Teššub in the context of "Namni and Ḫazzi"

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👉 Teššub in the context of Namni and Ḫazzi

Namni and Ḫazzi were two mountain gods who belonged to the Hurrian pantheon. They are usually mentioned together in known texts. Ḫazzi corresponds to Jebel al-Aqra, while the identification of the mountain Namni represented is disputed. Both of them belonged to the court of the Hurrian weather god, Teššub, and it is possible they were worshiped alongside him in Aleppo. They are also attested in a variety of Hurrian and Hittite religious texts. They do not play an active role in known myths of Hurrian origin, though allusions to a conflict involving them have been identified in texts dealing with other deities.

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Teššub in the context of Hurrian religion

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.

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Teššub in the context of Kušuḫ

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.

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Teššub in the context of Hurrian pantheon

The Hurrian pantheon consisted of gods of varied backgrounds, some of them natively Hurrian, while others adopted from other pantheons, for example Eblaite and Mesopotamian. Like the other inhabitants of the Ancient Near East, Hurrians regarded their gods as anthropomorphic. They were usually represented in the form of statues holding the symbols associated with a specific deity. The Yazılıkaya sanctuary, which was Hittite in origin but served as a center of the practice of Hurrian religion, is considered a valuable source of information about their iconography.

Hurrians organized their gods into lists known as kaluti or into similar lexical lists as the Mesopotamians. The formal structure of the pantheon was most likely based on either Mesopotamian or Syrian theology. The status of individual deities and composition of the pantheon could vary between individual locations, but some can nonetheless be identified as "pan-Hurrian."

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Teššub in the context of Šeri and Ḫurri

Šeri and Ḫurri were a pair of theriomorphic Hurrian gods who almost always appear together in known sources. They were believed to pull the chariot of Teššub, the Hurrian weather god. Šeri additionally could function as a deity mediating between petitioners and his master, but no individual role was ever assigned to Ḫurri. In addition to appearing in Hurrian offering lists and theophoric names, for example from Nuzi, Šeri and Ḫurri are also attested in Hittite and Mesopotamian sources. While the Hittites incorporated them into their pantheon alongside Teššub and other deities from his circle, in Mesopotamia they instead came to be associated with Adad.

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