Nipas (also spelled Nipaš or Nepaš) was a god worshiped in Kanesh. His name might have been derived from the Hittite word ''nepis'', "heaven", and he might have been a

weather god A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of ...

. While he was most likely one of the main deities of the city, and a temple, festival and clergy associated with him are attested, for unknown reasons he does not appear in any later sources.

Name and character

Nipas' name was rendered as ''Ni-pá-as'' in

cuneiform Cuneiform is a Logogram, logo-Syllabary, syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. Cuneiform script ...

. According to , it most likely originated in a language he refers to as a "central Anatolian

substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (aquatic environment), the earthy material that exi ...

", similar to these of other local deities of Kanesh: Ḫariḫari, Ḫigiša, Parka, Tuḫtuḫani and possibly

Anna Anna may refer to: People Surname and given name * Anna (name) Mononym * Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke * Anna of East Anglia, King (died c.654) * Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773) * Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th c ...

. Guido Kryszat instead connects it with the Hittite word ''nepis'', "heaven". This explanation is also accepted by authors such as

Manfred Hutter Manfred Hutter (born 6 June 1957) is a professor at Bonn University. He is usually interested in writing about minority religion A minority religion is a religion held by a Minority group, minority of the population of state or which is otherwise ...

and

Gojko Barjamovic Gojko Johansen Barjamovic is Senior Lecturer in Assyriology and Senior Research Scholar at Yale University. He received his training at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and taught at Harvard University 2013-2024. He is a specialist in the p ...

. However, it has been criticized by , who argues that as a

neuter Neuter is a Latin adjective meaning "neither", and can refer to: *Neuter gender, a grammatical gender, a linguistic class of nouns triggering specific types of inflections in associated words * Neuter pronoun *Neutering, the sterilization of an an ...

noun, this word would be an unusual

theonym A theonym (from Greek (), 'god', attached to (), ) is a proper name of a deity. Theonymy, the study of divine proper names, is a branch of onomastics, the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. Theonymy helps develop an und ...

, and additionally points out that to accept Kryszat's view one has to assume the word preserved the initial ''n'' as in Hittite, but developed the same

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

as its

Luwian Luwian (), sometimes known as Luvian or Luish, is an ancient language, or group of languages, within the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family. The ethnonym Luwian comes from ''Luwiya'' (also spelled ''Luwia'' or ''Luvia'') – ...

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

, which starts with a ''t''. Nipas might have been was a weather god, though the deity represented by the logogram ^dIM in texts from Kanesh is more likely to be Hittite

Tarḫunna Tarḫunna or Tarḫuna/i was the Hittite weather god. He was also referred to as the "Weather god of Heaven" or the "Lord of the Land of Hatti". Name Tarḫunna is a cognate of the Hittite verb ''tarḫu-zi'', "to prevail, conquer, be pow ...

than him. It has been proposed that

seals Seals may refer to: * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to impress an emblem, used as a means of a ...

from Kanesh showing a family of deities might depict Nipas and Anna accompanied by divine children, but this interpretation is far from certain.

Worship

Since Nipas,

and Parka appear particularly often in known texts from Kanesh from the '' karum'' period, it is possible that they formed the core of the local pantheon. Guido Kryszat outright refers to him as the most important deity of this city next to Anna. Despite their prominence, these deities are largely absent from

theophoric name A theophoric name (from Greek: , ''theophoros'', literally "bearing or carrying a god") embeds the word equivalent of 'god' or a god's name in a person's name, reflecting something about the character of the person so named in relation to that d ...

s. A temple dedicated to Nipas existed in Kanesh. A festival held in his honor is also attested. It is presumed it occurred in the fourth month in the contemporary Assyrian calendar, in which the year started in October. It took place after the festival of Anna, the city goddess. The local ruler visited Nipas' temple during it. In one text, "when the ruler leaves the temple of Nipas" is the date by which a loan has to be repaid. A priest of Nipas named Šulili is mentioned in a single document. However, the name is otherwise unattested in the entire corpus of texts from this site. Nipas is not attested in any Hittite sources postdating the Kanesh text corpus. Later

Assyria Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , ''māt Aššur'') was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization that existed as a city-state from the 21st century BC to the 14th century BC and eventually expanded into an empire from the 14th century BC t ...

n texts similarly do not mention him in any capacity. The reasons behind his apparent loss of relevance are not known.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * *{{cite book, last1=Veenhof, first1=Klaus R., last2=Eidem, first2=Jesper, title=Mesopotamia: the Old Assyrian period, url=https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/151184/, publisher=Academic Press, publication-place=Fribourg, date=2008, isbn=978-3-525-53452-6, oclc=244654503 Hittite deities Sky and weather gods