24. An Analysis of Sanchuniathon’s Scheme in the Light of the Biblical Account (§§317-354)

317. Sanchuniathon was not, as was once commonly believed, rehashing Greek myth in an attempt to prove the superiority and higher antiquity of Phoenician religion. Archaeology has uncovered at Ras-Shamra-Ugarit the second-millennium BC native Canaanite mythology of which Sanchuniathon’s is an idiosyncratic version. We find Sanchuniathon’s supreme god, Zeus, Demarous or Adodos, featuring in the Ugaritic texts under the names Baal (= Zeus) and Hadad (= Adodos), the son of Dagan (Sanchuniathon’s Dagon). His brothers are Mot, Death (Sanchuniathon’s Mouth) and Yam, Sea (Sanchuniathon’s Pontos). Demarous conflicts with Pontos in Sanchuniathon, and is at first worsted, only to escape from his clutches later, as Baal conflicts with Yam in the Ugaritic texts, being at first overawed by his power, but at last subduing him. In Sanchuniathon, Elos-Kronos abandons his original kingdom to Zeus-Demarous or Adodos, the new “king of gods” and retires to lands south-west of Phoenicia, specifically Egypt and Ethiopia. (Sanchuniathon calls Elos’ destination the “Land of the South.” This phrase is used in Jubilees [§71, above, >>] as a description of the homeland of Ham and his sons in Africa, whither they migrated from Babel. It is the Biblical Pathros, Egyptian Pa-to-reshi, “Land of the South,” i.e. Upper Egypt around Thebes and neighboring territories.) Similarly in Canaanite myth, El (Sanchuniathon’s Elos) is the elder statesman of the pantheon, a “deus otiosus,” whose place at the head of the pantheon has been transferred to Baal-Hadad (Sanchuniathon’s Zeus-Demarous or Adodos). El meanwhile has retired to his dwelling-place far away “at the source of the rivers, amidst the springs of the two deeps.” In Canaanite myth “Bull” El is a fertile, prolific figure, and the divine husband of several goddesses, as is Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon.

318. The central theme in Sanchuniathon is the usurpation of Ouranos by Elos-Kronos. An analogous myth has been discovered amongst the Hittites, dating, in its present form, to the latter part of the second millennium BC, and borrowed by the Hittites from the Indo-European-speaking Hurrians, who formed one element in the mixed population of Canaan. Dagan (Dagon) was known to the Hurrians as Kumarbi. Sanchuniathon relates how the child of Ouranos (Heaven) was born to Dagon, abnormally, by the intervention of Elos-Kronos. This is parallelled in the Hittite myth, which relates how Anu (the Mesopotamian god “Heaven,” corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Ouranos), was castrated by his cupbearer Kumarbi (the Hurrian Dagan, Baal Hamon, Sanchuniathon’s Dagon): Kumarbi bit off Anu’s genitals and thus became pregnant by the swallowed seed of Anu! The god Aya (the Mesoptamian god Ea) intervened in a timely manner, and advised the application of magic to provide a suitable exit in the body of Kumarbi for the birth of the child. Kumarbi demanded his own son be brought to him for him to devour as a means of easing the terrible pain. Whereupon emerged from Kumarbi, formed from the seed of Anu, the supreme god of the Hurrian pantheon, the storm-god, and, somewhat earlier, a river (the Tigris) and a divinity, which were spat out by Kumarbi. The storm-god’s name was written with the same cuneiform sign (meaning “storm”) as that of the Canaanite god Hadad (Sanchuniathon’s Demarous, Zeus, Adodos), though the native Hurrian name of the storm-god has not been discovered. Here is the identical scenario envisaged by Sanchuniathon. The god of heaven has a son, who is the supreme god, the god of storm, but he is born through a proxy, viz. the god Dagon, a.k.a. Kumarbi. The god of heaven is emasculated in the process, and river-waters are supplied from the fluid of his genitals. The intermediary of the proxy birth in Sanchuniathon is Elos-Kronos, and the intermediary in the Hittite myth is Aya, who corresponds to the Mesopotamian Ea or Enki, and who, in turn, is found equated with the Canaanite El (Sanchuniathon’s Elos), and with the Greek Kronos. Ea-Enki is depicted as a bull with a prodigious sexual appetite, like the Canaanite El. Aya in the Hurrian myth is involved in ritual infanticide like Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon.

318.0.1. The Babylonian Epic of Creation, Enuma Elish, represents Ea as the slayer of Apsu (who corresponds to Noah), as Elos-Kronos is the slayer of Ouranos in Sanchuniathon, and as Aya in the Hittite myth allies with Kumarbi in his emasculation of Anu. Thereafter in Enuma Elish Ea converts the corpse of Apsu into his palace (Apsu being the name of the temple of Ea in Eridu), as Nimrod founds the kingdom of Babel (Eridu) at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris (i.e. on the water issuing from the body of Ouranos-Anu-Noah). The new order of things in Enuma Elish is first disturbed by a great whirlwind created by Anu (representing the Wind Flood which caused the Dispersion from Babel), then by a horde of monsters produced by Tiamat in response (representing the House of Kish, the Biblical Salem), but the latter are defeated by Ea’s son Marduk (called Damu, “The Son,” a title of Tammuz, in the Epic, and Asari [= the Egyptian Osiris], representing Tammuz of the First Dynasty of Uruk). Marduk is a reduplication or secondary form of Ea. Both gods defeat a monstrous opponent (Apsu and Tiamat respectively) and both acquire as a result the by-name (or “servant”) “Mummu.” From the blood of the leader of the monsters who opposed the gods (= the ruling élite) is formed a servile class to provide the gods with food. On the remains of Apsu (Eridu) Marduk finally builds Babylon and its Temple Tower constructed to equal Apsu (i.e. the Temple of Ea in Eridu).

318.0.2. Evidence has been presented elsewhere (§129, section [4], above, >>) that Apsu, the cosmic Ocean in Enuma Elish, represents Adam the father of humanity, and/or the Adam of the post-diluvian

318.1. Chart of Biblical figures identified with Egyptian and Babylonian gods Egyptian Babylonian Biblical Amun I Kem-atef Apsu Noah Amun II Ptah Lahmu Ham Amun III Ra Anshar-Asshur Cush Shu Anu Lehabim (from Mizraim “son of Cush”) Geb Ea (slays Apsu and turns his corpse into his temple) Nimrod (“son of Mizraim” son of Cush) Osiris Marduk (called Asari, son of preceding, slays Apsu’s female complement Tiamat and cuts her apart) Sidon (son of Nimrod’s consort)
318.2. Chart of Biblical figures identified with gods in Enuma Elish and An = Anum Biblical (SKL) Enuma Elish An = Anum Noah (Ziusudra) Apsu AN Ham (Puzur, Utu) Lahmu (ENKI)[1] ENLIL (= Dagan) m. Belet-ili Cush (Mes-kianga-sher) Anshar (Asari =) EN.ZU Nimrod (Enmerkar) Ea ENKI[2] Canaan (Lugal-banda) Ninurta (S) Eshterah [Nin-sumun] ISHTAR (V) Sidon (Dumuzi) Marduk Marduk (J) (= Asari) Shamash Adad Tammuz Eliezer (Balih) Nabu (My) Amraphel (Gilgamesh) NERGAL (M)
KEY TO AN = ANUM SECTION: Planetary Identifications: S = Saturn, J = Jupiter, M = Mars, V = Venus, My = Mercury. DIVINE NAME (upper case) = deity to whom a major section is devoted in An = Anum. divine name (lower case) = important deity in family of, or equated with (=), one of above in An = Anum. [1] and [2] = first and second position of Enki-Asari genealogy. m. = marries, consorts with

world, Noah. It will be further demonstrated (§354.3, below, >>) that Arba “the father of the Anakites,” called in the Hebrew Scriptures the “great Adam of the Anakites,” was identified with the same cosmic Ocean from which all gods emerged in the beginning. The Anakites were an Amorite people (Gen. 14. 13), and Enuma Elish was the founding myth of Amorite Babylon. The Amorites invaded Mesopotamia in the early second millennium BC, from their homeland in Canaan and the neighboring territories west of Mesopotamia, which were consequently known as Amurru, the West-land, or, literally, the land of the Amorites. As it happens the name Apsu of the cosmic Ocean in Enuma Elish is written cryptically in Sumerian ZU.AB (read abzu = apsû), which might be translated Abu Enqu in Akkadian, that is, “Wise [enqu = ZU] Father [abu = AB];” but since the word enqu is etymologically related to the ethnic name Anak (Heb. ‛-n-q, see §415, below, >>), the name might equally be interpreted to mean “Father of Anak,” which is the title of Arba in the Hebrew Scriptures (Joshua 15. 13, 21. 11). Arba means in Hebrew “four,” and also “fecundator, inundator,” from the concept of lying or covering foursquare in animal reproduction. From Arba “four,” the city of Hebron, in whose environs the founding patriarch Arba settled, was first known as Kiryath-Arba, the “Tetrapolis” or “City of Four (or of Arba).” ZU.AB, accordingly, in Enuma Elish is the first of four oceanic cosmic entities, which form, specifically as in a settlement, the foundational layers of the cosmic structure. Arba is an Adam-like figure, the father of all Amorite Anakites, as Apsu is the father of all the gods in Enuma Elish. Furthermore the Amorites were descended from, and doubtless named after, Amer Shams, who was a Joktanite chief in the early post-diluvian centuries and an invader of Babylonia, amongst other territories across the Near East. (§626.24ff., below, >>, §626.17.7, below, >>, and §626.9, below, >>.) He was a worshiper of the sun-god and hence titled Semsu or Shemshu (= Shams) or Abd (“worshiper of”) Shams, Shams being the name of the sun. He is Semerkhet (Semsu) of Egyptian Dynasty I, the last but one king of that dynasty. He was identified whilst a living king with Horus, the sun-god of Egypt, and at death with the god Khenty-Amentiu (later Osiris-Asari). In grammatical and semantic form Amer Shams corresponds exactly to the otherwise mysterious name of the sun-god in Enuma Elish spelled AMAR.UD: AMAR = Amer, as in the ethnic name Amurru, of the Amorites; UD = shamshu = shams, the sun-god; so AMAR.UD might have been read originally “Amar Shamshu,” viz. Amer Shams. Later the signs AMAR.UD were read Marduk or Merodach, meaning “Son (AMAR = mar, “son”) of the Sun (UD = shamshi, the sun-god).” The supreme deity of Amorite Babylon “Marduk” (AMAR.UD) replaced the earlier god Asari, son of Enki. The name Asari is identical to that of the Egyptian god Asari (Osiris) with whom Amer Shams (Semerkhet, Semsu) was identified in Egypt. Also Asari son of Enki was equated with the god Asshur (or Anshar) of Assyria. The Assyrian version of Enuma Elish represents Apsu as the father of Lahmu, and Lahmu as the Enki-like father of Anshar (= Asari = Asshur), who is the hero of the Epic instead of the Marduk of the Babylonian version. This, doubtless, was the simpler and more original scheme, in which Apsu represents Adam (otherwise “Arba” the “great Adam of the Anakites”), meaning the post-diluvian Adam, Noah, chief of the four couples who survived the Deluge, Lahmu son of Apsu represents Ham son of Noah, and Lahmu’s son Anshar (Asari) represents Cush son of Ham. Cush (= Asari = Sher as in the name Mes-kianga-sher = Cush) was the builder of E-ana, the Shinar Tower. This work was duplicated in the building of Bab-ili (the later Amorite Babylon) by the “god” AMAR.UD (Amer Shams), embodied, so to speak, in his Amorite descendants. Amer Shams could trace his descent literally from Cush by the merger of the Joktanite Sheba clan, of which he was the eponymus (his fuller name being Amer Shams Saba/Sheba), with the Cushites of the Nile valley; or, otherwise, mystically as follows: AMAR.UD (Marduk) = Amer Shams, who was Semerkhet (Semsu) of Egyptian Dynasty I, and as a deceased Pharaoh was equated with Osiris (= Sidon, Tammuz) in Egypt, Asari in Babylonia. Osiris-Tammuz was the son and lover of Balthi (Isis, Aphrodite, Ishtar), and she the consort and mother of Geb or Nimrod (Ea), and the consort, additionally, of Sosis = Shu (Anu) = Ares (Arueris), viz. Hercules Libycus = Lehabim son of Mizraim son of Cush (= Ra, Helios, Anshar) son of Ham (= Ptah, Hephaistos, Lahmu) son of Noah (Kneph, Amun Kem-Atef, Apsu). This historical-cum-theogonic line of descent is illustrated in the preceding chart (§318.1, above, >>).

319. As for Dagon’s role as supplanter of his father, the god of heaven, it is remarkable that Dagan (= Dagon, Baal Hamon) is found identified with Enlil in Mesopotamia and an early Mesopotamian myth represented Enlil, lord of the spirit and air, as having once in primeval times split his father An (heaven) from his spouse Ki (earth), taking the dominant position over, and so becoming lord of, the earth, as he was already lord of the air. In other words, heaven was separated from earth by the atmosphere. Here, then, is an example of what Sanchuniathon refers to: the identification of historical figures (in this case Ham) with cosmic gods (in this case Enlil): Ham separated Noah and his spouse, as the atmosphere separated heaven from earth. In the Hurrian myth details like the presentation of the cup to their predecessors by Anu and Kumarbi, comparable to the drinking of wine in the Biblical account, are indicative of more intimate connections between the cosmic and historical dramas in the underlying tradition.

