Ḫepat
Hebat | |
|---|---|
| Spouse | Teshub |
| Children | Sarruma |
Hebat, also transcribed Kheba or Khepat, was the mother goddess of the Hurrians, known as "the mother of all living".
Family
Hebat is the consort of Teshub and the mother of Sarruma. Originally, as Kheba or "Kubau" it is thought she may have had a Southern Mesopotamian origin, being the deified founder of the Third Dynasty of Kish. The name can be transliterated in different versions; Khebat with the feminine ending -t is primarily the Syrian and Ugaritic version. As it is written cuneiform script allows the name to be pronounced with either /b/ or /p/, although in the Hurrian language Hepa is the most likely pronunciation. The sound /h/ in cuneiform is in the modern literature sometimes transliterated as kh.
Later assimilated with Hebat was the Hittite sun goddess Arinna. A prayer of queen Puduhepa makes this explicit: "To the Sun-goddess of Arinna, my lady, the mistress of the Hatti lands, the queen of heaven and earth. Sun-goddess of Arinna, thou art queen of all countries! In the Hatti country thou bearest the name of the Sun-goddess of Arinna; but in the land which thou madest the cedar land thou bearest the name Hebat."[1]
Cult
Hebat was venerated all over the ancient Near East. Her name appears in many theophoric personal names. A king of Jerusalem mentioned in the Amarna letters was named Abdi-Kheba or Abd-Hebat, possibly meaning "Servant of Hebat".
The mother goddess is likely to have had a later counterpart in the Phrygian goddess Cybele.
See also
References
- ^ Bach, Alice Women in the Hebrew Bible Routledge; 1 edition (3 Nov 1998) ISBN 978-0-415-91561-8 p.171