Telipinu (;
Hattic: ''Talipinu'' or ''Talapinu'', "Exalted Son")
[Beckman, Gary. "Telipinu" in ''Reallexicon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie'', Vol. 13. 2012] was a
Hittite god who most likely served as a patron of farming, though he has also been suggested to have been a
storm god or an embodiment of crops.
He was a son of the
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 ...
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 ...
(
Taru) and the
solar goddess Arinniti
The Sun goddess of Arinna, also sometimes identified as Arinniti or as Wuru(n)šemu, is the chief Goddess of Hittite mythology. Her companion is the weather god Tarḫunna. She protected the Hittite kingdom and was called the "Queen of all lands ...
in the system of their
mythology
Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
.
His wife was the goddess
Ḫatepuna, though he was also paired with and
Kataḫḫa
Kataḫḫa or Kataḫḫi was a name or title of multiple goddesses worshiped in ancient Anatolia by Hattians and Hittites, with the best known example being the tutelary deity of Ankuwa. It has been proposed that goddesses sharing this name wer ...
at various cultic centres.
Telipinu was honored every nine years with an extravagant festival in the autumn at Ḫanḫana and Kašḫa, wherein 1000 sheep and 50 oxen were sacrificed and the symbol of the god, an oak tree, was replanted.
He was also invoked formulaically in a daily prayer for King
Muršili II during the latter's reign.
An ancient Hittite myth about Telipinu, the ''Telipinu Myth'', describes how his disappearance causes all fertility to fail, both plant and animal:
In order to stop the havoc and devastation, the gods seek Telipinu but fail to find him.
Hannahanna, the
mother goddess
A mother goddess is a major goddess characterized as a mother or progenitor, either as an embodiment of motherhood and fertility or fulfilling the cosmological role of a creator- and/or destroyer-figure, typically associated the Earth, sky, ...
, sent a bee to find him; when the bee did, stinging Telipinu and smearing wax on him, the god grew angry and began to wreak destruction on the world. Finally,
Kamrušepa, goddess of magic, calmed Telipinu by giving his anger to the Doorkeeper of the
Underworld
The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underworld.
...
.
In other references it is a mortal priest who prays for all of Telipinu's anger to be sent to bronze containers in the underworld, from which nothing escapes.
[''The Ancient Near East'', J.B.Pritchard, page 88.] In either case, it is difficult to determine anything about the nature of Telipinu from this myth, as myths along the same pattern have also been found featuring the unrelated goddessess
Anzili and .
It has been suggested that Telipinu endured in later mythology as the Greek
Telephus
In Greek mythology, Telephus (; , ''TÄ“lephos'', "far-shining") was the son of Heracles and Auge, who was the daughter of king Aleus of Tegea. He was adopted by Teuthras, the king of Mysia, in Asia Minor, whom he succeeded as king. Telephus was ...
and the Caucasian
Telepia, but this identification is uncertain.
In addition, his name was adopted by several kings, such as the Hittite monarch
Telipinu.
References
{{Authority control
Agricultural gods
Hittite deities
Sky and weather gods