It is available online at https://doi.org/10.36253/979-12-215-0042-4.04

The Hittite King as Administrator of the Land

Giulia Torri

Abstract: In recent years archaeological investigation has made an important contribution for ascertaining the possible relationship between the center of the kingdom, namely the king and his capital city, and the regions at the core of the kingdom in different periods of Hittite history. The empire was not a monolithic entity but a complex web of interactions. In this frame the Hittite king emerges in his several roles. In this study I have chosen to focus on the king’s administrative role and the way in which he was present in the territory through a controlled system of land allocation.

The Hittite economy was based on three main elements: cultivation of the land; herding; export of metals. The dominant agrarian system comprised a farm-based economy, in which agriculture and herding were fundamental factors of the country’s wealth.1

The king himself administered the country under the aegis of the gods. Of significance in this respect is the old Hittite ritual CTH 416 in which the king is represented as a farmer holding a sickle and the queen as a commoner woman seated by a threshing mill.2 Construction ritual CTH 414 states that the Sun-goddess and the Storm-god entrusted the land to the king.3 In fact, the documentation shows that the state provided for the functioning and management of the temple, so that one cannot speak of a division of powers, including economic powers, between state and religious power, at least on the economic level (Klinger 2022: 625-626).

The kings’ religious journeys into central Anatolia represented, on an ideological level, a moment of union between the religious and governmental spheres.4 On the other hand, the territorial presence of the Hittite king (and his officials) seems to have been capillary, as, in fact, was the organization of the State, which used numerous decentralized structures to manage both the religious and economic organization throughout the realm.5 As Weeden outlined some years ago in his study of the Hittite scribal schools outside Ḫattuša, the increasing number of tablets found in excavations carried out in recent years outside the capital city has brought to light the evidence of a Hittite scribal culture, which was, at least in central Anatolia, evenly spread over the territory and similar in scriptural content, genres and external features in all the towns in which texts have been found (Weeden 2011: 116-134).6 Cuneiform texts have been found in the towns the Hittite king visited during the festivals because they were strategically important for the kingdom both militarily and economically.7 Weeden has observed that Hittite cuneiform writing appears mainly where royal seals have also been found. On the opposite, in places where seals offer no evidence of the royal family there is also more sporadic evidence of a cuneiform culture (Weeden 2011: 117-118).

Clearly a royal seal itself is not evidence of the king’s presence, but it may also indicate that an official of the court was acting on his behalf, as a member of the aristocracy that ruled the country and controlled its administration, as Weeden has already suggested (2011: 118-119).8 Some sources, however, document the king’s presence in certain Anatolian centers, in the course of carrying out his administrative duties. The present study analyses these texts in order to show how the king absolved his duties as territory-wide administrator of the kingdom.9

In the Land Donation documents from OH period, the royal seal indicates the king donating land or, in case of anonymous seals, the officiality of the royal act. Interestingly, these documents register where the act took place, which was not always Ḫattuša, and the list of the higher officials mentioned as witnesses of this procedure.10 It is also probable that the seals of the officials were appended to the tablet. Although among Hittite records, administrative and economic texts are scarce, the few extant documents are useful in reconstructing how certain procedures were carried out. Hittite Land Donations are a very particular text typology discovered in Ḫattuša, with the exception of a tablet (LSU 1) discovered in İnandık (Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 33-39). The oldest sixteenth-century specimens feature a seal impression in the central part of the obverse that is still found in the fifteenth-century land donation of Arnuwanda and Ašmunikal to the hierodule Kuwatalla (LSU 91).11 However, land donation documents also date from the imperial period, though they display different formal characteristics. Surely this category includes the decree issued by Ḫattušili III in favor of Ura-Tarḫunta and the one issued by Tutḫaliya IV in favor of Šaḫurunuwa, CTH 225,12 and the so-called vow of Queen Puduḫepa to the goddess Lelwani, CTH 585.13 As some scholars have remarked, treaties concluded with members of the royal family and with rulers of territories that were de facto equivalent to independent political entities may also have borrowed some formal features from land donations, as for example the two treaties with Tarḫuntašša.14 None of these documents is preserved on sealed tablets.

Several land donations, later brought to Ḫattuša, were written in other cities.

As Rüster and Wilhelm have reported, during the period of Telipinu four documents had been composed in Ḫanḫana (LSU 5 rev. 31-38, LSU 14 rev. 3’-10’, LSU 22 rev. 68-61, and LSU 23 rev. 2’-6’), and one tablet in Kammama (LSU 6 rev. 8’-14’).15

During the period of Ḫantili II two texts were written in Kammama (LSU 28 rev. 21’-27’ and 36 rev. 3’-9’). And during the period of Ḫuzziya II, LSU 41 (rev. 8’-12’) was written in Ḫanḫana and LSU 43 (rev. 1’-6’) in Katapa (Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 57-58).

