The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empireSayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
History
The Hittites : $b The story of a forgotten empire
Sayce, A. H. (Archibald Henry)
Hittites
Sandan was identified with the Sun, and hence it happened that when a
Semitic language came to prevail in Cilicia he was transformed into a
supreme Baal. The same transformation had taken place centuries before
in the Hittite cities of Syria. Beside the Syrian goddess Kes, who is
represented as standing upon a lion, like the great goddess of
Carchemish, the Egyptian monuments tell us of Sutekh, who stands in the
same relation to his Hittite worshippers as the Semitic Baal stood to
the populations of Canaan. Sutekh was the supreme Hittite god, but at
the same time he was localised in every city or state in which the
Hittites lived. Thus there was a Sutekh of Carchemish and a Sutekh of
Kadesh, just as there was a Baal of Tyre and a Baal of Tarsos. The forms
under which he was worshipped were manifold, but everywhere it was the
same Sutekh, the same national god.
It would seem that the power of Sutekh began to wane after the age of
Ramses, and that the goddess began to usurp the place once held by the
god. It is possible that this was due to Babylonian and Assyrian
influence. At any rate, whereas it is Sutekh who appears at the head of
the Hittite states in the treaty with Ramses, in later days the chief
cult of the 'Holy Cities' was paid to the Mother-goddess. His place was
taken by the goddess at Carchemish as well as at Mabog, at Boghaz Keui
as well as at Komana.
In the Kappadokian Komana the goddess went under the name of Ma. She was
served by 6000 priests and priestesses, the whole city being dedicated
to her service. The place of the king was occupied by the Abakles or
high-priest. We have seen that the sculptures of Boghaz Keui give us
reason to believe that the same was also the case in Pteria; we know
that it was so in other 'Holy Cities' of Asia Minor. At Pessinus in
Phrygia, where lions and panthers stood beside the goddess, the whole
city was given up to her worship, under the command of the chief Gallos
or priest; and on the shores of the Black Sea the Amazonian priestesses
of Kybelê, who danced in armour in her honour, were imagined by the
Greeks to constitute the sole population of an entire country. At
Ephesos, in spite of the Greek colony which had found its way there, the
worship of the Mother-goddess continued to absorb the life of the
inhabitants, so that it still could be described in the time of St. Paul
as a city which was 'a worshipper of the great goddess.' Here, as at
Pessinus, she was worshipped under the form of a meteoric stone 'which
had fallen from heaven.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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