SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Hittites adopted the cuneiform script for their own use, and the cuneiform script they used was populated by word‐signs that were Sumerian in origin, just as Akkadian was written using Sumerian word‐signs in Mesopotamia. This chapter investigates the streams of transmission through which Sumerian literature reached Hattusa using methods of palaeographic and orthographic analysis. The Sumerian language remains at Hattusa are rather scant and still contain many contradictions. The earliest material belongs to the incantation genre and imports of this type continued throughout the history of the Hittite occupation with Mesopotamian texts, without it being apparent that elements specifically particular to the Sumerian incantations were transferred into Hittite language texts. For the scholars who worked on Babylonian omens in Mesopotamia it was a means of researching the instructions and messages of the gods as written in the material of the world, using the obscure Sumerian language as a point of access.