Strategies for Persuading a Deity in Hittite Prayers and Vows

Hittite Prayers testify to the existence of a relationship between human beings, especially the royal family, and the gods, which are invoked to draw the divine benevolence into the world and solve their human problems. The same condition is represented by votive texts attested in Ḫattuša in the 13th cent. BC. In this article I will take prayers and votive texts into consideration in order to highlight the strategies for persuading the Hittite deities. In these texts, the human being turns to a god and presents his case. Both texts genres concern the constant transactions between humans and deities: the supplicant promises something valuable in order to persuade the gods to forgive the sins.