In
Hittite mythology
Hittite mythology and Hittite religion were the religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites, who created an empire centered in what is now Turkey from .
Most of the narratives embodying Hittite mythology are lost, and the elements that wo ...
, Illuyanka was a
serpentine dragon slain by
Tarḫunz
Tarḫunz (stem: ''Tarḫunt-'') was the weather god and chief god of the Luwians, a people of Bronze Age and early Iron Age Anatolia. He is closely associated with the Hittite god Tarḫunna and the Hurrian god Teshub.
Name
The name of the P ...
(), 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 Northern ...
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
Puruli () was a Hattian spring festival, held at Nerik, dedicated to the earth goddess Hannahanna, who is married to a new king.
The central ritual of the Puruli festival is dedicated to the destruction of the dragon Illuyanka by the storm god ...
.
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 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 the power of the ...
''
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
Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 19 families, 111 genera, and about 800 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...
'', 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
Inaras 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 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
Malatya ( hy, Մալաթիա, translit=Malat'ya; Syro-Aramaic ܡܠܝܛܝܢܐ Malīṭīná; ku, Meletî; Ancient Greek: Μελιτηνή) is a large city in the Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital of Malatya Province. The city h ...
(dating from 1050-850 BC) and is on display in the
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations
The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations ( tr, Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi) is located on the south side of Ankara Castle in the Atpazarı area in Ankara, Turkey. It consists of the old Ottoman Mahmut Paşa bazaar storage building, and the Kurş ...
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 reli ...
' 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, 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.
See also
*
List of dragons in mythology and folklore
This is a list of dragons in mythology and folklore.
African dragons
American dragons
European dragons
This is a list of European dragons.
Northeast Asian dragons
Oceanian dragons
South Asian dragons
Southeast Asian ...
*
Lotan
Lotan (Ugaritic language, Ugaritic: 𐎍𐎚𐎐''-ltn'', transliterated
''Lôtān'', ''Litan'', or ''Litānu'', meaning "coiled") is a servant of the sea god Yam (god), Yam defeated by the storm god Hadad, Hadad-Baʿal in the Ugaritic ''Ba ...
, Ugarit sea serpent
*
Jörmungandr
In Norse mythology, Jörmungandr ( non, Jǫrmungandr, lit=the Vast gand, see Etymology), also known as the Midgard Serpent or World Serpent ( non, Miðgarðsormr), is an unfathomably large sea serpent or worm who dwells in the world sea, encir ...
, 'world serpent' in Norse myth
*
Nidhögg, a dragon that gnaws at the world tree in Norse myth
*
Tiamat
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat ( akk, or , grc, Θαλάττη, Thaláttē) is a primordial goddess of the sea, mating with Abzû, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial crea ...
, the chaos-dragon of Mesopotamia
*
Vritra
Vritra () is a danava in Hinduism. He serves as the personification of drought, and is an adversary of the king of the devas, Indra. As a danava, he belongs to the race of the asuras. Vritra is also known in the Vedas as Ahi (Sanskrit: ', lit ...
, dragon personifying drought in Vedic religion
*
Yamata no Orochi
, or simply , is a legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed Japanese dragon/ serpent.
Mythology
Yamata no Orochi legends are originally recorded in two ancient texts about Japanese mythology and history. The 712 AD transcribes this dragon nam ...
, eight-headed and eight-tailed dragon in Japanese legend
References
{{Hattian topics
Hittite legendary creatures
Legendary serpents