The Corpus of Hittite Divinatory Texts (HDivT)

Digital Edition and Cultural Historical Analysis

Mathis Kreitzscheck (Hrsg.)

Citatio: Mathis Kreitzscheck (Hrsg.), hethiter.net/: CTH 544 (INTR 2025-09-12)


CTH 544

Animal omens

introductio



Kurzbeschreibung

Laroche separated the terrestrial omens from Ḫattuša into two groups: those concerning people (CTH 536) and those concerning animals (CTH 544; Laroche 1971c: 93.95; premier supp.: 112–13). His second group only contained KUB 34.22 and KBo 13.29. In Riemschneider’s edition, KBo 34.131, KBo 34.136, and KUB 43.14 were added (Riemschneider K.K. 2004a: 8.154), although the nature of the small fragment KUB 43.14 can only be guessed at. It likely parallels KUB 34.22. According to Sakuma Y. 2009b: 383, KUB 34.22 and KUB 43.14 belong to the same tablet, which seems unlikely. All the fragments are written in Hittite, and no Akkadian original from Ḫattuša has been identified so far.

The corpus of known Mesopotamian animal-omens from the second millennium so far comprises three Old Babylonian texts: BM 109228 (unpublished, in preparation by N. de Zorzi and F. Simons) is concerned with various small animals, BM 113915 from Ur deals with the behavior of birds (Weisberg D. B. 1971a), and KD 27 from Ḫadāpum with animals, the house, and meteorites falling on the house (Joannès F. 1994a), see also Koch U. 2015a: 237–38.

There are no apparent parallels between the Old Babylonian tablets and the Ḫattuša fragments. Some omens of KUB 34.22, however, are found in an identical fashion in tablet 32 of šumma ālu. Interestingly, ominous animal behavior is the focus of the Ambazzi-ritual CTH 463 (Christiansen B. 2006a: 298–304), which lists cases in which observing such behavior requires a subsequent ritual (see KBo 13.29 for details). A comparable collection of ominous astrological signs that demand a ritual has not been preserved, yet ritual appendices or introductions are almost exclusively found on astrological omen tablets.

Texte

Version CTH 544.1: Hittite animal omens: ašku-animal and lizard (hrsg. von Mathis Kreitzscheck)
Version CTH 544.2: Hittite omens about animals appearing in the house (hrsg. von Mathis Kreitzscheck)
Version CTH 544.3: Fragmentary Hittite animal omens (hrsg. von Mathis Kreitzscheck)
Version CTH 544.4: Mixed omens and ritual prescriptions (hrsg. von Mathis Kreitzscheck)

Inhaltsübersicht

Abschnitt 1ID=1.1ašku-animal omens
Abschnitt 2ID=1.2Fragmentary omens
Abschnitt 3ID=1.3Lizard omens
Abschnitt 4ID=2.1Fragmentary omens
Abschnitt 5ID=2.2ašku-animal omens and animals in the house
Abschnitt 6ID=3.1Animals entering the house
Abschnitt 7ID=3.2Fragmentary omens
Abschnitt 8ID=4.1Fragmentary omens
Abschnitt 9ID=4.2Bee and ant omens
Abschnitt 10ID=4.3Astrological omen
Abschnitt 11ID=4.4Snake omen
Abschnitt 12ID=4.5Case descriptions for rituals?
Abschnitt 13ID=4.6Ominous or difficult births that demand ritual responses
Editio ultima: 2025-09-12