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Paper short abstract:

During the second millennium BCE, the Ancient Near East perfection the treaty, a bureaucratic practice firmly linked to religious and ritual behaviors. This tool, suited for political, religious, and social agreements between parts, will be analyzed in the case of CTH 51.

Paper long abstract:

During the second millennium, the Ancient Near East perfectioned a bureaucratic practice firmly linked to religious and ritual behaviors. This practice is embedded in treaty-making, both in international and domestic environments. It is generically addressed as “oath” or “treaty”, because the range of words used during this timeframe, they are varied and point to slight differences. Nevertheless, the oath making process is well established, producing a tool which is both material and non-material. The deposition of the tablets in front of the gods and the ritual involved show the materiality behind the practice, while the speech and the text (including curses and blessings) show the connection to non-materiality. The call upon the gods, a crucial element of the oath, is deeply connected to the agency and efficacy of the practice, especially in a world that perceived the divine as rooted in every aspect of life, visible or invisible. To better understand this practice, I will present the case of CTH 51, also called the “Mittani treaty”. Redacted during the 14th century BCE, this is an international treaty that regulated the new alliance and peace between the Hittites of king Suppiluliuma and and Mittanians of King Šattiwaza. This text shows how the oath is used as a tool for political, religious, and social agreements between parts, and how this is codified in a specific practice that was able to accommodate different ancient near eastern cultures.