Kubaba: presenze anatoliche e antecedenti siriani

Abstract

The starting point of this work consists of the connection between Kültepe and Ebla during the
3rd and 2nd Millennium BC, documented by the glyptic and by some small jars with moulded and
applied decorations connected to the cult of Ištar.
Kültepe is the site from where the first written attestations of Kubaba are derived (2nd
Millennium BC), Ebla is the city par excellence consecrated to the cult of Ištar, and is the place
where some testimony of Adamma comes from. In the first place, I took into consideration the
hypothesis that the intense contact, evidently existing between Kültepe and Ebla, favoured the
passage from one city to the other of local deities and their cults. Then, I analysed some deities of
the Ancient Near East, especially the ones with maternal and chtonian connotations. I basically
tried to investigate the possible origins of the goddess Kubaba, searching for possible connections
with the Syrian world and with the Mesopotamian world, despite the onomastic differences: Baba,
Ištar, Adamma, Kura, Iškara. In particular, the presence of an “ancestress” of the goddess
Kubaba in Ebla, even if only supposed, could constitute, if confirmed by further dates, a new,
fundamental element to reconstruct the genesis of the goddess.