The wording used in the texts to introduce the place of composition in the presence of the witnesses is always identical in the different texts, as Riemschneider first noted in his research on land donations (Riemschneider 1958: 337):16 ṭup-pa-am an-ni-a-am i-na URUGN a-na pa-ni PNs, PN DUB.SAR iš-ṭú-ur (“I, PN, the scribe, wrote this tablet in the town GN in front of the witnesses PNs).17

In all these instances we have reason to think that the place of composition depended on the presence of the king and his court in the cities mentioned in the last part of the texts. It seems possible that the king or his officers who were custodians of the royal seals, went where they were needed to perform this task.18 This is supported, for example, by comparing LSU 4, composed in Ḫattuša, with LSU 5, composed in Ḫanḫana. Both documents mention a certain Šandamei, who has the title of Chief of the Thousand Charioteers (UGULA 1-LI LÚ.MEŠKUŠ7),19 as former owner of some parcels of land in Waštišša, in the region of Amkuwa. He appears with the same title as witness in the so-called İnandik tablet (LSU 1),20 which was written in Ḫattuša by a scribe named Aškaliya (LSU 1 rev. 22-27). Wilhelm, following Easton (1981: 3), suggests that LSU 4 and 5 were written some years later than LSU 1 and LSU 2. In LSU 4 e 5, the land has been expropriated because Šandamei had probably lost the king’s favor or was now deceased (Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 50).

Both tablets, LSU 4 and LSU 5, concern the donation of land to the House of Ḫattuša in Šarišša,21 an institution attested only in these Old Hittite charters22 in which, according to LSU 3 (obv. 25-27), a certain Inar was employed as DUB.SAR.GIŠ.23 Lastly, the officials mentioned as witnesses24 in the tablets (LSU 4 rev. 9’-14’; LSU 5 rev. 38-41) share the same titles (GAL.DUMUMEŠ.É.GAL ‘Chief of the Palace Servants,’25 LÚurianni,26 GAL LÚ.MEŠMEŠEDI27). The name of the Chief of the Palace Servants Ḫapuwaššu, partially preserved in LSU 4 rev. 10’, can be restored also in LSU 5 rev. 39. Unfortunately, the names of the scribes of both texts have not been preserved, but, for example, LSU 30, composed in Ḫattuša during the reign of Ḫantili II, and LSU 28, issued under the same king in Kamamma, were both composed by the scribe Ḫanikkuili and both had the same board of witnesses: Šarpa, GAL.DUMUMEŠ.É.GAL, Ḫaššuili, GAL LÚ.MEŠMEŠEDI, Ilaliuma, LÚurianni, and Muššu, GAL LÚ.MEŠGEŠTIN (Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 54).

The cities mentioned in the land donations are well attested in documents from the Old Hittite period onward and are part of the core of the Kingdom during its oldest history. About Ḫanḫana and Katapa we have several sources referring to the religious activity of the Hittite kings in these areas. Ḫanḫana was situated two days north of Ḫattuša towards the Kaškeans area. It is not included in the AN.TAḪ.ŠUM celebrations and in the nuntarriyašḫa-festival, but it was the locale of a celebration dedicated to the god Telipinu.28 Katapa too was located at a two-day trip from Ḫattuša. It was one of the cities where the king might spend the winter, as attested by the oracle text CTH 563, KUB 5.3+ III 3-12 (Beal 1997: 211) and the Annals of Muršili (CTH 61, KUB 19.37 II 35-38; (Goetze 1933: 170). During the late Hittite seasonal festivals, Katapa is mentioned as a leg of the royal journey: The nuntarriyašḫa-festival began in Katapa, and after several celebrations in the neighboring cities (including Taḫurpa) the king moved to Arinna on the fifth day and to Ḫattuša during the sixth day (Nakamura 2002: 19). Again, the city is mentioned in the 14th day of the same festival (Nakamura 2002: 22). As far as we know, during the spring season, after inaugurating the celebrations of the AN.TAḪ.ŠUM-festival, the king moved from Ḫattuša (or anywhere else) to Taḫurpa, ‘but he does not go at all as far as Katapa: at Katapa there are no rites; and even if the king goes to Katapa he shall not celebrate in the city either the rites or the great assembly’ (CTH 605, IBoT 3.40+ 2’-11’).29