320. The identical theme of the separation of deities representing heaven and earth by the god of the atmosphere features prominently in Egyptian mythology. There similarly Sky (the goddess Nut) is separated from Earth (the god Geb) by Air (the god Shu), but with a difference in emphasis, in that the sexes of Sky and Earth are reversed: Sky, Nut, is female, and Earth, Geb, is male. This reversal had cosmic significance, as in Egypt fertilization (a masculine phenomenon) proceeds upwards from the earth in the form of the waters of the Nile, rather than downwards from the sky, in the form of rain, as in Mesopotamia. Like Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon, Geb (equated by the Greeks with Kronos) held the right of sexual access to a female connected mythologically with the sky. The female represents Noah’s concubine (Mut, the Great Mother in her multifold aspects), or, more precisely, “Noah’s nakedness,” viz. his own female aspect (Noah = An = Sky = Nut, with a reversal of sex), as the assault on the concubine was really an assault on the patriarch himself. Hence in other contexts Nut is the mother (Mut) of the concubine (= Isis, see infra). This female was subsequently transferred to the Air-god (Shu). The original Air-god was Ham (Shu = Enlil = Dagan, Dagon), but Ham’s role as sexual partner of the female “Sky,” and rival of Geb (Kronos), devolved secondarily upon Ares, for reasons outlined infra, and Ares is equated with “Sosis” (= Shu) in the genealogy of Egyptian gods in Peri Theon. According to the Egyptian myth known as the “Destruction of Mankind,” Shu (= Ham, — Shu’s role as guardian or protector being emphasized in the myth, — ) and Geb (= Nimrod, warned by Ra of the danger of the serpents within him), then Thoth (= Cush, the moon as the Vicar or place-taker of the sun-god Ra) and Osiris (= Sidon, Tammuz), were given their respective duties on earth by the supreme god Ra (= Amun Kem-atef, Noah, see also §613, below, >>). It was Ra’s effort to bring order out of chaos, and light out of darkness, following the flood of a mixture of red matter and beer which had been poured down by the gods, on Ra’s instruction, from the direction of Elephantine, and which had inundated the land (= the Flood of Noah). The flood was sent to assuage the wrath of Ra’s Eye (viz. Noah’s prophetic energy or spirit), Hathor, in the form of Sekhmet, the “Overpowering One.” By her burning heat Sekhmet was in danger of destroying the whole of mankind. The earth’s population had become rebellious against the aging Ra, and their destruction consequently decreed by him, and already executed, in part, by Hathor, in the desert to which the rebellious ones had fled. Faced with the prospect of a total annihilation of the human race by Sekhmet, Ra relented of his imperious decree. The flood of red matter and beer, hurriedly prepared and poured upon the land, succeeded in tempting Sekhmet to drink, thus becoming intoxicated, and forgetful of her mission of vengeance (Noah’s drunkenness and carousal with his concubine). Now pacified, Sekhmet reverted to the form of Hathor. On the pronouncement of Ra, Hathor’s beauty was embodied in the persons of the women of the city of Imau in Egypt, who celebrated each year thereafter a beer-festival in honor of Hathor (by way, that is, of ensuring no further outbreak of her fury: any excuse for a party!). Ra’s troubles, however, were not over. His anger (Eye) still simmered. A burning plague followed the inundation. Ra then determined to retreat to heaven, and give up his thankless task on earth. Hoping to dissuade him, men banded together and pledged to massacre Ra’s enemies. (For eliminations of idolaters in the immediate post-diluvian era, in support of the monotheism of Noah, see §669, below, >>, §675ff., below, >>, §814ff., below, >>.) The massacres commenced, but Ra was fixed in his resolve. He mounted to heaven on the back of the cow Nut. (Noah’s mortal life came to an end.) He ordered the paradisiacal heavenly realms, and then the affairs of earth, by the appointment of Shu, Geb, Thoth and Osiris as the god-kings of Egypt. It should be noted that these gods, Shu, Geb etc., are said to have existed before the flood (viz. as elemental deities), but to have ruled on earth (that is, embodied in human kings) only after the flood. The myth explains by this account the common Egyptian depiction of Nut as the sky-goddess in the form of a cow, attended by the gods in their usual postures. It also presents Ra in a rather negative light, vacillating, as a doddering old man, between vengeance and mercy: he caused calamities, one after the other, by the mere utterance of a word, then hastily reversed his decisions, and finally retreated to heaven.

321. Another level of interpretation appears in Peri Theon, which provides traditional evidence of the identifications suggested here. Hephaistos (Amun [2] Ptah Ta-tenen), identified with Ham in Mar Abas Catina, sings the praises of marital fidelity. His son, Helios (Ra = Amun [3] of Siwa), identified with Cush in Mar Abas Catina, exposes the adultery of the wife of Hephaistos, called Aphrodite, with Ares. Ares is equated with “Sosis” (= Shu) in the Egyptian, and Thouros in the Assyrian, genealogy in Peri Theon. The Egyptian Ares (Hercules) is Heth (Ama-ushumgal-ana) son of Canaan (see §626.6, below, >>, and the cross-reference relating to Arueris, §333, below, >>), titled “Libycus” (corresponding to the Biblical Lehabim), because he was the ancestor of the Hittites/​Hivites/​Minaeans/​Sabaeans of the Libyan kingdom of Triton (§337.3f., below, >>, with cross-references). The Assyrian Ares (Hercules) is Amraphel (Gilgamesh) son of Canaan (see §79ff., above, >>). Both were the object of Aphrodite’s (Inana’s) affections in Mesopotamian epic tradition. The relationship of Aphrodite (astrologically the ideal female) and Ares (the ideal male) is said to represent an illicit love affair. It is remarkable that the figure identified with Ham (Hephaistos), has the same wife (Aphrodite), as the figure identified with Noah (Ouranos) in Peri Theon, which is the scenario envisaged in the Bible. Hephaistos-Ham’s condemnation of adultery makes good sense as a response to the incestuous act he had been involved in unwillingly in the underlying tradition. The condemnation of Aphrodite’s waywardness by Helios (Cush) may be related to the religious support offered to Dagon (Ham) and Elos-Kronos (Nimrod), by Tauthos, the Second Hermes (Cush), drawing on a scheme like Sanchuniathon’s, and, more specifically, to the tradition that Ares was antagonistic to the idolatry promoted by the family of Nimrod, and consequently to its chief prophet (Cush, Helios, Tauthos). A relationship between Adonis and Aphrodite is also referred to in Peri Theon, and Adonis is the Mesopotamian Tammuz (the Biblical Sidon). The Apology ascribed to Melito of Sardis preserves the more primitive, native Phoenician, version of the same tradition (Syriac original in Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, London 1855, p. 25, translation ANF VIII, p. 1483): “The people of Phoenicia worshiped Balthi [= Baalat], queen of Cyprus, because she fell in love with Tamuz, son of Cuthar king of the Phoenicians, and left her own kingdom and came and dwelt in Gebal [= Byblos], a fortress of the Phoenicians, and at the same time made all the Cyprians subject to King Cuthar. Also, before Tamuz she had fallen in love with Ares [Syriac: “Arûs,” viz. Ares, Mars], and committed adultery with him; and Hephaestus [Syriac: “Huphestos”], her husband, caught her, and his [viz. Ares’] jealousy was roused against her, and he came and killed Tamuz in Mount Lebanon, as he was hunting wild boars; and from that time Balthi remained in Gebal, and she died in the city of Aphiki [Aphaka], where Tamuz was buried.” The Syriac Lexicographer Bar-Bahlul (10th century AD, s.v. Tamuz) supplies further detail: “Tomuzo [a Syriac form of the name Tamuz or Tammuz] and Tamuzo is one and the same. He was, as they say, a hunter shepherd, and chaser of wild beasts; who when Baalti [= Balthi] loved him, took her away from her husband [Hephaestus in the Melitonian fragment]. And when her husband went forth to seek her, Tamuz slew him. And with regard to him [Tamuz] also, there met him in the desert a wild boar [which was, in the myth of Adonis, her jealous lover Ares in disguise] and slew him. And his father [Cuthar in the Melitonian fragment] made for him a great lamentation and weeping in the month Tamuz [Tammuz]: and Baalti his wife, she too made a lamentation and mourning over him. And this tradition was handed down among the heathen people during her lifetime and after her death, which same tradition the Jews received with the rest of the evil festivals of the people, and in that month Tamuz used to make for him a great feast. Tamuz also is the name of one of the months of the Syrians.”

Note. This last passage in Bar-Bahlul refers to the desecration of the Temple at Jerusalem by some women who practiced the idolatrous rite of weeping for Tammuz, Ezekiel 8. 14. The prophetic significance of Ezekiel’s statement, according to 1 Peter 4. 17, cf. Ezek. 9. 6, was to the situation in New Testament times, and hence also, secondarily, to that in the present day: certain Jews in the post-exilic period adopted the non-Biblical fast in the fourth month (Zech. 8. 19), on the 17th Tammuz, claiming it commemorated the destruction of the Temple by Nebuchadrezzar, though no such date is mentioned in the Biblical account of the destruction, only the 9th Tammuz (2 Kings 25. 3, Jer. 39. 2). In modern times this fast day on the 17th of Tammuz commences the three weeks of mourning for the destruction of the Temple and other disasters visited on Israel ending with the 9th of Av. As has frequently been pointed out, this is an attempt to disguise the rite’s pagan origin in the Babylonian Tammuz cult, which celebrated a fast of five days from the 16th to the 20th of Tammuz (see infra). The fast was originally adopted by syncretists at the time of the Exile. Of course, the Law of Moses (Deut. 4. 2) forbade the addition of any such celebration to the sacred calendar. The same prophecy in Ezekiel (8. 16) condemned worship of the sun similarly practiced in the Temple. The non-Biblical feast of Hanukkah, or of “Lights,” as Josephus called it (without being able to provide a Biblical, or even an historical, explanation of that term, Ant. XII. 323-325 = XII. vii. 7), bore the same name, and was celebrated at the same time, the 25th of Kislev, and with the same rustic thyrsi or “wands” brought into the Temple (Plutarch, Sympos. Probl. IV. 6, on the Thyrsophoria, during the feast openly termed “Bacchic” by the Jews), as the pagan Rustic Dionysia of Antiochus Epiphanes’ time, in which lights or lamps were a prominent feature and symbolized the fire of the sun. The sun was identified with Dionysus, reborn at the winter solstice. Some have objected that Kislev was a lunar month and could not be held to have ever commemorated a fixed date in the solar year. This ignores the fact that there were Jews, like the authors of Jubilees and the Qumran documents, who employed a solar calendar, with Kislev the fixed solar month in which the winter solstice fell.

In Bar-Bahlul’s account Baalti (Baalat) is Baalat Gebal “The Mistress of Byblos,” who was equated with Isis and Hathor. Hathor in turn was equated with Aphrodite. Aphrodite and her three lovers in the Melitonian fragment are the same as in Peri Theon: Hephaistos, Tammuz (= Adonis) and Ares. The name of Tammuz’ father in the Melitonian fragment is “Cuthar” or “Kuthar.” This is the Canaanite Kothar, meaning “The Skillful One.” Kothar was a god of craftsmanship equated with the Mesopotamian Ea and the Egyptian Ptah. Nimrod (Kronos) was identified with Ea. Tammuz was a son of Enki or Ea in Mesopotamian mythology (Tammuz = Damu = Marduk son of Ea). Baalat is the Phoenician equivalent of the Babylonian “Belet” in the name “Belet-ili,” “Mistress [Belet] of the gods [ili].” Belet-ili was the consort of Anu, the god of heaven, and Anu = Noah. Later Enlil, corresponding to Dagon or Ham, took Anu’s wife and therefore Belet-ili was identified with Ninlil, wife of Enlil. Ninlil in turn was identified with Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus, the consort of Tammuz. So in the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet VI. 46f.) Ishtar is said to have instituted the yearly mourning for Tammuz (Dumuzi), as Balthi is said to have done in the much later Syriac sources: “To Dumuzi, the husband of your [Ishtar’s] youth, to him you have allotted perpetual weeping, year on year.” The Sumerian name of Belet-ili was Nin-hursanga, “Mistress (Nin) of the Mountain (hursanga),” which could stand as a translation of the Canaanite name Baalat Gebal, “Mistress of Gebal,” since Gebal, the name of the famous city on the coast of Canaan, means “mountain.” The mountain referred to in the name was originally the mountainous region east of Mesopotamia (where Noah’s container grounded, see on Deukalion and Pyrrha infra), but it was transferred in the cult to other locations. Nin-hursanga, like Hathor (= Isis, Baalat Gebal), was represented as a cow, and her symbol was an omega-like object of unknown significance, but identical in shape to Hathor’s characteristic hairstyle. An omega-like figure was, and still is, the astrological sign for Leo, the solar lion, representing the pattern of stars in that constellation. The lion was another animal symbol of Hathor, Ishtar etc. (see infra), hence, presumably, the Leo-shaped “mane” of the goddess. Nin-hursanga was the consort of Enki, as Balthi (Baalat Gebal) was the consort of Nimrod (= Enki, Ea). She was titled “Mother of the gods.” The same title was applied in later times to Cybele (Kubele), the lover of the dying-god Attis, whose mythology resembled closely that of Balthi and Tammuz. Cybele and Attis were equated, even in antiquity, with Aphrodite and Adonis (Charon of Lampsacus in Photius, s.v. Kubebos and Hippolytus, Refutat. V. 9, cf. Socrat. Hist Eccl. III. 23). The name Cybele, traditionally the name of an Asian mountain or range of mountains (Strabo, 469, 470, 567, Diodorus Siculus, III. 58 etc.), has been thought, in fact, to be a transcription of the Semitic Gebal. (Dulaure, Histoire abrégée de differens cultes, Paris 1825, tome I. p. 146; for the “u” in the name Kubele, cf. the Greek form Bublos = Byblos, Gebal, and the Arabic form Jubayl.) This explains the crown composed of city-walls placed on Cybele’s head: her name, meaning “mountain,” also signified a particular city, viz. Gebal. Deukalion and Pyrrha (Noah and his wife, Noah being identified with Deukalion at least as early as Philo, De Praemiis et Poenis, IV. 23, Justin Martyr, II Apologia, 7, Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum II. 30) produced Cybele in the mountains of Phrygia, according to the version of the myth in Arnobius (V. 5-8). The landing-place of the container in which Deukalion survived the Deluge was identified as a mountain peak in Phrygia, otherwise known as Little Armenia (Ararat). The throne and lions of Cybele reflect the fusion in the cult of Baalat Gebal of the iconographies of Isis, whose name means “throne,” and of Hathor, the Egyptian sun-goddess, since the lion in Egypt symbolized the fierce heat of the African sun. The Egyptian myth known as the “Destruction of Mankind” (see §320, above, >>) represented Hathor, the “Sun-Eye,” as having descended to earth on one occasion, in the era preceding a divinely-ordained flood, thus causing a fiery catastrophe. Her work of destroying mankind, — on account of their having rebelled against the aging Ra (= Noah, Amun-Kem-atef), — was taken up after the flood by a band of men who massacred the rebels in a military campaign. On Balthi as an incendiary in a military campaign against idolaters, who rebelled against Noah’s monotheism after the Flood, see the following paragraph.

