"And He Made Them the Borders of the Sea" – Border Descriptions and the Perception of Space in Light of Hittite Cuneiform Sources
The intent of the paper is to analyse how the Hittites perceived the political borders that the rulers of Ḫattuša were so eager to create and control, both with the neighbouring countries as well as within their own land. We find talk of borders in numerous genres, ranging from international treaties, through edicts, historical narratives, law collections, to magic rituals and festival texts. Rather than to identify those borders on the map, however, this paper will investigate the role the borders play in the ideology of kingship, how they were created, as well as the way they were described. The latter issue notoriously eludes easy interpretation, mainly due to the complex structure of border descriptions, which lack cardinal points, using internal reference system instead. The investigation will be both diachronic, in that it will follow the evolution of functionally similar passages over time, as well as synchronic, as it will attempt to elucidate the general structure of such passages.