The existence of land grants is already mentioned in the Hittite Laws at §53: ‘If a TUKUL-man and his partner have settled together and if they have a falling out and divide their household, if there are 10 persons on their (?!) land, the TUKUL-man takes 7 persons and his partner takes 3 persons. They divide the cattle and sheep of the land in the same way. If someone holds a tablet with a royal grant, they divide the said land30 in the following manner: the TUKUL-man takes 2 parts also of (the land of ) the grant and his partner takes 1 part (of it)’ (KBo 6.3 III 9-14 = KBo 6.6 I 12-18: (9) ták-ku LÚ GIŠTUKUL Ù LÚḪA.LA-ŠU ták-ša-an a-ša-an-z[(i ma-a-né-za i-ta-la-u-e-eš-ša-an-zi)] (10) ta-az É-SÚ-NU šar-ra-an-zi ták-ku gi-im-ma-r[(a-aš-š)]a-[(aš 10 SAG.DU 7 SAG.DU)] (11) LÚ GIŠTUKUL da-a-ai Ù 3 SAG.DU LÚḪA.LA-ŠU da-a-i GU4ḪI.A UD[(UḪI.A gi-im-ma-ra-aš-ša-aš)] (12) QA-TAM-MA šar-a-an-zi ták-ku NÍG.BA LUGAL ṬUP-PÍ ku-iš-ki! ḫar-zi [(ma-a-an-za)] (13) A.ŠÀḪI.A-na ka-ru-ú-i-li-in šar-ra-an-zi Ù NÍG.BA 2 QA-TAM [(LÚ GIŠTUKUL da-a-i)] (14) Ù 1 QA-TAM LÚḪA.LA-ŠU da-a-i)’.

It is interesting to note that the procedure concerning the granting of land by the king can be compared with a paragraph of the Instructions for the Temple staff (CTH 264) concerning gifts of the king to priests.31 The text mentions, among other rules, the fact that priests, as custodians of temple treasures, were not allowed to have private possessions.32 However, these instructions cover the instance in which a priest may have received a gift from the palace with the following words: ‘If, however, they give to him as gift from the palace silver, gold, clothing or bronze utensils, let them be cited (in a document):’33 (KUB 13.4 II 32’’: ma-a-an-ma-aš-ši IŠ-TU É.GAL-LÌ AŠ-ŠUM NÍG.BA-ŠU (33’’) KÙ.BABBAR KÙ.SIG17 TÚG-TU4 Ú-NU-UT ZABAR pí-an-zi na-at lam-ni-ya-an e-eš-du). The text explicitly reports how the gift must be registered: The documents must report the name of the king who assigned the goods: ‘This king gave it to him’ (II 34’’: ka-a-aš-wa-ra-at-ši LUGAL-uš pa-iš); the weight of the object must be written on the document: ‘How much it weighs must also be ascertained’ (II 34’’: KI.LÁ.BI-ŠU-ya-˹at˺ ma-ši-wa-an (35’’) na-at i-ya-an-pát e-eš-du”; on what occasion the gift was made – in the case of this instruction text it is during a festival: ‘They gave it to him for this festival’ (II 36’’: ke-e-da-ni-wa-ra-at-ši A-NA EZEN4 SUM-er); the witnesses who were present at this act: ‘The witnesses shall be written afterwards: This and that person were present when they gave it to him’ (II 36’’: ku-ut-ru-u-uš-ša EGIR-an (37’’) i-ya-an-te-eš a-ša-an-du SUM-er-wa-at-ši ku-wa-pí nu-wa ka-a-aš (38’’) ka-a-aš-ša a-ra-an-ta-at).

The text also states that this gift cannot be kept inside the home of the priest but must be sold. It also describes how a priest should proceed with the sale of goods received from the crown. As we learn from a passage in KUB 13.4 II (40’’-44’’), a number of steps must be followed for the sale to be legitimate: ‘When he sells it (i.e. the mentioned goods), he shall not sell it in secret. The Lords of Ḫatti shall be present and check. They shall make a (separate?) document of what he (the buyer) buys,34 and they shall seal it in front (of him?).35 When the king comes up to Ḫattuša, he (the buyer) shall bring it (this document) to the palace, and they shall seal it for him.’36 (KUB 13.4 II 40’’: uš-ša-ni-ya-zi-ma-at-za ku-wa-pí ḫar-wa-ši le-e uš-ni-ya-zi (41’’) ENMEŠ URUḪA-AT-TI a-ra-an-ta-ru nu uš-kán-du nu-za ku-it (42’’) wa-ši-ya-zi na-at GIŠ.ḪUR37 i-ya-an-du na-an-kán pé-ra-an ši-ya-an-du (43’’) ma-aḫ-ḫa-an-ma-kán LUGAL-uš URUḪa-at-tu-ši ša-ra-a ú-iz-zi (44’’) na-at I-NA É.GAL-LÌ pa-ra-a e-ep-du na-at-ši ši-ya-an-du).

