Teteshapi and its cult according to Hittite cuneiform sources

The Hittite text corpus contains historical texts, state treaties, letters, laws, prayers, purification rituals, oracle, and more. However, a large part of this belongs to the festival ritual texts. Although the construction of a comprehensive index of festival ritual texts benefits the field of Hittitology, it is sometimes fraught with difficulties. For example, the seasonal festivals spread many days and involve more than one cult city. It is extremely challenging to prove that the small fragments in these festival texts, which consist of stereotypical sentences and passages, belong to another festival text. However, when we evaluate the festival rituals in general, we can clearly see that in order to please the gods and communicate with them for the prosperity and abundance of the country there are cultic elements such as commemorating the gods, offering them affluent feasts, giving sacrifices, dancing, music, and entertainment. The Hatti-origin goddess Tetešhapi is a festival that includes ancient Hittite elements, dance, music and entertainment. These festival texts, consisting of 61 tablets and 89 fragments, are dated to the Old, Middle, New and Late New Hittite. The goddess Tetešhapi, who is also mentioned in purulli(ya)- and KI.LAM festivals, which refers to the old Hittite tradition, is seen as the protective goddess of the wild nature (potnia theron). Although there is no clear information in the texts about which season the goddess Tetešhapi's festival is celebrated, when we compare the purulli(ya)- and KI.LAM festival texts with the goddess Tetešhapi's festival texts, we clearly see that the goddess Tetešhapi's festival is celebrated in the spring. We can state that the NIN.DINGIR priestess plays the leading role in the festival of Goddess Tetešhapi, and based on her acting in partnership with tuhkanti-, the status of this priestess is similar to that of the royal family members. Because while the NIN.DINGIR priestess acts with the king and the queen in the KI.LAM Festival, the goddess appears independently on the Tetešhapi Festival. We learn from the festival texts of the goddess Tetešhapi that dance, music, and entertainment are important as well as hunting elements in this festival, which lasts at least seven days. At the same time, a cult journey from Hattuša to Tawiniya, the mention of many gods, and the presence of tuhkanti- prove that the festival of Tetešhapi is a festival of the state cult. As it can be understood from the texts of this festival, dance and Hatti songs are in a very important and extraordinary position. The dance was performed by the priestess of NIN.DINGIR alone or with a young woman known as the "poor man's daughter" and in a certain order. Another striking element is the words of a deity, which we cannot find very often in Hittite sources. We see the words of the Goddess Tetešhapi in these festival texts. Thus, this feature is the most important feature that distinguishes this festival from other festivals. As a result, the festival texts of the goddess Tetešhapi, which have not been brought together until today, show that they have unique aspects compared to other festival texts. We are of the opinion that this study, in which all the information and documents about the Goddess Tetešhapi were examined in detail and brought into a whole, will contribute to the field of Hittitology.