Tilla (deity)

Template:Short description Template:Template otherTemplate:Wikidata imageTemplate:Compare image with Wikidata Tilla or TellaTemplate:Sfn (^dtil-laTemplate:Sfn or ^gudti-el-la)Template:Sfn was a Hurrian god assumed to have the form of a bull. He is best attested in texts from Nuzi, where he commonly appears in theophoric names. His main cult center was Ulamme.

Name and character

It has been proposed that Tilla's name was derived from a Hurrian word for bull, though this proposal remains unproven.Template:Sfn He is nonetheless often characterized in modern literature as a "bull god".Template:SfnTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn The only source which explicitly describes him as having the form of a bull is the Song of Ullikummi.Template:Sfn In this composition, which is considered to belong to the cycle of myths about Kumarbi, Tilla is one of the two bulls who pull Teshub's chariot, the other one being Šerišu.Template:Sfn During preparations for battle with the eponymous being, the stone giant Ullikummi, Teshub says Tilla's tail needs to be covered with gold.Template:Sfn

In other sources, such as offering lists, Šerišu is paired with Hurriš, not Tilla.Template:Sfn Template:Ill considers the pair Tilla and Šerišu to belong to eastern Hurrian tradition, and Šerišu and Hurriš to western.Template:Sfn However, Template:Ill notes that in the eastern Hurrian text corpus from Nuzi both Tilla and Hurriš are attested, and concludes that the exact relation between these two gods is unknown and it only can be determined that most likely neither was an epithet of the other.Template:Sfn He proposes treating both of them, as well as Šerišu and Šarruma, as members of a category of bull deities linked with Teshub.Template:Sfn He notes that bull-like deities were linked to weather gods across the entire ancient Near East starting in the beginning of the second millennium BCE, but the roots of this phenomenon are uncertain.Template:Sfn He also states Tilla might not have initially belonged to the circle of Teshub, as sources from Nuzi treat him as an independent deity rather than as a divine draft animal of the weather god.Template:Sfn Volkert Haas suggested that in this area Tilla's character was comparable to that of Teshub based on the fact that in religious texts he could be listed alongside Ishtar (or Šauška) bēlat dūri ("lady of the city wall"), which according to him might parallel the weather god's relation to Šauška.Template:Sfn

Worship

Tilla was worshiped in the kingdom of Arrapha, which was located in northern Mesopotamia on the eastern border of the Mitanni Empire.Template:Sfn His cult center was Ulamme.Template:Sfn He was seemingly the head of the pantheon of this city.Template:Sfn A temple dedicated to him was located in this area.Template:Sfn He is best attested in documents from Nuzi, where he is the most common deity in Hurrian theophoric names next to Teshub.Template:Sfn Examples include Irir(i)-Tilla ("Tilla is the one who helps"),Template:Sfn Kirip-Tilla ("Tilla frees"), Pašši-Tilla ("Tilla sent"),Template:Sfn Šarri-Tilla ("Tilla is a divine king") and Urḫi-Tilla ("Tilla is reliable").Template:Sfn It is possible that in some cases theophoric names in which a theonym is abbreviated as Te, Tē, Teya or Tēya also refer to Tilla, as opposed to Teshub or Tirwe.Template:Sfn References to an entu priestess connected to his cult are also known.Template:Sfn She resided in Kuruḫanni (modern Tell al-Fakhar).Template:Sfn

In the corpus of texts from Kassite Nippur, which constitutes the main source of attestations of Hurrian personal names from Babylonia from this period,Template:Sfn four examples invoking Tilla occur.Template:Sfn However, theophoric name Ur-Tilla known from both this city and Puzrish-Dagan from the Ur III period refers to another deity, seemingly worshiped in Umma, whose name is derived from the Sumerian word tillá (written AN.AŠ.AN or AN.DIŠ.AN), "street".Template:Sfn

Uncertain attestations

Volkert Haas proposed that the name of the Hurrian mountain Šenu-Tilla (or Šena-Tilla), which is mentioned in the texts pertaining to the Template:Ill festival, references Tilla and can be translated as "the two Tilla".Template:Sfn This possibility is also accepted by Template:Ill, who notes that the mountain possibly named after Tilla is paired with another named Šēra, which he sees as a possible reflection of the pair Tilla and Šerišu attested in the Song of Ullikummi.Template:Sfn However, he express doubts about Haas' translation of the mountain's name, as there is no indication that Tilla was ever regarded as a dyad of deities.Template:Sfn Template:Ill considers the connection between the names of the mountain and the god uncertain.Template:Sfn

A deity named ^dti-la, who according to Wilfred G. Lambert might correspond to Tilla, is attested in a Mesopotamian god list which equates him with a Mesopotamian deity whose name is not preserved, possibly Adad or Ea.Template:Sfn This text is only known from a single damaged tablet, VAT 10608 (KAR 339a), which was found in Assur and presently belongs to the collection of the Vorderasiatisches Museum Berlin.Template:Sfn It seemingly originated in the Middle Babylonian period.Template:Sfn Multiple of the deities listed in it are obscure or foreign, with examples including the primordial figure Lugaldukuga, the Elamite god Simut or Ḫillibe, presumably related to the homophonous word for god in an unknown language attested in a lexical list.Template:Sfn