Šulinkatte was a Hittite god of Hattian origin. He was regarded as a

war deity A war god in mythology associated with war, combat, or bloodshed. They occur commonly in both monotheistic and polytheistic religions. Unlike most gods and goddesses in polytheistic religions, monotheistic deities have traditionally been po ...

. Additionally, he could fulfill the role of a protector of palaces and houses. In the local tradition of Nerik, he was regarded as the father of the

weather god of Nerik The Weather god of Nerik is a Hittite weather god, who was mainly worshipped in the Hittite city of Nerik, whose cult was relocated to Kaštama and Takupša for two hundred years after the Hittites lost Nerik to the Kaskians. He was also referred t ...

. He first appears in texts dated to the fifteenth or fourteenth century BCE. His main cult center was the sparsely attested city Tamarmara, but he was also worshiped elsewhere in ancient

Anatolia Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, for example in

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 t ...

and

Nerik Nerik ( Hittite: ''Nerik(ka)''"Nerik(ka)." ''Reallexikon der Assyriologie.'') was a Bronze Age settlement to the north of the Hittite capitals Hattusa and Sapinuwa, probably in the Pontic region. Since 2005–2009, the site of Nerik has been id ...

. Fragments of a Hattic song celebrating him are also known.

Name and character

The

theonym A theonym (from Greek ''theos'' (Θεός), "god"'','' attached to ''onoma'' (ὄνομα), "name") is the proper name of a deity. Theonymy, the study of divine proper names, is a branch of onomastics (the study of the etymology, history, and u ...

Šulinkatte has Hattic origin. It consists of the words ''katte'', "king", and ''šuli'', of unknown meaning, and presumably can be translated as "king of ''šuli''". It could be represented by the

logogram In a written language, a logogram, logograph, or lexigraph is a written character that represents a word or morpheme. Chinese characters (pronounced ''hanzi'' in Mandarin, ''kanji'' in Japanese, ''hanja'' in Korean) are generally logograms, as ...

^d U.GUR. On this basis it has been proposed that the first part of his name can be interpreted as "sword", but this view found no widespread support. The writing ^d ZA.BA₄.BA₄ is also attested. Šulinkatte was a war god. He shared this role with many other deities in the Hittite pantheon, including fellow Hattian god

Wurunkatte Wurunkatte or Wurukatte was a Hittite war god of Hattian origin. He might have also been connected to the institution of kingship. His symbol was a mace, and based on textual sources it is presumed he could be depicted standing on the back of a ...

, Hittite Zappana and

Iyarri Iyarri, also known as Yarri, was a god worshiped by Hittites and Luwians in Anatolia in the Bronze Age. He was associated with plague and war, and was portrayed as an archer whose arrows inflicted people with illnesses. While it is generally assum ...

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 Northern ...

Aštabi Aštabi ( uga, 𐎀𐎌𐎚𐎁, ''aštb''), also known as Aštabil, was a god worshiped in the third millennium BCE in Ebla, later incorporated into Hurrian beliefs in locations such as Alalakh and Ugarit and as a result also into the religion o ...

, Ḫešui,

Nupatik Nupatik, also known as Lubadag, was a Hurrian god of uncertain character. He is attested in the earliest inscriptions from Urkesh, as well as in texts from many other Hurrian settlements, and possibly continued to be worshiped as late as in the ne ...

and

Tašmišu Tašmišu (Tashmishu) was a Hurrian god. He was regarded as a brother of Teshub, and it is assumed he had a warlike character. Character Volkert Haas proposed that Tašmišu's name was derived from the Hurrian word ''tašmi'', which he translate ...

Mesopotamian Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

Nergal Nergal ( Sumerian: d''KIŠ.UNU'' or ; ; Aramaic: ܢܸܪܓܲܠ; la, Nirgal) was a Mesopotamian god worshiped through all periods of Mesopotamian history, from Early Dynastic to Neo-Babylonian times, with a few attestations under indicating hi ...

and Ugur and more. He was also believed to be the protective god of the royal palace, responsible for warding off demons. Various Hittite texts indicate that he might have more broadly played the role of protector of palaces, houses and gates. According to a preserved description of a statue of Šulinkatte, he could be depicted standing on a lion, with a sword in one hand and a man s chopped off head in the other. This iconography reflects his character as a warlike god. He was portrayed as a young man according to the text KUB 57.105.

