monuments left to us. The tombs are subterranean chambers
of varied and often irregular form, sometimes arranged in two storeys,
sometimes in several rows one behind the other. While in early
times a mere perpendicular shaft led to these excavations, at a
later date stairs were constructed down to the chambers. The dead
were buried either in the floor (often in a sarcophagus), or, according
to later custom, in niches. The mouths of the tombs were walled
up and covered with slabs, and occasionally cippi (Phoen. maṣṣēbōth)
were set up to mark the spot. The great sepulchral monuments,
popularly called maghāzil, i.e. “spindles,” above the tombs near
Amrīt, have peculiarities of their own; some of them are adorned
with lions at the base and with roofs of pyramidal shape. Besides
busts and figurines, which belong as a rule to the Greek period,
the smaller objects usually found are earthen pitchers and lamps,
glass-wares, tesserae and gems. Of buildings which can be called
architectural few specimens now exist on Phoenician soil, for the
reason that for ages the inhabitants have used the ruins as
convenient quarries. Not a vestige remains of the great sanctuary
of Melqarth at Tyre; a few traces of the temple of Adonis near Byblus
were discovered by Renan, and a peculiar mausoleum, Burj al-Bezzāq,
is still to be seen near Amrīt; recent excavations at Bostan
esh-Shēkh near Sidon have unearthed parts of the enclosure or
foundations of the temple of Eshmun (NSI. p. 401); the conduits
of Ras el-‘Ain, south of Tyre, are considered to be of ancient date.
With regard to the plan and design of a Phoenician temple, it is
probable that they were in many respects similar to those of the
temple at Jerusalem, and the probability is confirmed by the
remains of a sanctuary near Amrīt, in which there is a cella standing
in the midst of a large court hewn out of the rock, together with
other buildings in an Egyptian style. The two pillars before the
porch of Solomon's temple (1 Kings vii. 21) remind us of the two
pillars which Herodotus saw in the temple of Melqarth at Tyre
(Herod. ii. 44), and of those which stood before the temples of
Paphos and Hierapolis (see W. R. Smith, Rel. of Sem. p. 468 seq.).
Religion—Like the Canaanites of whom they formed a branch, the Phoenicians connected their religion with the great powers and The Phoenician Gods. processes of nature.[1] The gods whom they worshipped belonged essentially to the earth; the fertile field, trees and mountains, headlands and rivers and springs, were believed to be inhabited by different divinities, who were therefore primarily local, many in number, with no one in particular supreme over the rest. It seems, however, that as time went on some of them acquired a more extended character; thus Ba‘al and Astarte assumed celestial attributes in addition to their earthly ones, and the Tyrian Melqarth combined a celestial with a marine aspect.[2] The gods in general were called ‘elōnīm, ’elīm; Plautus uses alonium valonuth for “gods and goddesses” (Poen. v. 1, 1). These plurals go back to time singular form ’El, the common Semitic name for God; but neither the singular nor the plural is at all common in the inscriptions (NSI. pp. 24, 41, 51); ’El by itself has been found only once;[3] the fem. ‘Elath is also rare (ibid pp. 135, 158). The god or goddess was generally called the Ba‘al or Ba‘alath of such and such a place, a title which was used not only by the Canaanites, but by the Aramaeans (Be‘el) and Babylonians (Bel) as well. There was no one particular god called Baal; the word is not a proper name but an appellative, a description of the deity as owner or mistress; and the same is the case with Milk or Melek, ’Adon, ‘Amma, which mean king, lord, mother. The god himself was unnamed or had no name. Occasionally we know what the name was; the Baal of Tyre was Melqarth (Melkarth), which again means merely “king of the city”; similarly among the Aramaeans the Ba‘al of Harran was the moon-god Sin. As each city or district had its own Ba‘al, the author of its fertility, the “husband” (a common meaning of ba‘al) of the land which he fertilized, so there were many Ba‘als, and the Old Testament writers could allude to the Ba‘ālim of the neighbouring Canaanites. Sometimes the god received a distinguishing attribute which indicates an association not with any particular place, but with some special characteristic, the most common forms are Ba‘al-ḥammān, the chief deity of Punic north Africa, perhaps “the glowing Ba‘al,” the god of fertilizing warmth, and Ba‘al-shamēm, “Ba‘al of the heavens.”[4] The latter deity was widely venerated throughout the North-Semitic world; his name, which does not appear in the Phoenician inscriptions before the 3rd century B.C., implies perhaps a more universal conception of deity than existed in the earlier days.[5] The worship of the female along with the male principle was a strongly marked feature of Phoenician religion. To judge from the earliest evidence on the subject, the Ba‘alath of Gebal or Byblus, referred to again and again in the Amarna letters (Bilit ša Gubla, Nos. 55-110), must have been the most popular of the Phoenician deities, as her sanctuary was the oldest and most renowned. The mistress of Gebal was no doubt ‘Ashtart (Astartē in Greek, ‘Ashtōreth in the Old Testament, pronounced with the vowels of bōsheth, “shame”), a name which is obviously connected with the Babylonian Ishtar, and, as used in Phoenician, is practically the equivalent of “goddess.” She represented the principle of fertility and generation; references to her cult at Gebal, Sidon, Ashkelon, in Cyprus at Kition and Paphos, in Sicily at Eryx, in Gaulus, at Carthage, are frequent in the inscriptions and elsewhere. The common epithets Κύπρις and Κυθέρεια (of Kuthera in Cyprus), Cypria and Paphia, show that she was identified with Aphrodite and Venus. Though not primarily a moon-goddess, she sometimes appears in this character (Lucian, Dea syr. § 4; Herodian v. 6, 10), and Herodotus describes her temple at Ashkelon as that of the heavenly Aphrodite (i. 105). We find her associated with Ba‘al and called “the name of Ba‘al,” 1.e. his manifestation, though this rendering is disputed, and some scholars prefer “‘Ashtart of the heaven of Ba‘al” (NSI. p. 37). Another goddess, specially honoured at Carthage, is Tanith (pronunciation uncertain); nothing is known of her characteristics; she is regularly connected with Ba‘al on the Carthaginian votive tablets, and called “the face of Ba‘al,” i.e. his representative or revelation, though again some question this rendering as too metaphysical, and take “face of Ba‘al” to be the name of a place, like Peni’el (“face of ’El”). Two or three other deities may be mentioned here: Eshmun, the god of vital force and healing, worshipped at Sidon especially, but also at Carthage and in the colonies, identified by the Greeks with Asclepius; Melqarth, the patron deity of Tyre, identified with Heracles; Reshef or Reshūf, the “flame” or “lightning” god, especially popular in Cyprus and derived originally from Syria, whom the Greeks called Apollo. A tendency to form a distinct deity by combining the attributes of two produced such curious fusions as Milk-‘asitart, Milk-ba‘al, Milk-’osir, Eshmun-melqarth, Melqarth-resef, &c. As in the case of art and industries, so in religion the Phoenicians readily assimilated foreign ideas. The influence of Egypt was specially strong (NSI. pp. 62, 69, 148, 154); thus the Astarte represented on the stele of Yehaw-milk, mentioned above, has all the appearance of Isis, who, according to the legend preserved by Plutarch (de Is. et Os. 15), journeyed to Byblus, where she was called Astarte. The Phoenician settlers at the Peiraeus worshipped the Assyrian Nergal, and their proper names are compounded with the names of Babylonian and Arabian deities (NSI. p. 101). Closer intimacy with the Greek world naturally brought about modifications in the character of the native gods, which became apparent when Ba‘al of Sidon or Ba‘al-shamēm was identified with Zeus, Tanith with Demeter or Artemis, ‘Anath with Athena, &c.; the notion of a supreme Ba‘al, which finds expression in the Greek βῆλος and βααλτίς or βήλθης (the goddess of Byblus), was no doubt encouraged by foreign influences. On the other hand, the Phoenicians produced a considerable effect upon Greek and Roman religion, especially from the religious centres in Cyprus and Sicily. A great number of divinities are known only as elements in proper names, e.g. Sakun-yathon (Sanchuniathon), ‘Abd-sasom, Ṣed-yathon, and fresh ones are continually being discovered. It was the custom among the Phoenicians, as among other Semitic nations, to use the names of the gods in forming proper names and thus to express devotion or invoke favour; thus Ḥanni-ba‘al, ‘Abd-melqarth, Hanni-‘ashtart, Eshmun-‘azar. The proper names further illustrate the way in which the relation of man to God was regarded; the commonest forms are servant (‘abd, e.g. ‘Abd-‘ashtart), member or limb (bod, e.g. Bod-melqarth), client or guest (ger, e.g. Ger-eshmun); the religious idea of the guest of a deity had its origin in the social custom of extending hospitality to a stranger and in the old Semitic right of sanctuary. The interpretation of such names as ’Abi-ba‘al (father of Ba‘al), Ḥimilkath (brother of Milkath), Ḥiram (brother of the exalted one) is not altogether certain, and can hardly be discussed here.[6]
Probably like other Canaanites the Phoenicians offered worship “on every high hill and under every green tree”; but to judge from Sacred Objects and Worship. the allusions to sanctuaries in the inscriptions and elsewhere, the Ba‘al or ‘Ashtart of a place was usually worshipped at a temple, which consisted of a court or enclosure and a roofed shrine with a portico or pillared hall at the entrance. In the court sometimes stood a conical stone, probably the symbol of Astarte, as on the Roman coins of Byblus (illustrated in Rawlinson, Phoenicia, 146, Perrot et Chipiez, Hist. de l'art, iii. 60; see also Ohnefalsch-Richter, Cyprus, pl. lvi, the temenos at Idalion). Stone or bronze images of the gods were set up in the sanctuaries (NSI. Nos. 13 seq., 23-27, 30, &c.); and besides these the baetylia (meteoric stones) which were regarded as symbols of the gods. Pillars, again, had a prominent place in the court or before the shrine (nasab, ibid. pp. 102 seq.); but it is not known whether the sacred pole (’ashērah), an invariable feature of a Canaanite sanctuary, was usual in a Phoenician temple (ibid. pp. 50 seq.). The
- ↑ Cf. Hannibal's oath to Philip of Macedon, beside the named deities he invokes the gods of “sun and moon and earth, of rivers and meadows and waters” (Polyb. vii. 9).
- ↑ This is well brought out by G. F. Hill, Church Quarterly Rev. (April 1908), pp. 118-141, who specially emphasizes the evidence of the Phoenician coins.
- ↑ “To the lord ’El, which Ba‘al-shillem . . . vowed,” &c.; Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil, v. 376.
- ↑ Probably “the detested thing that causes horror” (שִׁקּ֣וּץ שֹׁמֵ֑ם) of Dan xii. 11, xi. 31, &c., is an intentional disfigurement of בעל שמם.
- ↑ The name has been found on an important Aramaic inscr. from North Syria, dating c. 800 B.C., in which Zakir, king of Hamath and La‘ash frequently speaks of his god Be‘el-shamin (Pognon, Inscr. sém. de la Syrie, 1908).
- ↑ See Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 44 seq.
