02 What Deities did they worship? (Hittite/Hurrian Mythology)
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This article is from the Hittite/Hurrian Mythology FAQ, by Christopher B. Siren cbsiren@hopper.unh.edu with numerous contributions by others.
02 What Deities did they worship? (Hittite/Hurrian Mythology)
The Hittites had an abundant number of local cult deities and sets
of local pantheons. As the government became more centralized,
particularly during the imperial period around 1400 - 1200 B.C., there
were efforts to equate many of these local deities and form a state
pantheon. Such a pantheon was headed by the Weather-god/Storm-god, who
also represented the mountains, and his consort - usually the earth
goddess, who was also attached to the waters of rivers and the sea. The
Hittites themselves write of 'the thousand gods of Hatti', and more than
eight-hundred such names have been discovered. (Considerably fewer will
be dealt with here.) The associated myths have both Hittite and Hurrian
content, with the origin of many suspected to be Hurrian. The Kumarbis-
Ullukummis is chief among the Hurrian tales and the Illuyankas stories
and missing god myths of Telipinus and the missing Storm-god are thought
to be more Hattic. There also exist fragments of a Hittite version of
the Gilgamesh epic and many Akkadian deities are worshiped outright.
You will notice that many of the names carry an optional 's' as a
suffix, which comes from the nominative case ending for Hittite.
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