Sinister Bees and Desperate Pleas: Hittite Incantation Prayers

The tablet collections from Ḫattuša-Bogazköy contain a significant body of Hittite prayer literature. Particularly notable are personal prayers, arkuwar, made by Hittite rulers to the gods for support in historical contexts. These prayers reveal intricate rhetorical structures. While personal prayers are extensively studied, a comprehensive analysis of prayers across text genres is yet to be undertaken. This paper discusses prayers as speech acts within rituals, the structure of Hittite incantations, the relationship between orality and scribal craft, and the significance of Hittite magic traditions in the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean worlds.