Cult of the Dead and Ancestor Worship in Hittite Anatolia

The cult of the dead and ancestors among the Hittites has not yet been comprehensively addressed. As a result, the concepts of the continued existence of the deceased found in Hittite texts could not be pieced together into a cohesive picture.

This book presents, for the first time, a comprehensive study that consolidates and thoroughly examines all the information derived from the textual evidence from Boğazköy, in order to elucidate the fundamental structures of this thematic complex. Building on the philological analysis of the textual sources and the lexicographical examination of the relevant terms, the presence of the dead in the daily lives of the living is explored: In particular, the significance of ancestors and royal predecessors for their descendants, as well as the resulting forms of ancestor and death cults and their importance for the community, can be illustrated.