Hittite Votive Texts

Votive texts or vows were already a well known religious phenomenon in the 13th century BC, but at that time the Hittites started to expand the genre into an interesting administrative process. Both the temple and the palace sent each other reminders when a promised object had not yet been received or when the god had not yet fulfilled a wish. Vows are a genre of Hittite literature that has hitherto not been treated extensively. This publication contains transcriptions and translations of nearly all votive texts and text fragments that have been published as text copies (ca. 80 texts), as well as fifteen hitherto unpublished text fragments. The general introduction (70 pp.) contains paragraphs on gods and mortals, the places where the vow or dream occur, the gods invoked and the dating of the votive texts. The second part of the volume contains the text transliterations, translations and commentary, arranged according to CTH 583, 584 and 590.