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Onomasticon of the Hittite Pantheon: Parts I and II, 2 vols., by B. H. L. van Gessel. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Leiden/New York/Cologne: Brill, 1998. Pp. xxiv + 604; xvi + 605-1,069. $264.00.
The Hittites of second-millennium BCE Anatolia referred to the divinities whom they worshiped as "the Thousand Gods of Hatti," and the pantheon reflected in their cuneiform texts is indeed enormous. Three factors account for this superabundance:
First, Hittite religion was an amalgam of elements-Indo-European (Hittite, Palaic, Luwian, old Indic), indigenous Anatolian (Hattic), and Syro-Mesopotamian (Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hurrian). The divine level of Hatti's universe included figures drawn from each of these cultures. Second, although at times they might refer to a generic category such as "all the Storm-gods of Hatti," the Hittites on the whole resisted syncretism, preferring to honor individually local deities of similar character. Third, in the course of Hittite expansion throughout much of what is today Turkey and northern Syria, the gods and goddesses of annexed areas were not displaced but were rather subsumed into the imperial pantheon. Thus, for instance, the venerable Storm-god of Aleppo came to receive considerable cultic attention at the Hittite capital of Bogazkoy/ Hattuga.