Associations with other deities

In the local tradition of

, Šulinkatte and the

sun goddess of the Earth The Sun goddess of the Earth ( Hittite: ''taknaš dUTU'', Luwian: tiyamaššiš Tiwaz) was the Hittite goddess of the underworld. Her Hurrian equivalent was Allani and her Sumerian/Akkadian equivalent was Ereshkigal, both of which had a marked i ...

were regarded as the parents of the

. A deity named Šulinkattainu, whose name is a combination of the theonym Šulinkatte and a Hattic

diminutive A diminutive is a root word that has been modified to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment. A (abbreviated ) is a word-formati ...

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, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

, is also known, and might also plausibly be his child.

Volkert Haas Volkert may refer to: People *Edward Charles Volkert (1871–1935), American painter *Georg Volkert (1945–2020), German footballer * Stephan Volkert (born 1971), German rower *Volkert Doeksen (born 1963), Dutch money manager *Volkert van der Graa ...

suggested he should be identified with Taru, who he presumed was identical with the god from Nerik. This view is supported by other

Hittitologist Hittitology is the study of the Hittites, an ancient Anatolian people that established an empire around Hattusa in the 2nd millennium BCE. It combines aspects of the archaeology, history, philology, and art history of the Hittite civilisation. Li ...

s as well. In incantations, Šulinkatte could appear in association with , the Hattian goddess of magic.

Worship

Oldest known attestations of Šulinkatte, such as the text

CTH CTH or cth may refer to * CTH Public Company Limited, Thai cable and satellite TV company * Calum Thomas Hood * Chalmers University of Technology * Honduras Workers' Confederation - Confederación de Trabajadores de Honduras * China General Aviati ...

516.B, come from the fifteenth or fourteenth century BCE. His main cult center was the sparsely attested city Tamarmara, located in central

. The tablet CTH 516 is a ritual focused on him originating in this city, attributed to the priest Tarḫini. He had two festivals in this city as well, one in the beginning of the year and another in fall. Šulinkatte's cult had a supraregional character. He was worshiped in

. During the festival, a celebration focused on him took place in the shrine of DINGIR.MAḪ. In the text KUB 44.23, he takes the place of , another Hattian god whose name could be written with the logogram ^dU.GUR. According to

Manfred Hutter Manfred Hutter (born 6 June 1957) is a professor of Bonn University. He is usually interested in writing about minority religions, comparative religions and pre-Islamic Arabia. Manfred Hutter understands scientific studies of religions decidedly a ...

, a degree of overlay between these two gods only begins in the thirteenth century BCE. He was also worshiped in , a city located in the proximity of the middle run of Zuliya, identified as the modern

Çekerek River The Çekerek River ( tr, Çekerek Çayı, ancient Scylax) is a tributary of the Yeşil River in Turkey. It flows for about in a "southwest-northeast arc". Its source is near Tokat. The confluence with the Yeşil in the northeast is just to the sou ...

. In Ḫanḫana and Kašḫa Šulinkatte was one of the twelve deities who were represented in the form of a ''ḫuwaši'' stele during a festival dedicated to

Telipinu Telipinu was the last king of the Hittites Old Kingdom, living in 16th century BC, reigned c. 1525-1500 BC in middle chronology. At the beginning of his reign, the Hittite Empire had contracted to its core territories, having long since lost all ...

. He also appears in a similar listing connected to a ceremony from

Zalpa Zalpuwa, also Zalpa, was a still-undiscovered Bronze Age city in Anatolia of around the 18th century BC. Its history is largely known from the Proclamation of Anitta, CTH 1. But the Zalpa mentioned in the Annals of Hattusili I, CTH 4, is now co ...

. A line from a praise song attributed the "women of Nerik" dedicated to Šulinkatte, written in Hattic, is also known, though only a few words can be translated with certainty, including ''katte'' ("king"), ''izzi'' ("auspicious") and ''karam'' ("wine").

References

Bibliography

* * * * *{{cite book, last=Taracha, first=Piotr, title=Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia, series=Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie, volume=27, publisher=Harrassowitz Verlag, publication-place=Wiesbaden, year=2009, isbn=978-3447058858 Hittite deities Hattian deities War gods Domestic and hearth deities