The Plague Prayers of Mursili II
An Ancient Hittite King’s Crimes Against The Gods
During the Late Bronze Age in the Near East the Hittites of Anatolia built an Empire that would come to rival the pharaohs of Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. King Suppililiuma the Great (ca. 1357-1322 B.C.E.) is widely recognized as man who built this vast Empire but, in a strange twist of fate, he is also recognized by his own son and heir to be the person responsible for a invoking a terrible curse upon it.
Ancient Documents from Hattusha
The story of how King Suppililiuma brought a divine wrath down upon his countrymen is told in the Plague Prayers of Mursili II. This document, found in the ruins of the ancient city of Hattusha, the Hittite Capital, is one of the primary sources available from this period describing the reign of Suppililiuma the Great. The Plague Prayers, written by his son, Mursili II (ca 1327-1295 B.C.E.), who succeeded his father following his death, shows Suppililiuma not only as a great conqueror, but it also explains how this Hittite King’s crimes caused the gods to send a plague to devastate the Land of Hatti.
The frankness of the Plague Prayers, which were written as an attempt to appease the gods who had cursed Hatti, lends to its authenticity, showing it to be much more than just typical dynastic propaganda. In fact, Mursili II contritely accepts the fact that the plague which was devastating his land was a divine punishment for the crimes of Suppililiuma.
The Crimes Of The Father
According to Mursili, King Suppililiuma’s reign was cursed from the very beginning. Although Suppililiuma had served his own father, Tudhaliya III (ca 1400-1350 B.C.E.), brilliantly as a commanding general in his armies, he was not to become the next king. This right was to fall to his elder brother, his father’s namesake, Tudhaliya the Younger.
However, despite his father’s wishes, with the backing of the army, Suppililiuma overthrew his brother and seized the throne for himself. It was this act of fratricide that begins the list of actions which offended the gods and, by Mursili’s reckoning, brought down a curse upon the lands of Hatti.
Another offense against the gods, according to Mursili, came in the form of a violation of an oath. During the course of Suppililiuma’s conquests in Syria he twice sent raiding armies into the Egyptian held territory of Amka. Although Suppililiuma would likely defend these raids as merely retaliatory strikes, Mursili still regarded them as violations of a century old treaty, and therefore, deemed these raids as offensive to the Gods of Hatti.
The treaty Mursili refers to, known as the Kuruštama Treaty, was between Hatti and Egypt and likely dated back to the reign of the little known King Zidanta, who ruled about 100 years before Suppililiuma. At this time, the Egyptian Pharaoh Tuthmoses III, (ca. 1479-1425 B.C.E.) was unrivaled master of Western Syria and a logical ally of the Hittites against the growing power of the Hurrian Kingdom of Mittani. Despite its dating back almost a century, this treaty was still deemed binding. Mursili saw his father’s military incursions as violations of a sacred oath, since all treaties of the time were sworn before the gods of both kingdoms involved.
Plague in Ancient Near East
The plague which devastated the Hittite Homeland at the end of the 14th Century B.C.E. had been active during this time throughout the Ancient Near East. Although the actual disease is as of yet unidentified there are indications it may have been a variety of the Bubonic Plague. Reports in the Amarna letters, a trove of documents found in Egypt dating to the reign of Akhenaten, tell of a plague so widespread that there were victims recorded from Cyprus in the west to Babylonia in the East. There has even been speculation that a proliferation of statues in Egypt, dedicated to the Goddess of Strife, Sekhmet, which were erected during the later years of Amunhotep III’s reign (c. DATES) may indicate that Egypt itself was affected with cases of the plague.
In Hatti the plague claimed numerous victims. After prisoners taken from the war with Egypt brought the plague to the Hittite Kingdom its King Suppililiuma was among its first victims. It is possible that the plague also took the life of Arnuwanda (ca. 1322-1321 B.C.E.) who reigned as king for at most two years before his untimely death. At the same time the powerful Hittite governor of the Lowe Land, Hannutti also died. The people of Hatti were also affected in large numbers as Mursili protests in his Prayers that no farmers were left to plow the fields
It is evident that the “Plague Prayers” were an act of contrition for the crimes of Suppililiuma the Great and designed to end the Divine Scourge. The plague would eventually run its course and the Hittites still had, arguably, their greatest years ahead of them. However, Mursili II would spend much of his reign dealing with the aftermath of his father’s conquests in one fashion or another. Still, only a few generations later, despite this effort, the homeland of Hatti would be abandoned as a center of the Hittite Kingdom.
Sources
Bryce, Trevor. The Kingdom of the Hittites ( Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005)
Ceram, C.W. The Secret of the Hittites ( London, Phoenix Press, 1956)
Kozloff, Arielle. "Bubonic Plague in the Reign of Amenhotep III." (KMT, Volume 17, num. 3, Fall 2005)
Sayce, Archibald H. The Hittites; Story of a Forgotten Empire ( London, Religious Tract Society, 1903)
Stone Relief of a Hittite King
|
What do you think about this article?
More in History
Latest Articles