According to Hurrian spells from Ugarit, Ishara was worshiped in Syria in the fol.lowi.ng main

centers: Mari, Tuttu! with Eraar-Sirasse, Mudkm-Nidabe, Yablä-Alise, Nastarbenne-Sidurasse,

Tunanab-Saydar and Ugarit-Zuiude, Dietrich - Mayer 1994; Dietrich 2004: 143.

Longman 1997: 479.

Haas —Wilhelm 1974: 138. For the temple of Ishara /JSTAR at Alalah, see Na’aman 1980. Cf.

Also Prechel 1996: 184f.

Westenholz 1999:158. See, however, Feliu (2003: 246f. n. 226) who argues against the pairing of Dagan

And Ishara in Emar and the neighboring region. For Ishara in Emar, see also Beckman 2002c: 44, 51.

KUB 40.2 obv. Prechel 1996: 120ff. with referenees;

893 Prechel 1998: IÖ4f.; van Gessel 1998: 81f.

124

Hittite Anatoj.ta

the sanctuarv of Ishara as goddess of oaths was connected with a ftamri-building. 69 *'

The Kizzuwatnean Ishara has characteristics of a chthonic goddess.

, 695

In the westera Human pantheon Ishara s function changea tundamentaUy.

She found herseif among the chthonic deities who were believed to belong to the

Earlier generation of gods (see below). Ishara was associated with the goddess Allani

and gained many negative characteristics, including a link with the mortal ‘disease

F Ishara.’ She was also a guardian of oaths and as such appears in Hittite state

Treaties, rnost often in the Company of the Moon-god. 696 Her connection with the Moon-

697

God Sangar / Sag(g)ar in Ma’NE of the Ebla texts should also be noted, ” and later

In cults from the Khabur region, the middle Euphrates (Emar) and Kizzuwatna.

Allani or ‘Lady (of the Netherworld),’ 6 " who adopted many characteristics from

The Mesopotamien Ereskigal, herseif influenced the image of the Sun-goddess of the

Earth (3.2.4). ln the Hurrian-Luwian environment of Kizzuwatna these two goddesses

Became identified. In Mesopotamia, Allani was venerated as Allatu, but in Asia Minor

The two manifestations of the goddess were treated as separate deities. Allatu, equa-

Ted with the god Lelwani, stood at the head of a group of chthonic deities worshiped

in the hesla- house in Hattusa' ‘ (see 3.1.1).

In a well-known Hurrian-Hittite bilingual text, Allani is called the wood of

the holt of the Earth (that is, the netherworld),’ for it is there that she had her palaee.

The Hurrians shared with the inhabitants of Mesopotamia the belief that

A man’s fate was decided in the netherworld prior to his birth. As queen of the nether

world Allani had her share in this.' 02 It also explains her ties with the divine

See now Prechel 2008: 127f.

Archi 2002b.

Prechel 1996: 94ff. See also Laroche 1955b: 11 n. 3; Otten 1961: 155 for the writing of the god-

Dess’s narae with the logogram ISTAR.

Prechel 1996: 10ff., 17; 1999: 375, 377f.

Haas 1994a: 373, 568 with n. 191. Cf, also Prechel 1996: 86; Beckinan 2002c: 48, 82.

Haas 1994a: 405f.; Popko 1995a: 99; Torri 1999: 97ff,

Torri (1999: 112) has proposed that the Akkadogram ALLATUM is in Hittite texts nothing more

than a way of writing the name of Lelwani. Yet, her arguing {p. 63ff.) that Lelwani, like the Meso-

Potamian Allatu, was a goddess is not persuasive. Texts from the later Empire period, in which

Lelwani is given the epithet ‘My Lady’ (cf. Torri 1999: 45ff.), evidence the transfer of the name

Of the Hattian god to Allatu. The Human Kumarbi is a case in the opposite direction when a god

of foreign origin is given the name of an Anatolian goddess (=Halki / NISABA), cf. Archi 2004b.

Neu 1996; cf. also Haas 1994a: 549ff.; Wilhelm 2001.

The Empire Period

midwives Hudena Hudellurra (or Hodens Hodeüurra),' whose cult among the West

Ern Hurrians draws upon the tradition of Syrian mother goddesses, protectresses of

Pregnant women and assistants in childbirth, represented among others by the seven

704

Ugaritan Kofarätu. * In the Yazilikaya procession, a pair of goddesses is identified

By epigrapbs as Hudena Hudellurra (3.2,2), although the plural form of the Hurrian

Names suggests that we are dealing here with a group of mother goddesses on the

Syrian mode.

ME 6 rü 1

In Hittite texts, the Human divine midwives correspond to DINGIR.MAH.‘ '

705

Gulses, “ the logogram probably concealing a group of the Luwian Darawanzi-god-

Desses (Darawes in Hittite). 700 Together with the Sun-goddess of the Earth, the

MEÖ/Hl A