Kumarbi

A Hurrian god in Hittite translation

Kumarbi belongs to the Hurrian pantheon of northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia. His city was Urkeš (modern Tell Mozan in northeastern Syria), one of the oldest Hurrian centres, and he was equated in god-lists with the Mesopotamian grain-god Dagan and with Enlil. Everything known of his mythology comes from Hurrian songs preserved mainly in Hittite translation at Hattusa: the Song of Kumarbi (CTH 344), the Song of Hedammu (CTH 348), and the Song of Ullikummi (CTH 345).

Kingship in heaven

In the Song of Kumarbi, kingship in heaven passes through three generations. Alalu reigns nine years until his cup-bearer Anu, the sky, overthrows him; Anu reigns nine years until his cup-bearer Kumarbi, described as the offspring of Alalu, rebels. Kumarbi chases Anu into the sky, drags him down by the feet, and bites off his loins; Anu warns him that he has swallowed the seed of three powerful gods, among them the storm-god. Kumarbi spits out what he can but remains pregnant, and the storm-god is eventually born out of his body. The text is badly broken at this point; it appears that Kumarbi tries to devour the child and is given a stone instead, an episode widely compared with Rhea's stone in Hesiod.

The plotter

In the later songs Kumarbi, deposed, keeps plotting: he marries the daughter of the Sea and fathers the sea-serpent Hedammu, and he fathers the basalt giant Ullikummi on a great rock, sending both against Teššub. Neither succeeds. He is not presented as simply evil; he is the displaced older king of an older order, and the songs follow his schemes with some sympathy.