Today, the ancient Anatolian deity called Telipinu is, for most intents and purposes, a forgotten god. Though, there are admirable attempts to keep the tales that tell us about him and his divine colleagues alive for the modern day. Like the English renditions of a few Hittite poems for the fall 2025 issue of the literary magazine The Paris Review, translated by PhD-student Naomi Harris.¹ One of these poems relates the disappearance of Telipinu, something the deity had a penchant for.² What is interesting, however, is that much of the mythology concerning Telipinu emphasizes that he should not, under any circumstance, be forgotten – even if he was indeed lost and both heaven and earth had to be moved to find him again. Because, when Telipinu could not be found, ecological disaster was sure to follow. Today we are therefore going to talk about a god that emphatically should not be neglected by mortal creatures, from bees to human beings, but ultimately was.

If we want to discuss Telipinu, we are transported back to a very specific period in the history pf ancient Anatolia; the lifetime the Kingdom of the Hittites to be precise. From the seventeenth to the early twelfth BCE this state controlled large swaths of modern Türkiye and northern Syria, notwithstanding some periods of decline.³ The Hittite language, that we already encountered above and in which most of the surviving tales about Telipinu were written, was far from the only tongue spoken or written throughout the kingdom. Some scholars even postulate that it was mostly an elite or administrative language, and that many inhabitants of the kingdom spoke languages like Luwian, Hurrian, and Hattic in their daily lives. And these were also very different languages! Hittite and Luwian are Indo-European languages. This is a language family that includes English, French, and Dutch, for example. While Hattic, the language thought to be most prominent before the advent of the kingdom, and Hurrian are mysterious tongues that cannot readily be connected to any language family.⁴ This variety is also applicable to the local religion and pantheon: there were elements from many belief systems present. Something that is illustrated by our information on Telipinu himself.

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The Elusive Telipinu

The peoples of the Hittite kingdom inhabited a world which was also populated by numerous mystical beings. To quote Trevor Bryce: “The whole cosmos throbbed with supernatural life.”⁵ And this does not have to surprise us, as the religion of the kingdom was an amalgam of a lot of diverse influences that even modern scholars regularly find difficult to pry apart.⁶ Accompanying the wealth of attested spirits and other fantastical creatures – and as you probably expected – we also find many gods.

Famously, the Hittite kingdom was known as ‘the land of a thousand gods’. And though this claim undoubtedly functioned as a boast about the many conquests of the Hittite kings, it may also have been fairly accurate. Part of the reason for this impressive number was the kingdom’s cultivation of religious tolerance. The Hittites habitually adopted the deities of the many cultures in their realm as their own.⁷ What’s more, they often worshiped these gods in their native languages.⁸ However, there may also have been a calculating aspect to this endearing practice. Because the Hittites would often remove the statues of these gods to their own temples, so the conquered peoples could not summon their local deities for their own purposes anymore.⁹ The most exalted of these thousand gods was the Storm God who – along with his spouse, the Sun-Goddess – presided over the pantheon. But today we are more interested in one of his offspring, that being the vegetation-god Telipinu.¹⁰

The gods that were venerated through the Kingdom of the Hittites were, at least to a modern observer, curiously human. Like other ancient pantheons, such as the well-known inhabitants of Olympus as imagined by the Greeks, they experienced unhelpful emotions, could be neglectful, sought entertainment, and did make mistakes.¹¹ But their efforts and assistance were indispensable for humans’ daily lives. And this very much included Telipinu, whose domain included fertility and who made sure that ploughs could harrow the earth, lands could be irrigated, and grain could grow.¹² He was a god which appears to have predated the Kingdom of the Hittites and may have been Hattic in origin.¹³ But there was at least one occasion that a Hittite king bore the name of this deity.¹⁴ Of course, Telipinu’s blessings were not the sole precondition for agriculture, the rains of the aforementioned Storm God were also indispensable.¹⁵ Having said that, you have probably already realized that an eventual disappearance of Telipinu would entail severe ecological consequences.