The passages quoted above, as already stressed by van den Hout (2020: 190), describe the process of producing two official records concerning the same gift.

In the first case it describes how the king’s gift should be immediately registered: This description can be compared with the possible preparation of a land donation tablet. First, the name of the king should be recorded in the text (ka-a-aš-wa-ra-at-ši LUGAL-uš pa-iš); the witnesses’ names shall be written afterwards (ku-ut-ru-u-uš-ša EGIR-an (37’’) i-ya-an-te-eš a-ša-an-du).38 This last expression refers to the physical location of the names on the tablet. In the donation documents, the name of the king appears in the opening lines of the text and his seal is placed on the obverse of the tablet; the witnesses are mentioned at the end of the tablet in the last lines, which mention the place of composition and the name of the scribe.

The second instance mentioned in the instruction text describes how the sale of this same gift should be registered.39 As already outlined above, the rule seems to have been to record royal grants on tablets, and perhaps more than one tablet was produced so that the beneficiary could also have a copy of it. Miller notes the strangeness of forcing a priest to sell a gift immediately after receiving it from the king (Miller 2013: 52).40 However, it seems to me that this peculiarity can be explained by the occasion for which the gift is made, which is a festival (II 36’’: A-NA EZEN4 SUM-er). We can connect this detail to the fact that priests and several other groups of people had to provide the necessary goods for celebrating local festivals. Cammarosano lists a number of participants who are mentioned in texts as contributors of cult-offerings.41 These include a wide range of people, from the priests present in the area where the feast was held to the local communities (Cammarosano 2018: 148-150; Cammarosano, Lorenz 2019: 23). In regard of the duties of the local priests, the cult inventory texts state that the priest must provide ‘from his own estate.’ Just to quote an example: ‘[Tot]al: the priest now supplies from his house 12 PARĪSU-measures of dried milled (grain) for the 12 monthly festivals [as well as for] the 2 festivals (of autumn and spring).’ (KUB 42.100+ rev. III 20’ [ŠU.NÍG]IN 12 PA tar-˹ša˺-an ˹ma˺-al-la-an A-NA 12 EZEN4 ITU.KAM (21’) [Ù A-NA] ˹2˺ E[ZE]N4[ME]Š LÚSANGA IŠ-TU É-ŠÚ ki-nu-un SUM-zi) (Cammarosano 2018: 348-349). The obligation to sell the royal gift may have been linked to the duty of supplying what was necessary for the feast (KUB 13.4 II 36’’: ke-e-da-ni-wa-ra-at-ši A-NA EZEN4 SUM-er). Therefore, it seems obvious that the priest could not keep this gift inside his home or sell it in secret but had to sell it officially in the presence of the Lords of Ḫattuša (Miller 2013: 254-255). It seems to me that a chain of redistribution of goods can be outlined as follows: priests could not own private property (KUB 13.4 II 29’: nu A-NA ˹LÚ˺ É.DINGIR-LÌ KÙ.BABBAR KÙ.SIG17 (30’’) le-e-pát e-eš-zi); kings often gave gifts to local shrines and priests: the goods of the temples belonged exclusively to the deity (II 28’’: ku-it ku-it DINGIR-LÌ-ni-ma-at e-eš-zi-pát);42 priests received gifts for the celebration festivals, as discussed above.43

A further reference to a royal grant written on a tablet is preserved in the oath imposition for the installation of Tutḫaliya III (CTH 271; Miller 2013: 154-167): ‘The entire land of Ḫattuša x[ ], [Tut]ḫaliya, Great King, Hero, shall govern! His [ ], though, Pariwatra, Kantu[zzili, Mannini (?)] and Tulpi-Tešup our grandson, to [th]em households have been given, and it has been recorded for them on a tablet’ (KUB 36.118+ obv. 6’: [KUR UR]UḪA-AT-TI-wa ḫu-u-ma-an Š[A ] x x [ ] (7’) [mDu]-ut-ḫa-li-ya-aš LUGAL.GAL UR.S[AG ma-n]i-ya-aḫ-ḫi-⸢iš-ke-ed-du⸣ [ ] / (8’) [ M]EŠ-ŠU-ma-wa-aš-ši ku-i-e-eš [mPa]-ri-ya-wa-at-ra-aš mKán-tu-z[i-li-iš …] (9’) [mTúl-pí]-dU-ub-aš-ša DUMU.DUMU-NI nu-wa-[aš-m]a-aš ÉḪI.A pí-ya-a-an (10’) [nu-wa-aš-ma]-˹ša-at˺ tup-pí i-ya-˹an˺-ta [ ] (Miller 2013: 164-165). In this instance no further reference to the location of these households appears in this very fragmentary text.

