Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
---|---|---|
Goddess name "Atars'amain (morning star of heaven)" | Pre - Islamic northern / central Arabian | Astral deity of uncertain gender. Worshiped particularly by the Isamme tribe, but revered widely among other Arabs. Known from circa 800 BC and identified in letters of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal. May be synonymous with the Arab goddess ALLAT whose cult was centered on Palmyra.... |
Spirit name "Ayi'-Uru'n Toyo'n (lord bright creator)" | Yakut / central Siberia | Creator spirit. See also URU'N AJY TOYO'N.... |
Goddess name "BAAL (lord)" | Western Semitic / Canaanite / northern Israel, Lebanon / later Egypt | vegetation deity and national god. Baal may have originated in pre-agricultural times as god of storms and Rain. He is the son of DAGAN and in turn is the father of seven storm gods, the Baalim of the Vetus Testamentum, and seven midwife goddesses, the SASURATUM. He is considered to have been worshiped from at least the nineteenth century BC. Later he became a vegetation god concerned with fertility of the land. From the mid-sixteenth century BC in the Egyptian New kingdom, Baal enjoyed a significant cult following, but the legend of his demise and restoration was never equated with that of OSIRIS. In the Greco-Roman period, Baal became åśśimilated in the Palestine region with ZEUS and JUPITER, but as a Punic deity [Carthage] he was allied with SATURNUS, the god of seed-sowing.... |
Deities name "Baa! Samin (lord of heaven)" | Western Semitic / Phoenician | Head of the pantheon. Probably originated in Canaanite culture as a god of Rain and vegetation, but became extensively revered in places as far apart as Cyprus and Carthage. Epithets include bearer of thunder. Baal Samin is first mentioned in a fourteenth century BC treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma and Nigmadu II of Ugarit. He had a major sanctuary at Byblos, according to inscription, built by Yehemilk. Josephus confirms that his cult existed at the time of Solomon. At Karatepe his name appears at the head of a list of national deities and on Seleucid coinage he is depicted wearing a half-moon crown and carrying a radiate Sun disc. Other epithets include lord of eternity and he may also have been god of storms at sea, a patron deity of mariners. By Hellenic times he equated with ZEUS in the Greek pantheon and the Romans identified him as Caelus (sky). Also Baal-Samem.... |
Spirit name "Baiame" | Australia | The omniscient intangible great spirit is self-created, lives in the sky, is the creator of all things. He is important in initiation rites; he "receives the souls of the innocent." His voice is the thunder, his will is manifest through the wind. The Kamilaroi, Wiradjuri, and Euahlayi, Australia |
Spirit name "Bali Penyalong" | Borneo | The beneficent supreme being who is never addressed without the slaughter of one or more pigs, and also that no domestic pig is ever slaughtered without being charged beforehand with some message or prayer to him, which its spirit may carry up to him. But the most important function of the pig is the giving of information as to the future course of events by means of the markings on its liverHe is also god of war. The Kenyahs, Borneo |
"Bap or Baphomet" | French | An imaginary idol or symbol, which the Templars were said to employ in their mysterious rites. The word is a corruption of Mahomet. The image of Baphomet was romanticized during the nineteenth century by the German antiquarian Josef von Hammer-Purgstall. |
Goddess name "Bariebdjedet" | Egypt / Lower | Ram god. Possibly concerned with arbitration, his consort is the fish goddess HATMEHYT. He is the father of HARPOKRATES. According to tradition (Chester Beatty I papyrus) he was called upon to intercede in the contest for the Egyptian kingdoms between HORUS and SETH. He is placed in some accounts in Upper Egypt on the island of Seheil at the first Nile cataract, but his cult is centered on Mendes in the Delta region of Lower Egypt [Tell et-Ruba] and is closely linked with the mother of Rameses III. He is generally depicted in anthropomorphic form, but with the head of a ram.... |
God name "Bariga" | Ngbandi / northern Democratic Republic of Congo / Central African Republic | God of clear waters. One of seven gods invoked at daybreak, the creator deity of white-skinned people.... |
Goddess name "Bat" | Egypt / Upper | cow goddess of fertility. She was probably well known in the Old kingdom (circa 2700 BC onward). Associated principally with Upper Egypt, for a while she may have rivaled Hathor in Lower Egypt but by the time of the New kingdom (sixteenth century BC) her influence had waned. She may be represented on the Narmer Palette (Cairo Museum) which com memorates the unification of the two kingdoms. Bat is only rarely found in large sculptures and paintings, but is often the subject of Egyptian period jewelry, including amulets and ritual sistrum rattles. Depicted as a cow or anthropo morphically with bovine ears and horns. Also Bata.... |
Goddess name "Bellona" | Roman | Mother goddess and goddess of war. She becomes syncretized with the Cappadocian mother goddess MA. The first known temple dedicated to Ma-Bellona by the Romans is dated to 296 BC. Bellona was attended by Asiatic priests who performed frenzied dances and gashed themselves with swords, offering the blood on the goddess's altars. Because of its violent nature, Rome refused officially to recognize the cult until the third century AD.... |
Hero name "Bensozia" | Greek | chief deviless of a certain Sabbatic meeting held in France in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The Diana of the Ancient Gauls, and was also called Nocticula, Herodias, and "The moon." |
God name "Benu" | Egypt / Upper | Transmuted bird-like form of a Sun god. A deity mentioned in Pyramid Texts (circa twenty-fifth century BC) and linked with the Sun god of Heliopolis, ATUM. He is also said to have been self-created from the primeval ocean and is sometimes a symbol of rebirth in the afterlife. Benu may have augmented the Greek clåśśical tradition of the Phoenix. He appears in the Old kingdom as a yellow wagtail but later becomes a heron, wearing the conical white crown of Upper Egypt with two slender feathers pointing backwards from its crest.... |
God name "Bethel" | Western Semitic / Phoenician | Local tutelary god. Probably of Aramaean or Syrian origin. First mentioned in a fourteenth century treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma and Nigmadu II of Ugarit [Ras Samra]. He appears more regularly on inscriptions from the end of the seventh century BC and enjoyed considerable popularity during the neo-Babylonian period. Bethel is mentioned in the Biblical text of Jeremiah 48.13, implying that some Israelites acknowledged this deity. There is no evidence of links with the historical place names, including that mentioned in Genesis 38.13.... |
Spirit name "Bhagavan (the lord)" | Northern / central Indian | Tutelary god. Worshiped by the Bhils and other tribes as the original creator spirit and a judge of the dead soul. Also an epithet of VISNU and KRSNA. Also Bhagwan.... |
God name "Bhagavan India" | N Cent | A tutelary god |
Goddess name "Bharat Mata (Mother India)" | Modern Hindu | Mother goddess. Evolved from the writings of the nineteenth century Bengali, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee. Shrines are designed in the form of a map of India.... |
Spirit name "Bilwis" | Teutonic | A maleficent spirit who was active on Walpurgis night and wrought havoc to the crops. Teutonic |