1999/01/01 by Gary Beckman · 6 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Linguistics and language evolution #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Hittite language #Battle #Rite #Ancient history #History #Relation (database) #Chariot #Art #Archaeology #Literature #Philosophy #Theology
paper · doi:10.3406/ktema.1999.2206
openalex publication_date 1999/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The cosmopolitan deity Pirinkir is attested across the ancient Near East in the third and second millennia B.C.E., from Elam to Ḫatti and northern Syria. As a type of Ištar, the goddess displays a certain fluidity of gender and an astral aspect. In the texts from the Hittite capital, Pirinkir appears most frequently in offering lists of the Hurrian cultic tradition, but she is also the focus of two ritual compositions. The first of these, the “babilili Ritual”, calls upon the deity to remove the stain of sin from the worshiper. The second, rather fragmentary, rite (CTH 644) is concerned with horses, almost certainly those intended to pull Hittite chariots in battle. I edit this ritual and discuss it briefly in relation to the horse-training manuals from Boğazköy.