In Hittite mythology, Illuyanka was the serpent-like dragon that fought the storm god Tarhunt.
The conflict appears in a Hittite festival text connected with the storm god. In one version, Illuyanka defeats Tarhunt, who then seeks help from the goddess Inara. She arranges a feast, gets the dragon drunk, and enables Tarhunt to defeat it. The story explains a divine struggle through a combination of combat, planning, and ritual celebration.
A second version involves the dragon taking the storm god’s eyes and heart after an initial victory. Tarhunt later recovers them through a marriage alliance involving the dragon’s family. That version ends with the storm god killing Illuyanka, though the details differ from the first narrative.
Illuyanka is sometimes translated simply as “serpent” rather than “dragon.” The Hittite text is important because it preserves one of Anatolia’s clearest dragon-slaying myths from the second millennium BCE.