Takitu, Takiti or Daqitu was a

Hurrian goddess The Hurrian pantheon consisted of gods of varied backgrounds, some of them natively Hurrian, while others adopted from other pantheons, for example Eblaite and Mesopotamian. Like the other inhabitants of the Ancient Near East, Hurrians regarded th ...

who served as the

sukkal Sukkal (conventionally translated from Sumerian as "vizier") was a term which could denote both a type of official and a class of deities in ancient Mesopotamia. The historical sukkals were responsible for overseeing the execution of various com ...

(attendant deity) of

Ḫepat Ḫepat (, ; also romanized as Ḫebat; Ugaritic 𐎃𐎁𐎚, ''ḫbt'') was a goddess associated with Aleppo, originally worshiped in the north of modern Syria in the third millennium BCE. Her name is often presumed to be either a feminine nis ...

. She appears alongside her mistress in a number of Hurrian myths, in which she is portrayed as her closest confidante. Her name is usually assumed to have its origin in a

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

, though a possible

Hurrian The Hurrians (; ; also called Hari, Khurrites, Hourri, Churri, Hurri) were a people who inhabited the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age. They spoke the Hurro-Urartian language, Hurrian language, and lived throughout northern Syria (region) ...

etymology has also been proposed. She was worshiped in

Hattusa Hattusa, also Hattuşa, Ḫattuša, Hattusas, or Hattusha, was the capital of the Hittites, Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age during two distinct periods. Its ruins lie near modern Boğazkale, Turkey (originally Boğazköy) within the great ...

Lawazantiya Lawazantiya (URULa-wa(-az)-za-an-ti-ya) was a major Bronze Age city in the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna and the cultic city of the goddess Šauška. It was famous for its temple that got purification water from its seven springs. Today the best candida ...

and

Ugarit Ugarit (; , ''ủgrt'' /ʾUgarītu/) was an ancient port city in northern Syria about 10 kilometers north of modern Latakia. At its height it ruled an area roughly equivalent to the modern Latakia Governorate. It was discovered by accident in 19 ...

Name

Multiple spellings of Takitu's name are attested in

and Hittite texts, alternating between ''ta'' and ''tu'' and ''da'' and ''du'', which results in alternate forms such as Dakitu or Dakidu. In the Ugaritic alphabetic script it was spelled as ''dqt''. Dennis Pardee vocalizes this form as Daqqītu, while Daniel Schwmer as Daqitu. On the basis of the Ugaritic form of the name it has been proposed that it was derived from the Semitic root ''dqq'', "small". It can accordingly be translated as "the small one". Meindert Dijkstra instead suggested that it might be connected with the Hurrian word ''taki'', "beautiful".

Character

Takitu fulfilled the role of Ḫepat's servant and divine

vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...

(

Volkert Haas Volkert Haas (1 November 1936 – 13 May 2019) was a German Assyrologist and Hittitologist. __NOTOC__ Life Volkert Haas studied Assyrology and Near Eastern archaeology at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Marburg from 1963 to ...

characterizes her as Ḫepat's closest confidante in myths. Dennis Pardee argues that in

she belonged to the same group of deities as

Pidray Pidray (, ''pdry'') was an Ugaritic goddess of uncertain character. She is first attested as an Amorite deity in a bilingual Mesopotamian lexical list, but she is otherwise almost exclusively from Ugaritic texts. While she is well attested in thi ...

, a local goddess considered to be analogous to Ḫepat. While in myths the role of Ḫepat's attendant belongs to Takitu, in some ritual texts it instead belongs to Tiyabenti, a deity whose gender is unclear according to

Gary Beckman Gary Michael Beckman (born 1948) is a noted Hittitologist and Professor of Hittite and Mesopotamian Studies at the University of Michigan. He has written several books on the Hittites: his publication ''Hittite Diplomatic Texts'' and ''Hittite Myth ...

, but identified as a goddess by Marie-Claude Trémouille. According to Alfonso Archi, Tiyabenti's name has Hurrian origin and means "he who speaks favorably" or "she who speaks favorably". Takitu and Tiyabenti coexist in offering lists, where both can accompany Ḫepat, which according to Marie-Claude Trémouille indicates that theories according to which one of them was merely an epithet of the other are unsubstantiated. An offering lists focused on the circle of Ḫepat refers to Takitu as Taki-Takitu, "the beautiful Takitu". According to Volkert Haas, she was imagined as a youthful deity.