It is interesting to note that a land grant act is recorded in the final part of the second version of the myth of Illuyanka (CTH 321), where reference is also made to a written text: (IV 22-28) ‘Thereafter in the town of Tanipiya a field is given by the king. Six kapunu measures of field, one kapunu of vineyard, a house and threshing floor, and three buildings for the servants. [ ] So it is on the tablet’ (Hoffner 1990: 14) (KBo 3.7 rev. IV 22’: nu a-ap-pa pa-ra-a-pát I-NA ˹URU˺Ta-ni-pí-ya (23’) A.ŠÀku-e-ra-aš LUGAL-wa-az ˹pí˺-ya-an-za (24’) 6 ka-pu-nu A.ŠÀ ka-pu-nu GIŠKIRI6.GE[ŠTIN] (25’) ˹É˺-TIM Ù KISLAḪ 3 ÉḪI.A SAG.GÉME.AR[ADMEŠ (26’) [ ] ṬUP-PÍ-ma e-eš-zi).44 The town of Tanipiya, mentioned only in this composition, was probably located in the vicinity on Kaštama, in the region of Nerik (Del Monte, Tischler 1978: 364).

During the 13th century, in the periods of reign of Ḫattušili III and Tutḫaliya IV, other chancellery documents from later periods were issued in cities other than the capital. It seems, however, that these kings were most active in the southern region of Anatolia, where it is possible to identify the geographical area of their activity.

The treaty stipulated between Ulmi-Tešub/Kurunta of Tarḫuntašša and Ḫattušili III45 had been composed in a town of southern Anatolia, Urikina (CTH 106: KBo 4.10+ rev. 28).46 In this treaty the list of witnesses (KBo 4.10+ rev. 28-32) is preceded by the usual sentence ‘This tablet (was prepared) in the town Urikina’ (KBo 4.10+ rev. (28) ṬUP-PA AN-NI-A-AM I-NA URUU-ri-ki-na. In the period of Ḫattušili III, the city of Urikina had a political significance resulting from a decree of this king and Queen Puduḫepa, which mentions the institution in this town of a cult for Ištar of Šamuḫa, as a consequence of the expropriation of land from Arma-Tarḫunta, former governor of the Upper Country, for the benefit of the goddess:47 ‘Then during the reign of my brother I split Ištar in Šamuḫa and for her I built temples in Urikina, and I gave to her this household of Arma-Tarḫunta. The deity spoke about the matter of the household of Arma-Tarḫunta in a dream and I certainly did not change it (her word)’ (KUB 21.17 obv. II (5) nam-ma-za-kán dIŠTAR URUŠa-mu-ḫi (6) A-NA PA-AN ŠEŠ-YA šar-ra-aḫ-ḫu-un (7) nu-uš-ši ÉMEŠ DINGIRMEŠ I-NA URUÚ-ri-ki-na (8) i-ya-nu-un nu ki-i É md30-dU a-pé-e-da-ni AD-DIN (9) nu INIM É md30-dU DINGIR-LUM ták-ša-an Ù-za IQ-BI (10) na-an-kán Ú-UL-pát ⸢wa⸣-aḫ-nu-nu-un). This document, which deals mainly with the inauguration of a new cult for Ištar, also serves as a land donation to this deity, since the temple is given the household which was once property of the adversary of Ḫattušili.48 The city in the vicinity of Kummanni, is also mentioned in the votive texts of Puduḫepa (Del Monte, Tischler 1978: 460-461; Lebrun 2001: 326-27; de Roos 2007: 25).

During the imperial period, as mentioned in the instruction text of Tutḫaliya IV, KUB 26.1 (CTH 255), the courtiers were summoned to swear for the king in the city of Ušša, as we know from its colophon: ‘Tablet one of the oath, in the city of Ušša for the courtiers’49 (rev. IV 54: DUB.1-PU ŠA MA-ME-TI (55) I-NA URUU-uš-ša (56) ŠA LÚ.MEŠSAG; Miller 2013: 63).50 As Miller remarks, the courtiers were required to swear an oath in this town, which was a center in the kingdom of Tarḫuntašša. A distinction is made between the officials who were promptly ‘here’ (i.e. in Ušša) and the ones ‘that were not here’ (Miller 2013: 296-297). The tablet itself was found in Ḫattuša.

