The solar deities of Bronze Age Anatolia

Charles W. Steitler

Solar deities are some of the most significant and diverse figures of the pantheon revealed in the cuneiform tablets of the Hittites. Drawn from a wide range of Anatolian and Syro-Mesopotamian traditions, the Hittite solar deities include Sun-gods and -goddesses who display an array of differing attributes and represent both the celestial and chthonic spheres. Yet the relevant sources (for the most part written in Hittite, but also in other languages) do not necessarily distinguish these solar deities from one another by proper names or distinct logograms. Previous elucidations of the solar deities rested in many respects upon doubtful methodologies or tenuous axioms. This study provides a new approach to distinguishing the solar deities by combining diachronic and typological criteria with careful attention to the cultural milieu of the individual source texts. From this methodology...