322. Aphrodite in Peri Theon corresponds to Balthi (Baalat Gebal, Isis, Hathor) in the Melitonian fragment. In Peri Theon Aphrodite is the consort of Ouranos (Heaven = Noah) as well as of Hephaestus, Ares and Adonis. In the Melitonian fragment, however, there is no mention of a consort of Balthi equivalent to Ouranos. In other Syriac sources such a figure does occur, namely Baal Shamin (“Lord of Heaven”). The sources are the Cave of Treasures (in various recensions and translations, tr. S.-M. Ri, 30. 22, p. 91) and the Annals of Said ibn Batrik (Eutychius, ed. Cheikho, p. 22, 18ss.). Cave of Treasures (trans. Budge): “And Baltin [= Balthi], who was given to Tamuza (Tammuz) — now because B‘elshemin [= Baal Shamin] loved her, Tammuz fled before him — set fire to Harran and burned it.” Said Ibn Batrik: “In these days [viz. of Abraham] reigned Harbit [this name takes the form “Harranith” in the Cave of Treasures, i.e. “She of Harran”], the wife of Sin, priest of the mountain …. [a small section is corrupt here in the MSS.] She built a great temple in Harran, and fashioned an idol of gold to which she gave the name Sin, placed it in the midst of the temple, and gave orders to all the inhabitants of Harran to prostrate themselves before it. The people of Harran did not fail to do as they were told and worshiped it …. [another small section is corrupt here in the MSS.] Because Baal Shamin, the king of Iraq, fell in love with Talbin [= Balthi] the wife of Tamuza, king of Mosul, she fled far from him and cast fire into Harran and set it aflame, and burned down the temple and the idol.” These sources describe Balthi, the consort of Tammuz, “king of Mosul [= Nineveh],” as also having received at one time the amorous attention of Baal Shamin, “Lord of Heaven.” Tammuz fled from the presence of Baal Shamin. Balthi is also represented to have fled from him, but no reason is specified. (There is always the possibility of some corruption in the text, which has numerous variant readings.) During this period of her life, according to the Cave of Treasures, and as a result, in some way, likewise unspecified, of her relationship with Baal Shamin, she participated in a campaign against the idolatry of Nimrod, who is described, like Tammuz, as a fugitive from Baal Shamin. Balthi’s accomplices are called “Israelites” (Arabic Sinai MS. 508, fol. 125r): “Baal Shamin fell in love with Nalqiz [= “daughter of Nikal,” see infra, another name for Balthi], wife of Nemroda; and Nemroda slipped out of the hands of Baal Shamin. That is why the Israelites wept over Nemroda and burned the city of Harran in anger against him.” She and they set fire to the idolatrous temple of Sin (the moon-god) in Harran and to the city. The temple is said to have been built by Sin’s wife for an idol of her husband Sin, the priest of the mountain, treated in the sources as a deified historical figure. The events are dated to the era of the Patriarch Abraham. Presumably, therefore, “Israelites” means relatives of Abraham. Some texts describe Balthi also as the sister of Nimrod. (In Sanchuniathon Baaltis [= Balthi, Baalti, Baalat Gebal] is first sent on a mission by Ouranos [= Baal Shamin] to her brother Elos-Kronos [= Nimrod], who is at war with Ouranos, but is then violently seized by Elos-Kronos, and taken to wife.: cf. the prominence of Cuthar in relation to Balthi in the Melitonian fragment, and Cuthar = Kothar = Ea = Nimrod.) The significance of the reference to Sin in the Syriac tradition is that the moon-god was the father of Venus (Balthi), both in Mesopotamian mythology (Sin father of Inana, Ishtar) and the native mythology of Harran which was dependent on it. Ishtar was called Balthi in Harran. Elsewhere in The Doctrine of Addai she is termed (correctly) the “daughter of Nikal,” Nikal standing for Ningal, the wife of Sin in the Mesopotamian system. Cybele (= [Baalat] Gebal) was a daughter of Maeon, the founding father of the Maeonians or Mashites, the offspring of Mash son of Aram son of Shem. (See §140.0.1, above, >>, and §626.17.3 [Note], below, >>.) This probably represents Balthi’s true affiliation: in which case she became a daughter of Cush by her union with Nimrod son of Cush. The cult of Nimrod survived at Urfa in that vicinity as late as the turn of the 20th century AD: (Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, Chicago, 1902, p. 214) “While at Rasheyeh I {Curtiss} had an interview with a Druse woman, in which a teacher from the Girls’ School at Damascus served as my interpreter. This Druse had traveled widely with her husband; had visited Urfa, the scene of the Armenian massacres, and had lived ten years in Bagdad. In Urfa there is a shrine of Nimrod. She said: ‘If a man is ill, or in prison, or if the flocks are diseased, his relatives go to the makam {shrine} and say, “we have come to your house, we are under the protection (dakhiel) of a given prophet. We have fallen on your threshold;” that is, have kissed the threshold of your shrine. They vow a sheep, either male or female, and generally have the animal selected quite young. Some of the company sleep at the shrine that night. Usually a Moslem sheik kills the animal. The head of the victim is turned toward the south. If there is no Moslem priest, a Druse slaughters …. They put blood marks on the outer door of the shrine …. The important thing is the shedding of the blood, the bursting forth of the blood.’”

323. According to a passage in the Nabataean Agriculture (Kitab al-falaha al-nabatiya) of Ibn Wahshiya (10th century AD, in Chwolson, Tammuz, p. 41ff.) cited with approval by Maimonides, Tammuz was a proponent of the worship of the planets and the signs of the zodiac and met a horrible end because of it: (Ibn Wahshiya citing a Nabataean book, that is a book of the Subba, Sabians, or Mandaeans of southern Iraq, who preserved elements of ancient Babylonian paganism in their particular form of Gnosis into the Middle Ages:) “I lit upon another Nabataean book, in which the legend of Tammuz was narrated in full: how he summoned a king to worship the seven (planets) and the twelve (signs of the Zodiac), and how the king put him to death, and how he still lived after being killed, so that he had to put him to death several times in a cruel manner, Tammuz coming to life again after each time, until at last he died; and behold, it was identical with the legend of S. George that is current amongst the Christians.” A Christian account of the festival El Buqat (“The Weeping”) practiced in Harran in the Middle Ages on the 15th of the month of Tammuz (Abu Said Wahb bin Ibrahim, in Mohammed bin Ishaq, Fihrist el-‘olam, reproduced in Chwolson, Ssabier, Bd. II, p. 27) likewise indicates Tammuz (“Ta’uz”) met a terrible end: (under the month Tammuz:) “On the 15th of this month is the Feast El Buqat, that is, of the weeping women, which Feast is identical with that Feast of Ta’uz, which is celebrated in honor of the god Ta’uz. The women weep over him, (telling) how his lord slew him, and ground his bones in a mill, and scattered them to the winds; and they eat (during this festival) nothing that has been ground in a mill, but only soaked wheat, vetches, dates, raisins and the like.” The Nabataean Agriculture relates also (Chwolson, Tammuz, ibid.) that all the planet-gods of the heathen gathered from their native lands at this yearly event to the temple of the sun-god in Babylon:

324. (Trans. in Sabine Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, 1914, p. 279ff., Ibn Wahshiya citing “Kuthami the Babylonian:”) “The contemporaries of Yanbushadh assert that all the seka’in [a class of angels] of the gods, and the images (of the gods), lamented over Yanbushadh after his death, just as all the angels and seka’in lamented over Tammuzi (or Tammuza, i.e. Tammuz). [Yanbushadh or Yanla-Shad is the Persian Jamshid (Liebrecht, Volkskunde, p. 251n, following H. C. Rawlinson in Athenaeum No. 2354, Dec 7, 1872, p. 735), the ancient Yima Xshaeta, and Vedic Yama, “Death,” who was held to have been sawed apart when hidden in a hollow tree by the malevolent, child-sacrificing, king Zohak (Azi Dahaka), i.e., according to some Arabic commentators, by Nimrod, according to others by an accomplice of his.] The images (of the gods), they say, congregated from all parts of the world to the temple in Babylon, and betook themselves to the temple of the sun, to the great golden image that is suspended between heaven and earth in particular. The image of the sun stood, they say, in the midst of the temple, surrounded by all the images of the world. Next to it stood the images of the sun in all countries; then those of the moon; next those of Mars; after them, the images of Mercury; then those of Jupiter; next, of Venus; and last of all, of Saturn [this is the weekday order]; Thereupon the image of the sun began to bewail Tammuzi, and the idols to weep; and the image of the sun uttered a lament over Tammuz, and narrated his history, whilst the idols all wept from the setting of the sun till its rising at the end of that night. Then the idols flew away, returning to their own countries. They say that the eyes of the idol of Tihama (in South Arabia), called Nesr (the Eagle), are flowing with tears perpetually, and will always continue to do so from that night in which it lamented over Tammuz, along with the image of the sun, because of the particular share that it had in the story of Tammuz. [Jamshid, who is compared with Tammuz by Ibn Wahshiya, was believed to have been originally a just and righteous king, who fell into idolatry at the end of his reign, inculcating the worship of Nesr, amongst the rest (Tabari [Bel‘ami], Chron., trans. Zotenberg, Pt. I. ch. XX); as punishment for his sins, he was attacked and cut asunder by Zohak.] This idol called Nesr, they say, is the one that gave the Arabs the gift of divination, so that they can tell what has not yet come to pass, and can explain dreams before the dreamers state what they are.”

325. As cited by Ibn Wahshiya, Kuthami goes on to describe the identical rites practiced in relation to Jamshid (Yanbushadh), this cult being favored above that of Tammuz by Kuthami himself because it was of more recent origin: “They (the contemporaries of Yanbushadh) tell that the idols in the land of Babel bewailed Yanbushadh singly in all their temples a whole night long till morning. During this night there was a great flood of rain, with violent thunder and lightning, as also a furious earthquake (in the district) from the borders of the mountain ridge of Holwan to the banks of the Tigris near the city Nebarwaja, on the eastern bank of that river. The idols, they say, returned during this flood to their places, because they had been a little shaken. This flood was brought by the idols as a judgment upon the people of the land of Babel for having abandoned the dead body of Yanbushadh, as it lay on the bare ground in the desert of Shamas, so that the flood carried his dead body to the Wadi el Ahfar, and then swept it from this wadi into the sea. {See §422.1, below, >>, on the account in Genesis backgrounding this story.} Then there was drought and pestilence in the land of Babel for three months, so that the living were not sufficient to bury the dead. These tales (of Tammuz and Yanbushadh) have been collected and are read in the temples after prayers, and the people weep and lament much thereupon. When I myself am present with the people in the temple, at the feast of Tammuz, which is in the month called after him, and they read his story and weep, I weep along with them always, out of friendly feeling towards them, and because I compassionate their weeping, not that I believe what they relate of him. But I believe in the story of Yanbushadh, and when they read it and weep, I weep along with them, very differently from my weeping over Tammuzi. The reason is this, that the time of Yanbushadh is nearer to our own than the time of Tammuz, and his story is, therefore, more certain and worthy of belief. It is possible that some portions of the story of Tammuz may be true, but I have my doubts concerning other parts of it, owing to the distance of his time from ours.” Thus writes Kuthami the Babylonian, and his translator adds:— “Says Abu Bekr Ahmed ibn Wahshiya: This month is called Tammuz, according to what the Nabataeans say, as I have found it in their books, and is named after a man of whom a strange long story is told, and who was put to death, they relate, several times in succession in a most cruel manner. Each of their months is named after some excellent and learned man, who was one, in ancient times, of those Nabataeans that inhabited the land of Babel before the Chaldaeans. This Tammuz was not one of the Chaldaeans, nor of the Canaanites, nor of the Hebrews, nor of the Assyrians, but of the primeval Ianbams …. All the Sabians of our time, down to our own day, wail and weep over Tammuz in the month of that name, on the occasion of a festival in his honour, and make great lamentation over him; especially the women, who all arise, both here (at Bagdad) and at Harran, and wail and weep over Tammuz. They tell a long and silly story about him; but, as I have clearly ascertained, not one of either sect has any certain information regarding Tammuz, or the reason of their lamenting over him. However, after I had translated this book, I found in the course of my reading the statement that Tammuz was a man concerning whom there was a legend, and that he had been put to death in a shameful manner. That was all; not another word about him. They knew nothing more about him than to say, ‘We found our ancestors weeping and wailing over him in this way at this feast that is called after him Tammuzi.’ My own opinion is, that this festival which they hold in commemoration of Tammuz is an ancient one, and has maintained itself till now, whilst the story connected with him has been forgotten, owing to the remoteness of his age, so that no one of these Sabians at the present day knows what his story was, nor why they lament over him.”

326. According to the reconstruction of the historical background of the Tammuz myth suggested here, Balthi (Isis, Aphrodite) was the concubine of Baal Shamin (= Ouranos = Noah), who was transferred to Hephaestus (= Ptah = Ham), the founding father of Egypt. As a result of the disgrace she suffered, she fled from her consort Baal Shamin. During this earlier phase of her life she opposed the idolatry of the priest Sin (= Cush), and, along with others, relatives of Abraham, set fire to the idolatrous temple and city of Harran. Later she was abducted by Nimrod or Cuthar (Elos-Kronos), and taken to wife by him. During this latter phase of her life she adopted the idolatrous practices and licentious lifestyle of her new husband, setting up her abode in Cuthar’s fortress Gebal on the coast of Canaan, and bringing the neighboring island of Cyprus under his sway. She committed adultery with Ares (= Amraphel, Baal Melqart), and subsequently fell in love with Cuthar’s son, Tammuz. There was a religious difference, as well as sexual jealousy, between the two figures: Ares rejected the worship of the planets and stars promoted by Tammuz. (Sumerian epic literature recounting the exploits of the early kings of the First Dynasty of Uruk confirms that they worshiped principally the sun, moon and planets.) Balthi’s earlier partner, Hephaestus, sought her and attempted to take her back, but was murdered by Tammuz. Tammuz himself fell a victim to a wild boar (seen as the embodiment of Ares’ jealousy) in a hunting accident in Lebanon. It was believed he was killed multiple times by Ares, as after each slaying he revived again. (Doubtless this was an attempt to account for the identification of Tammuz with successive kings. Cf. the explanation of the extraordinary long life of Ninus-Serapis-Zeus, §101.18, above, >>.) Once dead, his bones were ground in a mill and the fragments scattered to the winds. Tammuz was ritually mourned by Cuthar and Balthi, and Balthi’s mourning ritual turned into an idolatrous tradition, celebrated each year in the month named Tammuz (July), after her lover. The gods of the planets were specifically involved in the myth because the figures were identified with astral deities as follows: 1) Noah (Baal Shamin, Ouranos) = Heaven, 2) Ham (Hephaestus, Ptah) = the Sun, 3) Cush (Sin, Thoth) = the Moon (secondarily also = Helios, Ra = the Sun, as the moon observably shines by reflected light from the sun), 4) Nimrod (Cuthar, Ea, Elos-Kronos, Geb) = Saturn, 5) Tammuz (Osiris) = Jupiter, 6) Amraphel (Ares, Baal Melqart) = Mars, 7) Noah’s concubine (Balthi, Isis) = Venus, 8) Canaan (Hermes Trismegistus in multiple incarnations including Eliezer, traditionally a son of Nimrod) = Mercury. (The last is listed in Peri Theon as the tutor of Sesostris III, but does not feature explicitly in the Syriac sources.)

