In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was a serpentine

dragon A dragon is a reptilian legendary creature that appears in the folklore of many cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but dragons in western cultures since the High Middle Ages have often been depicted a ...

slain by Tarḫunz (), the Hittite incarnation of the

Hurrian The Hurrians (; cuneiform: ; transliteration: ''Ḫu-ur-ri''; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri or Hurriter) were a people of the Bronze Age Near East. They spoke a Hurrian language and lived in Anatolia, Syria and Norther ...

god of sky and storm. It is known from

Hittite cuneiform Hittite cuneiform is the implementation of cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The surviving corpus of Hittite texts is preserved in cuneiform on clay tablets dating to the 2nd millennium BC (roughly spanning the 17th to 12th ...

tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital

Hattusa Hattusa (also Ḫattuša or Hattusas ; Hittite: URU''Ḫa-at-tu-ša'', Turkish: Hattuşaş , Hattic: Hattush) was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of ...

. The contest is a ritual of the Hattian spring festival of Puruli. The myth is found in ''

Catalogue des Textes Hittites The corpus of texts written in the Hittite language is indexed by the ''Catalogue des Textes Hittites'' (CTH, since 1971). The catalogue is only a classification of texts; it does not give the texts. One traditionally cites texts by their numbers in ...

'' 321, which gives two consecutive versions.

Name

''Illuyanka'' is probably a compound, consisting of two words for "snake",

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo ...

''*h₁illu-'' and ''*h₂engʷeh₂-''. The same compound members, inverted, appear in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

anguilla Anguilla ( ) is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The terr ...

'' "eel". The ''*h₁illu-'' word is cognate to English '' eel'', and ''*h₂engʷeh₂'' to Sanskrit ahi.

Narrative

In the first version, the Storm God and Illuyanka fight, and the serpent wins. The Storm God then goes to the Hattian goddess

Inara Arwa Damon (born September 19, 1977) is an American journalist who is a senior international correspondent for CNN, based in Istanbul. From 2003, she covered the Middle East as a freelance journalist, before joining CNN in 2006. She is also ...

s for advice. Having promised to sleep with a mortal named Hupasiyas in return for his help, she devises a trap for the dragon. She goes to him with large quantities of food and

drink A drink or beverage is a liquid intended for human consumption. In addition to their basic function of satisfying thirst, drinks play important roles in human culture. Common types of drinks include plain drinking water, milk, juice, smoothies ...

and entices him to drink his fill. Once drunk, the dragon is bound by Hupasiyas with a rope. Then the Storm God appears with the other gods and kills the dragon. In the second version, after the two gods fight and the Hurrian Storm God Teshub loses, Illuyanka takes the Storm God's eyes and heart. To avenge himself upon the dragon, the Storm God marries the daughter of a poor man. They have a son Sarruma, who grows up and marries the daughter of the dragon Illuyanka. The Storm God tells his son to ask for the return of the Storm God's eyes and heart as a wedding gift and he does so. His eyes and heart restored, the Storm God goes to face the dragon Illuyanka once more. At the point of vanquishing the dragon, the Storm God's son finds out about the battle and realizes that he had been used for this purpose. He demands that his father take his life along with Illuyanka's and so Teshub kills them both. A version of this narrative is illustrated on a relief which was discovered at Malatya (dating from 1050-850 BC) and is on display in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in

Ankara Ankara ( , ; ), historically known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of Turkey. Located in the central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5.1 million in its urban center and over 5.7 million in Ankara Province, maki ...

, Turkey.

Interpretation

The Hittite texts were introduced in 1930 by W. Porzig, who first made the comparison of Teshub's battle with Illuyankas with the sky god

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...

' battle with serpent-like

Typhon Typhon (; grc, Τυφῶν, Typhôn, ), also Typhoeus (; grc, Τυφωεύς, Typhōeús, label=none), Typhaon ( grc, Τυφάων, Typháōn, label=none) or Typhos ( grc, Τυφώς, Typhṓs, label=none), was a monstrous serpentine giant an ...

, told in Pseudo-Apollodorus, '' Bibliotheke'' (I.6.3); the Hittite-Greek parallels found few adherents at the time, the Hittite myth of the castration of the god of heaven by

Kumarbi Kumarbi was an important god of the Hurrians, regarded as "the father of gods." He was also a member of the Hittite pantheon. According to Hurrian myths, he was a son of Alalu, and one of the parents of the storm-god Teshub, the other being Anu ...

, with its clearer parallels to Greek myth, not having yet been deciphered and edited.

Manuscripts

''Catalogue des Textes Hittites'' 321 consists of the following tablets: *A. KBo III 7 *B. KUB XVII 5 *C. KUB XVII 6 *D. KUB XII 66 *E. KUB XXXVI 54 *F. KBo XII 83 *G. KBo XII 84, XIII 84 *H. KBo XXII 99 *J. KUB XXXVI 53 None of the individual versions is complete. Text A is the most complete, including 30 out of 36 paragraphs.

References

{{Hattian topics Hittite legendary creatures Legendary serpents

Name

Narrative

Interpretation

Manuscripts

See also

References