Alalakh in the context of "Šimige"

Sukkal (conventionally translated from Sumerian as "vizier") was a term which could denote both a type of official and a class of deities in ancient Mesopotamia. The historical sukkals were responsible for overseeing the execution of various commands of the kings and acted as diplomatic envoys and translators for foreign dignitaries. The deities referred to as sukkals fulfilled a similar role in mythology, acting as servants, advisors and envoys of the main gods of the Mesopotamian pantheon, such as Enlil or Inanna. The best known sukkal is the goddess Ninshubur. In art, they were depicted carrying staves, most likely understood as their attribute. They could function as intercessory deities, believed to mediate between worshipers and the major gods.

The office sukkal is also known from various areas to the west and east of Mesopotamia, including the Hurrian kingdom Arrapha, Syrian Alalakh and Mari and Elam under the rule of the Sukkalmah Dynasty, while the concept of divine sukkals was incorporated into Hurrian religion, in which major gods such as Kumarbi or Hebat commonly appear in company of their sukkals, similar to their Mesopotamian counterparts.

The corpus of texts written in the Hittite language consists of more than 30,000 tablets or fragments that have been excavated from the royal archives of the capital of the Hittite Kingdom, Hattusa, close to the modern Turkish town of Boğazkale or Boğazköy. While Hattusa has yielded the majority of tablets, other sites where they have been found include: Maşat Höyük, Ortaköy, Kuşaklı or Kayalıpınar in Turkey, Alalakh, Ugarit and Emar in Syria, Amarna in Egypt.

The tablets are mostly conserved in the Turkish museums of Ankara, Istanbul, Boğazkale and Çorum (Ortaköy) as well as in international museums such as the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin, the British Museum in London and the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

The Hurrian religion was the polytheistic religion of the Hurrians, a Bronze Age people of the Near East who chiefly inhabited the north of the Fertile Crescent. While the oldest evidence goes back to the third millennium BCE, it is best attested in cuneiform sources from the second millennium BCE written not only in the Hurrian language, but also Akkadian, Hittite and Ugaritic. It was shaped by contacts between the Hurrians and the various cultures with which they coexisted. As a result, the Hurrian pantheon included both natively Hurrian deities and those of foreign origin, adopted from Mesopotamian, Syrian (chiefly Eblaite and Ugaritic), Anatolian and Elamite beliefs. The culture of the Hurrians was not entirely homogeneous, and different local religious traditions are documented in sources from Hurrian kingdoms such as Arrapha, Kizzuwatna and Mitanni, as well as from cities with sizeable Hurrian populations, such as Ugarit and Alalakh.

Hurrian religion forms one of the best attested influences upon Hittite religion. The Hurrian pantheon is depicted in the rock reliefs from the Hittite sanctuary at Yazılıkaya, which dates to the thirteenth century BCE. Hittite scribes also translated many Hurrian myths into their own language, possibly relying on oral versions passed down by Hurrian singers. Among the best known of these compositions are the cycle of myths describing conflicts between Kumarbi and his son Teššub and the Song of Release. Hurrian influences on Ugaritic and Mesopotamian religion also have been noted, though they are less extensive. Furthermore, it has been argued that the Hurrian myths about a succession struggle between various primordial kings of the gods influenced Hesiod's poem Theogony.

Kušuḫ, also known under the name Umbu, was the god of the moon in Hurrian pantheon. He is attested in cuneiform texts from many sites, from Hattusa in modern Turkey, through Ugarit, Alalakh, Mari and other locations in Syria, to Nuzi, located near modern Kirkuk in Iraq, but known sources do not indicate that he was associated with a single city. His name might be derived from the toponym Kuzina, possibly the Hurrian name of Harran, a city in Upper Mesopotamia, but both this etymology and identification of this sparsely attested place name remain uncertain. He was a popular, commonly worshiped god, and many theophoric names invoking him are known. In addition to serving as a divine representation of the moon, he was also associated with oaths, oracles and pregnancy. Some aspects of his character were likely influenced by his Mesopotamian counterpart Sin, while he in turn was an influence on the Ugaritic god Yarikh and Luwian Arma.