327. In Huetius’ historical explanation of the myth of Adonis adopted by Le Clerc (1686), the alternative genealogy of Adonis, representing him as a son of Zeus and Myrrha, rather than of Phoenix (= Canaan) and Alphesiboea, allowed an identification of the mythological with Biblical figures as follows: Myrrha was the mother of Adonis (= Canaan) by Ham (= Hammon = Amun = Zeus). Myrrha, accompanied by her son Adonis, stumbled across her father Kinuras (= Noah) in a drunken state, exposed. She informed her husband Ham. Ham told his brothers and they covered their father. When made aware of this incident, Kinuras cursed Myrrha and Adonis (= the Biblical cursing of Canaan by Noah). Myrrha was banished to the wilds of Arabia. Subsequently she and her husband Ammon (= Ham) migrated to Egypt, where Ammon set up his kingdom. The weakest point in this reconstruction was the identification of Adonis with Canaan. Canaan clearly corresponds to Phoenix the father of Adonis, not to Adonis himself. In the common version of the myth Adonis is Kinuras’ child by incest with his daughter Myrrha. The father and daughter are brought together by trickery at the autumn festival “of Ceres,” when Kinuras is drunk, and unaware of the identity of his consort. As soon as he realizes what he has done, he is filled with rage against Myrrha and tries to kill her. She flees into the wilderness. Desiring neither life nor death, she is transformed by the gods into a myrrh tree (myrrha = “myrrh”), from which Adonis, the fruit of her incest, springs forth nine months later. The myrrh tree bears an obvious relationship to the “wood of Isis” in the myth of Osiris, Osiris being identified in antiquity with Adonis: the “wood of Isis” was a stump of tamarisk, from which the “remains” of Osiris, i.e. a portion of the wood, were extracted by Isis, and which were then anointed with myrrh, like an embalmed corpse, and set up as an object of worship in Byblos. Myrrha (that is “the wood of Isis”) in the myth of Adonis plays the part of the concubine (Balthi, Isis), and female descendant (“daughter”), of Noah (Kinuras), who consorts with him when he is drunk, and is the mother of Canaan (Phoenix). The Bible implies the transfer of Noah’s concubine happened at some kind of family gathering, like a festival, because the world is said to have already been settled “by dispersion” by the sons of Noah and their descendants (Gen. 9. 19, preceding the incident in Noah’s tent, verse 20), yet all three sons of Noah were at this time present with Noah beside his tent, not scattered in their different realms. Also Noah was drunk from the wine of a vineyard he had just planted, which implies the time of the festal gathering was Fall, the season of grape-harvest. The festival is identified as the harvest festival of Ceres in the Adonis myth. Canaan, the son of the concubine, becomes thereafter the father of Tammuz (Adonis). In other words, the birth of Adonis from Myrrha is at one remove, and he is her “son” only in the ancient, oriental, sense of that term: Myrrha is the “stock” (= tree) from which Adonis is born. The West Semitic word kinnor, “lyre,” and the related Greek word kinura, from which is formed the name Kinuras, denotes the instrument “which lay in the lap of Naamah,” Noah’s wife, since the kinnor is said in Gen. 4. 21 to have been one of the musical instruments favored in her house: her brother Jubal was the “father [patron] of all who handle the kinnor ….” Thus “Kinuras, Lyre,” the common turned into a personal noun, denotes Noah himself, who similarly “laid in the lap of Naamah.” On another level it identifies the lyre (kinnor) as the “father” of “bitter weeping” (Myrrha, myrrh, from a root signifying “bitter drop, flow”), of the kind which characterized the cult of Adonis. On yet another level it identifies Noah as Heaven, or, more precisely, as the realm of the seven harmonious spheres, of which the seven-stringed lyre was held in antiquity to be a symbolic representation. Kinuras would be analogous, according to this interpretation, to the name Ouranos, “Heaven,” applied to Noah in the Sibylline Oracles, and the “bitter flow” produced from the heavenly lyre a covert reference to the Noachide Flood. The name of the wife of Kronos and of Nimrod-Kronos in Peri Theon “Philura” or “Lover of the Lyre,” identifies this woman, on the same principle, as the concubine of Noah, taken by Nimrod. Theias, “the Divine One,” stands for Kinuras in some versions of the myth, and this, presumably, is a reference to Noah’s apotheosis in the pagan interpretation of his history. Note the connection of Adonis with the motif of the transfer of Noah’s concubine, as in the oriental versions of the Tammuz myth in the Melitonian fragment and Peri Theon.

328. Baalat or Aphrodite in these accounts is the lover of Tammuz-Adonis. In Mesopotamia she is called Inana or Ishtar, the consort of Dumuzi. Inana means “Mistress (In-) of Heaven (-ana),” which is precisely what this Aphrodite was. Inana was both the wife, and the daughter of An, or Anu, the god of heaven. Noah’s concubine was his wife, and she must also have been his “daughter,” i.e. descendant, since she was not one of the original eight saved in the Inundation. Under the name “Aster” (= Ishtar, Inana), she features in the Chronicle of Michael of Syria as the daughter of Noah, and the ancestress of the Queen of Sheba (ed. trans. Langlois, 1868, pp. 29, 57), and in Mar Abas Catina (§920, below, >>), as Astlik, “Little Star,” the daughter of Xisuthrus-Noah. The god the Greeks called the Phoenician Ares, i.e. Melqart (Nergal, identified with Amraphel-Gilgamesh), in the form of a boar, a Tuphonian animal, slew Adonis (Tammuz), and so removed him as a rival suitor for the hand of Aphrodite (= Inana, the daughter and concubine of Noah, representing universal dominion; cf. the Armenian Astlik, likewise consort of Vahagn-Mars). In one aspect, and particularly amongst the Tyrians, Baal Melqart was a High-god, like Marduk of Babylon, and hence played the same Enlil-like role that Marduk played (Baal Melqart, Ares = “Sosis,” Shu [Enlil]). In fact, it was believed in antiquity that Baal Melqart of Tyre was one and the same god as Bel of Babylon. (From a poem of Dorotheus Sidonius, cited by Salmasius ad Solin., p. 1227b, apparently from a work in the Palatine Library: “Ancient Babylon, the city of the Tyrian Belos.” Also Nonnus, Dionysiaca XL. 400: “Star-clad Herakles [= Melqart], Lord of Fire, Ruler of the Universe, Called Belos on the Euphrates, and Libyan Ammon.”) Note the equation of all the figures who interrupted the union of the concubine (Nut = Inana) and her partner (Geb = El-Kronos, Nimrod), viz. Ham, Heth and Amraphel, with Shu (= Enlil, Bel) in the traditions underlying the scheme in Peri Theon. In another aspect, Baal Melqart represented the negative powers of the underworld, and that aspect was emphasized in native Egyptian mythology, where Phoenicians were demonized, and their High-god, Baal Melqart, identified with the anti-god Seth. The Melitonian version of the myth represents the goddess as having had a liaison with Ares before he killed Tammuz. The Phoenician Ares, Melqart, was the same as the Mesopotamian god of the underworld and of the planet Mars, Nergal. The Melitonian myth is thus an interpretation of Inana’s descent into the underworld and the consequent death of Tammuz, as the result of an interest on the part of the flirtatious Inana for Nergal, the husband of Ereshkigal, Queen of Hell. The otherwise mysterious action of Inana in undertaking the perilous journey to the infernal realm is thereby explained, and the murderous opposition she encountered from Ereshkigal. Its historical context is the transition of power in Uruk from Tammuz to his brother Gilgamesh (Amraphel). The Phoenician myth blames the jealousy of Nergal for Tammuz’s death. The fact that Tammuz’ successor on the throne of Uruk, viz. Gilgamesh, was identified with Nergal, suggests the accession of Gilgamesh was interpreted as a manifestation of the triumph of Nergal over Tammuz. In Egyptian myth, Tammuz was Osiris and Nergal-Melqart Seth. The Egyptian priests likewise interpreted the death of Osiris as the result of murderous jealousy on the part of his brother Seth.

329. The treatment of these gods as kings of Egypt is not a Greek invention, but depends on native Egyptian tradition. The Turin Canon dating from Dynasty XIX already refers to Ra, Geb and the others as the earliest kings of Egypt. The same is found in the latest Ptolemaic period in an inscription from Saft el-Henneh, the ancient Per-Sopdu, capital of the 20th Lower Egyptian nome. This represents Ra, Shu and Geb as kings of the earliest ages, and details incidents during their reigns, including defensive actions against invading Asiatics on the north-eastern border. It provides what amounts to a sequel to the preceding account of differences between Shu and Geb. When Shu died, or “flew up to heaven,” as the inscription puts it, Geb took Shu’s spouse, Tefnut, by force. (Shu = Enlil = Dagon = Ham. Geb = Kronos = Nimrod. Compare the seizure of Ham’s wife, originally Noah’s concubine, by Nimrod.) Geb’s action is implicitly criticized and negative references are made in the following stanzas to Asiatic influences on Geb, exemplified e.g. by the Asiatic attendants who carried his scepter, and who lived “on what the gods abominate.” This confirms Geb’s association in the context of his reign over earliest Egypt with Asia (Babel) as described here. After suffering from a fever brought on by the bite of the uraeus (a snake symbolizing the “eye” [radiation] of the sun-god Ra) Geb received healing through a talismanic representation of the uraeus set upon his head, and then reigned successfully, according to the Saft el-Henneh text, building many magnificent structures throughout the land. (Compare Geb’s trouble with serpents = sins in §320, above, >>. The meaning is that the earth in the reign of Nimrod [Geb], was affected by a natural calamity caused by solar radiation [fever from the poison of the serpent], and the calamity was averted by the sacrifice of a child [Heth, Ieoud, Djet, the uraeus or Ra’s “Uadjet-eye” in a bodily form], represented thereafter by the rearing uraeus on the frontispiece of Pharaoh’s chaplet. See §333, below, >>, on the identity of the child and his identification with the eye of the sun-god.) The hostility between the Egyptian god-kings and Asiatics reflects the historical situation after the dispersal from Babel, and is described similarly, in Classical euhemeristic terms, by Castor and Thallus in their account of the Titan War (§112, above, >>). There Geb is “Kronos the Titan,” viz. Kronos the Hamite, in conflict with the Babylonian and Assyrian (Asiatic) Jupiter, Belus. A more circumstantial account is found in the Samaritan chronicle Asatir, based on earlier Arabic and Coptic sources, detailing Nimrod’s actions against the Semitic Ludites of Egypt immediately after the Dispersal from the Tower, §626.25.1, below, >>. The latter are said to have opposed the occupation of the Levant by the Canaanites and hence to have been opposed in turn by Nimrod.

330. Another reference to the usurpation of Noah by Nimrod is found in Peri Theon (§101.14, above, >>). This relates that Kronos (Nimrod-Enmerkar in Cedrenus) had a son Aphros, the eponymous ancestor of the Africans. Aphros, in turn had a daughter by Astunome called Aphrodite. This same Aphrodite in different texts of Peri Theon was the wife or consort a) of Ouranos, b) of Ares (Shu or Thouros) and c) of Adonis. We have already identified this Aphrodite, representing an illicit liaison, as the concubine of Noah-Ouranos, taken from him by Nimrod-Kronos and transferred to Ham-Dagon. (She is not the same person as the Phoenician Aphrodite, Eshterah, Ashtart, Astarte, another daughter of Ouranos married by Elos-Kronos, who is Nin-sumun of the First Dynasty of Uruk. The former is Balthi, Baalat Gebal, i.e. Isis, identified with Hathor, the Egyptian Aphrodite. Astarte and Baaltis-Dione are two different women, though both were wives of Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon, and their mythologies were fused in Egypt.) The mention here of Aphros, which means “foam,” as father of Aphrodite, is an allusion to the widespread Greek myth that Aphrodite sprang from (Greek -dite) the “foam” (Greek Aphro-) produced from the genitals of Ouranos which fell into the sea when he was castrated by Kronos. Clearly then, in the underlying tradition, it was Ouranos who was the real “father” of Aphros, not Kronos. That Kronos here usurped the place of Ouranos is further evidence of the fact that Nimrod took a principal part in the shaming of Noah, and assumed authority over his concubine, as in Sanchuniathon’s account of the war between Ouranos and Elos-Kronos. Aphros and his brother Buthos were two “hippocentaurs,” identified as the two fishes of Pisces, who brought Aphrodite and her son Eros to safety, when the latter cast themselves into the water through fear of Tuphon, or alternatively Aphrodite and Eros were themselves the two fishes. In the ancient Hebrew zodiac the two fishes of Pisces corresponded to Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, as, in the Greek myth, Aphros, and therefore also his brother Buthos, was both the physical issue of Ouranos (= Noah in the Sibylline Oracles and Sanchuniathon), and a fish in Pisces. In the Hebrew scheme, Shem was the preceding sign Aquarius and Noah himself Capricorn, the sign before Aquarius. (The Hebrew zodiac began with Aries = Adam, as the first sign, and the first month, Nisan, ran through Methuselah = Scorpio/Ophiuchus as the eighth sign, and the eighth month Marcheshvan, Methuselah being the eighth in descent from Adam, and ended with Noah, Shem, Ham/Japheth as the tenth, eleventh and twelfth signs, months and generations respectively. Japheth could be reckoned as the twelfth generation, following Shem in the eleventh, because Noah prophesied [Gen. 9. 27] he would dwell “in the tents of Shem,” meaning in the status of a son in his household, under his headship and instruction in the knowledge of God. The dual nature of the last sign, Pisces, aptly represented the dual nature of the last month Adar, which was doubled in some years as a “second Adar” to keep the lunar months in line with the solar year. The root of the month-name Addaru, viz. the verb adaru, “be troubled, gloomy, turbid, fearful,” etc., was written with the same signs, KA×MI, as the word for “gloom, darkness,” which represented Ham in the cosmic sphere, see §129 subsection 3, above, >>.) The earlier identification of the two fishes of Pisces was with Ham and Japheth, corresponding to Aphros and Buthos. Later the adherents of Nimrod’s cult reapplied the signs to Aphrodite and Eros. Aphros, the eponymus of the Africans, stood for Ham as the ancestor of the nations of Africa. Buthos, meaning “great depth or expanse of water,” was an oceanic simile signifying the “expansion” of Japheth and his descendants over the isles of the sea (Gen. 10. 5). Bochart wrote an interesting paragraph (Geographia Sacra, 1681, p.10) interpreting the Aramaic words putya yama, “expanse [from pty, related to ypt, whence Japheth] of the sea” as a mythological reference to Noah’s Neptune-like son, Japheth. Although Japheth’s identification with Neptune is questionable, the connection with putya is credible, and since the Aphros-Buthos myth had North African (Canaanite) associations, it is likely the Greek buthos represented an original Semitic word, related, if not identical, to the Aramaic putya.

