Talk:Khipa

Merge proposal - redundant article

This is just a vintage transcription of the theophoric element -hepa in Hurrian names, which refers to Ḫepat, not to a separate goddess. Michael Jordan's book is not a very good source. Merging with the Hebat article would be for the best.HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 08:31, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Your prod rationale says that the association with Ma is "implausible unsourced speculation". Actually, that is exactly what Jordan says, to the point where this article could be called copyvio if it wasn't so short. Like Endursaga, I can find other uses of this name, notably here. I would certainly count Robert Graves as a reliable source. I've not redirected to Hepat and don't think we should do so without a source confirming their connection. SpinningSpark 13:34, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Graves is not a reliable source at all. He was never exactly held in high esteem by most historians. You can find a brief summary of his faulty methodology and why is it commonly criticized on the page of his book The White Goddess. A less scholarly, but no less apt, summary can be found in this review: "he had a talent for self-sabotage — for risking his reputation on cranky ideas."

As for sources: the only instances of "khipa" connected to Hurrians I can think of is the name Tadukhipa. As you can see in the fifteen individual sources on JSTOR, this is a spelling of the name of a daughter of king Tushratta who married a pharaoh, namely Amenhotep III. The spelling used for the name of the same woman in other publications, including Reallexikon der Assyriologie, is Taduhepa (see corresponding entry here; explanation of the name on p. 398, identity of the most famous Taduhepa on p. 399), and the theophoric element in the name is explained as derived from Hebat, not from a distinct goddess (so there is no "Khipa"), and the Hurrian word tad-, "to love." The spelling "Taduhepa" gives over thrice as many results on JSTOR as Tadukhipa, indicating it is the norm. Furthermore, no "Khipa" appears in any recent treatment of the Hurrian pantheon: not in Wilhelm's The Hurrians (1989), not in Archi's West Hurrian Pantheon and its Background (2013). Similar alternation between -heba/hepa and -khipa in personal names can be found here in the case of Puduhepa, according to the author spelled as Pudu-khipa in an Egyptian text. Reallexikon der Assyriologie confirms that in this name this element likewise refers to Hebat, see the entry here, p. 106. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I'll not argue with your assertions, I don't know enough about this. Although nothing you've linked to shows a firm association with Ḫepat. My central point is that the name appearing in Graves and Jordan is enough that it should at least get a mention somewhere on Wikipedia and hence a redirect to that place. It also appears in other reliably published places [1][2][3][4] (although the last one may be a different goddess). As a service to our readers who come across one of these sources, the name should go somewhere. SpinningSpark 16:04, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

My proposal is to include the mention of the spelling Khipa in the sub-section of the Hebat/Hepat article which discusses theophoric names; if Jordan includes the Ma speculation, it can be included ex. in a "possible later relevance" section or something along these lines. Also, I think the connection is clear enough? One source directly states that Puduhepa and Pudukhipa are two spellings of one name, the other directly confirms the -hepa part of theophoric names stands for Hebat.

Also, I can't speak for every source there, but Monaghan's book contains many factual mistakes, for example just on the page linked, the assertion "Khipa" is Kubaba makes no sense in any shape or form; Lelwani's origin is listed erroneously as "Hurrian" when in reality it was Hattian (also, Lelwani was a male deity in most sources, with explicitly masculine title katte; the corresponding article discusses the matter in detail); Ki was not "identified with Ninhursag" and the author confuses Ki and Kishar (only the latter appears in any texts involving Tiamat). HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 16:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Furthermore, another of the sources you linked uses the spelling Abdi-Khipa for a man whose wikipedia page uses the spelling Abdi-Heba and, once again, confirms the Hebat connection. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

Ok, I accept that. The Jordan source can be borrowed on IA and you can see here that he does indeed link to Ma. The last link I gave above [5] makes the same claim. SpinningSpark 17:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)