In Hurrian mythology, Kušuḫ appears as one of the allies of the weather god Teššub in his struggle against Kumarbi, but known compositions do not provide much information about his individual characteristics. It has also been proposed that the Ugaritic composition Marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh was based on a Hurrian myth about Kušuḫ, well attested as the husband of this goddess.

Amorite is an extinct early Semitic language, formerly spoken during the Bronze Age by the Amorite tribes prominent in ancient Near Eastern history. It is known from Ugaritic, which is classed by some as its westernmost dialect, and from non-Akkadian proper names recorded by Akkadian scribes during periods of Amorite rule in Babylonia (the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC), notably from Mari and to a lesser extent Alalakh, Tell Harmal and Khafajah. Occasionally, such names are also found in early Egyptian texts; and one place name, "Sənīr" (שְׂנִיר) for Mount Hermon, is known from the Bible (Book of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 3:9).

Amorite is considered an archaic Northwest Semitic language.

The Yamhad dynasty was an ancient Amorite royal family founded in c. 1810 BC by Sumu-Epuh of Yamhad who had his capital in the city of Aleppo. Started as a local dynasty, the family expanded its influence through the actions of its energetic ruler Yarim-Lim I who turned it into the most influential family in the Levant through both diplomatic and military tools. At its height the dynasty controlled most of northern Syria and the modern Turkish province of Hatay with a cadet branch ruling in the city of Alalakh (Land of Mukish).

The dynasty was ousted during a short Hittite occupation of Aleppo in the beginning of the 16th century BC but was restored and expanded the kingdom again before being driven out of Aleppo by the Mitannians in c. 1524. Idrimi, a member of the dynasty, was able to conquer Alalakh leaving his descendants to rule until the last of them was dethroned by the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I in c. 1344 BC.

Ḫepat (Hurrian: 𒀭𒄭𒁁, ḫe-pát; also romanized as Ḫebat; Ugaritic 𐎃𐎁𐎚, ḫbt) was a goddess associated with Aleppo, originally worshiped in the north of modern Syria in the third millennium BCE. Her name is often presumed to be either a feminine nisba referring to her connection to this city, or alternatively a derivative of the root ḫbb, "to love". Her best attested role is that of the spouse of various weather gods. She was already associated with Adad in Ebla and Aleppo in the third millennium BCE, and in later times they are attested as a couple in cities such as Alalakh and Emar. In Hurrian religion she instead came to be linked with Teshub, which in the first millennium BCE led to the development of a tradition in which she was the spouse of his Luwian counterpart Tarḫunz. Associations between her and numerous other deities are described in Hurrian ritual texts, where she heads her own kaluti (de), a type of offering lists dedicated to the circle of a specific deity. She commonly appears in them alongside her children, Šarruma, Allanzu and Kunzišalli. Her divine attendant was the goddess Takitu. In Hittite sources, she could sometimes be recognized as the counterpart of the Sun goddess of Arinna, though their respective roles were distinct and most likely this theological conception only had limited recognition. In Ugarit the local goddess Pidray could be considered analogous to her instead.

The oldest evidence for the worship of Ḫepat comes from texts from Ebla, though she was not a major goddess in Eblaite religion. In later times she was worshiped in the kingdom of Yamhad, as well as in Emar. She was also incorporated into Hurrian religion, though most of the related evidence comes exclusively from western Hurrian polities such as Kizzuwatna, where her cult center was Kummanni. In Ugarit, as well as among the eastern Hurrian communities, her importance was comparably smaller. She was also incorporated into Hittite and Luwian religion through Hurrian mediation, and as a result continued to be worshiped in the first millennium BCE in states such as Tabal and Samʾal. The goddess Hipta, known from Lydia and from later Orphic sources, is sometimes presumed to be a late form of her. A less direct connection between her and another figure known from classical sources, Ma, has also been proposed.

Aštabi (Ugaritic: 𐎀𐎌𐎚𐎁, aštb), also known as Aštabil, was a god worshiped in the third millennium BCE in Ebla, later incorporated into Hurrian beliefs in locations such as Alalakh and Ugarit and as a result also into the religion of the Hittite Empire.