331. We return now to the mythological background of Sanchuniathon’s account. From an oriental myth similar to the Hittite one the Greek poet Hesiod borrowed his theogony, in which Ouranos was overthrown and castrated by his son, Kronos, and Kronos then proceeded to devour his children, but Zeus escaped and eventually deposed his father Kronos. To that extent, Sanchuniathon’s thesis is vindicated, that the Greeks borrowed and adapted earlier oriental models. However, the major part of the narrative of that mythology, according to Sanchuniathon, was derived from the history of the “Golden Age:” historical characters of that period were identified with gods of nature, and the personal histories of the latter intertwined with elements of the greater cosmic, or in their terms, divine, drama. These historical characters are known to us both from pagan proto-historical documents, early epic and other literature, as also from the Bible. Principally, they were: Noah (Ziusudra) and his pre-diluvian progenitors; the earliest post-diluvian patriarchs, particularly those of the line of Shem (the first post-diluvian dynasty of Kish); and, generally opposed to the latter, the Hamites of the line of Cush (the first dynasty of Uruk, and the first dynasty of Egypt). Specifically, as we have seen:

Noah-Ziusudra was identified with the god of heaven (Anu, Baal Shamin, Ouranos, Caelum).

Nimrod-Enmerkar was identified with Saturn (Ea, El, Geb, Kronos).

Canaan-Lugal-banda was identified with Jupiter, the god of fertilizing rain (Ninurta, Hadad, Zeus), and

Nin-sumun, his wife, was identified with Venus (Gula, Eshterah, Ashtart, Astarte, Aphrodite). The concubine of Noah (Baalat Gebal, Isis, Hathor) was fused with this figure.

Amraphel-Gilgamesh was identified with Mars (Nergal, Melqart, Seth, Tuphon, Herakles, Ares).

Other important figures were:

Ham-Puzur, the son of Noah, identified with the Sun (Puzur or Utu, Shamash, Ra or Amun Ptah Ta-tenen, Titan) and with Dagon or Dagan (Enlil), and Min.

Cush-Mes-kianga-sher, identified with Bel, originally the light-god Asari, who was in one aspect the Moon (Thoth = Khensu, son of Amun, a moon-god in Egypt, corresponding to Zu’en [Sin] son of Enlil in Mesopotamia, though the Greeks commonly identified Thoth with their god Hermes), and in another aspect the Sun, Bel Marduk, Asshur, Amun-Ra and Hammon.

Cush specifically was the Second Hermes, whilst the Third Hermes, Trismegistus (Damascus-Eliezer, son and re-incarnation of Canaan, traditionally also a son of Nimrod), was identified with the god Min, or Pan, and with the planet Mercury.

Sidon, son of Canaan, viz. Tammuz, whose death became the centerpiece of a fertility-cult, was identified with Sirius, the brightest of the fixed stars, with Osiris and/or Horus in Egypt, with Adonis in Phoenicia, and Dionysus, Bacchus, Iacchus etc. in the Classical world. As his cult rose in popularity, Tammuz-Osiris, or the king in whom he was re-embodied, became identified with the Jupiter-figure, Marduk in Mesopotamia, and Amun in Egypt. The original Jupiter-figure representing the kings of the First Dynasty of Uruk, viz. Ninurta, was now identified with the planet Saturn, becoming a deus otiosus. Hence the common equation of Nimrod-Enmerkar with Saturn. The era of the First Dynasty of Uruk, and particularly that phase of it which preceded the dispersion, came to be treated as a mythical “Golden Age” under the dominion of the old planet-god Saturn (Ninurta). This was in contrast to the current era, of whatever dynasty was ruling at the time, whose kings, the reincarnations of Tammuz, identified themselves with the dominant planet, Jupiter. Sidon’s brother, Heth, son of Canaan, Ama-ushumgal-ana, was identified with Tammuz. He was the Arueris, or Elder Horus, of Egyptian mythology. Arueris, in turn, was assimilated to Shu, Anhur etc. Heth was ritually sacrificed by Nimrod in a time of drought, and this sacrifice was re-enacted and repeated in later times, notably by the Canaanites, to avert natural and national catastrophes. Further, in respect of the planetary identifications, refer to the chart at §318.2, above, >>.

331.1. The next section of Sanchuniathon’s account deals mainly with his relationship with his children. It reads as follows:

[PE I. x. 19] “After this Kronos builds a wall round his own dwelling, and founds the first city in Phoenicia, Byblos.

[PE I. x. 20] “Soon after this he became suspicious of his own brother Atlas, and, with the advice of Hermes, threw him into a deep pit and buried him. At about this time the descendants of the Dioskouroi put together rafts and ships, and made voyages; and, being cast ashore near Mount Kassios, consecrated a temple there. And the allies of Elos, who is Kronos, were surnamed Eloim, as these same, who were surnamed after Kronos, would have been called Kronioi.

[PE I. x. 21] “And Kronos, having a son Sadidos, dispatched him with his own iron weapon, because he regarded him with suspicion, and robbed him of his soul, by thus becoming the murderer of the child.

“In like manner he cut off the head of his own daughter [viz. Athena: she was the sole surviving daughter up to this point in the narrative]; so that all the gods were dismayed at the disposition of Kronos.

[PE I. x. 22] “But as time went on Ouranos, being in banishment, secretly sends his maiden daughter Astarte with two others her sisters, Rhea and Dione, to slay Kronos by craft. But Kronos caught them, and though they were his sisters, made them his wedded wives.

[PE I. x. 23] “And when Ouranos knew it, he sent Heimarmene and Hora with other allies on an expedition against Kronos, and these Kronos won over to his side and kept with him.

“Further, he says, the god Ouranos devised Baitulia [= “Bethels” or sacred stone pillars], having contrived to put life into stones. And to Kronos there were born of Astarte seven daughters, Titanides or Artemides: [PE I. x. 24] and again to the same there were born of Rhea seven children, of whom Most Youthful was offered up, and his life too, in a sacred ritual; and of Dione females, and of Astarte again two males, Desire (Pothos) and Love (Eros). [PE I. x. 25] And Dagon, after he discovered corn and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios.

“And one of the Titanides united to Suduk, who is named the Just, gives birth to Asklepios.

[PE I. x. 26] “In Trans-Euphrates there were also born to Kronos three sons, Kronos of the same name with his father, and Zeus Belos, and Apollo.

….. [PE I. x. 30] …. Again, the historian adds to this, after other matters: [PE I. x. 31] “But Astarte, the greatest goddess, and Zeus Demarous and Adodos, king of gods, reigned over the country with the consent of Kronos. And Astarte set the head of a bull upon her own head as a mark of royalty; and in traveling round the world she found a star that had fallen from the sky, which she took up and made the object of a cult in the holy island Tyre. [PE I. x. 32] And the Phoenicians say that Astarte is Aphrodite.

“Kronos also, in going round the world, gives the kingdom of Attica to his own daughter Athena. [PE I. x. 33] But on the occurrence of a pestilence and mortality Kronos consecrates his only begotten son to his father Ouranos as a fruit-offering wholly burnt by fire, and cuts his private parts completely off, compelling also his armed companions to do the same, along with him. [PE I. x. 34] After a not much different sequence of events, his child by Rhea, named Mouth [Death], once dead, he offers up in a sacred ritual. [Alternative translation: “And after a short space of time, he offers up a different child of his, named Mouth by Rhea, once dead.”] The Phoenicians thus denominate Thanatos [Death] and Plouto [the god of the Underworld]. [PE I. x. 35] And after this Kronos gives the city Byblos to the goddess Baaltis, who is also called Dione, and Berutos to Poseidon and to the Kabeiroi and Agrotai and Halieis, who also consecrated the remains of Pontos at Berutos.

[The following sections from Sanchuniathon’s other work, History of the Jews, have been relocated here because of the similarity of the subject-matter.] [PE I. x. 42] “The same author, in his History of the Jews, further writes thus concerning Kronos:…. And soon after he says ….:

[PE I. x. 44] “It was a custom of the ancients in great crises of danger for the rulers of a city or nation, in order to avert the common ruin, to give up the most beloved of their children for sacrifice as a ransom to the avenging daemons; and those who were thus given up were sacrificed with mystic rites. Kronos then, whom the Phoenicians call Elos, who was king of the country and subsequently, after his decease, was deified as the star [i.e. planet] Saturn, had by a nymph of the country named Anobret an only begotten son, whom they on this account called Ieoud, the only begotten being still so called among the Phoenicians [Ieoud = Heb. yāḥiyd, “only one,” cf. Zechariah 12. 10-12, where yāḥiyd, “Only One,” “Firstborn,” and the Canaanite divine name “Hadad-Rimmon” are used as equivalent terms to denote a person who has died and is the object of a mourning rite, the god Hadad (Gk. Zeus) being the son of El or Elos (Gk. Kronos)]; and when very great dangers from war had beset the country, he arrayed his son in royal apparel, and prepared an altar, and sacrificed him.”

332. In Sanchuniathon (§398, below, >>) Elos-Kronos has a child named Mouth, identified with the Greek “Thanatos,” “Death,” and “Plouto,” god of the underworld. The native Canaanite word for “Death” was “Mot,” and this appears in Sanchuniathon in Greek transcription as “Mouth” (pronounced “Mooth” = Canaanite mwt). He was appropriately offered up by Elos-Kronos as a sacrifice “once dead.” It is implied the name referred to the manner or circumstances of his death. A Biblical patriarch with the name Hazar-Maveth, “Zone of Death” (Mouth = Canaanite mwt, Hebrew maveth), appears in Genesis 10. 26 as a son of Joktan, the son of Eber, and is the eponymus of Hadramut in the south of the Arabian peninsula: since Joktan in post-Biblical tradition (§211, above, >>) is the brother-in-law of Asteria, or “Astaroth,” a form of Astarte, and Astarte is the consort of Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon’s account, this Hazar-Maveth might also be termed a “son” (in the ancient, traditional, genealogical sense, strictly a nephew by marriage) of Elos-Kronos. Being of Semitic descent, he would be counted as of the line of Rhea (= “Semite,” §101.11, above, >>): Sanchuniathon’s Mouth is likewise, and specifically, a son of Elos-Kronos “by Rhea.” The Asteria genealogy will be shown to relate (§349.0.3, below, >>) to the descent of the Kabeiroi, the eight “sons of Suduk,” from Aiguptos (Mizraim, Men). Both elements of the name Hazar-Maveth can be traced, accordingly, in the two titles-cum-names of the fourth of eight kings of the First Dynasty of Egypt, which was headed up by Men: the royal title of that fourth king is spelled with two hieroglyphic signs which read “Mu-t” (§626.7, below, >>). The name Hazar-Maveth appears also in the medieval Defloratio Berosi as Sarmates (Sar- = Hazar-, -mates = -maveth), the son of Ister (Ister = Joktan), the eponymus of the Sarmatians (§888.8, below, >>, commentary, and §889.6 note, below, >>), including the Amazons, amongst whom physical mutilation of the kind evidenced in the sacrifice of Mouth and the reversal of sexual roles was customary. Plouto, the Greek god of the underworld, was identified by the Greeks with the Egyptian Serapis (Osiris, Khenty-Amentiu), god of the dead. The cult of Osiris was phallic, and Sanchuniathon says that in the process of sacrificing his other son “Ieoud” — Sanchuniathon’s transcription of the Canaanite term meaning “only begotten son” — as a whole burnt-offering, Elos-Kronos castrated both the victim himself, and his armed companions. This particular form of sacrifice is said to have been necessary to avert a natural calamity that was devastating the country at the time. A “not much different” sequence of events is said to have led to the sacrifice subsequently of Mouth. Serapis, son of Geb, corresponds to Sanchuniathon’s Plouto, son of Elos-Kronos. Similarly in the Excerpta Barbari Ninus is identified with Serapis and Plouto, and in Peri Theon Ninos is the son of Nimrod-Kronos and Rhea. The word “child” (Greek pais) used to describe Mouth in Philo’s translation is significant, because pais in similar contexts denotes the youthful dying god (see §349.0.1, below, >>), who corresponds to Damu in Mesopotamian mythology, and with whom Tammuz in Mesopotamia, and equivalent gods in other cultures, were identified. Ugaritic mythology refers to Mot as the “Beloved,” as well as the son of El (Elos-Kronos), and to the winnowing of Mot (= Mouth) like grain, in a way reminiscent of the fate of Tammuz (ground in a mill and scattered to the winds) in the medieval Harranian tradition. Elos-Kronos believed he had thus “robbed the soul” of the sacrificial victim, and appropriated it to himself (compare the assimilation of one god to another by the capture and slaughter of the god in Mesopotamian paganism, §128, above, >>). The name “Mouth,” Death, was bestowed on the child because death had overcome him. Properly speaking, and by the same principle, Mouth represented the person or spirit responsible for his death, viz. Nergal, Mars, the god of the underworld, then secondarily the child himself, and thirdly Elos-Kronos, who offered his remains up in sacrifice. The last is the likely occasion of the grinding of his bones in a mill. Nergal in Mesopotamia was the sun in winter, and was also, significantly, a dying and rising god. He died in midsummer and rose to new life in midwinter. The pattern is identical to that in the Tammuz myth, and both Nergal and Tammuz were identified with the sun. One of the primitive and principal Father-Mother-Son triads in Mesopotamia was the triad of Ninurta, the Father, of Gula, the Mother and healer-goddess, and of Damu, the Son, the god of healing. Damu actually means “Son.” He became identified with the hero-god Marduk in Babylon, and with equivalent chief deities in other cities. Damu was in many ways, not only by denomination, the prototypical divine “Son.” Ancient epics gave Enmerkar (= Nimrod, Elos-Kronos) a Ninurta-like role, and Ninurta was the divine Father, thus it would be natural for his children to become identified with Ninurta’s son, Damu. And as Damu was identified, in turn, with the High-god Marduk, divine attributes of the various deities to whom Marduk was assimilated, including Nergal, Adad (= Hadad), etc., could easily pass onto these children, selected according to their individual characteristics. Motifs from some such complex of traditions became attached to the deified sacrificial victims of Elos-Kronos. We find the son of Elos-Kronos referred to supra identified with the Nergal-like god of death, Mot. The name Ieoud given to the other sacrificed son was formed from the same root as the divine name Hadad, according to the ancient understanding of the etymology of the latter name, viz. from the root yḥd = ’ḥd, “one.” A mourned god, a dying god, called Hadad-Rimmon, and titled equivalently in Hebrew Yaḥid, the “Only One,” is mentioned in Zechariah (12. 11) as figuring in a cult in a valley at Megiddo in the post-Exilic period. Likewise Nin-sumun was identified with Gula, the mother-goddess, therefore her son, Dumuzi (Tammuz) was identified with Gula’s son, Damu. Damu was called Eshmun, the “Healer,” in Canaan and Asklepios by the Greeks, and the latter was typically decked out with the serpentine and canine attributes of Damu and Gula (see further §349ff., below, >>). This latter cult gained a special popularity as that of the loving Mother and Son, in contrast to that of the dire Father and his helpless victim.

