Walwata

Walwata was born the youngest child in a Luwic-speaking farming household near the wooded ridges above the lakes of northwest Anatolia, in the lands of the Seha River kingdom that sent tribute to the Hittite overlords at Hattusa. Her family followed the old cults shaped by Hittite influence: Storm-god Tarḫunta and the Sun goddess received bread, beer, and lamb fat at the hearth and at a village shrine.

Her father, Armawi, managed pack animals and agreements for moving grain, wool, and jars of oil between hamlets and larger storehouses. He lived with his wife Anniya in his father’s compound under the authority of Hantiliya, with Suppiya directing much of the women’s work. Four brothers lived there too. The eldest, Tarhuntiya, and Runtiya drove donkeys and loaded goods; Zidanta ran messages. Piyama, still a child at eight, hovered over the newborn and had to be pulled away from her sleeping place.

Anniya had already buried three infants—Tarpawi, Maliya, and Kubabi—and kept Walwata close, feeding her often and checking her limbs for flesh. Suppiya ground barley and mixed thin porridge when Anniya’s milk ran low. Armawi’s widowed sister Alliya also lived in the compound; she carried water and warmed cloths by the fire. Walwata never gained strength. Through the winter and into spring she stayed thin and weak.

Before her first summer she died in the compound. Anniya washed her, wrapped her in a linen cloth from the household loom, and Hantiliya poured a small libation of beer at the threshold before they placed her in a shallow grave near the house wall with a pinch of grain and a bead.