Kubaba (goddess)

Kubaba
goddess of lawsuits; tutelary goddess of Carchemish
Relief portrait of Kubaba
Major cult center	Carchemish, Alalakh

Kubaba was a Hurro-Hittite goddess associated particularly closely with Alalakh and Carchemish. After the fall of the Hittite empire, she continuted to be venerated by Luwians.

The precise linguistic origin of Kubaba's name is unknown, but likely not Semitic.^[1] She was likely one of so-called "Syrian substrate" deities like Ishara.^[2] A connection between her and the similarly named Sumerian queen Kubaba cannot be established.^[3]

Attestations[]

A seal from Carchemish, dedicated to goddess Kubaba by Matrunna, daughter of Aplahanda, 18th century BCE.

Kubaba appears for the first time in documents from the old Assyrian period, but the majority of early references come from level VII at Alalakh, where she frequently appears as theophoric element in personal names. Evidence from Ugarit links her with Carchemish as early as c. 1770 BCE. In texts from the Bogazköy Archive she appears among the deities mentioned in kaluti (offering lists) of the Hurrian goddess Hebat, usually alongside Adamma, Hašuntarhi or both of them, indicating that her cult reached the Hittite empire as one of the Hurrian or Hurrianized Syrian cults present in Kizzuwatna.^[4] Manfred Hutter argues that the Amik Valley and the city of Alalakh in particular was the area from which Kubaba's cult spread to Kizzuwatna and Carchemish.^[5]

In first millennium Luwian sources she is associated with Carchemish and often referred to as its "queen" (karkamisizas hasusaras). Mortal rulers often invoked her, in at least one case using the epithet "beloved of Kubaba." In Luwian context she was associated with Tarhunza and Karhuha.^[6]

It's possible that Aramean and first millennium BCE Assyrian sources occasionally refer to her under the name Gubaba, indicating a spread of her Luwian cult beyond Carchemish, but it's also been proposed that the Assyrian Gubaba was a male deity similar to Amurru or perhaps Nergal, rather than a form of Kubaba.^[7]

There are also infrequent references to her in Lydian sources, likely indicating transmission of Luwian traditions. A tomb inscription mentions Kubaba alongside the god Sandas and the marivda deities, and Kubebe of Sardis mentioned by Herodotus is likely the same goddess.^[8]

Character and functions[]

According to archaeologist Alfonso Archi, Kubaba was a goddess of lawsuits.^[9]

In the Hurrian Kumarbi cycle, known mostly from Hittite translations, she plays a minor role, appearing in the Song of LAMMA, an early section of the cycle dealing with the conflict between Teshub and an unspecified tutelary god whose name was represented by the "sumerogram" LAMMA. After LAMMA starts to neglect his duties as freshly appointed king of gods, she urges him to pay attention to senior deities Kumarbi and the "former gods" inhabiting the underworld, but he seemingly doesn't follow her advice and eventually loses his position as a result.^[10] A god whose name was written only as LAMMA is also associated with her in a fragmentary festival text.^[11] However Hittite ritual texts offer little information about the character of Kubaba and specifics of her cult.^[12] In rituals linked to the išuwa festival she was associated with Adamma and Nupatik, both of them known from Hurrian sources.^[13]

Luwian sources from Carchemish describe her as benevolent.^[14]

While such a possibility has been proposed in scholarship in the past, neither Hurrian, Hittite nor Luwian sources contain any evidence of Kubaba being a mother goddess.^[15]

Iconography[]

Kubaba holding a poppy capsule (possibly a pomegranate) and a tympanum (or perhaps a mirror). Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey

Relief carvings, now at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi), Ankara, show her seated, wearing a cylindrical headdress like the polos and holding probably a tympanum (hand drum) or possibly a mirror in one hand and a poppy capsule (or perhaps pomegranate) in the other.

Reliefs from the kingdom of Sam'al depicting a goddess holding a mirror are interpreted as representations of Kubaba.^[16]

Kubaba and Cybele[]

Emmanuel Laroche proposed in 1960 that Kubaba and Cybele were one and the same.^[17] This view is supported by Mark Munn, who argues that the Phrygian name Kybele developed from Lydian adjective kuvavli, first changed into kubabli and then simplified into kuballi and finally kubelli.^[18] However, such an adjective is a purely speculative construction.^[19]

Manfred Hutter is skeptical if Cybele developed from Kubaba, as the latter never reached Phrygia, lacks a connection to mountains, isn't regarded as a mother goddess in known sources and seemingly didn't have a consort, being instead associated with various deities in various locations. He assumes that the spread of Phrygian influence combined with Persians burning down the Kubebe temple in Sardis lead to the downfall of Kubaba's cult in Lydia, noting that even Lydian royalty was involved in the cult of Phrygian matar Kubileya (Cybele) in later times. He proposes that the two were at most confused in later sources due to superficially similar names.^[20]

References[]

External links[]

• Media related to Kubaba at Wikimedia Commons