Iyarri

Iyarri, also known as Yarri, was a god worshiped by Hittites and Luwians in Anatolia in the Bronze Age. He was associated with plague and war, and was portrayed as an archer whose arrows inflicted people with illnesses. While it is generally assumed that Iyarri was male, a female form of this deity is mentioned in a single text. It has been proposed that Iyarri might have developed from the Mesopotamian god Erra, or that he was influenced by him. A different proposal considers his name a cognate of that of Greek Ares, though the evidence in favor of this view is not conclusive. Evidence of the worship of Iyarri in Hittite religion and Luwian religion comes mostly from central Anatolia, and includes documents such as oath formulas, treaties and descriptions of rituals. Temples dedicated to him existed in Ḫarranašši and Guršamašša. He is also attested in a number of theophoric names. References to him postdating the fall of the Hittite Empire are infrequent, and it has been proposed he was eventually replaced by a similar god, Šanta. Iyarri was associated with plague and war. He was believed to cause epidemics, and was therefore also invoked in hopes of halting their spread. The widespread view that he was a war god is based on his portrayal as an armed deity, on a text from the reign of Muršili II invoking him as a helper of the king in battle, and on his placement in various lists of deities, where he usually appears in the proximity of gods designated by the Sumerogram ZABABA. It is possible that in some cases his own name was represented by it. For example, it is possible that his name is written this way in a text from Katapa from the final years of Muršili II's reign, as the deity represented by it appears alongside Šanta and the Sun goddess of the Earth in KBo 47.76. An anonymous war god worshiped in Ḫubešna (modern Ereğli), the cult center of the goddess Ḫuwaššanna, has tentatively been identified as Iyarri too. The attributes of Iyarri were a bow and arrows.