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Hipta (Ancient Greek: Ἵπτα) is a goddess attested in inscriptions from Lydia in Asia Minor, and addressed in the 49th of the Orphic Hymns.

Lydian inscriptions

Hipta is mentioned in four Greek inscriptions from Katakekaumene, a region of Lydia in Asia Minor which sits to the northeast of Mount Tmolus; all four inscriptions were discovered within a radius of twelve kilometres. One such inscription, found in a church in the settlement of Gölde, is a stele which likely dates to the 1st century AD. It refers to "Mother Hipta" (Μητρί Ἵπτα), and mentions the Phrygian god Sabazios; above the inscription is a relief containing objects similar to those which have been found depicted on votive hands of Sabazios. The only inscription to name Hipta but contain no mention of Sabazios was discovered on an altar in a house from Maionia, and likely dates to the 1st century AD. The remaining two inscriptions are examples of so-called "confession" inscriptions, a group of inscriptions found in the region which date to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD and contain a guilty confession to the deity they address. One of these inscriptions, discovered in Ayazviran, relates the suffering of an individual who stole a slave of Hipta and Sabazios and subsequently received an eye disease. The other "confession" inscription, found in an individual's house in the region, reads as follows:

To Zeus-Sabazios and Mother Hipta
Diocles son of Trophimos.
Because I caught the doves of the gods
I was punished in the eyes and had the
act of divine power inscribed.

These inscriptions evince that Hipta and Sabazios were venerated in cult in the city of Maionia, and seem to indicate that there existed a place of worship dedicated to Hipta and Sabazios in the area, which Anne-France Morand suggests may have been a sacred grove. Given the proximity of the inscriptions to each other, Peter Hermann suggested that they may have originated from a single cult site. The inscriptions, which address Hipta as "Mother Hipta", connect her with the great Mother goddess. According to Ian Rutherford, Hipta may have been a late form of the Hurrian goddess Ḫepat.

Notes

1. ^ Morand 2001, p. 177.
2. ^ Morand 1997, p. 173.
3. Morand 2001, pp. 177–178.
4. ^ Morand 2001, p. 178.
5. Versnel, p. 75. They typically detail the transgression commited, how the god subsequently enacts physical vengeance upon the individual, and how the god exonerates the individual for their wrongdoing, before supplicating the deity in question.
6. Morand 1997, p. 174; Morand 2001, p. 180.
7. Morand 2001, pp. 178–179. Both inscriptions relate that the transgressive action is stealing from Hipta and Sabazios, and that the eyes the location in which the perpetrator is made to suffer.
8. Malamis, p. 171.
9. ^ Morand 2001, p. 180.
10. Morand 1997, p. 174.
11. Rutherford, pp. 165, 194 n. 71.

References

• Versnel, H. S., "Beyond Cursing: The Appeal to Justice in Judicial Prayers", in Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, pp. 60–106, edited by Christopher A. Faraone, and Dirk Obbink, New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0195044509.
• Malamis, Daniel, The Orphic Hymns: Poetry and Genre, with a Critical Text and Translation, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2024. ISBN 9789004714076. doi:10.1163/9789004714083.
• Morand, Anne-France (1997), "Orphic gods and other gods", in What is a God? Studies in the Nature of Greek Divinity, pp. 169–181, edited by Alan B. Lloyd, Swansea, Classical Press of Wales, 1997. ISBN 9781910589519.
• Morand, Anne-France (2001), Études sur les Hymnes Orphiques, Leiden, Boston, and Cologne, Brill, 2001. ISBN 9004120300. doi:10.1163/9789004301504.
• Rutherford, Ian, Hittite Texts and Greek Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020. ISBN 9780199593279. doi:10.1093/oso/9780199593279.001.0001.

Further reading

• Athanassakis, Apostolos N., and Benjamin M. Wolkow, The Orphic Hymns, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. ISBN 9781421408828. Internet Archive.
• Quandt, Wilhelm, Orphei Hymni, Berlin, Weidmann, 1955. OCLC 22971774.
• Ricciardelli, Gabriella, Inni Orfici, Milan, Mondadori, 2000. ISBN 8804476613.

• Anatolian deities