that the transmission of infections was due to microbiological
organisms. But they did understand that some sort of biological
process was involved. This was painfully demonstrated by the
plague described in Mursili’s Plague Prayers. Whatever its nature,
the Hittites could have had little doubt that it was linked to the
prisoners-of-war brought back from Egypt’s Syro-Palestinian
territories. Indeed the Hittites themselves engaged in an early form
of biological warfare by sending prisoners captured on their
campaigns and obviously afflicted with some sort of disease back to
their own land, to spread the contagion.^3
But overall, their knowledge of the causes of diseases was
extremely rudimentary–just as it was in most past civilisations.
They had no clear understanding of what afflictions were
contagious and what were not. Thus when Mursili II suddenly
suffered a partial loss of speech during a thunderstorm–perhaps
some sort of stroke which soon left him unable to speak at all–
the most important part of his‘cure’(if in fact he was cured)
began with loading onto a wagon all the garments he had worn
and all the utensils he had used on the day his afflictionfirst struck
him. The wagon was then drawn by two oxen to a far-off location
where the clothes and utensils along with the wagon and the oxen
were burnt.^4
In theory, the idea of putting to the torch everything an infected
person had been in contact with was a sound one–but only, of
course, in cases where the affliction was contagious. Many diseases,
like that suffered by Mursili, were not. But even if Mursili’s fellow-
countrymen did have any awareness of such a distinction, they
preferred to play it safe and assume that all diseases were infectious
and needed to be dealt with by an appropriate set of procedures to
ensure they did not spread to others. This also covered‘diseases’
they regarded as purely or primarily moral in nature, including
illegal sexual practices like bestiality and certain forms of incest.
Moral as well as physical pollution could infect an entire community.
(There are many today who would agree with that!)
Sexual deviancy could attract the death penalty, thus
eliminating the source of the pollutant before it spread more
widely. But other ills afflicting members of Hittite society could be
120 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA