Çorum Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism

Hittites Religion

Hittites religion is a polytheistic  religion ; there are thousands of god and goddesses
in pantheon (family of gods)  and most of them are taken from the other tribes’ religions.

The gods in Hittites are just like people. Both their  physical appearance and spiritual features are just like the same as people. They eat and drink like people and they always do favour as long as they are treated well by people. Whenever they are neglected, they try to take revenge and they punish the people in a cruel way.  A Hittite document compares the people with gods and it mentions that this relationship is just like the one between master and his housemaid.

 Hittite pantheon consists of the local ones combined in the course of time in the cities of Anatolia and Syria.

 

The head god of Hittites is the god of thunder (Teşup) . God of thunder saves the country and the peace of kingdom. The king rules the country on behalf of his master. 

     Hittites Government was a political formation whose king and members come from the royal family. Panku (Empire Parliament)  is the political unit of the administration. In case of emergency, Panku was called for meeting by the king. 

Hittites royal family was not a closed society against the outer world.  If there weren’t a man to be the king from the first and second generation, a prince’s wife from the first generation could also be the king. Crown prince was announced by the king and he had to say the oath of allegiance after the approval of Panku.  Apart from the king there was also institutionalised queenship.  It is understood from the accomplishments of Hattuşili III’s wife  that the queen had a big role in political life. However, king was the absolute power in the state formation.