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Etienne Van Quickelberghe

Title: Le Royaume de Tarhuntassa : nouvelle étude critique des sources

University: Université catholique de Louvain

Supervisor: Prof. Jan Tavernier

Abstract: 

Les sources cunéiformes et glyphiques pour une étude historique du royaume hittite de Tarhuntassa à l’âge du bronze tardif (capitale impériale puis vice-royauté) sont analysées en détail. La première partie s’intéresse plus particulièrement au toponyme TONITRUS.URBS, longtemps considéré comme la graphie glyphique de Tarhuntassa. L’identification de ce toponyme avec la ville septentrionale de Nerik nous permet de proposer une nouvelle traduction de la célèbre inscription du Südburg. La seconde partie de notre recherche se concentre sur les inscriptions du roi Hartapu. Notre analyse nous permet de dater son règne immédiatement après l’époque impériale, à l’instar d’autres chercheurs avant nous. La troisième partie reprend l’étude de des textes d’Ougarit et d’Emar qui mentionnent la ville de Tarhuntassa. Nous proposerons notamment une nouvelle graphie du toponyme en cunéiforme. Enfin, la quatrième partie évoquera à nouveau les traités passés entre Tarhuntassa et le Hatti, étudiés à l’aune de la découverte récente du site très prometteur de Türkmen-Karahöyük.

Keywords: Tarhuntassa, Yazilikaya, seals, Luwian, Hartapu, Ugarit, Emar, Hittite, treaties

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František Válek

Title: Life, Society and Politics in Relation to Religion at Ugarit in the Late Bronze Age

University: Charles University, Prague

Supervisor: Dr Dalibor Antalík

Abstract:  Ugarit provides us with ample evidence for the reconstruction of the Late Bronze Age Levantine religion and at the same time with rich materials for reconstruction of other spheres of life. This makes Ugarit an ideal source for my dissertation project that aims to explore how religious ideas and behaviours were interwoven with the ‘practical lifes’ of individuals, society and the city as a polity.

For the sake of limiting vast resources, religion in this thesis is ‘defined’ as ‘ideas and activities related to deities’. Such an approach is of course not without difficulties and the by-product of this thesis is also a reevaluation of the concept of religion when applied to the ancient Near East. Also, a thorough investigation of the conceptions of divinity at Ugarit will be undertaken within the thesis.

Individual studies on the interweaving of religion and life will be carried mostly in the form of individual case-studies exploring different materials. The main objective is to set the explored materials into a wider context of life. These contexts include economic relations, architectural reality of the city, social stratification, international politics, internal organization of the kingdom, historical circumstances, geographical reality, and others.

The study is not aimed to provide a new and complex study of Ugaritic religion, but to study the sphere of religion as an integral part of the reality of life. As such, religion substantially influenced the social reality, and at the same time, the social reality formed the religion. This dialectical relationship is the central focus of the thesis.

Keywords: religion, Ugarit, Ugaritic literature, royal ideology, myth, cult, international relations, Late Bronze Age, deities