It is not known why King Tutḫaliya was in Ušša but it is worth mentioning a NH purification ritual of Kizzuwatnean origin, KBo 11.5+ (CTH 703; Wegner 2002: 209-214), performed in this town for several deities and hypostasis of the Storm-god and the goddess Ḫepat. The ritual lasted 6 days and its colophon says: ‘Second tablet, words of Muwalanni of the burnt offering. When the king goes to Ušša. Not complete’ (KBo 11.5+ rev. IV 30’: DUB.2.KAM INIM mMu-wa-la-an-ni (31’) ú-ra-na-u-wa-aš dUTU-ŠI-za (32’) GIM-an I-NA URUU-uš-ša p[a-iz-zi] (34’) Ú-UL Q[A-TI]).51

Of course, there is nothing which would demonstrate a coincidence between the participation of the king in this ritual in Ušša and the episode of the courtiers’ oath of Tutḫaliya (CTH 255). The city is mentioned along with its pantheon in the prayer of Muwatalli II, CTH 381 II 38-40: ‘Storm-god of Ušša, Storm-god of Parašḫunta, Mount Ḫuwalanuwanda, River Ḫulaya, male gods, mountains (and) rivers of the Lower Land (Singer 1996: 37).’52

It is interesting to note another important document of the same king, which was prepared in a town of the kingdom that was not the capital and is not otherwise attested. It is the Bronze Tablet, the treaty stipulated between Tutḫaliya IV and his cousin Kurunta. The final lines of the reverse report that the tablet was written in Tawa by a scribe named Ḫalwaziti, son of Lupakki, of the town Ukkiya, before a number of witnesses (rev. IV 30-43). The sentence is formulated in the same way as that of the OH land donations:53 ṬUP-PA AN-NI-YA-AM I-NA URUTa-a-wa A-NA PA-NI PNs mḪal-wa-zi-ti LÚDUB.SAR DUMU mLu-pa-ak-ki LÚ URUUk-ki-ya EL-ṬUR.

In addition, the tablet’s colophon states that seven copies of the original treaty had to be placed respectively before the Sun-goddess of Arinna, the Storm-god of Ḫatti, Lelwani, Ḫepat of Kizzuwatna, and the Storm-god piḫaššašši. The seventh copy was given to Kurunta (rev. IV 44-50; Otten 1988: 26-29).

The similarity of certain formal features between the treaties with Tarḫuntašša and the land donations had already been stressed by Del Monte and, later, Devecchi in their treatments of the treaty with Talmi-Šarruma of Aleppo (CTH 75), edited in the period of Muwatalli II in order to provide the ruler of Aleppo with a new version of the treaty, after the copy of the stipulation made at the time of Muršili had been stolen (Del Monte 1975: 1-2; Devecchi 2010: 5-6). This tablet also reports before the list of witnesses the sentence: ‘Ziti, the scribe, son of mNU.GIŠKIRI6 wrote this tablet in Ḫattuša in front of PNs’ (KBo 1.6 rev. 17: ṭup-pa an-na-a i-na URUḪa-at-ti ˹a-na˺ [pa-ni] PNs54 mLÚ DUB.SAR ˹DUMU mNU.GIŠKIRI6˺ DUB.SAR ˹iš-ṭur˺).55

It is not certain whether the scribe and the witnesses were already mentioned in the original version written during the reign of Muršili or this paragraph was added in the following version edited during the reign of Muwatalli. However, as Balza 2008, 414 has remarked, this treaty with Talmi-Šarruma from Aleppo and the two treaties with Tarḫuntašša have a different political nature than the other political treaties and, as shown also in the examples quoted above, share a number of features with the land donations. For the present study it is important that the sentence introducing the list of witnesses records the place of composition, which in this case was Ḫattuša.

The closest parallel to the phrase used in the treaty of Muwatalli is in the Arnuwanda’s and Ašmunikal’s land donation to the hierodule Kuwatalla (CTH 222): KBo 5.7 rev. 51-55: ‘Inar, the scribe wrote this tablet in Ḫattuša in front of PNs” (ṬUP-PA AN-NI-A-AM I-NA URUḪA-AT-TI A-NA PA-NI PNs / ˹m˺I-na-ar LÚDUB.SAR IŠ-ṬUR; Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 238-239).

In recent years archaeological investigation has made an important contribution for ascertaining the possible relationship between the center of the kingdom, namely the king and his capital city, and the regions at the core of the kingdom in different periods of Hittite history. Different sources, such as sherds, seals, cuneiform texts and landscape monuments, and their distribution over the territory, contribute to showing that the empire was not a monolithic entity but a complex web of interactions. In this frame the Hittite king emerges in his several roles. In this study I have chosen to focus on the king’s administrative role and the way in which he was present in the territory through a controlled system of land allocation. The homogeneity of the formulations contained in the land donations shows how his role remained constant over time, despite the change in the noble titles of its aristocracy (van den Hout 2022: 313-340) and the shift in the axis of political interest from central and eastern Anatolia (as reflected in the oldest texts) to southern Anatolia (as in the texts of Ḫattušili III and Tutḫaliya IV).

