TYPE: Primordial God
ORIGIN: Hittite/Hurrian
INFORMATION: The archetypal deity who precedes An(u) in the formation of the cosmos. He was identified by the Greeks as Hypsistos (the Highest).
Alalu or Alala was a primordial figure in Mesopotamian and Hurrian mythology. He is also known from documents from Emar. While his role was not identical in these three contexts, it is agreed that all three versions share the same origin.
Hurrian Alalu, who plays the role of the oldest king of gods in the Kumarbi Cycle, is the best known, and is commonly discussed in scholarship focused on comparative mythology but it is agreed Mesopotamian Alala represents the oldest tradition regarding this being. However, the precise etymology of his name is unknown, and likely neither Sumerian nor Semitic.
Both Hurrian and Mesopotamian sources attest an association between him and Anu, but its nature varies between cultures.
ALALA IN MESOPOTAMIAN SOURCES:
The origin of the name Alala is not known, and in scholarship it is tentatively grouped with other Mesopotamian deity names with no clear Sumerian or Semitic etymologies, such as Zababa, Aruru or Bunene.
Alala is known from the so-called Theogony of Anu, a name Wilfred G. Lambert applied to lists of Anu's ancestors known from god lists, a variant of which was worked into the genealogy of Marduk presented in Enuma Elish. The pairs of ancestral gods appearing in various configurations in such lists include Duri and Dari, Lahmu and Lahamu, Anshar and Kishar, Enurulla and Ninurulla, Engur and Gara, and Alala and Belili. Frans Wiggermann proposes that this tradition had its origin in northern Mesopotamia. Most variants start with Duri and Dari, who likely represented time, and end with Alala and Belili, indicating that they were viewed as parents of Anu. The pairing of these two deities was most likely based entirely on both of their names being iterative. Belili is very sparsely attested otherwise, and was not paired with Alalu outside the theogonic lists. Based on a brief mention in Šurpu it has been proposed that she was associated with the underworld. An old theory that her name was a corruption of Belet-ili is regarded as baseless today, and the actual etymology of her name is unknown.
A late text equates Alala with two other primordial figures, Enmesharra and Lugaldukuga. Lugaldukuga was regarded as the father or grandfather of Enlil in some traditions, while Enmesharra was a god listed alongside his ancestors but usually not explicitly identified as one of them. A tradition in which he was Enlil's paternal uncle is also known.
A mention of Alala "coming down to the land" in the distant past "before creation" is known from a brief mythological introduction to a late Assyrian version of an incantation pertaining to ergot, though he is absent from a similar Old Babylonian text.
A few Maqlû incantations allude to Alala, for example referring to time "before Ningirsu gave utterance to Alala in the land." According to Wilfred G. Lambert, in these passages he might represent a deified work cry or work song, in a similar way as the god Girra represented deified fire.
HURRIAN ALALU:
It is agreed that the Hurrian Alalu was a figure of Mesopotamian origin. He was regarded as one of the enna turena or ammadena enna, so-called "primeval gods" inhabiting the underworld.
Alalu is mentioned in the proem of the first part of the Kumarbi Cycle, Song of Emergence, a Hittite adaptation of Hurrian myths which relays that "formerly, in ancient times" he was the king of the gods ("king in heaven"), but in the ninth year of his reign he was overthrown by his cupbearer, Anu, and as a result had to flee to the Dark Earth, the underworld. After escaping, he plays no further role in the narrative. The origin of Alalu, Anu and Kumarbi, who after a violent struggle succeeded Anu, is not explained, though in one passage Kumarbi is referred to as Alalu's "seed."] Furthermore, according to Mary R. Bachvarova he addresses himself as "Alalu's son" in another myth belonging to the same cycle, Song of Hedammu.
Wilfred G. Lambert proposes that a hitherto unknown Mesopotamian myth about confrontation between Alala and Anu existed and inspired the Hurro-Hittite tradition regarding their conflict. According to Christopher Metcalf, the motif of a cupbearer rising to the position of a ruler is likely Mesopotamian in origin, and appears in a legend about the historical Sargon's struggle against the king Ur-Zababa as well.
While it is often assumed that Alalu was the father of Anu, similar to his Mesopotamian counterpart, newer scholarship proposes that two lineages of gods appear in the prologue of the Kumarbi myth, and therefore that Alalu and Anu should not be regarded as father and son. Gary Beckman notes that the two lines were seemingly only united with the birth of the new generation of gods (Teshub, Tashmishu and others), a result of Kumarbi's castration of Anu, which resulted in a "burden," Anu's seed, being placed inside him. The process is poetically compared to production of bronze from tin and copper.
Like the other primeval gods, Alalu could serve as a divine witness of international treaties, one example being that between Hittite king Muwatalli II and Alaksandu.
Alalu's pair among the primeval deities, who usually appear in fixed groups of two or three, was Amizzadu, also spelled Amezzadu. Mary R. Bachvarova identifies this deity as his wife. She is mentioned alongside an unknown deity in the role of parents of another, also unidentified, figure in the Song of Emergence, followed by the parents of Ishara. According to Mary R. Bachvarova, she's also mentioned in an unknown context by Kumarbi in the Song of ?edammu right after he calls himself the son of Alalu.
Only two ritual texts, one purely Hurrian and one Hurro-Hittite, mention Alalu, in both cases among the primeval gods.
ALALU IN EMAR:
A deity bearing the name Alal or Alalu is also attested in documents from Emar. Alfonso Archi notes that he was associated with Amaza, who he identifies with the Hurrian primordial deity Amizzadu, but that the rituals pertaining to him were written in Akkadian. Gary Beckman assumes that he instead should be considered a Mesopotamian deity, and that Amaza had local Syrian, rather than Hurrian, origin.
In Emar Alalu had a temple and priests, and appears in theophoric names as well. Alfonso Archi proposes that he was an underworld deity.
COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY:
Scholars have pointed out the similarities between the Hurrian myth about kingship in Heaven and the succession of Greek gods in Hesiod's Theogony. However, an equivalent of Alalu, a primordial king reigning before the sky god, is absent from Greek mythology.
A similar theogony, compared with the Hurrian myth as early as in 1955, was also described by Philo of Byblos: the first ruler of the gods was Elyon, later replaced by his son Epigeius (identified as the Hellenic Uranus), who in turn was deposed by his own son Elus (identified with Cronos); Elus was then defeated by "Zeus-Demarous" (Hadad). Philo states that Elyon was also known as Hypsistos, and that he was killed by wild animals during a hunt. Hypsistos ("most high") is known as an epithet of various deities in Hellenistic sources.