Burial Customs

Hittite communities used both cremation, in which the body was burned before the remains were deposited, and inhumation, the burial of an unburned body. Cemeteries near Hattusa and elsewhere in central Anatolia preserve these different treatments. At the royal court, a surviving series of tablets sets out a prolonged funeral for a king or queen, combining bodily treatment, mourning, meals and provision for the deceased’s continued existence.

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Cemeteries and the treatment of bodies

Osmankayası, outside Hattusa, contained cremation and inhumation burials. Ilıca, another central Anatolian cemetery, likewise preserves both methods. These grounds belong to the second millennium BCE, including periods earlier than the empire’s final centuries. Their graves show that communities could maintain more than one way of disposing of the dead within the same burial area.

Cremation involved work beyond the burning itself: fuel had to be assembled, the fire tended, and the remaining bones gathered for deposition. Inhumation preserved a different relationship between the body and the grave. Archaeologists distinguish these practices through the condition of the bones, their placement and the containers or structures associated with them.

Objects and animal remains also formed part of funerary activity. Studies of Osmankayası and Ilıca discuss deliberately broken vessels and equid sacrifice alongside bodily treatment. A grave or burial ground could therefore preserve traces of actions performed by mourners as well as the final resting place of the deceased.

The royal funeral

The court’s funeral tablets describe a fourteen-day rite known by the Hittite expression šalliš waštaiš, conventionally translated as “great sin.” The opening announces that a king or queen has become a god and calls for lamentation. The death of a ruler affected both the royal household and the ordering of the kingdom, giving the ceremony an institutional purpose as well as a personal one.

Different tablets supplied a scenario of actions, the words to be spoken and inventories of the objects required. These written aids allowed specialists to assemble a complex ceremony even when a long reign had separated it from the last royal funeral. Copies also reveal changes in the sequence over time.

Cremation and the collection of bones

In the preserved royal sequence, the body was burned on a pyre. Afterwards women approached the remains, quenched the fire with drinks and collected the bones with silver tongs. They placed them in an oil-filled silver vessel and then on linen. The bones were eventually taken to a place called the “stone house,” associated with the deceased ruler.

This sequence carefully separated burning, gathering and transfer. Precious utensils and cloth made the treatment of the remains a formal act. At later stages, an image of the dead ruler provided a focus for continuing rites after the bodily remains had been moved.

Mourners, food and continued remembrance

Specialist women called taptara-women supplied repeated lamentation. Other participants included a cupbearer and ritual experts. Breaking vessels and destroying symbolic objects accompanied the mourning, while meals brought those performing the rites together. The funeral thus required performers, food providers and officials over an extended period.

Rites also represented resources for the deceased’s future existence. A piece of turf could stand for pasture, with words asking that the dead ruler’s animals graze there securely. Royal death was described as becoming divine, and offerings continued in a mortuary cult. The court maintained its relationship with deceased rulers through organised service after the immediate funeral had ended.

The royal tablets and excavated cemeteries illuminate different settings. The graves show bodily treatments and funerary objects used in particular communities; the court texts explain the ordered work of a royal ceremony. Together they reveal funerals as sequences of gathering, bodily care, performance and remembrance, with forms shaped by place and status.

For the wider setting, see Hittite daily life.