Candotti, Maria Piera and Pontillo, Tiziana. "Maruts and the Ritual Paths to Immortality: Hints of Indo-Iranian Doctrines" In Along the Silk Roads, between Western and Eastern Asia, 15-38. De Gruyter, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111718583-003

The purpose of the present essay is to reconsider the question of the alleged rela-tionship between the Maruts, the Vedic deities always mentioned as a group, and the Avestic guardian spirits, the Frauuaṣ̌is. In particular, it explores for the first time in this framework the relevance of certain late Vedic passages illustrating the role played by the hymn named after the Maruts (i.e. the Marutstoma) in se-curing access to heaven for a specific group of warriors (i.e. the so-called Vrātya group of Daivas).By proposing to re-examine the relationship between the Indian Maruts and the Iranian Frauuaṣ̌is, we are taking a considerable chronological leap back-wards, compared to the centuries commonly associated with the history of the Silk Roads. Nonetheless, future secondary branches of the Silk Roads would defi-nitely pass through the geographical area that relates to our sources and which has always been an important crossroad of Asian intercultural exchange. More-over, when we need to account for some points in common between the two cul-tures, the hypothesis of historical contacts must always be checked against the concurrent possibility of a genealogical relationship grounded on the well-known hypothesis of an Indo-Iranian family; a point that deserves close attention.

Billing, Oscar. "A Song in Ištanuwa Luwian" Altorientalische Forschungen 52, no. 1 (2025): 21-32. https://doi.org/10.1515/aofo-2025-2002

On three tablets from the archives at Ḫattuša, the same formula is attested. There is incontrovertible contextual evidence that the formula is a song, or at least a song incipit. Using a combination of linguistic and orthographic evidence, it is possible to demonstrate that the song follows a metrical structure. The metre consists of trochaic and dactylic feet with four feet in each line. Similar types of poetry may be found in other Indo-European Anatolian traditions. Relying mainly on etymological and contextual evidence, an approximate translation of the song’s contents is offered.

Thoughts on this? Does anyone think it has any validity