332.1. In this and related sections of Sanchuniathon the principal reference is to the vile practice of child-sacrifice, which in later times was common amongst the Canaanites. Sanchuniathon claims it was the invention of Elos-Kronos. (Compare this with Aelian’s story which depicts Euechoros, i.e. Enmerkar-Nimrod, as an infanticide, §185, above, >>.) Even his devoted followers, the so-called “Elohim,” the “gods” or attendants of El, found it difficult to excuse infanticide when he first resorted to it. Classical sources and archaeological discoveries in the Canaanite colonies of North Africa confirm that the infants were sacrificed to the Canaanite god Baal Hamon, i.e. Kumarbi or Dagon. (Kumarbi and Dagon were alternative names for the Mesopotamian god Enlil, and both Enlil and Ea were identified with the Canaanite El. El, in turn, was equated with the Greek Kronos, and the Roman Saturnus. Hence Baal Hamon came to be identified with the latter two Classical divinities.) In the Hurrian myth Kumarbi (= Enlil, El, Dagon, Baal Hamon, Ham) demands ritual child-sacrifice of his own son in the course of the therapeutic treatment offered to him by Aya (= Ea, Enki, El, Elos-Kronos, Nimrod), §318, above, >>. El, representing one or both of these divinities, is called Molech in the Bible, which is the word for “king,” but supplied with the vowels of the Hebrew word for “disgrace,” bosheth. The cult of Molech involved the immolation of infants. It is also significant that the “robbing” of the victim’s soul by Elos-Kronos had the effect of identifying the sacrificer with the sacrificial victim, in this case, Elos-Kronos with his victim-son, Ieoud, and with Mouth-Plouto. It was, of course, customary also for the priest to devour the sacrifice. This explains the anomaly already referred to whereby Nimrod was Ninos, and yet Ninos was also the son of Nimrod. Since Ninos-Plouto (Serapis, Osiris etc.) was the “soul” of Nimrod-Kronos, viz. the son who was his sacrificial victim, Nimrod-Kronos had himself become Ninos-Plouto, Serapis, Osiris etc.

333. The “robbing of the soul” of the sacrificed child in each case identified the child with Elos-Kronos, and also with each other sacrificed infant. In this way Sadidos, the first child-victim of Elos-Kronos (§385, below, >>), “became” Mouth-Plouto and Ieoud. Ieoud means “Only One.” The Sumerian ushumgal likewise means “Only One” and is translated into the Semitic dialect of Babylonia as edu, “single, only one, etc.,” from the same root as Ieoud. With the addition of the final -ana, which is often appended to Sumerian names, and the initial ama-, the name in Sumerian means “Mother (ama) Only One (ushumgal) [the chief (ana)].” The feminine term “mother” surely relates to Ieoud’s castration, as well as to the original primal “Mother” Eve (see infra). The feminine of the Babylonian edu (= ushumgal) is ettu, which is the precise equivalent of the Hebrew name Heth, of the son of Canaan, and younger brother of Sidon (= Tammuz, see §334ff., below, >>), Gen. 10. 15 (§140.2, above, >>). The initial Ama- could be omitted and the name written Ushumgal-ana, that is, Edu = Ieoud, or (in the feminine form) Ettu (= Heth). Therefore, the Biblical Heth is the Sumerian (Ama-)ushumgal-ana. As well as meaning “only one,” the Sumerian ushumgal also means “great serpent.” This was further reason to identify the “female” (castrated) Ushumgal (Heth) with Eve, as Eve became one with the serpent, and her name was interpreted to mean “female serpent.” The Hittites, or descendants of Heth, were known accordingly as “Hivites” or “serpent-folk,” the gentilic formed from the same root as the name Eve (§140.2, above, >>). The feminine form, Ettu (= Heth), “Only One,” is a contraction of “Ed-tu” (masculine form ed-u, feminine form ed-tu), with elision of the “d” and duplication of the “t.” The biconsonantal root from which this word is formed is ḥd, which means “cut into individual pieces (hence “only one” etc.), slice, sharpen, smooth by cutting,” and then, “be smooth, slick, glossy, clear, bright, glad,” etc. The second consonant is subject to variation, ḥd, ḥṣ, ḥz, ḥt, etc., but the root meaing remains the same. (Gesenius-Tregelles s.v. ḥṣṣ). Thus, instead of Ed-tu, we might find Eṣ-tu, or, in Egyptian Edj-et, where the Egyptian dj corresponds to the Semitic ṣ, and the feminine ending is conventionally written -et, not -tu. In Egypt there was a female serpent-goddess called Edjet (written dj-t, without the vowels), whose name, represented by the hieroglyph of a serpent, was that of one of the earliest kings of the First Dynasty, and in honor of whom a feast began then to be celebrated. This name corresponds precisely to the Hebrew Heth. The Egyptian royal name is written variously Djet, Edjo, Uadjit, Wadjet, etc., in modern histories, depending on the vowels supplied by the historian in each case. Presumably, as it was the name of a serpent, the original meaning was “the smooth, slick, or, glossy one.” The eye of Horus was named identically Uadjit (Wadjet, etc.), and in mathematics this eye represented the number “One” (cf. edu/ettu, “one”). See further§613, below, >>. Reverting to the Sumerian nomenclature and mythology: Ama-ushumgal-ana was identified with Tammuz, and his death occurred, like that of Ieoud, at a time when he was dressed in royal robes, celebrating a feast. That is how his lover Inana (the bestower of the kingdom) is said to have found him when she ascended from Hell, feasting instead of mourning her loss. So she had him bound by demons and carried off to Hell as her substitute. His death was celebrated in the month Tammuz (roughly July) which was the Macedonian month Loos. In later times a festival called “Sakea” was celebrated in Babylon on the sixteenth of the month Loos for five days. The name of the festival is probably a reference to the Saka, “Sakaians” (see infra), or Scythians, that is the people of Aratta in the highlands of Afghanistan, from whom the Mesopotamians borrowed the rites of Dumuzi. The festival of Tammuz, El Buqat, was on the 15th of Tammuz. The Macedonian month-name Loos has here been substituted for the original oriental month-name Tammuz. The oriental day lasted from sun-down one day to sun-down the next, in this case, from sun-down on the 15th to sun-down on the 16th of Tammuz. Westerners reckoned it as the 16th based on the maximum number of daylight hours within the sun-down to sun-down period. Therefore the first day of the festival is called here the 16th of Loos, using the western reckoning and terminology. The festival lasted 5 days, terminating on the day sun-down 19th to sun-down 20th Tammuz. According to Berossus and Ctesias (apud Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, lib. XIV. cap. X, p. 639C) it was the custom during the five days of the festival for masters to obey their servants, and one servant, titled “Zoganes,” was conducted round the house dressed in the robe of a king. The name may be an attempt to represent in Greek the Sumerian Ushugal-ana ([U]shuga[l]ana > Zoganes, cf. Gk. Zames = Babylonian Shamash, §290, above, >>), which was a variant of (Ama-)ushumgal-ana. In the Persian period a prisoner condemned to death was chosen to be the mock king at the feast of the “Sakaians,” and during the days of the festival he was seated on the king’s own throne, was permitted to make what orders he chose, to eat and drink, none being allowed to oppose him, and even to have free access to the king’s concubines. At the end of the period (20th Tammuz/Loos), he was divested of his royal robe, beaten and crucified. (Dio Chrysostomus, Orationes IV De Regno, ed. Dindorf p. 76.) The theme of the reversal of roles of master and servant and the use of the actual king’s concubine, shows this ritual arose from the historical background already outlined: the birth of Tammuz, the consort of Noah’s concubine, from the servant-become-king Canaan-Phoenix (Lugal-banda).

334. Tammuz, that is, Dumuzi son of Nin-sumun of the First Dynasty of Uruk, is called Shukud in the Sumerian King List. This sobriquet is written with two signs: 1) the sign “shu” meaning “hand” or “catch with the hand,” and 2) the sign “kud” or (as here in the King List) the sign “pesh” meaning “fish.” Shukud (“fish-catcher”) is translated into Akkadian, the Semitic language of Babylonia, as bā’eru, “hunter, fisher.” Both the divine name Dumuzi and the title “hunter/fisher” are likely to have been given to this person later in life, once he proved his ability in the field, and achieved notoriety sufficient to turn him into a god in the eyes of the people. However, the two signs which form the sobriquet Shukud can be read in a different manner, and these alternative readings result in a name which might appropriately be given to an infant. The first sign “shu” (ŠU), when used in the verbal sense “catch with the hand,” as in the personal name under consideration, is read “shu-nigin” (ePSD Dictionary section, s.v. šuniĝin), that is, “hunt, catch, bag (nigin) [with the] hand (shu),” being the long form and synonym of nigin (NIĜIN), simply, “to hunt, catch, bag.” This word nigin is translated into Akkadian, amongst other things, as ṣâdu, “to hunt, fish,” ṣaidu, “one who hunts, fishes,” etc. The second word “pesh,” as well as meaning “fish,” also means “son” (Sumerian pesh = Akkadian maru, aplu, etc., “son”). When given to the new-born infant, therefore, the name was probably Shu-nigin Pesh, that is, the “Bagging (Shu-nigin) of a son/fish (pesh),” with a play on the two meanings of the latter word.

334.0.1. The sign “pesh” is read in Akkadian shahû, which is a fish of some sort, and this word, preceded by the sign for a star, is the name of the constellation otherwise known as Damu (viz. the constellation of the god Damu = Dumuzi, Adon, Baal Sidon, cf. pesh = “son,” damu = “son”). This is thought to be the constellation we call Delphinus, the Dolphin. The dolphin is the attribute of the Greek god Poseidon (Baal Sidon): the god himself (under the name Triton) is often depicted with a dolphin’s tail. The sign pesh in Sumerian is also translated into Akkadian as shalashti, “three,” whence the Greek Triton, Iranian Trita, Traitana, etc., formed from Indo-European words meaning “three,” for the sea-god. Further on Triton = shalashti, see §337.5, below, >>.

334.0.2. From the same Semitic root ṣd, “to fish, or, hunt,” comes the Phoenician name Sid [Ṣid]. Sid the “Hunter-fisher” is known from Phoenician inscriptions and is identified in those 1) with the Egyptian Djed pillar (Djed = Sid in Egyptian hieroglyphic script, the Egyptian letter dj corresponding to the Phoenician ṣ), which is Osiris himself in the form of a sacred column, and 2) with the god Shad-rapha, who is identified, in turn, with the Latin Liber Pater, i.e. Dionysus, the Classical equivalent of Osiris and Tammuz. For the reasons summarized infra Sid is Tammuz, Dumuzi Shu-nigin Pesh, the Hunter-fisher, whose cadaver was believed to be incorporated into a column formed from a tree-trunk, transported to Egypt by Isis and there worshiped as Osiris. Doubtless the Sumerian name Dumu-zi(d), “Child (dumu) of a support/reed (zid),” was interpreted in the Semitic dialect of Canaan as “Child Sid (‘hunter-fisher’),” though the meaning “support” for the second element was not forgotten, as the person so named was incorporated in a support or column, that is, in the Djed (= zid/Sid) pillar. The likelihood is that the Sumerian zi(d) represents a Semitic root sd or ṣd, meaning “to lay down on the side, place, establish, support,” whence, for example, Hebrew ysd, “to found,” sd, “a support,” and ṣd, “to lie on the side (in wait),” and thus also in the latter case “to hunt.” Another stem from the same root is Hebrew ṣdq (see §83 note, section [b], above, >>), which means “to be established, supportive” in a moral sense, that is, “to be righteous, loyal, true.” Tammuz, Dumu-zi(d), is the “Child (dumu) of Support (zi[d])” or the “Loyal (zi[d]) Son (dumu).” Tammuz (Adonis), the Phoenician hero and king, was the son of Alphesiboea wife of Phoenix-Canaan, i.e. of Nin-sumun, wife of Lugal-banda of the First Dynasty of Uruk.

334.0.3. This makes it probable that Sid (Tammuz), who has been thought to be the deity after whom the Canaanite city Sidon was named (same Semitic root), is the Biblical Sidon, the firstborn son of Canaan, son of Ham, Gen. 10. 15. In that case, Sidon was the original Semitic eponymus, and Dumu-zi(d), Tammuz, the Sumerian equivalent, explained in the Sumerian King List by the gloss “Shukud,” hunter-fisher. Note that the Bible in this case only in the list of names in Genesis 10 refers to Sidon as firstborn: “his [viz. Canaan’s] firstborn” (Heb. bekoro). He was Sidon Bekor, Sidon the firstborn son, confirming the interpretation of the name supra, Shu-nigin Pesh, the “bagging [viz. acquiring] of a son,” which implies he was a firstborn male.