Remedying Divine Ecological Disasters

As the order within the Kingdom of the Hittite, which was supposed to keep the population fed, safe and otherwise comfortable, was envisioned to depend on the gods, the absence of certain gods was perceived to be the ultimate cause for the many catastrophes that intermittently plague our fragile human existence.¹⁶ That we have found tablets from ancient Anatolia with a genre of myths about the disappearance of gods is therefore not very shocking.¹⁷ Telipinu was not the only god who was present in these tales, but he appears the most frequent and we have several distinct versions of his vanishing.¹⁸ These stories are thought to have been written down between the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries BCE, though dating Hittite texts is famously difficult.¹⁹ What is timeless, however, are the literary qualities of the story itself as well as the reasons for the god’s leaving, the consequences of his absence, and the frantic reactions that follow.²⁰

We see some of the curious humanity of the Hittite gods with the inciting incident of the best preserved version of the myth that chronicles Telipinu’s disappearance.²¹ Because he leaves the world in anger.²² It is perhaps even implied that he stomps away! And further in the story, the deity reacts with anger when animals or other gods try to find him. In the latter case, Telipinu wields a thunderbolt and some scholars therefore suggests that Telipinu can be viewed as a storm god in addition to a vegetation god.²³ And this anger often leads to more damage – the disturbed Telipinu starts to tear entire cities apart, making his wrath ideal for a modern disaster movie. It is only through supplication and offerings that they can bring the deity back and restore fertility.

What interests us today – however impressive thunderbolts and offerings that appease a god may be – is the ecological consequences of Telipinu’s disappearance. Because this part of the Telipinu mythology can aid us with the famously turbulent research into the relationship between past human societies and the environments they considered natural.²⁴ As we can see in the aforementioned best preserved version, when he leaves, the god takes away many of the necessities for life in Hittite society. Subsequently the land dies: crops can no longer be grown and no creatures are being born.²⁵

l. 10. ^DTe-li-pi₂-nu-ša ar-ḫa i-ia-an-ni-iš ḫal-ki-in ^Dim-mar-ni-in
l. 11. ša-al-ḫi-an-ti-en ma-an-ni-it-ti-en₃ iš-pi₂-ia-tar-ra pe₂-e-da-aš gi-im-ri
l. 12. ⸢u₂⸣-e-el-lu-i mar-mar-aš an-da-an ^DTe-li-pí-nu-ša pa-it mar-mar-ri an-da-an
l. 13. u₂-li-iš-ta še-e-ra-aš-še-iš-ša-an ḫa-le-en-zu ḫu-wa-i-iš nu nam-ma
l. 14. ḫal-ki-iš ZIZ₂-tar U₂-UL ma-a-i nu-za nam-ma GU₄^ḪI.A UDU^ḪI.A DUMU.LÚ.U₁₉.LU^MEŠ U₂-UL
l. 15. ar-ma-aḫ-ḫa-an-zi […]

l. 10. Telipinu also went away; and grain, animal fecundity,
l. 11. luxuriance, growth and abundance, he took to the open country²⁶,
l. 12. to the meadow, to the marsh. Telipinu went into the marsh
l. 13. and joined it.²⁷ And the Ḫalenzu-plant grew over him. And subsequently
l. 14. barley and emmer wheat no longer grow. And subsequently cattle, sheep, and humans no longer
l. 15. become pregnant […]

But what is curious and the real reason I have specifically brought up this myth, is that both the vegetation adjacent to human habitation as well as the vegetation of the wilderness wither. And interestingly, this appears to be equally considered a bad thing, thanks to their juxtaposition. Telipinu removes fertility to certain wild places and he becomes one with the marshes in his exile. But some wild places are as impacted by his absence as the fields and animals that feed humanity. Like the mountains and the forests:²⁸

l. 16. [ḪU]R.SAG^DIDLI.ḪI.A ḫa-a-te-er ĜIŠ^ḪI.A–ru ḫa-a-az-ta na-aš-ta par₂-aš-du-uš U₂-UL
l. 17. ⸢u₂⸣-e-ez-zi u₂–e-ša-e-eš ḫa-a-te-er PU₂^ḪI.A ḫa-a-az-ta nu KUR–ya an-da-an
l. 18. [k]a-a-aš-za ki-i-ša-ti DUMU.LU₂.U₁₉.LU^MEŠ DINGIR^MEŠ-ša ki-iš-ta-an-ti-it ḫar-ki-ia-an-zi

l. 16. The mountains dried up and the forest²⁹ dried up, so that shoots did not
l. 17. sprout. The pastures dried up and the springs³⁰ dried up, so that in the land
l. 18. hunger came. And the humans and the gods, they became perished

