Religious Convergence in Hittite Anatolia: The Case of Kizzuwatna

Hittite “religion” is often described as the dynamic product of a long-term trans- culturation process, as “Culture in the Making.” According to this view, Hittite “religion” seems to have integrated throughout its history a variety of elements—Hittite, Hattian, Lu- wian, Palaic, Hurrian, North Syrian, Kizzuwatnean, and Mesopotamian—producing each time a unique constellation. Perhaps the best-documented change in Hittite “religion” oc- curred with the rise of the New Hittite kingdom in the middle of the fifteenth century BCE. In this period, new religious traditions, mostly Hurrian-tinged, originating from Syria and especially from Kizzuwatna (classical Cilicia) were acquired. This flow of traditions has been extensively studied in recent years, both from religio-historical as well as redactional, textual, and archival perspectives. These studies provide an excellent vantage point to the study of religious convergence in Hittite Anatolia. This article reviews several pertinent ritual texts from the Kizzuwatna dossier and address some of the questions that originate from them, questions that explore the nature, degrees, and modes of religious convergence in Hittite Anatolia, as well as the nature of the rituals themselves.