Wurunkatte
Hattian war god associated with kingship and the mace.
Last updated
Wurunkatte, also known as Wurukatte, was a Hittite war god with Hattian roots, possibly tied to kingship. His emblem was a mace, and texts suggest he might have been shown atop a lion. He was venerated in Hattusa, Nerik, Tuḫumijara, and Tarammeka.
Name and character
The name Wurunkatte is of Hattic origin and translates as "king of the land." Volkert Haas noted a comparison with the Akkadian epithet šār mātim, used for Dagan. Wurunkatte functioned as a war god, a role he shared with deities such as Iyarri and the originally Hurrian Ḫešui. Artistic depictions show him standing on the back of a lion.
A description of a presumed silver statuette of him records that he held a shield and a mace; the mace is also attested as his symbol elsewhere. According to Piotr Taracha, in Hattian tradition Wurunkatte was linked to the ideology of kingship, similar to the deified throne Ḫanwašuit (Ḫalmašuit in Hittite). He could be addressed with the title tabarna, otherwise used for the reigning Hittite king. Taracha suggested that his role as a kingship deity and the meaning of his name might indicate a special position in the Hattian pantheon before the rise of weather gods in the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BCE.
Associations with other deities
Wurunkatte, a Hattian god, was sometimes compared to Šulinkatte. One Hattic text describes them together, noting that Šulinkatte is the son of Hattusa, while Wurunkatte is the son of warta (a term of unknown meaning) and of the lands. In other texts, Wurunkatte is paired with the deity Tunturmiša. A group of three gods—Wurunkatte, Taru, and Telipinu—is also recorded.
In magical incantations, he could be linked to the Hattian goddess Kataḫziwuri. A related deity, Wurukattainu, meaning "small Wurunkatte" or "child of Wurunkatte," is known. The Hittites viewed Wurunkatte as the equivalent of the Mesopotamian god Zababa, and his name could be written using Zababa’s logogram. However, because that logogram could also refer to other gods, the intended deity is not always certain when phonetic spellings are absent.
Worship
In Hattusa, Wurunkatte received offerings during the KI.LAM festival, with his inclusion likely reflecting his importance to Hittite kings. Limited evidence from Nerik includes a stele dedicated to him and offerings such as a sheep during a ceremony for the weather god of Nerik, as well as tongues, ears, and tails of sacrificial animals on another occasion.
Piotr Taracha suggested that after the temporary loss of Nerik, a new temple might have been built for him, based on references to a new house of worship for a deity designated by the logogram dZABABA. In Tuḫumijara, a song invoking him was sung during a local festival, and he was also worshiped in Tarammeka. Itamar Singer proposed that a deity designated by dZABABA in a Hittite treaty with the Kaška people might be Wurunkatte, assuming the Kaška were a remnant of Hattian culture pushed northward.
More in Hattian Deities
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Wurunkatte (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced