Baalat Gebal
Baalat Gebal | |
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Tutelary goddess of Byblos | |
Phoenician | 𐤁𐤏𐤋𐤕 𐤂𐤁𐤋 |
Temple | Temple of Baalat Gebal |
Equivalents | |
Egyptian equivalent | Hathor,[1] Isis[2] |
Greek equivalent | Aphrodite,[3] Dione[4] |
Deities of the ancient Near East |
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Religions of the ancient Near East |
Baalat Gebal (
Name and identity
The Phoenician theonym Baalat Gebal (b’lt gbl) can be translated as “Lady of Byblos”.[7] A direct Akkadian translation, dNIN ša uruGub-la, read as Bēltu ša Gubla, occurs in the Amarna letters.[3] Shortened variants dNIN-nu (bēletnu, “our lady”) and dNIN are also attested.[9] The name was meant to highlight her connection to the city.[10] It has been proposed that a male deity with a similar name, the “Lord of Byblos”, also existed, and can be identified with the figure of AN.DA.MU from the Amarna letters, but this proposal is not universally accepted.[11] Nadav Na'aman instead suggests interpreting AN.DA.MU as a “honorific title” of Baalat Gebal herself, “the living goddess”.[12]
In the past researchers have often attempted to prove that “Baalat Gebal” should be understood as an
As argued recently by
Due to contacts between Byblos and Egypt, Baalat Gebal came to be identified with Hathor.[1][23] Egyptians referred to the latter goddess as the “Lady of Byblos” (nbt kpn), a reflection of Baalat Gebal’s name.[24] She could also be referred to as “Lady of
Greek authors seemingly regarded Baalat Gebal as analogous to Aphrodite.[3] Philo of Byblos instead equates her with Dione.[4] According to Alan I. Baumgarten, due to lack of evidence it is impossible to determine what factors guided this choice.[32] Frank Moore Cross suggested that the identification of Baalat Gebal as Dione reflected the parallel between the names Zeus and Dione and El and Elat.[33] This has been criticized by Baumgarten, who points out the name Elat was never used to refer to Baalat Gebal, and that even if Cross’ theory was adjusted to apply to names Baalat and Baal, it would remain impossible to prove.[34]
Worship
Baalat Gebal was the principal deity in the local pantheon of
Baalat Gebal was venerated by the kings of Byblos, possibly as early as in the early Bronze Age,[39] though no individual rulers are identified in sources from that period.[49] Rib-Addi, who reigned during the period documented in the Amarna letters, ended most of the messages he sent to the pharaoh with a wish for Baalat Gebal to protect the latter.[39] Similar formulas appear in his letters to other Egyptian officials.[50] A total of twenty seven instances have been identified.[51] This habit which finds no parallels in the rest of the correspondence belonging to this text corpus.[39] While wishes for wellbeing of the recipient were common, no other local ruler invoked his own local deity to bless the pharaoh.[52] Furthermore, in a single case Rib-Addi presented Baalat Gebal as one of the deities the pharaoh owed his position to, which similarly is not otherwise attested for rulers of Levantine polities.[53] It is not known if he used similar formulas in letters addressed to people from outside Egypt, as no such texts survive.[54] In most cases he only invokes Baalat Gebal, though in a few instances she is paired with the Egyptian god Amun, who in all of these cases occur before her.[55] It is not known how the letters were received, though Marwan Kilani speculates that the frequent references to Baalat Gebal presumably would not be perceived positively by Rib-Addi’s contemporary Akhenaton due to his religious policies.[56] No direct references to this pharaoh’s attitude towards the goddess are known, but during his reign Byblos was not recognized in Egyptian sources as a religious center of particular importance, and played no role in what Kilani deems “Atonist ideology”.[57]
In one letter Rib-Addi mentions a certain Ummaḫnu, the “maidservant” of Baalat Gebal, presumed to be her priestess.[58] Apparently she attempted to play a role in the city’s foreign relations, which finds no parallel in the cases of any other religious personnel mentioned in the Amarna letters.[59] This situation was accepted by the king, who tried to act as a middleman between the supposed priestess and the pharaoh, who she wanted to contact.[60] Marwan Kilani notes that in contrast with sources from Egypt and Mesopotamia, references to female clergy are rare in texts from Bronze Age West Semitic speaking areas, and suggests that the fact that Byblos’ tutelary deity was a goddess rather than a god might be the reason behind Ummaḫnu’s relative prominence.[61]
Multiple first millennium BCE kings of Byblos, including Abibaal, Elibaal and Shipitbaal, referred to themselves as protected by Baalat Gebal.
Egyptian reception
There is evidence that Egyptians were involved in the cult of Baalat Gebal in Byblos.[65] Egypt and Byblos had a long history of interactions dating back to the third millennium BCE, as recognized by local rulers such as Rib-Addi, who at one point wrote that “Byblos is not like those other cities. Byblos has been my lord the king’s loyal city from time immemorial” in a letter sent to the pharaoh.[66] It is assumed that the temple of Baalat Gebal played a role in the political interactions between them.[37]
An
It is presumed that Baalat Gebal was worshiped in some capacity in Egypt as well.[74] The translation of her name, nbt-kbn, is attested as a given name, with one of its bearers being the nurse of one of Ahmose I’s daughters.[75] Oldest examples have been identified in texts from the Middle Kingdom.[76] It is not known if families of any of the women named nkt-kbn originated in Byblos, or if the choice of this name was influenced by the Egyptian worship of Baalat Gebal.[74]
Miscellaneous attestations
A reference to Baalat Gebal has been identified in the satirical Egyptian text known as Letter of Hori, possibly originally composed during the reign of Ramesses II, in which the eponymous figure discusses her cult center: “I will tell you of another mysterious city. Byblos is its name; what is it like? And their goddess, what is she like?”[77] According to Marwan Kilani, is not certain if describing Byblos as “mysterious” (or alternatively: “hidden”) is an allusion to an unknown mystical or religious event, or a sarcastic figure of speech meant to highlight that the average scribe should be familiar with the city.[78]
Baalat Gebal is also mentioned twice in a collection of Egyptian incantations, most of them directed against snakes, from the reign of Ramesses XI (BM EA 9997 + 1030).[79] In the sixth of the preserved texts , which describes Isis healing her son Horus, who is portrayed as a child and has been bitten by a snake, she is invoked to heal the poison alongside other goddesses, such as Nephthys and Serket.[80] Based on a restored damaged passage she is most likely identified with Hathor in this context.[81]
For unknown reasons, Baalat Gebal is entirely absent from the Story of Wenamun, even though it describes a journey to Byblos.[37][79] An implicit reference to her might only be present in the description of a sacrifice to the local deities.[82]
In the Phoenician History of
The temple of Baalat Gebal is mentioned in
References
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- ^ Baumgarten 2015, p. 200.
- ^ Baumgarten 2015, p. 38.
- ^ Baumgarten 2015, p. 205.
- ^ Baumgarten 2015, p. 215.
- ^ Kilani 2020, pp. 86–87.
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