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1 Klinger (2022: 605-647) has now published a general overview of the Hittite economy.

2 See the on-line edition C. Montuori (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 416 (TRit 24.07.2015), §27.

3 See the ritual CTH 414 in the on-line edition S. Görke (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 414.1 (TRde 13.03.2015). See §29.

4 They can only be described as different domains in our perspective but were not so in the Hittite period.

5 About the religious administration see Schwemer 2016: 1-24 and more recently Cammarosano 2018, who focuses on the Hittite inventory cult texts. About the management of the economy see the already quoted Klinger 2022 with references to previous research.

6 For a general discussion about text corpora outside Ḫattuša see van den Hout 2020: 169-171.

7 We know that the king and queen did not limit their presence to the capital for various reasons related to the celebration of festivals but also to political reasons, and not least because they had the power to decide in which city to spend the winter. About the possibility that the king could winter in other cities than Ḫattuša, the oracle text KUB 5.4+ mentions Katapa (III 3-12), Ankuwa (13-14) and Zitḫara (KUB 5.3 IV 13-15). In a recent contribution Forlanini describes the travels and consequent presence of Queen Puduḫepa, together with her husband, or alone, in several Anatolian districts, reconstructing the routes of their travels (Forlanini 2015: 27-36).

8 This administrative body was certainly not static in the course of time: The Hittite nobility, together with the role of the king, changed some of its characteristics and forms of land management, as can be seen from the studies of Torri (2016: 37-46) and Korn, Lorenz (2016: 23-36), the result of analyses carried out on similar sources with very different conclusions. This shows that the problem still needs to be studied in depth. On the offices of officials see the two studies by Marizza (2007), for the Middle Hittite period, and Bilgin (2018).

9 In a recent article Burgin 2022, 112-135, has pointed out that the king’s administrative activities as far as they emerge from the inventory texts are very limited in comparison with those of the queen and princes. This is certainly true but, nevertheless, these texts are limited to a specific period, that of Ḫattušili III and Tutḫaliya IV, and related to a particular administrative situation that does not fully reflect the possible economic activity of the king as a whole. It is, however, a very interesting study for arriving at a delimitation of the duties of the king and other members of the royal family.

10 The lists of witnesses and their titles have been collected and analyzed by Bilgin 2018 (455-461). See also recently van den Hout 2022: 313-354.

11 Because of their specificity, these documents have been studied in detail. Besides the contribution of Rüster, Wilhelm 2012, see Riemschneider 1958, Balkan 1973, Easton 1981, Herbordt 2005.

12 Edited by Imparati (1974: 5-209). Regarding CTH 224 and CTH 225, Easton (1981: 4 with n. 4) remarks that they should be better considered letters of exemptions even though they share some formal features with the land donations.

13 Edited by Otten, Souček 1965.

14 See about this Del Monte 1975: 1-10, Devecchi 2010: 1-27, Balza 2008: 387-418.

15 About Kammama see Süel, Weeden 2017: 201-203, and Corti 2017: 222-223. The city, not yet identified, lay north-east of Ḫattuša in the area of Šapinuwa. Different proposals for its location are by Forlanini 2008: 169-170 and Corti 2017: 223. An overview of the northern regions is in Corti 2017: 219-238.

16 The last comprehensive research on these documents is in Rüster, Wilhelm 2012. It will be followed here and the documents will be mentioned according to their text numbering, preceded by LSU.

17 For an overview of these documents and their witnesses see now van den Hout 2022: 316-321.

18 In the NH oracle text KUB 5.3+KUB 18.52 the oracle is summoned for deciding in which city the king is going to winter (Beal 1997: 211).

19 About this title see Beal 1992: 519 and Bilgin 2018: 193-219.

20 His name is also restored by Rüster, Wilhelm 2012 in LSU 2 obv. 3’.

21 de Martino 2022: 222 suggests that King Telepinu was founding the town of Šarišša and he had endowed the city with economic independence through the transfer of important economic resources.

22 For possible identifications with buildings in Šarišša see Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 97.

23 About this title and its possible meaning as ‘clerk’ see van den Hout 2010: 255-267.

24 The sequence of witnessing officials close to the king in these texts is homogeneous, variations occurring in their titles are listed in Rüster, Wilhelm 2012: 49-57. The lists of witnesses are now collected and discussed in Bilgin 2018: 413-423. About the titles see also de Martino 2022: 228-229 and van den Hout 2022: 319-321.

