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Puduhepa
Also Known As Queen Puduhepa Titled form.
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Puduhepa was great queen of Hatti in the thirteenth century before the common era, alongside her husband Hattusili III and afterwards under her son Tudhaliya IV, and she is the most fully documented woman of the ancient Near East outside Egypt. She came from Lawazantiya in Kizzuwatna, where her father was a priest of the goddess Shaushka, and she served as a priestess there before her marriage. She sealed treaties in her own name, corresponded with Ramesses II of Egypt over the marriage of her daughter, sat in judgment, and directed a reorganization of the state cult. Her religious importance rests on a single move of enormous consequence: in her prayers she addresses the Sun-goddess of Arinna, the chief goddess of the Hittite state, and Hebat, the chief goddess of the Hurrians, as one goddess under two names. That identification is the clearest surviving statement of the merger of Hurrian and Hittite religion at the late imperial court, and her own name, which contains the name of Hebat, carries it.
Facts
Life
Lifespan or FloruitActive through the thirteenth century BCE; she outlived Hattusili III and was still acting under her son Tudhaliya IV 1 Office HeldTawananna, great queen of Hatti, an office with its own seal, its own cultic duties and a standing that did not end with the king's death 1Tradition: Hittite Religion Place of ActivityRuled alongside Hattusili III from the Hittite capital Hattusa, and continued to act as Tawananna, the title of the reigning queen, into the reign of her son Tudhaliya IV, outliving her husband in the office. 1 Attributions
TraditionHer prayer names the Sun-goddess of Arinna and Hebat as one goddess under two names, the clearest surviving statement of the Hurrian and Hittite merger at the imperial court 1Tradition: Hittite Religion Identity
Canonical ReferenceHer seal appears jointly with Hattusili III's on state treaties and correspondence, including diplomatic letters exchanged with the Egyptian royal court following the Treaty of Kadesh, evidence of the formal political authority her office carried. 1 Attestation
HistoricityHistorically attested and unusually well documented: she sealed treaties and letters in her own name, including correspondence with Ramesses II Origins
Place of OriginLawazantiya in Kizzuwatna, where her father Pentipsharri was a priest of the goddess Shaushka and where she served as priestess before her marriage 1 Origin of the NameA theophoric name carrying the name of the Hurrian goddess Hebat, which marks her Kizzuwatnean and Hurrian religious formation 1 Cult
Attributes and IconographyCarved at the rock relief of Firaktin pouring a libation before her goddess, facing Hattusili III performing the same act before the storm god 1 Position Profile
Key TextHer prayer to the Sun-goddess of Arinna for the life of Hattusili, one of the fullest personal prayers surviving from the Hittite archives 1Tradition: Hittite Religion Learn More
The Priestess of Lawazantiya
Kizzuwatna, the region around the Cilician plain, was where Hittite and Hurrian religion met and mixed. Its cult centres had absorbed Hurrian gods and Hurrian ritual technique for generations before Puduhepa was born, and Hittite kings had been importing its rites into the capital for almost as long. Her father Pentipsharri was a priest of Shaushka at Lawazantiya, and she grew up in that office and exercised it herself.
Hattusili, brother of the reigning king and then a provincial commander, married her on his way back from the Egyptian war. He tells the story himself in the apologia he wrote to justify his later seizure of the throne, and attributes the match to the instruction of a goddess in a dream. Whatever the mechanism, the marriage brought a trained Hurrian-rite priestess into the Hittite royal house at the moment that house was about to change hands.
What followed was a career of an unusual kind. Her seal appears beside her husband's on the Egyptian treaty. She wrote to Ramesses II directly, and one surviving letter answers his complaints about the delayed dowry with an argument about the state of the Hittite treasury that concedes nothing. She heard legal cases. She supervised an inventory and reorganization of the cults of the kingdom, a project her son continued, which involved recording local rites in writing and rationalizing what the state supported. She outlived Hattusili by a considerable margin and was still acting during the reign of her son, which makes her the longest-serving figure at the late Hittite court.
Naming Two Goddesses as One
The prayer that carries her name is addressed to the Sun-goddess of Arinna, the head of the Hittite pantheon and the deity in whose name the kings ruled, and it asks for the life of Hattusili. It is one of the fullest personal prayers to survive from the Hittite archives, and its argument is intimate rather than formal: the queen presents herself as a woman who has served the goddess for a long time, offers her devotion to the goddess's son as grounds for a hearing, and asks that a life be spared.
Its importance for the history of religion lies in a single clause. Puduhepa states that the Sun-goddess of Arinna and Hebat are the same goddess, that the name Hebat is what the people of Kizzuwatna call her, and that in the land of Hatti she is called the Sun-goddess of Arinna. This is a theological identification made explicitly and in writing, by the person best placed to make it, at the moment the Hurrian pantheon was being absorbed into the state cult of an empire.
The rock relief at Firaktin shows the working result. Hattusili stands before the storm god pouring a libation; facing him across the panel, Puduhepa performs the same act before her goddess. Two rites, two pantheons, one royal couple, one monument. The reorganization of the cults that she and her son carried out produced the same effect on a larger scale, and the divine couple of the imperial cult in its final form, the storm god and Hebat, is Hurrian in name and Hittite in function. Her son had the pantheon carved in that form at the rock sanctuary of Yazilikaya outside the capital.
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
The goddess her surviving prayer addresses, and whom she states is Hebat under the name used in the land of Hatti.
Hebat, Deities Her own tutelary goddess, whose name she carries, and whom she identifies with the Sun-goddess of Arinna.
She was raised in the Hurrian rite at Lawazantiya and carried it into the Hittite royal cult.
The god her husband faces at Firaktin while she faces her own, the two rites shown as one royal act.
Attested in Region
The Hittite archives that document her come from Hattusa in central Anatolia, and Kizzuwatna lay to its southeast.
Belongs to Tradition
She directed an inventory and reorganization of the cults of the kingdom, a project her son continued.
Sources
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