Worship

Takitu belonged to the circle of deities associated with Ḫepat, and appears in ' (offering lists) dedicated to her. In

Yazılıkaya :'' Yazılıkaya, Eskişehir, also called Midas City, is a village with Phrygian ruins.'' Yazılıkaya () was a sanctuary of Hattusa, the capital city of the Hittite Empire, today in the Çorum Province, Turkey. Rock reliefs are a prominent aspec ...

, she is depicted behind Ḫepat's children

Šarruma Šarruma, also romanized as Šarrumma or Sharruma, was a Hurrian god. He could be depicted in both anthropomorphic form, sometimes riding on the back of a leopard, and in the theriomorphic form as a bull. His character is not fully understood, t ...

Allanzu Allanzu, later known under the name Alasuwa, was a Hurrian goddess regarded as a daughter of Ḫepat. She was described as a youthful deity and in known texts often appears in association with her mother and siblings. She was also worshiped by Hi ...

and Kunzišalli, in front of

Hutena and Hutellura Hutena and Hutellura (also spelled Hudena and Hudellura; ''ḫdn ḫdlr'' in alphabetic Ugaritic texts) were goddesses of fate and divine midwives in Hurrian mythology. Number An unresolved problem in scholarship is the number of goddesses r ...

. A Hurrian religions text mentions that during one ritual involving

Kumarbi Kumarbi, also known as Kumurwe, Kumarwi and Kumarma, was a Hurrian god. He held a senior position in the Hurrian pantheon, and was described as the "father of gods". He was portrayed as an old, deposed king of the gods, though this most likely ...

and the so-called " former gods", Takitu should sit next to Ḫepat, on her left side. Another, which identifies her as a

gatekeeper A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the classic words of manage ...

(Hurrian: ''amummekunni'') similarly prescribes seating her to the left of her mistress. Locations where Takitu was worshiped include

, where a staff serving as a cultic utensil connected to her was held,

Kizzuwatna Kizzuwatna (or Kizzuwadna; in Ancient Egyptian ''Kode'' or ''Qode'') was an ancient Anatolian kingdom, attested in written sources from the end of the 16th century BC onwards, but though its origins are still obscure, the Middle Bronze Age in Cili ...

, and

. In the last of these cities, she is attested in a number Hurrian offering lists, either in her standard place after Ḫepat, after

Ninatta and Kulitta Ninatta and Kulitta were a dyad of Hurrian goddesses regarded as the handmaidens of Šauška. They were primarily considered divine musicians, though they also had a warlike aspect. They are attested in western Hurrian sources from Ugarit and Hat ...

and before

Nikkal Nikkal (logographically dNIN.GAL, alphabetically 𐎐𐎋𐎍 ''nkl'') or Nikkal-wa-Ib (''nkl wib'') was a goddess worshiped in various areas of the ancient Near East west of Mesopotamia. She was derived from the Mesopotamian goddess Ningal, and ...

, or in one case after

as the last deity listed. She also appears in a number of texts written in the

Ugaritic Ugaritic () is an extinct Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language known through the Ugaritic texts discovered by French archaeology, archaeologists in 1928 at Ugarit, including several major literary texts, notably the Baal cycl ...

language in an

alphabetic script An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given ...

. She is mentioned in the very first text discovered during the excavations in 1929, a ritual taking place over the course of two days, partially at night. She received an ewe as an offering during it, after the local goddess

and before Tiraṯu, the god of

wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

. She is also mentioned in a deity list, which similarly places her after Pidray and before Tiraṯu.

Mythology

A myth preserved on the tablet CTH 346.12 describes Takitu's journey through the lands of

Mitanni Mitanni (–1260 BC), earlier called Ḫabigalbat in old Babylonian texts, ; Hanigalbat or Hani-Rabbat in Assyrian records, or in Ancient Egypt, Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian language, Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria (region), Syria an ...

to Šimurrum, undertaken on behalf of her mistress, Ḫepat. Takitu also appears in the ''Song of Ullikummi'', where Ḫepat tasks her with finding out the fate of her husband

Teshub Teshub was the Hurrians, Hurrian weather god, as well as the head of the Hurrian pantheon. The etymology of his name is uncertain, though it is agreed it can be classified as linguistically Hurrian language, Hurrian. Both Phonetics, phonetic and L ...

after his initial confrontation with the eponymous monster. Later Ḫepat's servants have to hold her to make sure she does not fall from the roof while Teshub's brother Tashmishu brings her information about his fate.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * *

External links

The text CTH 346.12
in the database ''Mythen der Hethiter. Das Projekt'' of the

University of Würzburg The Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg (also referred to as the University of Würzburg, in German ''Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg'') is a public research university in Würzburg, Germany. Founded in 1402, it is one of the ol ...

{{Hurrian mythology Hurrian deities Hittite deities Ugaritic deities