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The present text details the oracular inquiries made concerning two solar deities: the Sun-Deity Kauri, and the Sun-Goddess of Arinna. The first oracles confirm that the former of these gods is in fact angry with the royal couple, especially the queen. The oracles then seek to determine whether the cause of the god’s anger is an individual referred to simply as “that man”, who is likely to be identified with Kurunta (see below). It is determined that he is somehow involved, and further oracles reveal that he appeased the god and told the queen to do the same, but that she did not offer a penitence-offering. The queen resolves to make an offering, and asks whether Kurunta is to be sent away to avert the god’s anger. The results of this inquiry are mixed, and the final questions in this section concern the exact nature of the penitence-offering which is to be made.
The next section (marked off by a preceding blank paragraph) records the a dream which the queen had, in which someone appeared “like smoke” in the city of Arinna. The first suggestion for the meaning of this dream is that it relates to the same issue surrounding Kurunta as the previous set of inquiries, which is then confirmed by a flesh and bird oracle. Another bird oracle confirms that this is why the Sun-Goddess of Arinna has been angry with the king. Further inquiries, most of which aren’t very well preserved, seek to determine what should be done about this matter before re-confirming that the god was not angry because of another reason beside the issue of Kurunta.
The final section, marked off by a preceding blank paragraph, seems to record oracular inquiries which took place after the king has decided to carry out the actions determined in the previous section. A series of flesh oracles confirm that the god does indeed want the king to remove Kurunta and that this decision has won him divine favor, and the final inquiry seems to determine that the god is no longer angry about the issue of Kurunta.
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The text is written in a neat and fairly compact ductus. The script is late New Hittite in form (some late forms of ID and DA, E, ŠA ). The signs ḪA and KI sometimes have the IIIc forms. For some signs, the text has only Old forms (GI, LI) and a mixture of Old and Middle/New forms for others (AZ, TAR).
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The oracular inquiries in this text focus on one issue, that of Kurunta, was the son of Muwatalli II. The text is not at all explicit about the nature of the problem surrounding Kurunta, though it is clear that he has committed some offence serious enough to have potentially angered the two gods addressed in these oracles and to have necessitated his appeasal of the Sun-Deity Kauri. The matter was clearly grave enough that the text twice says the king himself made some of these oracular enquiries.
When Ḫattušili III deposed his own nephew and the brother of Kurunta, Muršili III, he installed Kurunta as king of Tarḫuntašša for his loyalty. However, Kurunta eventually seems to have staged an attempted coup against Ḫattušili’s successor, Tudḫaliya IV. One hypothesis regarding the background behind these oracular inquiries is that the “matter of Kurunta“ with which they are concerned is this very coup, and that the eventual decision to dismiss Kurunta refers to the stripping of his title as Tukḫanti or to his dismissal from Tarḫuntašša (Hout Th.P.J. van den 1995c, 94-96; Haas V. 2008a, 164). As pointed out by Giorgieri M. – Mora C. 2010a, 140 n. 21, this would depend on the putative identification of Kurunta with the unnamed individual in the Bronze Tablet treaty who is said to have had the position of Tukḫanti stipped from him (Houwink ten Cate Ph.H.J. 1983-1984a, 37 n. 17; Houwink ten Cate Ph.H.J. 1992b, 239-249, 259-268; Hout Th.P.J. van den 1995c, 88-89). If this theory is correct, the king and queen who make the oracular inquiries in this text would be Tudḫaliya IV and his wife.
Alternatively, this text has been dated by others to the reign of Ḫattušili III. Houwink ten Cate Ph.H.J. 2006b, 112, 114 states that these oracles cannot securely be connected to the attempted coup of Kurunta, and suggests they was were to sanction Ḫattušili’s decision to replace Kurunta with Tudḫailya as his successor. See also Haas V. 2008a, 164.
On the prosopography of the Tarḫunta-piya named in this text, see Hout Th.P.J. van den 1995c, 211-215. The augur Mašduriyandu is also attest in KUB 16.74, 12′; KUB 49.32, r.c. 2′, 15′; KUB 49.48, obv. 1′; and KUB 49.9, rev. III 15′, 21′.
The oracular questions in the first half of this text concern and are addressed to a deity referred to as DUTU ka-ú-ri-i. This name and epithet is attested only in this text. It is unclear whether this is an alternative name for the Sun-Goddess of Arinna, who features prominently in the second half of this text. On the one hand, the fact that the queen’s dream features the city of Arinna would explain why, if they are different deities distinguished in this text with different names, the second set of questions is addressed to this second god. On the other hand, the text explicitly asks whether the Sun-Goddess of Arinna might have taken up the matter of Kurunta again, (colon 200) implying that she was previously angry for this reason and therefore might be equated with the Sun-Deity Kauri. Moreover, it is significant that, when Arinna features in the queen’s dream, the very first possibility considered and question addressed to the Sun-Goddess of Arinna is whether the matter of Kurunta, which previously angered the Sun-Deity Kauri, is still a problem, suggesting the two are perhaps to be equated.
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