Queen of the Land of Hatti

The Sun-goddess of Arinna, invoked as Arinniti, was not a mere personification of the sun but the sovereign goddess of the Hittite state, patroness of its kings and queens and, with the storm-god her consort, the summit of the official pantheon. Her importance is clearest in the royal prayers, above all those of the powerful thirteenth-century queen Puduhepa, who addressed her as queen of heaven and earth, giver of justice and rule to the king.

Behind Arinniti lie older and other figures: the earlier Hattian goddess Wurusemu, and, in the Hurrianising layer of the empire's religion, the great goddess Hebat, with whom she was identified. That a solar deity should be the guarantor of kingship rather than a distant celestial body is characteristic of the Near East, where the sun is the god of justice who sees all; the Sun-goddess of Arinna stands at the exact centre of Hittite royal religion.