And this care for the well-being of wilderness environments can also be found in the second version of this tale, were forests are mentioned as places where Telipinu’s anger should not go, alongside the expected more domesticated environments, like fruitful fields and gardens:³¹

l. 3. [pa-id]-du i-da-a-lu kar-pi₂-iš kar-di-mi-ya-az
l. 4. [wa-aš-tú]l ša-a-u-wa-ar mi-ia-an-te-⸢ia⸣-[at A.ŠA₃-ni]
l. 5. ⸢^ĝišTIR⸣ ^ĝišKIRI₆ an-⸢da⸣ le-e pa-iz-[zi]

l. 3. May the evil, anger, wrath, sullenness go away.
l. 4. But may the rage into the fruitful field,
l. 5. forest and garden not go.

And this ambiguous role of the wild, as a place whereto the blessings of civilization are removed by the angry deity, as well suffering his absence and wrath, is not unsurprising. Because when we read Hittite stories closely, we find that wilderness environments were not just dangerous and chaotic, but also home to spiritual and material abundance which were considered necessary for life in human-created environments, like cities.³² One could find building materials there, for example, and the legitimacy of the Hittite kings was connected to rituals that had to be performed in wild places.

Forests are perhaps the most illustrative example of the ambiguous role the wilderness played in Hittite stories. In our myth about Telipinu’s disappearance, they have thus far primarily figured as wild places which are still bemoaned when they wither away. But forests were also so far away, so dense, and so inaccessible that they made great hiding spots. In the third, least preserved version, we read more about the animals which were initially sent to find the deity. And eventually the dutiful honey bee, which has grown exhausted and hungry, finds Telipinu hiding in a forest:³³

l. 1. [pa-i-ta-aš] NIM.⸢LAL₃⸣-aš par₂-ga-mu-uš ḪUR.S[AG^MEŠ–uš ša-an-aḫ-ta ḫa-a-ri-uš-kan₂]
l. 2. [ḫal-lu-wa^?–]mu-uš ša-aḫ-ta ḫu-wa-an-ḫu-e[š-šar-kán ku-wa₂-li-u₂]
l. 3. [ša-aḫ-ta ŠA₃]-it-za-ta₂ LAL₃-it zi-in-ne₂-e[t] […]
l. 4. [zi-in-n]i–it na-an u₂-e-el-lu-i ^U[^RUli-iḫ-z]i-ni ^ĝišTIR[-ni u-e-mi-ya-at]

l. 1. The bee went and the high mountains it searched, the valleys
l. 2. which were deep it searched, the deep blue
l. 3. it searched. The honey in its innards was exhausted. The […]
l. 4. was exhausted. But it found him in a meadow, in the town of Liḫzina, in a forest.

In this version, the bee subsequently follows the earlier advise of the mother goddess Ḫannaḫanna and stings the hand and foot of Telipinu to wake and purify the deity.³⁴ Sadly, this enrages Telipinu and he proceeds to cause some of the aforementioned damage to the human-created environments. As it is often speculated that specifically our surviving versions of this myth were meant to guide ritual performances, one may wonder how this sequence of events would be portrayed.³⁵ And perhaps some of you now think that being stung by a bee is kind of deserved by Telipinu for leaving and the consequences of his absence, but let’s not be too hard on the deity. In other myths it is Telipinu who helps the gods, humanity, and other mortal creatures by returning the sun who was abducted by the sea god – and he gets to marry the daughter of the sea god for his effort!³⁶

Conclusion: When Telipinu Did Fade Away

The Hittite religion, at least as we can understand it through our sources, was tightly integrated with the societies of ancient Anatolia and the institutional structure of the titular kingdom.³⁷ And after the final disintegration of the Hittite Kingdom – they made quite a habit of disintegrating, to be fair, but until the early twelfth century BCE they had always bounced back – we largely lose sight of their gods. Though there were the so-called Neo-Hittite states, primarily in northern Syria, where some of the cultural tenets of the earlier kingdom lived on.³⁸ And later in the history of the ancient world the Greeks venerated a god named Telephus, who is sometimes very tangentially connected to Telipinu by modern scholars.³⁹ But both the religions practiced in the Neo-Hittite and the ancient Greek polities would not last and eventually Telipinu did definitively become forgotten. And it was only relatively recently that archaeologists found the texts and other evidence of his existence and erstwhile veneration.

