Speaker
Description
This paper employs a discourse-analytic framework to investigate the construction and management of crisis in the Hittite Empire. Moving beyond a purely historical account, it argues that crises—as best seen in the devastating 20-year plague that began c. 1322 BCE—were not merely catastrophic events but were processed as complex signs within a pervasive cultural discourse of divine-human contract. This discourse, rooted in a theology where the gods governed all human fate, framed sustainability not in ecological terms, but as the maintenance of a fragile cosmic and political order. When this order was ruptured, the ensuing crisis was interpreted as a semiotic problem: a divine message requiring decoding. Centering on Mursili II’s Plague Prayers as a primary case study, this analysis traces the semiotic process from the initial index of crisis through the hermeneutic act of interpretation to the performative response. The paper demonstrates how the Hittite "discourse of divine anger" functioned as a critical mechanism for fostering resilience in the face of a demographic and political catastrophe that threatened to collapse the state. Ultimately, this study contends that the Hittite management of crisis was fundamentally discursive and semiotic, offering a powerful ancient paradigm wherein the interpretation of signs was essential for navigating disaster and ensuring the sustainability of the state itself for over a century after the initial outbreak.
| Keywords | semiotics of crisis, discourse of crisis, Hittite Empire, divine anger |
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| zehra.yedidal@bilkent.edu.tr |