kumarbi’s machinations is related in The Song of the Tutelary Deity (dLAMMA) (Laroche 1971: no. 343; translation Hoffner 1998a: 46-7). Somehow Kumarbi and his ally Ea have elevated the Tutelary Deity to universal rule, with unfortunate results. As Ea complains: ‘‘This Tutelary Deity whom we have made king in Heaven - he is hostile and has alienated the lands, so that no one any longer gives bread and drink offerings to the gods!’’ While the denouement of the story has been lost, there can be little doubt that the upstart is expeditiously removed from his post.
4.1.3 The Song of Silver (Laroche 1971: no. 364; edition Hoffner 1988; translation Hoffner 1998a: 48-50) is in its very fragmentary condition most unclear. A fatherless personage named Silver learns that his sire is none other than Kumarbi. In some manner he becomes king of the gods, displacing Tessssub, and commanding the obedience of the Sun and the Moon. How he forfeits this position is lost along with the end of the text.
4.1.4 In the Song of Hedammu (Laroche 1971: no. 348; edition Siegelova 1971: 3588; translation Hoffner 1998a: 50-5) the role of Kumarbi in instigating a challenge to Tessub is more apparent. He engenders the monstrous, reptilian, Hedammu by the daughter of the Sea-god. This creature poses a strong threat to the rule of TeSsub until the latter’s sister Sausga (a variety of Istar) takes matters in hand: she dances by the seashore until she attracts the attention of Hedammu. After plying the fearsome creature with strong drink and seducing him, she seemingly disposes of the challenger.
4.1.5 The Song of Ullikummi (Laroche 1971: no. 345; Guterbock 1951, 1952a; Hoffner 1998a: 55-65) is the best-preserved constituent of the Kumarbi cycle and, in three tablets, by far the longest. A Hurrian-language version has also been recovered (Giorgieri 2001). Here Kumarbi once more produces a grotesque child to challenge the Storm-god, this time through sexual intercourse with a great rock. He names his stone offspring Ullikummi, ‘‘Oppress (the city of) Kumme’’ (Hurrian), in reference to the home of Tessub, and conceals him in the midst of the sea. Unseen by Tessub and his allies, Ullikummi grows rapidly into a dangerous giant before he is finally spotted by the Sun-god on his daily journey through the sky. When the troubling news of the challenger’s appearance is brought and her brother Tessub weeps in despair, fSausga attempts to deal with this new agent of destruction. But as she again displays her charms by the sea, a wave asks her:
For whom are you singing? For whom do you fill your mouth with wind? (This) male is deaf-he does not hear. His eyes are blind - he does not see. He has no mercy. Go away, Jiausga!
The unresponsive nature of Ullikummi, his stony indifference, is surely a countermeasure taken by Kumarbi after the foiling of his plans for Hedammu. Thus the sequence of these two songs within the cycle is certain.
Ullikummi defeats the younger gods in an initial battle. But before the final confrontation with the monster, Tessub consults with the wise Ea, who has abandoned his earlier allegiance to Kumarbi. Ea discerns that Ullikummi stands upon the shoulder of the Atlaslike figure Ubelluri and orders the fetching of the primeval saw used long ago to separate Heaven and Earth. Although the text breaks off here, there can be little doubt that once severed from his base, Ullikimmi is overcome, or that Tessub remains king in Heaven. After all, it was the Storm-god, and not Kumarbi, whom the Hurrians and Hittites honored above all other deities.
4.1.6 Only a single fragmentary Hurrian-language tablet has survived of The Song of the Sea (Rutherford 2001), in which is narrated a struggle between Tessub and the Sea-god. Although it almost certainly belongs to the Kumarbi cycle, its precise position among the tales is unclear. It has been suggested that it may be part of the Hedammu story.*
4.1.7 Several additional fragments may also find their place within this complex (Groddek 2000-2; Archi 2002 = Laroche 1971: no. 351; cf. also Laroche 1971: nos. 346, 352-3).
4.2 The Song of Release, SIR para tarnumas (edition Neu 1996, who calls it an ‘‘Epos’’; translation Hoffner 1998a: 67-77), a Hurro-Hittite bilingual preserved in a number of copies, is a tripartite composition. Following the proemium is a collection of seven parables, each characterized as a piece of‘‘wisdom’’ (Hittite hattatar). For example, as translated from the Hittite version:
A mountain expelled a deer from its expanse (lit. ‘‘body’’), and the deer went to another mountain. He became fat and he sought a confrontation. He began to curse the mountain: ‘‘If
Only fire would burn up the mountain on which I graze! If only the Storm-god would smite it (with lightning) and fire burn it up!’’ When the mountain heard, it became sick at heart, and in response the mountain cursed the deer: ‘‘The deer whom I fattened up now curses me in return. Let the hunters bring down the deer! Let the fowlers capture him! Let the hunters take his meat, and the fowlers take his skin!’’
It is not a deer, but a human. A certain man who fled from his own town arrived in another land. When he sought confrontation, he began to undertake evil in return for the town (of his refuge), but the gods of the town have cursed him. (Neu 1996: 74-7; Beckman 1997a: 216)
The second section of the song presents the description of a feast in the palace of the goddess of the Underworld, to which the Storm-god Tessub has been invited. The text has unfortunately been truncated by a break, so that its interpretation remains uncertain. Hoffner (1998a: 73) suggests that the gathering symbolizes the reconciliation of the chthonic and celestial deities.
Concluding this complex work is an allegorical narrative in which the sufferings of Tessub as a debt-slave are parallel to those of human bondsmen held by the wealthy citizens of Ebla, a prosperous city in northern Syria. The deity announces to the ruler Megi (lit. ‘‘king’’ in the local Semitic language, but here understood as a proper name) that should the local council not institute a general remission of debts, he will destroy the town. Yet again the end of the story has been lost, but it is likely that the notables rejected the god’s demand, for this segment of the song is apparently an aetiology for the ruin of Ebla that actually took place during Hatti’s Syrian wars of the seventeenth century bce.
Leaving aside the incomplete second section, the common theme linking the segments of the bilingual seems to be the reinforcement of societal norms, particularly those of gratitude, honesty, and compassion (cf. Archi 1979).
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