Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T21:41:13.424Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Legend of Telibinus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

In the “Yuzgat” Tablet we read: “and the dirges for Telibinus are finished” (Telibinuss-a mugauwas qati). The word I have rendered “dirges” is translated by the Assyrian tazimtu and includes the legends which were repeated in the celebration of what may be termed the death and resurrection of the Hittite god Telibinus. Telibinus, “the son of Teli,” like Khatebinus “the child of Khate”, was one of the deified kings of the primitive Hittites and is accordingly coupled with Zidkhariyas, another early hero, and Khebe the goddess of Kizzuwadna. In Greek mythology he was known as Telephus, King of Mysia. In the treaty of Subbiluliuma with Simassara he is called the god of Turmitta, which is identified by Professor Garstang with Derende.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1930

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 302 note 1 If the text is right this must be the translation. But the grammar would be defective, and it is therefore possible that we should read TUR-as instead of i-as; “he (i.e. the sedu or Guardian-spirit) is a son of the field.” Perhaps also ia- in 1. 28 belongs to the verb iya “to make” rather than ia- “to go”, the sense being that the sedu “had made the fields”, The word I have translated “enter” seems to have been borrowed from the Assyrian terib; we find it in KUB. xiii, 2, 24, terribbisgandu “let them (the oxen) enter” and 1, iv, 19, 2, 19, A-SAG teribbiyassas “entrance field”. It must be remembered that the Hittites recognized besides “the Sun-god of heaven”, “the Sun-god of earth”, that is to say the Sun who passes to the dark underworld during the night.

page 312 note 1 Cf. Zend kamara “vault”, Lat. camera (camurus). In the Syrian geographical list of Thothmes III, Kamru (No. 261) has the determinative of “house”. The word forms the first element in the name of the Hittite hero Kamru-sipas.