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Name ▲▼ | Origin ▲▼ | Description ▲▼ |
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God name "ADONIS (lord)" | Lebanon / Syria | Fertility and vegetation god. Adonis is modeled on the Mesopotamian dying vegetation god DUMUZI (Hebrew: Tammuz). He appears as a youthful deity. The river Adonis [Nahr Ibrahim] is sacred to him largely because its waters flow red after heavy Winter Rains, having become saturated with ferrous oxide. In Hellenic tradition he is the son of the mythical Cyprian king Cinyras and his mother is MYRRHA. According to Hesiod he is also the son of Phoenix and Alphesiboea. He is the consort of APHRODITE. Tradition has it that he was killed by a boar during a hunting expedition and is condemned to the underworld for six months of each year, during which the earth's vegetation parches and dies under the summer Sun and drought. He was honored in a spring festival when priests in effeminate costume gashed themselves with knives. Frequently depicted nude and sometimes carrying a lyre. Also ATTIS (Phrygian); ATUNIS (Etruscan).... |
God name "Aglibol" | Pre - Islamic northern Arabian | moon god. Known from Palmyra and linked with the Sun god Yarhibol. The cult continued into Hellenic times and was later extended to Rome. Attributes include a sickle moon.... |
Goddess name "Allat (goddess)" | Pre - Islamic northern / central Arabian | Astral and tutelary goddess. One of the three daughters of ALLAH. At Palmyra she was regularly invoked as a domestic guardian either as Allat or ASTARTE with whom she is closely linked. At Ta'if she was symbolized in the form of a white granite stone. In Hellenic times she became syncretized with ATHENA or, according to Herodotus who called her Alilat, with APHRODITE.... |
God name "Anm (1)" | Mesopotamian / BabylonianAkkadian | Creator god. Consort of ANTU(m). Derived from the older Sumerian god AN. Anu features strongly in the akitu festival in Babylon, Uruk and other cities until the Hellenic period and possibly as late as 200 BC. Some of his later pre-eminence may be attributable to identification with the Greek god of heaven, ZEUS, and with OURANOS.... |
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.... |
God name "Dusara (the one' of s'ara)" | Western Semitic / Nabataean | Local tutelary god. Associated with vegetation and fertility in the Hauran region from about 312 BC until circa AD 500. Regarded as a supreme deity, comparable to BAAL S AMIN, who never achieved Dus ara's popularity among the nomadic Nabataeans, for whom farming was precarious. He was represented by a black obelisk at Petra. Sacred animals are the eagle and panther. Attributes include a vine stem. In Hellenic times he was the subject of inscriptions at Delos and Miletus and he was equated with DIONYSOS. Also Dus ares; Dus-S ara.... |
Goddess name "Esmun" | Western Semitic / Phoenician | God of healing. Known first from the Iron Age levels at Sidon, his cult spread as far as Carthage, Cyprus and Sardinia. Possibly became syncretized with the god MELQART and, in Hellenic times, with the physician god ASKLEPIOS. His name further became linked with the mother goddess CAELESTIS.... |
Goddess name "Hadad" | Western Semitic / Syrian / Phoenician | weather god. Derived from the Akkadian deity ADAD. In texts found at the site of the ancient Canaanite capital of Ugarit [Ras Samra] , the name of Hadad apparently becomes a substitute for that of BAAL. His voice is described as roaring from the clouds and his weapon is the thunderbolt. His mother is the goddess ASERAH. During Hellenic times he was predominantly worshiped at Ptolemais and Hierapolis. His Syrian consort is ATARGATIS, who overshadowed him in local popularity at Hierapolis. Statues of the two deities were carried in procession to the sea twice yearly. According to the Jewish writer Josephus, Hadad also enjoyed a major cult following at Damascus in the eighth and ninth centuries BC. By the third century BC the Hadad-Atargatis cult had extended to Egypt, when he becomes identified as the god SUTEKH. In the Greek tradition his consort becomes HERA.See also ADAD.... |
Supreme god name "Kronos" | Pre - Greek | Archetypal fertility god. He is of unknown origin but is the son of the earth mother GAIA and the sky god OURANOS, whom he usurped after castrating him. His consort is RHEA. So as not to suffer a similar fate to his father he swallowed all his children except ZEUS who was kept from him by a ruse. Zeus eventually hurled Kronos into Tartaros, the abyss in which all the TITANS were confined. He was celebrated in the Greek harvest festival of kronia which equalled the Roman saturnalia. During Hellenic times he was the supreme god at Byblos [Syria]. He is depicted on coinage of Antiochus IV (175-164 BC) nude, leaning on a scepter, with three pairs of wings, two spread and one folded.... |
God name "MITHRA (friend)" | Persian / Iran | God of the upper air. Originating in India, Mithra is a god of light who was translated into the attendant of the god AHURA MAZDA in the light religion of Persia; from this he was adopted as the Roman deity Mithras. He is not generally regarded as a sky god but a personification of the fertilizing power of warm, light air. According to the Avesta, he possesses 10,000 eyes and ears and rides in a chariot drawn by white horses. In dualistic Zoroastrianism, which effectively demoted him, Mithra is concerned with the endless battle between light and dark forces; he represents truth. He is responsible for the keeping of oaths and contracts. He was born from a rock and, according to legend, engaged in a primeval struggle with Ahura Mazda's first creation, a wild bull, which he subdued and confined to a cave. The bull escaped, but was recaptured by Mithra, who slit its throat. From the blood sprang plant life on earth. His chief adversary is AHRIMAN, the power of darkness. Mithra is not generally worshiped on his own, but as an integral part of the Mithraic worship of Ahura Mazda, where he acts as an intercessor between gods and men. In the Hellenic period he was transformed more closely to the role of a Sun god. See also AHURA MAZDA.... |
God name "Mlk-Amuklos" | Western Semitic / Syrio - Palestine / / Cyprus | Heroic god. Known from inscriptions circa 1100 BC and possibly one of the original pre-Hellenic models from which APOLLO was derived.... |
Spirit name "Omichie" | Phoenician / Hellenic | Primordial principle. The element of darkness in chaos which fuses, or consorts, with POTHOS to engender the spiritual and physical elements of the cosmos.... |
"Omichle Phonecia" | Hellenic | the primordial principle |
God name "Onuris" | Egypt / Hellenic | A god of hunting & war |
Supreme god name "Orotalt" | Pre - Islamic / Arabian | Tutelary god. Thought to equate with the northern Arabian god RUDA (Ruldaiu). Mentioned by Herodotus in Hellenic times as a supreme god and possibly syncretized with DIONYSOS.... |
God name "Posis Das" | Greek | sky god. In pre-Hellenic times the consort of the earth mother GAIA. One of the primordial partnership identified in Theogony (Hesiod). He later becomes syncretized with ZEUS.... |
Spirit name "Pothos" | Phoenician / Hellenic | Primordial being. According to the cosmogony, he is desire, and consorts with OMICHLE, darkness, to engender out of chaos the spiritual force Aer, and its living physical manifestation Aura.... |
"Pothos Phonecia" | Hellenic | A primordial being |
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