The region which we call Anatolia is very different today then it would have been during the time of the Hittite Kingdom. Where these lands were once characterized by deep forests, the subcontinent is now rather dry.⁴⁰ So perhaps there was a kernel of truth in the worry of ancient peoples that forgetting certain gods would impact the fertility of the land. I am of course speaking in jest, but at the same time it cannot hurt to remember the gods that once gave people comfort during hardships, be it through a literary magazine or a blog. At the very least it would give us a bit more insight into the impact that the climate can have on human societies. And with a little bit of luck these insights help us reflect on our own environmental crises.

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References

1. Naomi Harris (translator), “Telipinu Went; They Sent an Ox; The Moon that Fell from Heaven”, Paris Review 2025, 73 (253), p. 8-11.
2. Gary Beckman, “Telipinu A”, in: Michael P. Streck et al (red.), Reallexicon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Vol. 13 – Spinnen – Tiergarten (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2013), p. 510; Harry A. Hoffner, Hittite Myths, Edited by Gary Beckman (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), p. 14.
3. Trevor Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 5-6.
4. Ilya Yakubovich, “Hittite”, in: Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), p. 222-223; Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, p. 12-19; Dennis R.M. Campbell, “Hurrian”, in: Rebecca Hasselbach-Andee (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2020), p. 203.
5. Trevor Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 135; Gojko Barjamovic, “Before the Kingdom of the Hittites: Anatolia in the Middle Bronze Age”, in: Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller & Daniel T. Potts (eds.), The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: Volume II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), p. 511.
6. David P. Wright, “Anatolia: Hittites”, in: Sarah Iles Johnston (ed.), Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 189.
7. Ekrem Akurgal, The Art of the Hittites (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1962), p. 76; Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 136.
8. Wright, “Anatolia”, p. 189.
9. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 135.
10. Wright, “Anatolia”, p. 189-190; Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 143, 145. The identity of the mother of Telipinu is still debated, see: Romina della Casa, “A Theoretical Perspective of the Telepinu Myth: Archetypes and Initiation Rites in Historical Contexts”, Antiguo Oriente: Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Historia del Antiguo Oriente 2010, 8 (1), p. 100.
11. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 139.
12. Wright, “Anatolia”, p. 189; Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 145.
13. René Lebrun: “Myth and Sacred Narratives – Anatolia”, in: Sarah Iles Johnston (ed.), Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 588. Due to our lack of knowledge about the Hattic language, his name is difficult to decipher. It is likely that the element –pinu means ‘son’. The element Tele- remains more mysterious, but is sometimes translated as ‘exalted’, see: Della Casa, “A Theoretical Perspective of the Telepinu Myth”, p. 100, note 11; Beckman, “Telipinu A.”, p. 509; José V. García Trabazo, Textos Religiosos Hititas: Mitos, Plegarias y Rituales (Madrid: Trotta. 2002), p. 106.
14. And this is a king whose edicts would prove rather influential and are regularly characterized as a kind of Hittite constitution, see: Richard Haase, “Darf Man den Sog. Telipinu-Erlaß eine Verfassung Nennen?”, Die Welt des Orients 2005, 35 (1), p. 56-57. One of the sons of king Šuppiluliuma, whose deeds and family history would make for a great prestige television series, was also called Telipinu, see: Bryce, The Kingdom of the Hittites, p. 159.
15. Gary Beckman, “Hittite Religion”, in: Michele Renee Salzman (ed.) The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World – Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 88.
16. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 139.
17. René Lebrun: “Myth and Sacred Narratives – Anatolia”, p. 588.
18. And these are indeed distinct versions and not just different manuscripts of a single story, see: García Trabazo, Textos Religiosos Hititas, p. 108.