334.0.4. The Greeks derived the name of the city Sidon from one Sidos (the Phoenician name Ṣid, followed by the Greek nominative termination -os), the equivalent of the Hebrew Sidon, and Sidos was the “son of Aiguptos” (see §211, above, >>, §349, below, >>). There was a female Side, the wife or daughter of Belos, and mother or sister of Aiguptos, and thus also the grandmother of Sidos, who was likewise believed to be the eponymus of the city. (For more on the historical Side and depictions of her, see §626.3, below, >>.) She is the female “Sidon” of Sanchuniathon (§393, below, >>), described there as the daughter of Pontos. The derivation of the eponymus Sidon = Sid = Saidu from ṣâdu = nigin, as suggested supra, indicates this female Sidon/Side is the Sumerian goddess Nigin (which would be Ṣaida in Akkadian), otherwise spelled Nina, Nanshe etc. (See §94, above, >>.) She was the patron deity of the city Nina near Lagash in the southern marshes of Babylonia, and later of Nineveh (“Nina”) in Assyria, where she was identified with Ishtar. Sanchuniathon says Sidon was famous for the sweetness of her voice and was named thus because of it (Sidon, lit. “hunting,” understood to mean “captivating”). Nigin/Nina/Nanshe was similarly skilled in sacred songs, sang in the temple E-ninnu, signaled her black sheep and led them into the heavenly fold (Deimel, Pantheon, s.n. Nina [6]). Nanshe was appropriately the goddess of birds as well as of fishes.

334.0.5. Nanshe was one of the seven daughters of Enki according to the myth Enki and Ninhursanga, these seven being Ninsikilla, Ninmu, Ninsutu, Ninkasi, Nazi (= Nanshe), Azimua, and Ninti. Enki is depicted in this myth lurking in the marshlands of southern Mesopotamia, hunting for sexual prey at the water’s edge, defiling his own female offspring, and generating vegetation from surplus or wasted bodily emissions. He appoints some of his children lords of the exotic lands of Dilmun and Magan, reached from Sumer south and eastward down the Persian Gulf, and along the shores of the Indian Ocean. Elos-Kronos (= Ea/Enki) in Sanchuniathon similarly is a sexual predator and has seven daughters named as a group the Titanides or Artemides by Astarte, and as the title Artemides shows, they were goddesses of hunting: it is probable Sanchuniathon’s Sidon, being by definition a huntress, was included amongst them, as Nanshe (Nigin = Sidon) was amongst the seven daughters of Enki.

334.0.6. Returning to the Canaanite Sid and the Djed pillar: the latter was viewed another way as a tree-form of the Egyptian mother goddess Hathor (= Astarte, Eshterah, Ishtar, Nin-sumun), who incorporated in pregnancy the body of her divine offspring (Sid, Tammuz, Osiris) within her own. In this case, too, the Sumerian “zid” and the Egyptian “Djed” could be equated with the eponymus of Sidon, viz. with the female Sidon/Side/Saida = Nina = Ishtar of Nineveh. Hathor had multiple incarnations in Egyptian theology, notably in the seven Hathors: these correspond to the seven Titanides or Artemides, the daughters of Astarte (= Hathor) and Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon, §389, below, >>. Sanchuniathon traces the descent of (the female) Sidon from Pontos, viz. Shem. Nimrod (Elos-Kronos) was traced in an alternative line from Shem, hence his equation with the water-god Mummu-Enki-Kronos, who was originally Shem (as in the Sibylline Oracles), but later Nimrod (as in Peri Theon). Traditionally there was a genealogical connection between Sidos, the grandson of Side/Sidon and Melchizedek, and the descent of the latter was traced in an alternative line from Shem, whose name he bore, and whose interests he represented. See further §211, above, >>, §349, below, >>. The female Side/Sidon is probably the particular huntress Artemid (daughter-form of Astarte-Hathor) who was the mother of Asklepios, §390, below, >>, as Asklepios-Eshmun was the patron deity of Sidon, and, in fact, Baal Sidon himself. The primitive form of this divine name was Khenty-Amentiu, meaning “Chief of the Westerners,” that is, of the departed spirits: it was bestowed on kings of the First Dynasty of Egypt when they died and became one with the god of the dead.

334.0.7. Plutarch (De Iside et Osiride, VIII. 2) calls the nurseling of Isis who fell into the water, a.k.a. Maneros, Linos, viz. king Djer of the First Dynasty, Diktus, the “Fisher,” which is the Greek translation of Sid/Sidon/Sidos. The Egyptian name Djer means “all, totality,” lit. “going round, encompassing,” and this is the precise equivalent of the Sumerian Shu-nigin (= nigin = Sidon, Dumuzi Shu-nigin Pesh supra): Shu-nigin likewise means “all, totality, sum,” lit. “going round, encompassing, bagging, capturing, comprising,” in which sense it is translated into Akkadian as napharu (“all, totality”). The drowning of Diktus was in connection with the taboo on onions, which was specially associated with the cult of Zeus Kassios (Tuphon) at Pelusium by the waters of the Sirbonian lagoon. (See §180ff., above, >>.) Onions were taboo because they cause weeping when peeled, and hence were seen as responsible for the death, or rather, for the associated weeping, that is, mourning ritual, performed in the cult of Osiris. Sanchuniathon’s reference (§384, below, >>) to a naval accident suffered by the descendants of the Dioskouroi (or Kabeiroi) at Mount Kassios (Pelusium) in the Golden Age, and the shrine established there afterwards, most likely relates to the notable incident in which Isis’ companion was lost in the waters of the Sirbonian lagoon (§180ff., above, >>). The identification of Sidon the “Fisher” with Tammuz-Osiris explains the Greek name Diktus, Plutarch’s tradition, and the obscure reference in Sanchuniathon. Since Tammuz (Sidon, Osiris) himself died in a hunting accident in Lebanon, the particular embodiment of the god (Osiris, Khenty-Amentiu) who fell into the water at the Sirbonian lagoon was probably “Palaistinos,” as some Egyptians claimed: this is Philistim-Qaa, the Orus (Horus) son of Osiris of the Defloratio Berosi, and last of the eight kings of the First Dynasty, who was believed to have given his name to the site of his death at the edge of the lagoon (Pelusium), and thus to the people, the Philistines, whose home it was, and who spread thereafter eastwards along the coast of Sinai into Canaan. In other words, the death by water originally ascribed to the pre-diluvian Tammuz (in the Inundation) was secondarily applied to Men-Osiris-Mizraim (who perished in a hippopotamus hunting accident on the Nile), the first of the eight Kabeiric kings of Egyptian Dynasty I, and also to Qaa, the last of them, otherwise known as Palaistinos, who fell into the waters of the Sirbonian lagoon from a ship near the location where Ayyah (Hor-Aha) discovered the abandoned baby Anah (Neit). Assorted narrative elements from this complex of traditions were fused in various mythologies around the world, carried thither along the trade-routes from the Near East. In Greek mythology, for example, there was the story of the brother and sister Dionysus and Athena, the former discovering the latter as an abandoned infant at Tritonis, and of Narkissos (Huakinthos [= Huas, Dionysus]) and Echo, the former dying in grief for the latter by falling into a pool.

334.0.8. Tammuz (Damu) was the son of Enki or Ea (= Nimrod). Diktus was a son of Poseidon (Hyginus, Fab. 157, Poseidon here = Ea, El, §337, below, >>). Since Nin-sumun corresponds to Astarte (Ashtart, Eshterah) in Sanchuniathon, and she was first the wife of Elos-Kronos, and subsequently was left as queen, with Demarous (= Canaan) as king, when Elos-Kronos departed on his travels, Tammuz the “fish-catcher” was considered the son of Astarte and Demarous (i.e. of Eshterah and Canaan), as well as son of Elos-Kronos (i.e. of Enki, Ea, Nimrod). Sidos, the Greek eponymus of Sidon, is called son of Aiguptos, “Egypt,” i.e. of Mizraim, the ancestor of the Egyptians: Sidos is Diktus-Linos-Maneros, the son of Menes-Mizraim-Aiguptos, or otherwise the nurseling of Isis, wife of Osiris-Mizraim. (See further §349.0.3, below, >>.)

334.1. The other Canaanite god identified with Sid and the Classical Dionysus, Shad-rapha, is an infant deity, and is identified in Egypt at least as early as Dynasty XVIII with Isis’ son Harpocrates, “Horus the Child.” His name breaks down into two elements, Shad and Rapha, the first of which is derived from the root sh-w-d or the cognate sh-d-d, meaning to “be powerful, violent,” and the second of which means “shade, ghost.” Probably this is the child of Elos-Kronos called Sadidos in Sanchuniathon (the name, in that case, a formation from the root sh-d-d), who became a “shade” by the murderous violence of his own father. The fact that Harpocrates was “redundant in his lower limbs,” as Plutarch puts it, might explain his untimely end. Elos-Kronos was not known for his humanity. The Akkadian verb shadadu (root sh-d-d) means “to drag,” as of a cripple dragging his limbs, and “rapha” means “weak, feeble,” as of a sick person, or a disembodied phantom. The sign with which the Akkadian verb shadadu is commonly written (gid2), when used as a personal noun, means a malformed infant.

334.2. In Genesis (10. 9) Nimrod is called a “gibbor-said” or “mighty man of hunted prey:” it is possible the reference is to the practice of offering or “preying upon” human victims. Targum Yerushalmi in loc. interprets the verse in the sense that Nimrod “preyed upon the sons of men” by turning them away from the laws of God to his own laws. These involved specifically the sacrifice of human victims. Elos-Kronos (Nimrod-Enmerkar) sacrificed, and “robbed the soul” of Sadidos, of Ieoud, and of Mouth-Plouto, who were different forms of the youthful dying god (Tammuz). The saying quoted in the same verse in Genesis (“therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty man of hunted prey before the LORD”) relates, on the face of it, to someone else, not to Nimrod himself, but to another “mighty man of hunted prey [“said”]” who was “like Nimrod.” Since Elos-Kronos “robbed the soul” of his victim, the one nature and experience was common to both, as intimated in this wording. Nimrod became “a mighty man [gibbor] of hunted prey before the LORD.” He “began to be a mighty man [gibbor] on earth,” as the preceding verse states, but then he became something, or rather someone, else in God’s world, no longer on earth, but “before the LORD,” that is, in the otherworld, or in the starry heavens, and “therefore” the saying arose. This other person was celebrated as a byword and, as well as being identified with Nimrod, was “like Nimrod.” The reference matches the history of Nimrod (Elos-Kronos) and Tammuz reconstructed here. It is known idolaters wept for Tammuz in the Temple at Jerusalem, and this saying could have been one component in the Tammuz ritual as practiced by idolatrous Israelites. The same text relating to the cult of Balthi and Tammuz which says “Israelites” burnt Harran (§322, above, >>), says also Israelites mourned for “Nemroda,” which is traditional evidence of a fusion of the personalities of Nimrod and Tammuz in the Israelite rite.

335. A further implication of the phrase “mighty man of hunted prey before the LORD” is that Nimrod (and/or Tammuz) was removed by God because of his evil practices. Understood in this sense, the verse typifies the Biblical view of the “gibborim.” In Canaan the Anakites or Nephilim, i.e. the “gibborim,” were “food” for Joshua and Caleb (Num. 14. 9 and 24. 8). Though physically superior to the Israelites, God empowered his people to “hunt them down” like beasts. Nimrod himself was “hunted” by the archer Haig, prince of Armenia, whose name means “Orion” (as well as the planet Mars) in Armenian. This explains how the constellation came to be viewed by those who adhered to Nimrod’s cult as the “soul of Nimrod” or the “soul of Osiris (= Tammuz):” the hero Haig (= “Orion”) “robbed his soul” in battle when Nimrod was 300 years old (Chamich, trans. Avdall, History of Armenia, p. 8), in just retribution of his “robbing of the souls” of innocents in polluted sacrifice. Speaking of Haig, Vardan calls him “the first champion of religion, for having refused to offer adoration to the statue of Belus [Bel, Nimrod], and for killing the latter, as the first introducer of idolatry amongst mankind.” (Chamich, op. cit., p. 9.) The context is authentic from an historical point of view, because almost all the surviving Sumerian epic traditions concerning Enmerkar (Nimrod) relate to his conflict with the lord of Aratta (see §611.1ff., below, >>) in the eastern highlands, which is the Ararat or Armenia of the traditional Armenian account. The Lord of Aratta, Enmerkar’s rival, is named in Sumerian epic literature En-sukish-ana (see §611.50ff., below, >>). (The middle component, sukish, which carries the meaning of the name, is variously transliterated, as suhgir, suhkeshda etc., but the two signs with which it is written [see infra] are pronounced sukish, according to the lexical section in the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary s.v. tiqnu. and von Soden, Akk. Hw., s.v. tiqnu 2b.) Since En-sukish-ana, like his rival Enmerkar, saw himself as the “consort” of Inana, that is, the embodiment of Ama-ushumgal-ana (Tammuz), and Ama-ushumgal-ana was identified with the constellation Orion, it is as expected that Nimrod’s rival in the Armenian tradition is named precisely “Orion” (Haig = Orion). Ama-ushumgal-ana was in another aspect Eragal (Nergal), Mars (Arueris in Egypt), and Haig is also Mars. This is the Scythian Hercules (Hercules = Eragal, Mars), whose exploits are recounted in Greek myth as early as Herodotus, and in a framework of Biblical genealogy and history in the medieval Armenian Sibylline traditions comprising the Defloratio Berosi of Giovanni Nanni. (See §354.10.1, below, >>, with cross-references.)

335.0.0.1. The significant element (sukish) in the name En-sukish-ana is written with two signs: suh.keš2. This combination of signs is translated into the Semitic dialect of Babylonia (the Akkadian language) as tiqnu, a nominal formation from taqanu = “calm down, become placid, submissive, orderly, proper, secure, safe,” etc. The noun tiqnu is presumed to mean “orderly embellishment” or “regalia by which propriety is achieved,” when used of an object, and here in a personal name it would denote “one through whom strife is settled,” or something on that order, given that the verb principally means “become placid, submissive,” etc. The first part of the Hebrew name Chedor-laomer means “trouble, agitation, strife” from the verb k-d-r = “be troubled, agitated, disturbed, turbid,” etc. (cognate to q-d-r, “be troubled, disturbed, turbid, dark”), whence also “kidor” (kydwr), “trouble, strife, conflict” (Gesenius-Tregelles, s.vv.). This corresponds to the second element in the Sumerian word sukish, viz. the sign keš2: this means generally, bind, wrap up, cover over, restrain etc., being translated into Akkadian as rakasu, kaṣaru, kasû etc., all of which have that range of meaning, and the last two of which appear as synonyms of the verb kadaru (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, lexical section s. kadaru A). The latter means “act in an overbearing or turbulent manner,” and is the Akkadian equivalent of the Hebrew k-d-r. Thus the first part of the Hebrew name “Chedor” represents the second sign (keš2) in the significant element of the Sumerian name, sukish (En-sukish-ana). The other part of the Hebrew name “Laomer” has long been recognized to be the name of an Elamite god, Lagamar or Lagamal (= la gamil, “the merciless”), who is Nergal, god of the underworld (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary s.v. gamalu in la gamal). The first sign in the significant element in the Sumerian name, viz. suh, meaning “extirpator,” is similarly the name of the chief god of Susa, the capital of Elam (Pennsylvania online Sumerian Dictionary, ePSD, s.v. suh [MUŠ3@g]), otherwise known as Shushinak (“He of Susa,” also written Inshushinak), who came to replace the Sumerian Nergal. (Hinz in Reallex. der Ass. Bd 5, 1976-80, p. 118, s. Inšušinak.) As Nergal and Mars (which is Nergal’s planetary form) is the god (spirit) of war and strife, the name Chedor-Laomer would mean “the troubling (Chedor) of the god/spirit of strife (Laomer),” that is, “trouble is itself troubled,” or “the obscuring (Chedor) of the planet Mars (Laomer = Nergal = Mars),” which is the astrologically equivalent sign, and hence would denote “one through whom strife is settled,” precisely corresponding to the Sumerian sukish.

