The Power of Human Speech in Hittite Anatolia

Abstract

Abstract With the aim of improving our understanding of how Hittite practitioners in ancient Anatolia used human speech to achieve a desired efficacy or performativity (and therefore change a current situation), this paper explores the ritual character of Telipinu’s mugawar (CTH 324) and its historiola. Along these lines, it examines what traces of human agency are present in the text, and under which circumstances its performance would have been most valuable. Considered from a broader perspective, this study also aims to link Hittite texts to the lives of Anatolia’s inhabitants and to the many ways they did things with words.