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Inara, in Hittite mythology, was the goddess of the wild animals of the steppe and daughter of the Storm-god Teshub/Tarhunt. [1] She corresponds to the "potnia theron" of Greek mythology, better known as Artemis.
After the dragon Illuyanka wins an encounter with the storm god, the latter asks Inara to give a feast, most probably the Purulli festival. [2] Inara decides to use the feast to lure and defeat Illuyanka, who was her father's archenemy, and enlists the aid of a mortal named Hupasiyas of Zigaratta by becoming his lover. The dragon and his family gorge themselves on the fare at the feast, becoming quite drunk, which allows Hupasiyas to tie a rope around them. Inara's father can then kill Illuyanka, thereby preserving creation. [1] [2]
Inara built a house on a cliff and gave it to Hupasiyas. She left one day with instructions that he was not to look out the window, as he might see his family. But he looked and the sight of his family made him beg to be allowed to return home. It is not known what happened next, but there is speculation [3] that Inara killed Hupasiyas for disobeying her, [1] or for hubris, [4] or that he was allowed to return to his family. [2]
The mother goddess Hannahanna promises Inara land and a man during a consultation by Inara. Inara then disappears. Her father looks for her, joined by Hannahanna with a bee. The story resembles that of Demeter and her daughter Persephone in Greek mythology. [1]
In Greek mythology, Python was the serpent, sometimes represented as a medieval-style dragon, living at the center of the earth, believed by the ancient Greeks to be at Delphi.
In Mesopotamian religion, Tiamat is a primordial goddess of the sea, mating with Abzû, the god of the groundwater, to produce younger gods. She is the symbol of the chaos of primordial creation. She is referred to as a woman and described as "the glistening one". It is suggested that there are two parts to the Tiamat mythos. In the first, she is a creator goddess, through a sacred marriage between different waters, peacefully creating the cosmos through successive generations. In the second Chaoskampf Tiamat is considered the monstrous embodiment of primordial chaos. Some sources identify her with images of a sea serpent or dragon.
Yamata no Orochi, or simply Orochi (大蛇), is a legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed Japanese dragon/serpent.
The Hattians were an ancient Bronze Age people that inhabited the land of Hatti, in central Anatolia. They spoke a distinctive Hattian language, which was neither Semitic nor Indo-European. Hattians are attested by archeological records from the Early Bronze Age and by historical references in later Hittite and other sources. Their main centre was the city of Hattush. Faced with Hittite expansion, Hattians were gradually absorbed into the new political and social order, imposed by the Hittites, who were one of the Indo-European-speaking Anatolian peoples. The Hittites kept the country name unchanged, which also became the main designation for the Hittite state.
Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the hypothetical speakers of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-Indo-European speakers lived in preliterate societies – scholars of comparative mythology have reconstructed details from inherited similarities found among Indo-European languages, based on the assumption that parts of the Proto-Indo-Europeans' original belief systems survived in the daughter traditions.
In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was a serpentine dragon slain by Tarḫunz, the Hittite incarnation of the Hurrian god of sky and storm. It is known from Hittite cuneiform tablets found at Çorum-Boğazköy, the former Hittite capital Hattusa. The contest is a ritual of the Hattian spring festival of Puruli.
Šarruma or Sharruma was a Hurrian mountain god, who was also worshipped by the Hittites and Luwians.
The religions of the ancient Near East were mostly polytheistic, with some examples of monolatry. Some scholars believe that the similarities between these religions indicate that the religions are related, a belief known as patternism.
Armenian mythology originated in ancient Indo-European traditions, specifically Proto-Armenian, and gradually incorporated Hurro-Urartian, Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Greek beliefs and deities.
Ḫannaḫanna was a Hittite mother goddess.
Hittite mythology and Hittite religion were the religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites, who created an empire centered in what is now Turkey from c. 1600–1180 BC.
Puruli was a Hattian spring festival, held at Nerik, dedicated to the earth goddess Hannahanna, who is married to a new king.
A weather god or goddess, also frequently known as a storm god or goddess, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, snow, lightning, rain, wind, storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of one feature of a storm, they will be called after that attribute, such as a rain god or a lightning/thunder god. This singular attribute might then be emphasized more than the generic, all-encompassing term "storm god", though with thunder/lightning gods, the two terms seem interchangeable. They feature commonly in polytheistic religions, especially in Proto-Indo-European ones.
Telipinu was a Hittite god who most likely served as a patron of farming, though he has also been suggested to have been a storm god or an embodiment of crops. He was a son of the weather god Tarḫunna (Taru) and the solar goddess Arinniti in the system of their mythology. His wife was the goddess Ḫatepuna, though he was also paired with Šepuru and Kataḫḫa at various cultic centres.
Aruna was the god of the sea in Hittite religion. His name is identical with the Hittite word for the sea, which could also refer to bodies of water, treated as numina rather than personified deities. His worship was not widespread, and most of the known attestations of it come exclusively from the southeast of Anatolia. He was celebrated in cities such as Ḫubešna and Tuwanuwa.
Bellerophon or Bellerophontes (Βελλεροφόντης), born as Hipponous, was a hero of Greek mythology. He was "the greatest hero and slayer of monsters, alongside Cadmus and Perseus, before the days of Heracles", and his greatest feat was killing the Chimera, a monster that Homer depicted with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail: "her breath came out in terrible blasts of burning flame."
Ḫedammu, Hurrian Apše ("Snake"), is a sea-dragon from Hurrian-Hittite mythology, which caused trouble on the Syrian coast. His Hittite counterpart was Illuyanka.
