Death to Winter - Hittite Purulli

"Let the land grow and thrive, let the land be secure!- and when it grows and thrives, then perform the festival of Purulli." ("The Anatolian Myth of Illuyanka". Beckman, Gary)

The Hittite festival of Purulli celebrates the destruction of the serpent dragon, Illuyanka, by the sky god,Tarhun. Each spring, the festival is held in honor of the mother goddess, Hannahannah, who is tempermental like Demeter and disappears for the winter.

She gets a new a new king.  Illuyanka just gets it.

The stone depiction of Tarhun slaying Illuyanka above is from a temple at Hattusa.Take a closer look at Tarhun and you'll notice he's got a lightning bolt and a hammer, because he's the Hittite version of Zeus, altough I don't know why he's got Thor's hammer.

So the story goes like this:

Illuyanka and Tarhun get in a fight. Tarhun loses his heart and eyes to Illuyanka. (Enter Winter, I think.) Illuyanka retreats to his world under the sea/earth (depends on the version), but then Tarhun's son (by a mortal) marries Illuyanka's daughter. The son of Tarhun demands the heart and eyes of his father from the bride's family (in the underworld). Whole once more, Tarhun goes after Illuyanka and slays the serpent. (Welcome Spring!)

There are similarities to other myths like Shahmeran, Typhon, Chimaera...I can keep going...it's the battle of good and evil. But also remember, the snake is a symbol of rebirth, because it sheds it's skin, so this is probably why this myth is associated with spring.

And don't forget:

"The Illuyankas is an enemy in Final Fantasy VI. Like most enemies in Umaro's cave, it frequently inflicts the Imp status using its special attack, Friendmaker. It only has a hundred MP and dies when it runs out, so a single cast of Rasp against it will quickly kill it. It may drop a White Cape, a useful Relic for the cave as it makes the wearer immune to Imp. (finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Illuyankas_(Final_Fantasy_VI)

Can't wait for Illuyankas to show up in one of my stories. ;)

Accidental Preservation - Hattuşa

Hattuscha.de

Simple, sun-dried mud bricks are hard to maintain. Frost damage cracks them up. Rain drops wash them away. Wind whips layers off of them. An entire city, epic fortified walls and all, can disappear over the centuries and we would be none the wiser.

Hattuşa's few crumbling walls, "fired" by an invading army, show the size and composition of the original bricks, and the plaster that coated them. Otherwise, the remaining stone foundations provide no clues to what any of the vertical structures looked like.

But... military leaders like to play with figurines, and maps, and scale models, and Hattuşa's leaders were no different. Archaeologists unearthed a clay model of a fortification.

Between the two discoveries, a dream of reconstruction was hatched. Archaeologists used Hittite methods, as best as they could guess. They mixed clay and hay in large pits, and rotated the hand-formed bricks under the sun. Then brick by brick, the towers rose. Follow the link under the pic to see more details on the hand made Hittite structure and the methods used in the project.

As for me - I'm looking at the way the sun highlights the bricks beneath the plaster, the color of the clay, the scalloped crenelations -details I can use in my next story. You know what I do miss though - the smells. I'm thinking the interiors should have a damp clay odor, but I'm not sure. Anatolia is pretty dry. Supposedly, there's lime in the clay. What does that smell like? Different than the rusty red clay in my backyard? Bet it smells different depending on the season.

Guess I need to take a field trip! ;)

Hattuscha.de

Hattuşa Calling

image credit

"At night I took the city by force; I have sown weeds in its place. Should any king after me attempt to resettle Hattush, may the Weathergod of Heaven strike him down."

So says the Hittite King Anitta of Kussara.
I say - oooh - a good storyline. ;)

What you see here is the side view of a bas relief on the King's Gate of Hattusa. (It's a replica. The real one is in Ankara's Museum of Anatolian Civilizations .) He's looking like he wants to tell us something, don't you think?

Maybe it's me...

...but remember a while back I wrote a post about some sister sphinxes? Yeah. Well, they've been roaming around in my head, collecting other idea threads. This Warrior King is from the same town an now he's harping on me too.

I think it's time to start reseaching the Hittites, specifically their enormous capital city of Hattusa, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site near modern day Boğazkale.

I'll need to spend a few hours just absorbing the map because, at one point, 40,000- 50,000 people lived there. The city is sprawled out over the Anatolian plains, and that's not to mention the fields and forests supporting all those citizens. There are fortified walls, temples, palaces, a necropolis, an amazing rupestral sanctuary (more on this later), and a whole bunch of new gods to learn about.

In my head: How is it this entire, flourishing city withered away to a pile of stones?  I'm sure there are good, scholarly answers to be found, I just don't know them yet. (First clue: King Anitta)

There's also the world's oldest cuneiform peace treaty in my future:

UN website

It is concluded that Reamasesa-Mai-amana , the Great King, the king (of the land of Egypt) with Hattusili, the Great King, the king of the land of Hatti, his brother, for the land of Egypt and the land of Hatti, in order to establish a good peace and a good fraternity forever among them.

As you can see, there's a lot of material to cover, so hang on. I think I'll be posting about this stuff for a while, like, until June. I've got a character who wants me to hurry up.

Underground Cities

Image via Wikipedia

Lots of us were enthralled with City of Ember recently and even Mockingjay went subterranean, but did you know about the real underground cities in Turkey? There are hundreds in the Cappadocia region of the Anatolian plains. Derinkuyu is the largest city, with an estimated eleven levels that once housed thousands of people. The city is connected by tunnels to another at Kaymakli. These two cities are the only ones open to tourists today and require a guide for exploration.

Originally created by 7th and 8th Century Phrygians, the cities were also used by Hittites and most famously by early Christians hiding from the Romans. The Christians expanded what was already existing and carved rooms for different purposes.  Visitors tour store rooms, wine presses, graineries, stables, school rooms and even a church at the lowest level.  Watch for the heavy doors, like giant 200-500 kg millstones, designed to block out enemies. Once inside, inhabitants relied on a deep well (85 m or about 250 ft at Derinkuyu) for water and various ventilation shafts for air. Invaders couldn't come in, so they typically tried to flush the people out by poisoning the wells.

I technically don't have claustrophobia. However, I learned to appreciate the concerns of friends who are...very quickly... as I descended into the rabbit's warren of tunnels better suited for ground squirrels than me.  This is a map of Derinkuyu.  Believe me, you do not want to loose sight of your guide.

The electric lighting in the tunnels is barely enough to keep the creepy feeling away.  I can't imagine what it was like when people had to wander around with a candle!

Since touring an underground city is pretty much unforgettable, you won't be surprised that I got inspiration from it for Burnt Amber. Ifrit djinn like to live underground and in ruins, so an underground ruin is a great place to find one, if you're looking. I had a whole chapter devoted to Cappadocia, but telescoped it into the chapter with the cistern to keep the pace moving along.

Here's a clip of my new Facebook friend Teresa the Traveler touring the tunnels. Enjoy!

Related articles

• Cappadocian Interlude - Goreme, Turkey (travelpod.com)