Mirroring the god: topic, images and word-order in the hieroglyphic Luwian inscription ALEPPO 6

Abstract

The presentation provides a short introduction to the Aleppo Temple and the inscriptions discovered during its excavations -ALEPPO 4, 5, 6, 7- (or that are supposed to have come from the Storm-God Temple -BABYLON 1, 2, 3-).

Then an analysis of BABYLON 1 and ALEPPO 6 is provided. Both the inscriptions deal with the topic of reciprocity and mutual favours between the king (or the ruler) and the god. This topic is well expected in temple inscriptions. However, in ALEPPO 6 inscription this topic seems to have been developed on three different levels:

1) topic of the inscription;

2) iconography of the god’s and king’s images;

3) unusual word-order in the first clause of the text (name and titles).

In my opinion there is a close connection between these three levels: in this case not only texts and images were meant to convey the same message, but even the linguistic level (word-order) is affected by the attempt of creating an integrated way of communication.