Hurrian Mythology in Hittite Tradition
Ancient Anatolia Network
Thursday 1 June 5.30 pm Faculty of Linguistics and online
All welcome.
Should you wish to join online, please email michele.bianconi@classics.ox.ac.uk to obtain the link.
The Hurrians were one of the most important civilisations of the Ancient Near East between the 3rd and the 2nd millennium BC, but we have far less linguistic, historical and archaeological information about them than the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, or Hittites. This is mainly due to the fact that there are fewer sources at our disposal, both in textual and archaeological terms, to reconstruct any aspect of Hurrian civilisation. Not even the mythology of the Hurrians escapes this unfavourable condition. It is indeed almost exclusively thanks to the Hittite written tradition that we are now acquainted with the epic-mythological narrative literature of Hurrian origin, which forms the subject of this lecture. In recent years, research on Hurrian mythological traditions has known a remarkable fortune, mainly because of the more or less legitimate parallels established by scholars between Hurrian myths and Greek myths. As a consequence, the attention of scholars has increasingly focussed on the problems related to the oral transmission and circulation of the epic-mythological literature of the Hurrians between the Near East and the Mediterranean area. While inevitably referring to these issues, this lecture will rather focus on the role played by the Hittite scribes in handing down this rich mythological heritage to the present day. This lecture will explore the different methods of textual reception and transmission, such as the written fixation, and the translation and adaptation of the Hurrian originals by the Hittite scribes, in order to show the richness and complexity of this specific area of the Hurro-Hittite cultural symbiosis.
Prof. Mauro Giorgieri studied Classics and Ancient Near Eastern history and languages (Hittite, Akkadian) at the University of Pavia, where he graduated in Aegean-Anatolian Philology (March 1990). He received the PhD degree in Aegean and Anatolian Civilizations at the University of Florence (October 1995). As a postgraduate student and young scholar, he specialised in ancient Near Eastern languages (Hurrian, Akkadian) at the University of Würzburg and at the Pontificio Istituto Biblico of Rome.
From 1996 to 2006 he was Researcher at the Istituto di Studi sulle Civiltà dell’Egeo e del Vicino Oriente of the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Roma).
In 2007 he moved to the University of Pavia, where he is now Associate Professor and teaches languages, history, and religions of the Ancient Near East.
His field of research includes: grammar and lexicon of the Hurrian language, Hurrian onomastics and Hurrian religious texts; language, history and culture of the Hittites, especially historical and juridical-administrative documents and religious texts; peripheral Akkadian (Anatolia, Mittani); language contact in the Syro-Anatolian area in the 2nd millennium BC.
For further information, please contact Michele Bianconi (michele.bianconi@classics.ox.ac.uk) or Philomen Probert (philomen.probert@wolfson.ox.ac.uk).
