THE HUMAN FACE OF THE GODS
The Hittites didn’t know what their gods actually looked like
because they could take whatever form they wanted when they
appeared to their mortal worshippers. They might sometimes
appear in an abstract form, for example as gold and silver disks, or
in animal form. The best known instance of the latter is the
representation of the Storm God as a bull in a scene which forms
part of a series of sculptured panels on the walls of the site now
called Alaca Höyük; this was very likely the most important cult
centre of the Sun Goddess of Arinna. The bull, symbolising male
strength and fertility, epitomises basic qualities of the Storm God.
At Alaca, he appears on a base behind an altar before which the
king and queen pay homage to him.
But most commonly the gods take human form, or at least
inhabit the human statues set up in their honour when they are
summoned by their worshippers. The sacrifical food and drink
offerings made to them and their participation in festival banquets
indicate a belief that they have the same need for sustenance as
their mortal worshippers. Indeed King Mursili II warns them that if
they don’t end the great plague ravaging the Hittite land, all the
land’s food-producers and food-preparers will die and there’ll be
no-one left to feed their divine overlords, let alone having anything
to feed them with.
Like the gods of many civilisations, these divine overlords were
prone to the full range of emotions experienced by their mortal
worshippers. They could lose their temper, be jealous, seek revenge
for perceived or real slights, they could be rebuked, argued with and
reasoned with in the prayers offered to them, and they could
sometimes neglect their responsibilities.
HITTITE MYTH
The clearest example of this last is provided by one of a small body
of native Anatolian myths that have been passed down to us from
the Hittite world. The subject of the myth is a‘Vanishing God’, who
simply abandons his people and goes walkabout to some unknown
250 WARRIORS OF ANATOLIA