Editing Titans (section)

==Near East origins==
[[File:Yazilikaya B 12erGruppe.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|Ancient Hittite relief carving from chamber B of [[Yazılıkaya]], a sanctuary at [[Hattusa]],<ref>Beckman, pp. 155&ndash;156, 162 fig. 7.7.</ref> possibly depicting the twelve underworld gods, which the [[Hittites]] called the "former gods" (''karuilies siunes''), and identified with the [[Babylonia]]n [[Anunnaki]].<ref>Rutherford, [https://books.google.com/books?id=bBqrBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 pp. 51&ndash;52]; West 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA162 p. 162];  West 1997, p. 299; Archi, pp. 114&ndash;115.</ref>]]

It is generally accepted that the Greek succession myth was imported from the [[Ancient Near East|Near East]], and that along with this imported myth came stories of a group of former ruling gods, who had been defeated and displaced, and who became identified, by the Greeks, as the Titans.<ref>Woodard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TQyRX6WmMUMC&pg=PA92 p. 92]; Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA34 pp. 34&ndash;35]; Burkert 1995, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cIiUL7dWqNIC&pg=PA94 p. 94]; Caldwell, p. 36 on lines 133-137; West 1966, p. 200. Although the Titan's mythology seems certainly to have been imported, whether the Titans were originally a group of gods native to Mycenean Greece, upon whom this borrowed mythology was simply overlaid is unknown. According  to West 1966, p. 200: "it is probable that the Titans were taken over from the Orient as part of the Succession Myth, or else that they were gods native to Mycenean Greece but similar enough to the ‘older gods’ of the Near East to be identified with them"; while according to Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA35 p. 35]: "There may have been an early group of native gods of that name who were identified with the former gods of the imported myth; or else the name Titan was simply a title that was applied by the Greeks to gods of eastern origin. There is no way of telling which alternative is true, and it makes no practical difference in any case, since we know nothing whatever of the original nature of the Titans if they had once enjoyed a separate existence in Greece".</ref> Features of Hesiod's account of the Titans can be seen in the stories of the [[Hurrians]], the [[Hittites]], the [[Babylonia]]ns, and other Near Eastern cultures.<ref>For detailed discussions of the parallels of the Greek succession myth in Near East mythology, see Woodard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TQyRX6WmMUMC&pg=PA92 pp. 92&ndash;103]; West 1997, pp. 276&ndash;333; West 1966, pp. 19&ndash;31.</ref>

The [[Hurrians|Hurro]]-[[Hittites|Hittite]] [[Hittite texts|text]] ''[[Song of Kumarbi]]'' (also called ''Kingship in Heaven''), written five hundred years before Hesiod,<ref>West 1997, p. 278; West 1966, p. 20.</ref> tells of a succession of kings in heaven: [[Anu]] (Sky), [[Kumarbi]], and the storm-god [[Teshub]], with many striking parallels to Hesiod's account of the Greek succession myth. Like Cronus, Kumarbi castrates the sky-god Anu, and takes over his kingship. And like Cronus, Kumarbi swallows gods (and a stone?), one of whom is the storm-god Teshub, who like the storm-god Zeus, is apparently victorious against Kumarbi and others in a war of the gods.<ref>Woodard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TQyRX6WmMUMC&pg=PA92 pp. 92&ndash;98]; West 1997, pp. 278&ndash;280; West 1966, pp. 20&ndash;21; Burkert 1985, p. 127.</ref>

Other Hittite texts contain allusions to "former gods" ({{transliteration|xhu|karuilies siunes}}), precisely what Hesiod called the Titans, {{transliteration|grc|theoi proteroi}}. Like the Titans, these Hittite {{transliteration|xhu|karuilies siunes}}, were twelve (usually) in number and end up confined in the underworld by the storm-god Teshub, imprisoned by gates they cannot open.<ref>West 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA162 p. 162]; West 1997, p. 298; Archi, p. 114.</ref> In Hurrian, the Hittite's {{transliteration|xhu|karuilies siunes}} were known as the "gods of down under" ({{transliteration|xhu|enna durenna}}) and the Hittites identified these gods with the [[Anunnaki]], the [[Babylonia]]n gods of the underworld,<ref>Rutherford, [https://books.google.com/books?id=bBqrBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA51 pp. 51&ndash;52]; West 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA162 p. 162]; West 1997, p. 299; Archi, pp. 114&ndash;115.</ref> whose defeat and imprisonment by the storm-god [[Marduk]], in the Babylonian poem ''[[Enûma Eliš]]'' (late second millennium BC or earlier),<ref>Woodard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=TQyRX6WmMUMC&pg=PA99 p. 99]; West 1983, p. 102.</ref> parallels the defeat and imprisonment of the Titans.<ref>West 1997, p. 139; West 1966, p. 200.</ref> Other collectivities of gods, perhaps associated with the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, include the  Dead Gods (''Dingiruggû''), the Banished Gods (''ilāni darsūti''), and the Defeated (or Bound) Gods (''ilāni kamûti'').<ref>West 1997, p. 299; Burkert 1995, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cIiUL7dWqNIC&pg=PA94 p. 94], with p. 203 n. 24.</ref>