25 Marizza 2006: 151-175, Bilgin 2018: 148-175.

26 About this title and its possible meaning see recently Bilgin 2018: 176-190.

27 Bilgin 2018: 98-116.

28 About Ḫanḫana and its region see Kryszeń 2016: 144-190 but see also Corti 2017: 220-222.

29 About Katapa and its region see Kryszeń 2016: 191-250.

30 CHD Š, 233b, suggests that the adjective karuili- here means ‘old because inherited.’ However, it could simply indicate the land owned by them, which was already mentioned in the previous lines along with cattle, sheep, and workers, except for the land of the royal grant, which is similarly divided into different parts. For this passage see Hoffner 1997: 64-65. Strangely, neither Hoffner nor CHD translate NÍG.BA at l. 13’.

31 Herbordt 2005: 27, following Güterbock 1997: 27-30, reconstructs the procedure of preparing and sealing the land donation tablets. According to her, after the preparation of the tablet, the royal seal was apposed on the convex surface, the lines and paragraph dividers were drawn and, lastly, the text was written, and the seals of the witnesses were appended. See also Easton 1981: 19.

32 The most recent edition is in Miller 2013: 244-265.

33 Miller (2013: 255) translates lamnian ešdu as ‘designated.’ I prefer the suggestion of CHD L: 38 a, ‘to cite,’ because it clearly refers to a written document.

34 The verb is waš- according to HEG IV, 380.

35 van den Hout (2020: 190) proposes that ‘in front’ refers to the fact that the text is sealed on the obverse, but we do not have tablets sealed by witnesses on the obverse.

36 See the translation of van den Hout 2020: 189-190.

37 On the problem concerning this word, whether it can indicate a wooden tablet or a document draft, see the extensive analysis of Marazzi 1994. See recently also van den Hout 2020: 188-190.

38 Miller 2013, 255 interprets EGIR-an iya- as ‘to append’ but it seems more probable that here the action of writing on a document is intended as pointed out to me by Rita Francia. I would like to thank her for her valuable advice on the interpretation of this passage of CTH 264.

39 It can be that the presence or intervention of the king was limited to some specific occasion or, as outlined by van den Hout (2020: 190 with n. 20), nothing suggests that this practice concerned also private transactions. This description can of course also be connected with the descriptions of gifts in votive texts, which very often refer to the presence of the royal couple, or the queen or the king, in different cities of the kingdom of Ḫatti (de Roos 2007). These texts describe where the dream occurred and the location of the promised votive objects which were according to this system distributed across the sanctuaries of the kingdom (Burgin 2016: 278).

40 van den Hout 2020: 190, suggests that the priest should sell the goods when he leaves the temple service.

41 All these groups can be outlined by searching in Cammarosano, Database: Hittite Local Cults (https://www.hethport.uni-wuerzburg.de/HLC/index.php). Cammarosano, Lorenz (2019: 23) list 28 cases concerning priests in cult inventory texts.

42 Miller 2013: 252-253.

43 When the instruction text says: ‘What is in the temple simply does not exist’ (Miller 2013: 253) we perhaps find a reference to the fact that even the celebration of feasts must be provided for in other ways than by drawing on this accumulation of wealth. On the system of religious administration through accumulation of gifts to the deities see Burgin 2016.

44 See the recent edition in E. Rieken et al. (ed.), hethiter.net/: CTH 321 (INTR 2010-11-23).

45 About the dating of this treaty to the period of Ḫattušili III see now de Martino 2022: 252 with references.

46 About the geography of southern Anatolia and the region of Tarḫuntašša see Forlanini 2017: 239-252.

47 Urikina is also a place of the cult of the deity Šarruma, see Laroche 1963: 294; van den Hout 1995: 73.

48 See about this text Ünal 1974: 18-29.

49 Another manuscript of this composition preserves part of the colophon, KUB 26.8, obv. IV 41’-42’. At l. 42’, the name of the town is not complete and could be read as URUU-˹uš˺-[ša] on the basis of the duplicate version.

50 The full edition is now in Miller 2013: 294-307.

51 An edition is by Wegner 2002: 209-214.

52 About Ušša and its religious as well as political role, see the summary in Barjamovic, Gander 2015: 507-508. There is one interesting votive text in which the queen has a dream in Ušša. This dream is related to the 13th century BC thanks to the name of the DUB.SAR Walwaziti mentioned in it (KUB 48.118 obv. 14).

53 See the list of witnesses collected in Bilgin 2018: 460.

54 List of witnesses, see Bilgin 2018: 459.

55 About the witnesses in these documents and a comparison between their titles and those of the witness of the OH documents (mentioned above) see now van den Hout 2022: 322-333.