Side by sideParallel across traditions
Both are female sun deities in Late Bronze Age pantheons that also knew a sun passing through the underworld; they belong to different traditions.
| Shapash | Sun-goddess of Arinna | |
|---|---|---|
| Tradition | Canaanite Pantheon (Ugarit) | Hittite Pantheon |
| Domains | the sun, seeing and searching, passage between the living and the dead | the sun, kingship, the protection of the Hittite state |
| Symbols | the sun disk, the torch | sun disk, the city of Arinna |
| Also called | Shapshu, Torch of the Gods (nrt ilm) | Wurunšemu (Hattian), Arinnitti, Hebat (by royal equation) |
Both are associated with the sun.
Associated with seeing and searching and passage between the living and the dead.
Associated with kingship and the protection of the hittite state.
No cult sites or festivals are recorded in the atlas.
Kings and queens addressed her in written prayers in times of plague and crisis, and royal journeys to Arinna were part of the great state festivals.
Canaanite Pantheon (Ugarit)
The sun-goddess of Ugarit, 'Torch of the Gods', who sees everything on her daily journey, helps Anat carry Baal's body, searches for him, and warns Mot to yield.
At Ugarit the sun is a goddess, Shapash, the "Torch of the Gods". Because she crosses the sky by day and, in Ugaritic belief, passes through the underworld by night, she can go where other gods cannot, and she acts as a go-between for the realms of the living and the dead.
Hittite Pantheon
The Hattian sun-goddess of the holy city of Arinna, queen of the land of Hatti and, with the Storm-god, the highest deity of the Hittite state cult; Queen Puduhepa's prayer equates her with the Hurrian goddess Hebat.
The Sun-goddess of Arinna was a Hattian deity (her Hattian name was Wurunšemu) whom the Hittite kings made one of the two heads of their state religion. Royal prayers address her as the queen of the land of Hatti, and kings described the land and kingship as belonging to her and the Storm-god, who was regarded as her husband. Her holy city, Arinna, lay within a day's journey of Hattusa, but its site has never been securely identified; this site therefore does not give it a map location.
Comparisons pair figures that play a similar role across traditions, or that the myths connect within one. A shared role does not, by itself, establish a shared origin.