19. For the Telipinu myth, see: Della Casa, “A Theoretical Perspective of the Telepinu Myth”, p. 98; Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 211-212. For the general difficulty, see: Mario Liverani, Myth and Politics in Ancient Near Eastern Historiography, edited by Zainab Bahrani & Marc van de Mieroop (London: Equinox, 2004) p. 27.
20. For the scholarly discussion about the literary qualities of the Telipinu myth, see: Rita Francia & Matteo Vigo, “The Myth of Telipinu: A Work of Poetry or Prose?”, Oriens Antiquus: Series Nova 2024, 6 (1), p. 27-28.
21. As these texts have been preserved in cuneiform written on clay tablets that were often damaged or even fragmented, it is quite an undertaking to access the sources on which each version that modern scholars have reconstructed is based. The version I reference here can primarily be found on two fragments that have been published in volumes 17 and 55 of the Keilschrifturkunden aus Böghazköi-series, these are often supplemented with fragments from volume 33 of that same series, see: Hans Ehelolf, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol. 17 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1926), plate X; Helmut Freydank, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol. 55 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1985), plate VIII; Heinrich Otten, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol 33 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1943). For a more elaborate overview of the relevant sources for all versions of this myth, see: Franca Pecchioli Daddi & Anna Maria Polvani, La Mitologia Ittita (Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1990), p. 71.
22. Craig Melchert, “Marginalia to the Myth of Telipinu”, in: Šárka Velhartická (ed.), Audias Fabulas Veteres: Anatolian Studies in Honor of Jana Součková-Siegelová (Leiden: Brill, 2016), p. 210.
23. Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 14; Roger D. Woodard, “The Disappearance of Telipinu in the Context of Indo-European Myth”, in: Ronald I. Kim, Jana Mynářová & Peter Pavúk (eds.), Hrozný and Hittite: The First Hundred Years (Leiden: Brill, 2020), p. 583.
24. Romina della Casa, “Symbolic Representations of the Sacred Space/Landscape in the Telepinu Myth”, in: Piotr Taracha (ed.), Proceedings of the 8th International Congress of Hittitology: Warsaw, September 5–9, 2011 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Agade, 2014), p. 263. For the turbulence of this discussion, see: Tony Wilkinson, “Introduction to Geography, Climate, Topography, and Hydrology,” in: Daniel Potts (ed.), A Companion to the Archeology of the Ancient Near East (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), p. 3-4.
25. CTH 324, KBU 17.10, A i, l. 10-15. For the original clay tablet fragments on which this version of the myth that modern scholars reconstructed is based, see: Ehelolf, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol. 17, plate X. For the original Hittite, see: Emmanuel Laroche, Textes Mythologiques Hittites en Transcription – Premiere Partie: Mythologie Anatolienne (Paris: Klincksieck, 1965), p. 30, For the translation, see: Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 15. As us customary in Hittitology, loan words from Sumerian are written with CAPITALS and loan words from Akkadian are written with ITALICIZED CAPITALS, see: Alwin Kloekhorst, Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (Leiden: Brill, 2008), p. 33.
26. The word gimra-, could denote both the area immediately outside of the city, as well as more remote, uninhabited places, see: Francesco G. Barsacchi, “Wilderness and Liminal Spaces in Hittite Religious Thought”, in: Elisabetta Cianfanelli en Fiammetta Gori (eds.), Níĝ-ba Dub-sar Maḫ: Studies on Ebla and the Ancient Near East presented to Amalia Catagnoti (Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 2024), p. 62.
27. The Hittite word ulišta is fairly enigmatic. My first impression, based on uses of the phrase elsewhere was that the god hid in the marshes, but I defer to Roger Woodards interpretation, see: Woodard, “The Disappearance of Telipinu in the Context of Indo-European Myth”, p. 588.
28. CTH 324, KBU 17.10, A i, l. 16-18. For the original clay tablet fragments on which this version of the myth that modern scholars reconstructed is based, see: Ehelolf, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol. 17, plate X. For the original Hittite, see: Laroche, Textes Mythologiques Hittites en Transcription – Premiere Partie, p. 30, For the translation, see: Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 15.
