Das persönliche Gebet bei den Hethitern

By Alexandra Daues

Book Description

This scholarly exploration unveils the profound spiritual world of the Hittites through their personal prayers from the second millennium BCE. Alexandra Daues presents a comprehensive analysis of these ancient texts that reveal humanity's timeless quest for divine connection and relief from suffering.

The book examines how Hittite prayer evolved from simple ritual expressions rooted in Anatolian tradition into sophisticated literary works that initially drew inspiration from Mesopotamian models before developing their own distinctive character. Through detailed linguistic and stylistic analysis, Daues demonstrates how these prayers functioned as coherent individual texts with complex structural elements and argumentative relationships.

What emerges is a rich tapestry of spiritual expression that showcases the Hittites' remarkable literary sophistication. These prayers reveal themselves as central components of Hittite literature, employing diverse stylistic devices, poetic depth, and intricate intertextual connections. The analysis explores both the macro-level structure of complete prayer texts and the micro-level linguistic patterns, showing where ancient authors followed established conventions and where they exercised creative freedom.

For contemporary readers interested in the evolution of spiritual practice, this work offers insights into how ancient peoples articulated their deepest religious experiences. The book includes new editions of Hittite prayer texts with German translations, making these voices from antiquity accessible to modern audiences seeking to understand humanity's enduring relationship with the divine across cultures and millennia.