Iyaya

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Iyaya
Spring goddess
Major cult centerLapana, Tiura
Animalsmountain sheep
Personal information
Spousepossibly Šanta

Iyaya was a Hittite and Luwian goddess. Her functions remain uncertain, though it has been suggested she was associated with water or more broadly with nature. She might have been associated with the god Šanta, though the available evidence is limited. Her main cult centers were Lapana and Tiura, though she was also worshiped in other cities.

Name and character[edit]

The precise origin of Iyaya's name cannot be established, though it is agreed that it was neither Hattic nor Hurrian in origin.[1] In scholarship she has been described both as a Hittite[2] and Luwian goddess.[3]

Not much is known about Iyaya's specific role in the Hittite pantheon.[1] She has been described as a spring goddess,[4] and as a deity responsible for dispensing water.[5] A Hittite text listing the statues of various deities describes her as accompanied by two mountain sheep.[6] The presence of animals might indicate she was a nature deity.[1]

Associations with other deities[edit]

According to Piotr Taracha [de], it can be assumed that Iyaya was regarded as the wife of Šanta.[4] An inventory of sacred objects from the otherwise unknown settlement Tapparutani mentions a depiction of both deities together, with Iyaya portrayed seated and Šanta standing next to her.[7] However, no other evidence for an association between them exists, and Federico Giusfredi has questioned if assumptions can be made based on this isolated reference.[8] Gary Beckman accepts the existence of a connection between Šanta and Iyaya, but he points out that it was seemingly not recognized in Emar, where this god instead appears alongside Ḫandasima.[9]

In some locations Iyaya was worshiped alongside Kuwannaniya.[10][11] It is presumed these two goddesses were closely linked,[12] and the latter also was a spring goddess.[13] It has been suggested that this name was applied to the representations of more than one such a natural feature.[14]

Worship[edit]

Iyaya is best known from the so-called cult inventories,[1] Hititte texts which were supposed to present the state of a specific deity s cult in a specific settlement.[15] Her two cult centers were Lapana (not to be confused with a homophonous city from the Amarna Letters, modern Lebweh[1]) and Tiura, where according to Volkert Haas she was the main local deity.[12] A statue representing her was kept in the former of these two settlements.[16] A detailed description is preserved alongside other information about her local cult:

The town Lapana, (chief deity) Iyaya: the divine image is a female statuette of wood, seated and veiled, one cubit (in height). Her head is plated with gold, but the body and throne are plated with tin. Two wooden mountain sheep, plated with tin, sit beneath the deity to the right and left. One eagle plated with tin, two copper staves, and two bronze goblets are on hand as the deity's cultic implements. She has a new temple. Her priest, a male, is a holdover.[17]

A further attested cult center of Iyaya was Tiura, where she was served by a MUNUSAMA.DINGIR-LIM priestess.[1] She was also worshiped in Anitešša.[11] A text from the reign of Tudḫaliya IV, KUB 12.2, indicates that she was additionally venerated in northern Anatolia in a city whose name is not preserved in the form of a ḫuwaši stele alongside deities such as Kuwannaniya, Milku, Iyarri, Sun goddess of the Earth, the weather god of Nerik and the weather god of Assur.[10] She is also present in rituals focused on the worship of the deified sea mentioning the Mediterranean Sea and the tarmana sea, possibly the Gulf of Iskenderun.[4]

Iyaya is also attested as a theophoric element of personal names.[3] One possible example is the name of queen Iyaya, wife of Zidanta II.[5] It has also been proposed that at least in feminine names, the element iya might be a shortened form of the theonym Iyaya, though it might also correspond to a deity derived from Mesopotamian Ea.[18] The latter view is more common in scholarship.[8]

Attilio Mastrocinque suggests that Iyaya might be mentioned in an inscription written in Greek on a gem found in Verona dated to the Roman period which contains the word yoyo (υουο), which he interprets as a late variant of her name,[19] but according to Ian Rutherford this proposal is implausible.[7]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Giusfredi 2019, p. 117.
  2. ^ Millington 2013, p. 560.
  3. ^ a b Zehnder 2010, p. 57.
  4. ^ a b c Taracha 2009, p. 114.
  5. ^ a b Zehnder 2010, p. 168.
  6. ^ Haas 2015, p. 362.
  7. ^ a b Rutherford 2017, p. 82.
  8. ^ a b Giusfredi 2019, p. 118.
  9. ^ Beckman 2011, p. 6.
  10. ^ a b Taracha 2009, pp. 106–107.
  11. ^ a b Cammarosano 2013, p. 99.
  12. ^ a b Haas 2015, p. 502.
  13. ^ Taracha 2009, p. 107.
  14. ^ Corti 2018, p. 38.
  15. ^ Cammarosano 2013, p. 66.
  16. ^ Haas 2015, p. 492.
  17. ^ Beckman 1989, p. 102.
  18. ^ Zehnder 2010, p. 82.
  19. ^ Mastrocinque 2007, p. 202.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Beckman, Gary (1989). "The Religion of the Hittites". The Biblical Archaeologist. 52 (2/3). The American Schools of Oriental Research: 98–108. doi:10.2307/3210202. ISSN 0006-0895. JSTOR 3210202. S2CID 169554957. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  • Beckman, Gary (2011), "Šanda", Reallexikon der Assyriologie, retrieved 2022-12-10
  • Cammarosano, Michele (2013). "Hittite Cult Inventories — Part One: The Hittite Cult Inventories as Textual Genre". Die Welt des Orients. 43 (1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG): 63–105. doi:10.13109/wdor.2013.43.1.63. ISSN 0043-2547. JSTOR 23608129. Retrieved 2022-12-08.
  • Corti, Carlo (2018). "Along the Road to Nerik: Local Panthea of Hittite Northern Anatolia". Die Welt des Orients. 48 (1). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (GmbH & Co. KG): 24–71. doi:10.13109/wdor.2018.48.1.24. ISSN 0043-2547. JSTOR 26551707. S2CID 134880821. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  • Giusfredi, Federico (2019). "On the names Iyaya and Iya and their late diffusion in the Ancient Near East". Nouvelles Assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires (N.A.B.U.) (3). ISSN 0989-5671.
  • Haas, Volkert (2015) [1994]. Geschichte der hethitischen Religion. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 1: The Near and Middle East (in German). Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-29394-6. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  • Mastrocinque, Attilio (2007). "The Cilician God Sandas and the Greek Chimaera: Features of Near Eastern and Greek Mythology Concerning the Plague". Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions. 7 (2). Brill: 197–217. doi:10.1163/156921207783876413. ISSN 1569-2116.
  • Millington, Alexander T. (2013). "Iyarri at the Interface: The Origins of Ares". In Mouton, Alice; Rutherford, Ian; Yakubovich, Ilya S. (eds.). Luwian identities: culture, language and religion between Anatolia and the Aegean. Boston: Brill. pp. 543–565. doi:10.1163/9789004253414_020. ISBN 978-90-04-25341-4. OCLC 851081843.
  • Rutherford, Ian (2017). "Sandas in Translation". Hittitology today: Studies on Hittite and Neo-Hittite Anatolia in Honor of Emmanuel Laroche's 100th Birthday. Institut français d'études anatoliennes. ISBN 978-2-36245-083-9. OCLC 1286359422.
  • Taracha, Piotr (2009). Religions of Second Millennium Anatolia. Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie. Vol. 27. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 978-3447058858.
  • Zehnder, Thomas (2010). Die hethitischen Frauennamen: Katalog und Interpretation. Dresdner Beiträge zur Hethitologie (in German). Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-06139-1. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
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