Festivals

From roughly the seventeenth to the early twelfth centuries BCE, the Hittite kingdom and empire held festivals in central Anatolia and in cities under its rule. The ceremonies combined offerings to the gods with processions, meals, music and public displays. Some were organized around the king and queen and linked the capital, Ḫattuša, with sacred towns nearby. Their surviving schedules show how ritual service involved not only the royal household but also priests, performers, temple workers and people representing other cities.

Surviving festival schedules name the places to be visited, offerings to be supplied and actions to be performed. Local gods had their own ceremonies, while large royal observances linked several cult centres through the king’s and queen’s journeys.

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Temples, offerings and royal responsibility

Temples were places where gods received service from humans. Festival rites brought that service into a more concentrated form: food and drink were offered, animals were sacrificed, and sacred objects were carried or honored. A libation, the pouring of a drink as an offering, could accompany prayers, music or a sequence of other ritual acts.

Such offerings depended on practical work. Fields assigned to the gods had to be cultivated and harvested; grain had to be ground and made into bread; and herders supplied animals. In a prayer, King Mursili II described how war and death had left fields unworked, mill workers gone and herds without caretakers, interrupting the provision of sacrificial bread, drink and animals. His appeal shows that temple service rested on a chain of agricultural labor, and that keeping it going was understood as a royal concern.

The king’s participation expressed a reciprocal relationship with the gods: the ruler was responsible for maintaining their cult, while the gods were expected to protect the land and its people. The queen also held an active ritual role. In major festivals, the royal couple might perform rites together, separately or at different locations.

The spring festival of AN.TAḪ.ŠUM

The AN.TAḪ.ŠUM festival was a long spring observance recorded in the imperial period. Its name came from a spring plant, though its exact identity is uncertain; proposals include a crocus or other bulbous plant. A large gold representation of the plant belonged to the cult equipment. The plant itself was offered with other foods on designated days, joining the season’s growth to the acts of worship.

The festival schedule changed over time. One version lasted 35 days; later forms were extended, and the reorganization associated with Tudhaliya IV set a 40-day observance. The ceremonies involved the royal couple and journeys to sacred places beyond Ḫattuša, including Arinna and Zippalanda. The king and queen did not always travel together. On one occasion the king went to Arinna while the queen remained in the capital, and the next day each made an offering of the festival plant at a different location. This arrangement allowed royal worship to take place in more than one cult center at once.

Other stages of the festival brought together offerings, travel and performances. A sacred kurša, a ritual object described as a bag or fleece, was carried between cities. The schedule included sacrifices of cattle and sheep, rites in temples and offerings at a sacred grove. Later, the king and queen traveled toward Mount Puškurunuwa, where the king poured a drink offering for the sacred deer kept there; the mountain, a spring and other deities also received offerings. At Ankuwa, a rain festival for the local Storm God featured singing, drums and a drinking rite. The festival thus linked the royal court with a landscape of temples, groves, mountains and local divine powers.

Successive schedules expanded and rearranged the sequence, and its scale has led scholars to question whether the full programme took place annually. The linked journeys made worship an undertaking across a landscape: each stop needed supplies, personnel and a place for the royal party to perform its duties.

The KI.LAM festival and its processions

KI.LAM, meaning the “gate building” festival, lasted three days in Ḫattuša. Its name referred to a gate or gatehouse, and the royal couple visited the gates of important buildings to make offerings. Records indicate that versions of the festival may also have been observed in other cities. The surviving account combines processions and competitions with rites at temples and offering places.

On the first day, a procession left the palace. It included dancers, priests, a boy singing a hymn, a herald, and a cart carrying sacred objects. Among these were metal and stone animal figures kept in the temple of the goddess Inar, as well as deer standards and ritual hunting bags. The procession brought representations of gods and animals into a carefully ordered public ceremony. The king watched, then changed from carrying a spear to an axe bearing the image of the Storm God before traveling with the queen to the temple of Ḫalki, the grain goddess.

Contributions from several cities were displayed at the temple and other points along the route. At a gate, a foot race began; elsewhere, priests from Arinna and Zippalanda bowed to the king. The procession went on to a sacred stele, where bread, flour and wine were offered. The king gave a prize to the race’s winner. Later, participants made offerings to animal figures in the procession, while a group known as the “dog-men” asked the king for a gift. These actions placed competition, ceremonial display and royal generosity within the same festival.

On the following days, music and offerings continued. Depending on the deity honored, people played the lyre or flute, sang or danced, and presented foods such as bread, cakes, barley porridge, beer or a partridge. Participants from different towns also appeared. On the third day, a “Great Assembly” brought the king, queen, princes and cult personnel together for further rites, including ritual handwashing and offerings of bread and drink. Sacrificed animals were later distributed among festival personnel, with portions assigned according to their roles. The ceremonies thus involved an organized body of workers as well as the royal family.

Music, performance and the Purulli festival

Music and performance were part of the ritual sequence, not merely pauses in it. The KI.LAM account places instrumental music, singing and dancing alongside offerings. The AN.TAḪ.ŠUM festival included a procession to a temple in which red-clad performers danced before the royal couple. Other groups appearing in festival accounts had names such as “leopard-men” or “dog-men.” The texts do not always explain those titles, but show that these participants had assigned places in the ceremony.

The Purulli spring festival at Nerik illustrates another connection between performance and worship. A version of the story of the Storm God and the serpent Illuyanka was recited in the context of the festival. The story tells of the god’s struggle with the serpent and its eventual defeat; the festival was associated with the return of fertility. The myth’s place in the ceremony made a divine conflict part of a rite concerned with the well-being of the land.

Local cult inventories record the food and participation owed by particular towns, complementing the more elaborate royal schedules. Communities supplied flour, drink and animals, while ritual workers maintained the shrine and carried out the rite. At both local and royal gatherings, worship depended on coordinated practical work.

For the wider setting, see Hittite daily life.