Abstract The rich but often fragmentary corpus of rituals related to the great Hittite an.tah ˘ .s ˇum festival demon- strates not only its long duration and articulated structure, but also its complex textual tradition.The aim of this contribution is to clarify the process through which the festival formed and evolved throughout Hittite history assuming the well-known composite and heterogeneous form. With this purpose in mind, I have selected some sections of the festival which, in showing a relation to autonomous local or foreign cults, are more useful in defining the main features of their process of inclusion and assimilation in the great festival. Three components of the festival, CTH 615, 616 and 618, are analysed in their synchronic (different versions, comparison with the outline tablets) and diachronic aspects (the possible original in- dependence of cults and the age of their introduction into the festival program). Every component shows specific features regarding its cultic layer, its original autonomy and the modalities of its introduction into the festival. Among the analogies found are the existence of different versions of each festival day and the time when the festival nucleus seems to have been formed, that is, the beginning of the Empire Period, as well as the continuity of the textual tradition. Keywords: Hittite an.tah ˘ .s ˇum festival, textual tradition, foreign cults,Anatolian cults 1. Questions Addressed In the Hittite cultic calendar, the great spring an.tah ˘ .s ˇum festival in honour of the Sun- goddess of Arinna and the gods of H ˘ atti played a central role. 1 The festival was certainly celebrated at the time of S ˇ uppiluliuma I, by which time its nucleus had already formed, 2 1 This article constitutes an abstract of my PhD dissertation submitted to the University of Rome La Sa- pienza on April 19, 2013, entitled, ‘Uno studio sulla formazione e la tradizione del testo della festa ittita dell’an.tah.sum SAR : i casi di CTH 615, 616 e 618’. I am very grateful to Prof.A.Archi and to Prof. J. Mil- ler for reading this article and giving me precious suggestions. Abbreviations are those of the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. 2 In S ˇ uppiluliuma I’s Res Gestae (CTH 40), composed by his son and successor Murs ˇili II, is found the first mention of the celebration of the festival (KBo 14.42 obv. 8′–9′:[ku]-it A-BU-YA A-NA dingir MES ˇ URU H ˘ a-a[(t-ti ÙA-NA d utu URU A-RI-IN)]-NA an.tah ˘ .s ˇum SAR da-a-is ˇ; see Del Monte (2008: 64–65). During a ceremony containing offerings to royal statues but belonging to the an.tah ˘ .s ˇum festival (KUB 10.11 rev. i 5′–9′; CTH 660.1.A – Opfer für die Königsstatuen) it is related that some bread offerings for Niccolò Galmarini Remarks on the Formation and Textual Tradition of the Hittite AN.TAH ˘ . S ˇ UM Festival: the Cases of CTH 615, 616 and 618 Altorientalische Forschungen 40 (2013) 2, 337–349 DOI 10.1524/aof.2013.0017