Istar in ?atti: The Disambiguation of Savoska and Associated Deities in Hittite Scribal Practice

Abstract

The frequent use of ideographic signs in the cuneiform writing system often obscures divine names in Hittite texts. The sign IŠTAR can designate the theonyms Šavoška or Anzili, for example, but the correct reading of the ideogram is not always clear. Such ideograms are often disambiguated by a phonetic complement that indicates the final syllable of a theonym, or by a divine epithet, which might be geographic or descriptive. The use of the ideogram IŠTAR to designate several different theonyms indicates that “Ištar” was regarded as a category of deities rather than a single divine entity. The present work undertakes a comprehensive analysis of the major manifestations of Ištar that are attested in Hittite sources. This includes an investigation of the cultural, historical, and linguistic context in which these manifestations appear, as well as the identification of the origins of these goddesses, whether they are native to Anatolia or spring from the contemporary Late Bronze Age cultures of Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Levant. The deities treated herein include the major Hittite goddesses Šavoška of Nineveh, Ištar of the Field, and Ištar of Šamuḫa. Šavoška of Nineveh, who is well known from other sources throughout the ancient Near East, is comparatively less important in the Hittite pantheon than the other prominent goddess of Hurrian origin, Ḫebat. Hittite scribes identified Šavoška with the native Anatolian goddess Anzili and employed the latter theonym in translating texts about Šavoška into Hittite. The present study argues that the Hittite goddess Ištar of the Field should be interpreted as a goddess of warfare, and that this deity most likely originated in the martial forms of Ištar that are attested in contemporary sources from Syria and northern Mesopotamia, such as “Ištar of Battle” (INANNA MÈ). The Late Empire period Hittite kings Muršili II and Ḫattušili III enacted major cultic reforms in the city of Šamuḫa that resulted in the schism of Ištar of the Field of Šamuḫa into two distinct cultic entities, viz. Ištar of the Field and Ištar of Šamuḫa. The present study demonstrates that the ideographic title “Deity of the Night” (DINGIR GE₆) was an epithet for the goddess Pirinkir, a divine embodiment of the planet Venus of Elamite origin. This study also treats the other major local manifestations of Ištar of Hurrian origin, such as Ištar of Ḫattarina, Ištar of Lawazantiya, and Ištar of Tameninga. The comparison of numerous attestations of the ideogram NIN.É.GAL in Hittite texts reveals that it occasionally designates the foreign deity “Lady of the Palace” (Bēlet-Ekallim), but frequently functions as a designation for an Anatolian goddess of local importance. Hittite cultic worship lacked the regulation, doctrine, and theological normativity that typically characterize most modern religions. For this reason, the question of the unity or multiplicity of these manifestations of Ištar cannot be answered categorically. The present study argues that the identity and nature of the Hittite Ištar goddesses must be interpreted according to the historical, functional, and local cultic context of each specific textual attestation.