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73 ing information was the treaty made circa 1350 B.C. between the Hittite king Shuppilulima and Mattiwaza, king of the Human king- dom of Mitanni, which was situated on the Euphrates river midway between the Land of the Hittites and the ancient lands of Sumer and Akkad. Executed as usual in two copies, the treaty's original was depos- ited in the shrine of the god Teshub in the Human city Kahat—a place and a tablet lost in the sands of time. But the duplicate tablet, deposited in the Hittite holy city of Arinna "in front of the goddess of the Rising Disc," was discovered by archaeologists some 3,300 years after it was written! As did all treaties in those days, the one between the Hittite and Mitannian kings ended with a call upon "the gods of the con- tracting parties to be present, to listen and to serve as witnesses," so that adherence to the treaty shall bring divine bliss, and its viola- tion the wrath of the gods. These "gods of the contracting parties" were then listed, beginning with Teshub and his consort Hebat as the supreme reigning gods of both kingdoms, the gods "who regu- late kingship and queenship" in Hatti and Mitanni and in whose shrines the copies of the treaty were deposited. Then, a number of younger deities, both male and female, offspring of the two reigning gods, were listed by the provincial capitals where they acted as governing deities, representing their parents. Here, then, was a listing of the very same gods in the very same hi- erarchical positions; unlike the Egyptian instance, when different pantheons were being matched. As other discovered texts proved, the Hittite pantheon was in fact borrowed from (or through) the Humans. But this particular treaty held a special surprise: toward the end of the tablet, among the divine witnesses, there were also listed Mitra-ash. Uruwana, Indar, and the Nashatiyanu gods—the very Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and the Nasatya gods of the Hindu pantheon! Which of the three—Hittite, Hindu, Human—was then the com- mon source? The answer was provided in the same Hittite- Mitannian treaty: none of them; for those so-called "Aryan" gods were listed in the treaty together with their parents and grandpar- ents, the "Olden Gods": the couples Anu and Antu, Enlil and his spouse Ninlil, Ea and his wife Damkina; as well as "the divine Sin, lord of the oath . . . Nergal of Kutha ... the warrior god Ninurta ... the warlike Ishtar." These are familiar names; they had been invoked in earlier days by Sargon of Akkad, who had claimed that he was "Overseer of Ishtar, anointed priest of Anu, great righteous shepherd of Enlil." The Earth Chronicles