Theo P.J. van den Hout
Contributor
Theo van den Hout is a Professor of Hittite and Anatolian Lanugages at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. He is probably best described as a philologist with strong linguistic interests. While interested in all aspects of Late Bronze and Iron Age Anatolia his work focuses on Hittite culture, history, and language. Besides his work on the dictionary his recent personal interests are ancient record management, literacy and writing in Hittite society.
Primary Contributions (2)
Phrygian language, ancient Indo-European language of west-central Anatolia. Textual evidence for Phrygian falls into two distinct groups. Old Phrygian texts date from the 8th to 3rd centuries bce and are written in an alphabet related to but different from that of Greek. The majority of those that…
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Publications (3)
The Elements of Hittite (October 2011)
This textbook offers in ten lessons a comprehensive grammar of the Hittite language with ample exercise material both in transliteration and cuneiform. It contains a separate paradigms section, an index of syntactic and semantic topics treated as well as a list of all cuneiform signs used in the book. A full glossary concludes the textbook. The cuneiform is not necessary and can be left optional if so desired. The introduction gives the necessary cultural and historical background and gives suggestions...
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The Purity of Kingship An Edition of CTH 569 and Related Hittite Oracle Inquiries of Tutẖaliya IV. (1998)
Confronted with an illness and other disconcerting signs shortly before his royal inauguration, the "Hittite Great King Tuth?aliya IV" (ca. 1240-1210 B.C.) looks for past affairs of rebellion within the royal family. Members of the ruling dynasty up to three generations back have taken recourse to black magic in their search for power. Their curses are felt to be still effective and have contaminated the institution of Kingship. The King conducts an extensive series of oracle inquiries in order to...
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The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (1980)
The Hittite language is the earliest preserved member of the Indo-European family of languages. It was written on clay tablets in central Asia Minor over a five hundred year span (ca. 1650-1180 B.C.) which witnessed the rise, the floruit, and the decline of many political powers in the Near East. The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CHD) is a comprehensive, bilingual Hittite-English dictionary. The CHD is not just a list of words and their meanings, but rather...
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