The corpus of texts written in the
Hittite language
Hittite (natively / "the language of Neša", or ''nešumnili'' / "the language of the people of Neša"), also known as Nesite (''Nešite'' / Neshite, Nessite), is an extinct Indo-European language that was spoken by the Hittites, a people ...
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 CTH. Major sources for studies of selected texts themselves are the books of the
StBoT Studien zu den Bogazköy-Texten (abbreviated StBoT; lit. Studies in the Bogazköy (Hattusa) Texts) edited by the German ''Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur'' (Academy of Sciences and Literature), Mainz, since 1965, is a series of editio ...
series and the online ''Textzeugnisse der Hethiter''.
CTH numbering scheme
![Hittite Cuneiform Tablet- Cultic Festival Script](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Hittite_Cuneiform_Tablet-_Cultic_Festival_Script.jpg)
The texts are classified as follows:
*Historical Texts (CTH 1–220)
*Administrative Texts (CTH 221–290)
*Legal Texts (CTH 291–298)
*Lexical Texts (CTH 299–309)
*Literary Texts (CTH 310–320)
*Mythological Texts (CTH 321–370)
*Hymns and Prayers (CTH 371–389)
*Ritual Texts (CTH 390–500)
*Cult Inventory Texts (CTH 501–530)
*Omen and Oracle Texts (CTH 531–582)
*Vows (CTH 583–590)
*Festival Texts (CTH 591–724)
*Texts in Other Languages (CTH 725–830)
*Texts of Unknown Type (CTH 831–833)
Selected texts
Some Wikipedia articles dedicated to specific Hittite texts follow. More are to be found as sections of other articles.
Old Kingdom
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Anitta text
Anitta, son of Pitḫana, reigned ca. 1740–1725 BC (middle chronology), and was a king of Kuššara, a city that has yet to be identified. He is the earliest known ruler to compose a text in the Hittite language.
His high official, or ''rabi s ...
*
Hittite military oath
The Hittite military oath (CTH 427) is a Hittite text on two cuneiform tablets.
The first tablet is only preserved in fragments (KBo XXI 10, KUB XL 13, and minor fragments), the second tablet survives in three copies, and can be restituted almost ...
*
Hittite laws
The Hittite laws, also known as the Code of the Nesilim, constitute an ancient legal code dating from c. 1650 – 1500 BCE. They have been preserved on a number of Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Hattusa (CTH 291-292, listing 200 laws). C ...
(CTH 291–292), also called the Code of the Nesilim
*
Myth of Illuyanka
New Kingdom
*
Kikkuli Kikkuli was the Hurrian "master horse trainer 'assussanni''of the land of Mitanni" (LÚ''A-AŠ-ŠU-UŠ-ŠA-AN-NI ŠA'' KUR URU''MI-IT-TA-AN-NI'') and author of a chariot horse training text written primarily in the Hittite language (as well as an O ...
's horse training instructions
*
Manapa-Tarhunta letter The Manapa-Tarhunta letter ( CTH 191; KUB 19.5 + KBo 19.79) is a tablet in Luwian/Hittite language from the thirteenth century BC, which has come down to us in a fairly good state of conservation. It was discovered in the 1980s.
It was written by ...
*
Milawata letter The Milawata letter (CTH 182) is an item of diplomatic correspondence from a Hittite king at Hattusa to a client king in western Anatolia around 1240 BC. It constitutes an important piece of evidence in the debate concerning the historicity of Home ...
*
Song of 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 ...
*
Story of Appu The ''Story of Appu'' is a mythological Hittite text (CTH 360). The text is fragmentary, and the sequence of events in the story is a reconstruction.
The text is usually taken as an account of a Hurrian myth, but it does not itself contain any Hu ...
*
Tawagalawa letter
The Tawagalawa letter ( CTH 181) is a fragmentary Hittite text from the mid 13th century BC. It is notable for providing a window into relations between Hittites and Greeks during the Late Bronze Age and for its mention of a prior disagreement con ...
*
Zita (Hittite prince)
Zita was a Hittite prince and probably the brother of Suppiluliuma I, (Šuppiluliumaš of the letters), in the 382–letter correspondence called the Amarna letters. The letters were mostly sent to the pharaoh of Egypt from 1350- 1335 BC, b ...
See also
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Amarna letters
The Amarna letters (; sometimes referred to as the Amarna correspondence or Amarna tablets, and cited with the abbreviation EA, for "El Amarna") are an archive, written on clay tablets, primarily consisting of diplomatic correspondence between t ...
*
Ugaritic texts
The Ugaritic texts are a corpus of ancient cuneiform texts discovered since 1928 in Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and Ras Ibn Hani in Syria, and written in Ugaritic, an otherwise unknown Northwest Semitic language. Approximately 1,500 texts and fragments ...
Notes
References
* Gary M. Beckman, Harry A. Hoffner, ''Hittite diplomatic texts'', volume 7 of Writings from the ancient world, Scholars Press, 1999, .
External links
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* Membership required for some databases. Other databases under construction.
* This database currently contains transliterations and translations of Hittite state treaties, decrees, myths, and rituals.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hittite Texts
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