Abstract

This thesis is a new edition of the Hittite letter CTH 176 dealing with a royal wedding. Although the names of the author and the addressee are not mentioned, the palaeographical, philological and historical evidence will be presented to support the generally accepted view that the letter was composed by Puduhepa, the Hittite Queen and was intended for Ramses II, the pharaoh of Egypt. Of particular interest are aspects of the manuscript which have been omitted from previous editions, including the physical features of the clay tablet on which the text is inscribed such as size, shape, the type of clay, etc., and the detailed diachronic and synchronic palaeographical analysis of the manuscript. The main objective of such a study is to date the tablet, establish the writing habits of the scribe responsible for writing down the text and assess Goetze's remark that the hand of more than one scribe can be detected in the text. Since certain inaccuracies have been detected on the copy of the tablet done in 1928 by Professor A. Goetze, this edition also amends and updates this autograph and provides a new and more accurate transliteration of the text that includes as many palaeographical details of the original cuneiform as possible. The last part of the thesis is devoted to an interpretation of the letter and a discussion of the words and expressions that are essential for the understanding of the text but whose exact meaning is either unknown or not encountered in other Hittite texts.