29. My translation of the phrase ‘ĜIŠ^ḪI.A–ru’, as ‘forest’ instead of ‘trees’ needs some explanation. In the first half of the sentence we encounter two finite forms of the hi-conjugated verb hād, meaning ‘to dry up’, see: Johannes Friedrich, Kurzgefaßtes hethitisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag, 1991), p. 64. First we see the form ha-a-te-er, which is the third person plural preterite, followed by ha-a-az-ta, which is the third person singular preterite. Considering the fact that the Sumerogram GIŠ is followed by the same Sumerian plural-marker HIA.A as the preceding mountains, the singular verbal form is strange. This has to do with the fact that plural nouns of the neuter class, like the Hittite word taru – meaning ‘wood’ or ‘tree’ – that is writtenwith these Sumerograms, take a singular verbal form, see: Harry A. Hoffner & Craig Melchert, A Grammar of the Hittite Language (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008), p. 319. Literally we thus do read ‘trees’, but this is often translated as ‘forest’, see: Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 15. Throughout Hittite terminology, forests are associated with mountains, so the juxtaposition can be considered, as evidence, see: Gabriella Frantz-Szabó, “Wald (forest) B. bei den Hethitern”, in: Erich Ebeling, Bruno Meissner & Michael P. Streck (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Vol 14 – Tiergefä͵- Waša/Ezzil(i)) (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), p. 637-638.
30. As with the preceding forest, see note 29 above, the second verbal form in this listing is again in the third person singular preterite. The Hittite word for ‘springs’, here written with the Sumerogram PU₂ followed by the Sumerian plural marker ḪI.A, was also a noun of the neuter class and a plural form takes likewise a singular verbal form.
31. CTH 324, KBU 33.8, D iii, l. 3-5. For the original clay tablet fragments on which this second version of the myth that modern scholars reconstructed is based, see: Otten, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol 33, plates 4-8. For the original Hittite, see: Laroche, Textes Mythologiques Hittites en Transcription – Premiere Partie, p. 43 For the translation, see: Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 19.
32. Della Casa, “A Theoretical Perspective of the Telepinu Myth”, p. 107; Michel Mazoyer, “Connexions entre la Nature Sauvage et la Nature domestiquée a l’Époque Hittite”, in: Michel Mazoyer & Jorge Pérez Rey (ed.), L’Homme et la Nature: Histoire d’une Colonisation (Actes du Colloque International Tenu les 3 et 4 Décembre 2004 à l’Institut Catholique de Paris) (Paris: L’Harmattan 2006), p. 261-266.
33. CTH 324, KBU 33.10, B ii, l. 1-5. For the original clay tablet fragments on which this third version of the myth that modern scholars reconstructed is based, see: Otten, Keilschrifturkunden Aus Boghazköi – Vol 33, plates 9-10. For the original Hittite, see: Laroche, Textes Mythologiques Hittites en Transcription – Premiere Partie, p. 45. For the translation, see: Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 20.
34. Della Casa, “A Theoretical Perspective of the Telepinu Myth”, p. 105. Though it has been posited that the bee does not sting the deity, let alone twice, but that the insect binds the god in order to purify him or bring him back, see: Willemijn Waal, “Ties that Bind: A New Interpretation of the Hittite Verb šai-/šiye-”, Anatolica 2023, 49 (1), p. 198.
35. Bryce, Life and Society in the Hittite World, p. 211-213.
36. Hoffner, Hittite Myths, p. 26-27; Hoffner & Melchert, A Grammar of the Hittite Language, p. 299.
37. Gary Beckman, “Hittite Religion”, in: Michele Renee Salzman (ed.) The Cambridge History of Religions in the Ancient World – Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p. 84-101.
38. Though this is a surprisingly difficult matter to research, see: Trevor Bryce, The World of the Neo-Hittite Kingdoms: A Political and Military History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 1-3.
39. Beckman, “Telipinu A”, p. 511.
40. Walter Dörfler et al, “Environment and Economy in Hittite Anatolia”, in: Hermann Genz & Dirk Paul Mielke (eds.), Insights into Hittite History and Archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), p. 101; Barjamovic, “Before the Kingdom of the Hittites”, p. 497-498. For the changes in vegetation between the ancient past and today, see: Allen S. Gilbert, “The Flora and Fauna of the Near East”: in: Jack M. Sasson (ed.), Civilizations of the Ancient Near East (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995), p. 154-163.