2021/03/27 by Christopher Metcalf · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Linguistics and language evolution #Motif (music) #Ruler #Hittite language #Literature #Mythology #Narrative #Prologue #Art #History #Ancient history #Genealogy #Aesthetics
paper · doi:10.1017/9781108648028.011
openalex publication_date 2021/03/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
This chapter argues that a motif in the mythological prologue to the Hurro-Hittite Song of Emergence , according to which the early divine rulers Anu and Kumarbi are each said to have served as cup-bearer to the previous ruler before taking power, is likely to derive from older Mesopotamian legends revolving around the historical king Sargon of Akkad. While the Song of Emergence adapts the Sargonic motif to a narrative on the earliest divine kings, the same motif later emerges in connection with a human ruler, Cyrus the Great, in Persian legends that were known to the Greek writer Ctesias; Herodotus avoided the motif in his account of Cyrus, perhaps because he appears to have adopted it at an earlier point of the Histories , in the Lydian tale of Candaules and Gyges. In all instances the motif of the cup-bearer served to explain the emergence of a powerful human or divine dynasty seemingly from nowhere, but with much scope for local adaption.