About 2000 bc the Hethites settled in the region, which nowadays is Turkey. In Hatussa, their capital, five big temples and numerous clay slabs in different languages have been found.

Since we know, that they soaked ribbons of cloth with a mixture of honey, etheric oils and aromatic resins as myrrh and olibanum. Such the fragrance could rise from the temples to the deities.

The Hethites knew the art of bee-keeping; and from their clay slabs we know that theft of bees was punished hard and fined in silver coins.

The bee is the main protagonist in the Hittite rite of rebirth. The legend of the departure and awakening of the rain god Telipinu shall be summarized here, because it contains many elements, which give clear hints to the spiritual symbolism of the bee.

The protagonists of the story are:

the elder storm god, whose name has not come down to us

the younger rain god Telipinu

the Mother Goddess Hannahanna

greater and lesser goddesses and gods

an eagle

a bee

The source is not complete; and there are different slightly varying versions of the text. For this summary the Guterboch translation was used.

The story starts, when all beings, animals, deites and humans, are in despair because Telipinu has gone away because he had been insulted by the storm god.

Telipinu is the rain god, and without him there is no life. The land is dry, the waters are dried up. Humans and animals are suffering. We only know, that the rain god went away because of some offending or mischief or misunderstanding caused by the elder storm god. The situation is that Telipinu must be found and brought back by all means. But nobody knows his hidings.

The storm god, who has caused the trouble is asked to do something about the situation. But he is only able to break his hammer, which is not really helpful. The greater and lesser goddesses and gods are then sent out in search of Telipinu. They don’t find him. Then the storm god sents out an eagle, who also failed in finding the hidings of the runaway god.

The storm god now turns to the Mother Goddess Hannahanna. The dialogue is handed down thus:

Storm God: “Now how shall I proceed? What has happened?”

Hanahanna replied: “Fear not! If it is your fault, I shall put it in order. And if it is not your fault, I shall (also) put it in order….Go, bring me the bee! I myself shall instruct it and it will search [for the rain god]…”

Storm God:“The great gods and the small gods searched for him and did not find him; shall now this bee go and search for him? It’s wings are weak and it is weak itself; shall now this bee go out and search for him?”

The storm god is very sceptical. But as he hasn’t contributed more in this case than breaking his hammer, it was not too difficult for he Goddess to convince him to try her plan.

So the bee was brought to Hannahanna. Hannahanna then instructed the insect to look for Telipinu “in the hidden valleys, on the highest mountains and under the blue waves”.

“Sting him into the palms of his hands and his feet, so that he may awake, and smear some wax on his eyes and his hands to purify him.”

The bee searched for the god Telipinu, and at last she found him in a holy grove, sleeping under a tree. And she did as the goddess told her.

Telipinu awoke and was very angry because of having been waked up and because of the stinging pain.

He had to be calmed down by a certain purification ritual, which was done by the Goddess Kamrusepas, a healing goddess. This rite obviously implied smearing beeswax on the palms and eyes of the patient.

After the successfull practice of the healing ceremony the “bad charm” left the houses, the meadows, the humans, the animals, etc.

According to Guterboch the Hittite texts are more than retellings of a mythology. They seem to be very explicite ritual texts, written down for the use as instructions in rituals.

“What matters is that in the texts mentioned…the mythological tales are closely connected with ritual. The texts themselves were handbooks to be used whenever the occasion arose for the performance of the magick rites described therein…a ritual against paralysis contains the story of how nature was “bound”, how the news reached Kamrusepa, the Goddess of magick and healing, and how she loosened everything that was “bound.”

The whole myth contains information on some of the bee´s attributes, which make her the vehicle of he Goddess in religious concepts all over he world.

First of all she is a messenger, being able to travel in different worlds:

She is at home in the heavenly realm, where she communicates with The Goddess. We may suspect that originally the Goddess assumes Her bee shape for the search.

She searches the earth for the God, and at last she finds him in a holy grove, according to another source a place, belonging to the underworldly realm.

The bee is the only one, not only capable of finding the god, but also the only one being able to bring him back to life. The others who were sent out to search him, may have found the empty shell of his body. But none would have been capable of bringing back his life, his soul – to wake him up without being hurt oneself.

As we know from the legend, the god had to be purified because otherwise he had destroyed everything with his elemental powers after his awakening or rebirth.

Only the bee had

the medicine – in this case her venom to wake him up and the necessary knowledge which she has obtained through direct instruction of the Goddess herself and the equipment for the magickal ritual to purify him from his anger – her wax and honey.

In these elements of the myth we find insinuated the symbolism, which will become the bee´s attributes in a religion, which will step on the stage of history several thousands of years later….the belief in Jesus Christ.

Photo Hittite Mother Goddess from: <a href=”//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:PHGCOM” class=”mw-redirect” title=”User:PHGCOM”>PHGCOM</a> – self-made, photogreaphed at the <a href=”//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art” title=”Metropolitan Museum of Art”>Metropolitan Museum of Art</a>, <a title=”Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0″ href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0″>CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3064127