335.0.0.2. Chedorlaomer king of Elam appears in Genesis 14 as superior to Amraphel, king of Shinar, though earlier Nimrod ruled that same kingdom of Shinar (Gen. 10. 10) without any named rival. This makes sense in the light of the Sumerian and Armenian traditions: that is, Nimrod (Enmerkar) was first challenged by Chedorlaomer (En-sukish-ana, identified with the god Ama-ushumgal-ana, Haig), and then defeated by him (Bel-Nimrod defeated by Haig), so that the latter became king of Elam, as well as of the mountain land of Ararat (Aratta). Within his newly expanded domain also fell the nascent kingdoms of Canaan, which rebelled against him (Gen. 14). His campaign against the rebels ended with their defeat, and Nimrod’s grandson, Amraphel (Gilgamesh, grandson of Enmerkar) took part in that expedition under the suzerainty of Chedorlaomer. This explains why Eupolemus refers to those who invaded Palestine under the banner of Chedorlaomer as “Armenians” (Eupolemus cited by Alexander Polyhistor in Eusebius Praep. Ev. IX. xvii. 4): “By reason of God’s commands this man [Abraham] came and dwelt in Phoenicia, and pleased their king by teaching the Phoenicians the changes of the sun and moon and all things of that kind. And afterwards the Armenians invaded the Phoenicians; and when they had been victorious, and had taken his nephew prisoner, Abraham came to the rescue with his servants, and prevailed over the captors, and made prisoners of the wives and children of the enemy.” Later still, perhaps on the death of Chedorlaomer, Amraphel achieved independence, and even advanced against the relatives of Chedorlaomer in their mountainous homeland (Thouros versus Kaukasos, Afridun versus the descendants of Haig and Kavkas, §163, above, >>, with cross-references). A similar scenario is envisaged in the c. 10th century AD Samaritan chronicle Asatir, based on Arabic and earlier Jewish sources, according to which immediately before Abraham’s migration to Canaan his brother Nahor and his father Terah (who had been an high official under Nimrod son of Cush) became subject to the oppressive suzerainty of Chedorlaomer, Terah even being imprisoned for a while by the latter in Haran. (Asatir, Ch. VI. 4-8, trans. Gaster, p. 248, Pitron [Commentary] ad loc., p. 227.) All this accords with post-Biblical Rabbinic tradition, which focuses, however, on Amraphel (Nimrod son of Canaan, here simply referred to as “Nimrod”) who rebelled against Chedorlaomer, along with the cities of the plain, rather than on Nimrod son of Cush (Bel-Nimrod), who perished in the initial conflict between Chedorlaomer and the Hamites. It was in that earlier conflict that the Hamites (including Amraphel) became subject for the first time to Chedorlaomer. The Rabbinic account is as follows (Sefer ha-Yashar, ed. Haktav Institute, Jerusalem, 1987 [www.hebrewbooks.org, 2009], pp. 28, 38f., 46 = trans. Noah, 11. 6-11, 13. 11-16, 16. 1-4, my additional notes in braces {}):

“(11. 6) And Nimrod dwelt in Babel, and he there renewed his reign over the rest of his subjects, and he reigned securely, and the subjects and princes of Nimrod called his name Amraphel, saying {Heb. amar} that at the tower his princes and men fell {naphal} through his means. (7) And notwithstanding this, Nimrod did not return to the Lord, and he continued in wickedness and teaching wickedness to the sons of men; and Mardon, his son, was worse than his father, and continued to add to the abominations of his father. (8) And he caused the sons of men to sin, therefore it is said, From the wicked goeth forth wickedness. (9) At that time there was war between the families of the children of Ham, as they were dwelling in the cities which they had built. (10) And Chedorlaomer, king of Elam, went away from the families of the children of Ham, and he fought with them {this is the battle in which Nimrod son of Cush, Bel-Nimrod, was slain} and he {Chedorlaomer} subdued them, and he went to the five cities of the plain and he fought against them and he subdued them, and they were under his control. (11) And they served him twelve years, and they gave him a yearly tax. (13. 11). In the fifth year of Abram’s dwelling in the land of Canaan the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the cities of the plain revolted from the power of Chedorlaomer, king of Elam; for all the kings of the cities of the plain had served Chedorlaomer for twelve years, and given him a yearly tax, but in those days in the thirteenth year, they rebelled against him. (12) And in the tenth year of Abram’s dwelling in the land of Canaan there was war between Nimrod {Nimrod son of Canaan, Amraphel} king of Shinar and Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Nimrod came to fight with Chedorlaomer and to subdue him. (13) For Chedorlaomer was {Heb. hayah, better: “had been”} at that time {lit. “in those days”} one of the princes of the hosts of Nimrod, and when all the people at the tower were dispersed and those that remained were also scattered upon the face of the earth, Chedorlaomer went to the land of Elam and reigned over it and rebelled against his lord {viz. against Nimrod son of Cush}. (14) And in those days when Nimrod {Nimrod son of Canaan, Amraphel} saw that the cities of the plain had rebelled, he came with pride and anger to war with Chedorlaomer, and Nimrod assembled all his princes and subjects, about seven hundred thousand men, and went against Chedorlaomer, and Chedorlaomer went out to meet him with five thousand men, and they prepared for battle in the valley of Babel which is between Elam and Shinar. (15) And all those kings fought there, and Nimrod and his people were smitten before the people of Chedorlaomer, and there fell from Nimrod’s men about six hundred thousand, and Mardon the king’s son fell amongst them. (16) And Nimrod fled and returned in shame and disgrace to his land, and he was under subjection to Chedorlaomer for a long time, and Chedorlaomer returned to his land and sent princes of his host to the kings that dwelt around him, to Arioch king of Elasar, and to Tidal king of Goyim, and made a covenant with them, and they were all obedient to his commands. (16. 1) At that time Chedorlaomer king of Elam sent to all the neighboring kings, to Nimrod king of Shinar who was then under his power, and to Tidal king of Goyim, and to Arioch king of Elasar, with whom he made a covenant, saying, come up to me and assist me, that we may smite all the towns of Sodom and its inhabitants, for they have rebelled against me these thirteen years. (2) And these four kings went up with all their camps, about eight hundred thousand men, and they went as they were, and smote every man they found in their road. (3) And the five kings of Sodom and Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, Shemeber king of Zeboyim, Bera king of Sodom, Birsha king of Gomorrah, and Bela king of Zoar, went out to meet them, and they all joined together in the valley of Siddim. (4) And these nine kings made war in the valley of Siddim; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah were smitten before the kings of Elam ….”

335.0.1. The death of Nimrod son of Cush at the hands of Haig finds an echo in early Mesopotamian literature. In the fragmentary Kutha Legend from the time of the Dynasty of Agade (c. 2000 BC) it is recorded Enmerkar came to a dreadful and sudden end by the judgment of the god Shamash, the sun-god, who was in other epic literature the king’s divine “father.” His corpse is said to have been cast headlong on the ground, and the ghosts of his descendants doomed to drink polluted water. Bel-Titan, a.k.a. Nimrod and Kronos, according to Mar Abas Catina (§950, below, >>), was buried amongst the mountains of Ararat and the same location is given for the tomb of Kronos in Greek myth: Ps.-Clem. Hom. V. 23: “They were not gods, then, but representations of tyrants. For a certain tomb is shown among the Caucasian mountains, not in heaven, but in earth, as that of Kronos, a barbarous man and a devourer of children.” Hom. VI. 21: “…. in the Caucasian mountains there is shown the tomb of a certain Kronos, a man, and a fierce monarch who slew his children.” The Armenian tradition is that the corpse of Nimrod or Bel Titan was hung in a fireplace and burned on the summit of Mount Nemrut near Lake Van in the ancient canton of Hark, with his wives and children in attendance (G. Srvantztiants expanding on the tradition of Mar Abas Catina in Moses of Khorene, lib. I. cap. XI, §950, below, >>).

335.1. A son of Elos-Kronos by his principal wife, Rhea, is referred to in Sanchuniathon (§389, below, >>), who was offered up in sacrifice. His name, “Most Youthful” (Gk. Neôtatos), is usually taken to be an adjective, and the phrase “and his life too [was offered up],” to mean, rather, “[offered up] at birth.” The likelihood is this son of Rhea is the son of Asherah (Rhea) mentioned in the Ugaritic texts called “Ashtar” (Athtar). Ashtar is depicted as a youthful, unmarried, god. He tries to take the place of Baal Hadad when the latter is in the Underworld, but is not big enough to fill his throne. The name Ashtar is the name of the planet Venus in its male aspect, and his attempt to take the dead god Baal’s place mirrors the alternation of Inana (Venus) and Dumuzi (= Damu = Bel Marduk = Adad = Baal Hadad) in the Underworld/Upperworld in Mesopotamian myth. Underlying this theme is the ritual sacrifice of the youthful god. The female form (Astarte, Ashtart, Eshterah) appears much more frequently, and is used in Hebrew as a common noun to mean “productive, breeding, female herd-animal,” that is, as opposed to older animals past their prime. Ashtar would mean by analogy, “young productive male, able to breed.” This sense of the name is nicely reproduced in Sanchuniathon as “Most Youthful,” the word neos in Greek being the antonym of gerôn, etc., “old, aged.”

336. The obscurity surrounding the demise of Tammuz (Ama-ushumgal-ana) in the mythology of Mesopotamia resulted no doubt from the requirement to keep the details secret. Greeks initiated in the mysteries claimed his rites were the same as those of Osiris in Egypt and of Iacchus, Bacchus and Dionysus in Greece. The mysteries celebrated in Eleusis in Greece revolved principally around Demeter and her daughter Kore (who was also called Persephone), but Iacchus played an important part in the ceremonies too. They were based on the oriental mysteries of Tammuz and Osiris. Sanchuniathon implies they actually originated in a cult invented by Elos-Kronos. Kore (meaning “maiden”), called Persephone in Sanchuniathon, was Elos-Kronos’ daughter who died in her virginity. The Greek myth related that she was seized by Plouto in Eleusis. The god emerged one day in his black-horsed chariot from a chasm in the Eleusinian plain, and spotted the maiden ambling through the meadows. He promptly whisked her off to Hades to be his bride. In Sanchuniathon Plouto is the son, as Persephone is the daughter, of Elos-Kronos. In the original Sumerian myth Kore was Nin-edina or Belet-seri, who was identified with Geshtinana, and was the sister of Tammuz (comparable to Sanchuniathon’s Persephone sister of Mouth and Ieoud). Human sacrifices were offered to Belet-seri. Several Assyrian legal documents contain penalty formulas which stipulate that the person who breaks the contract can redeem himself by burning his eldest child on the altar to Belet-seri (e.g. K 439, oldest daughter, 7th century BC, K 1492, likewise 7th century BC, oldest son or oldest daughter, K 1488, oldest daughter). Some have conjectured this practice was borrowed by the Assyrians from the cult of Molech.

337. The other named daughter of Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon is “Athena” to whom he is said to have donated Attica, the territory in which Eleusis was located. Subsequently he “robbed her of her soul” by severing her head from her body. The typical ancient philosophical rationalization was that Athena, the goddess of wisdom, represented the Divine Mind. There seems to be, in the underlying tradition, a reference to the “head” (mind) of the daughter of Elos-Kronos (which became the mind of Elos-Kronos himself by the “robbing of her soul”) since Athena carried as a talisman on her shield precisely a severed female head, the “head of the Gorgon,” was titled “Gorgon-faced,” and, according to Palaephatus (Peri Apiston XXXI [XXXII]), was herself Gorgo (Gorgon), being known by that name amongst the Ethiopian Kernaians who inhabited an island beyond the Pillars of Hercules and the coast of North Africa in the direction of Carthage. Thus also she was titled Pallas Athena, or simply Pallas, and Pallas was said to have died by decapitation. One myth represented Pallas as a young female rival of Athena (actually her alter ego), who was slain by Athena after Zeus interposed the aegis between them, shocking Pallas and putting her off-guard. Others said Pallas was a male giant, alternatively Athena’s own father, decapitated by the goddess, but this is a variation on the theme that it was Athena’s divine father, Zeus, who was decapitated, and whose head she then sprung out of, being, in fact, his own mind, spirit or soul. Zeus was called Pallantios (“of Pallas”) in Trapezous. Originally, according to Sanchuniathon, it was her father who decapitated her, and absorbed her soul. By this act, her decapitation became his decapitation, her name his name etc. In Marcionite Gnosticism (Prudentius, Hamartigenia 129ff., 143ff.) Nimrod sui nominis was the Demiurge, the supposed “cruel god” of the Old Testament, and his mane was composed of writhing snakes; that is, he himself was Gorgon. Other Gnostic and Manichaean systems, as in the “Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit” III. 57, reversed the sex of Nimrod (“Nebruel” in the work cited, viz. Nimrod as a form of El), representing him as female (cf. the alternating male/female roles of Pallas) and denominated his male consort (sic) Sakla(s). (Saklas from Heb. s-k-l, “be obvious,” hence, in a negative sense, “be obvious, foolish,” and in a positive sense, “be obvious, clear, lucid, expert.” On Saklas see Augustin., De Haeres. c. 46, Theodoret. Fab. Haeret. c. 26, and Manich. Anathem., Kessler, Mani, S. 403, called Ashkalun in Theodore bar Konai, Pognon, 191, whilst Namrael, Pognon, ibid. = Nebrod, Kessler, ibid.) This springs from an earlier oriental tradition in which Nimrod was Asklepios, Sumerian Azu-gal, the “Great Healer, Expert,” deriving from the same Semitic root s-k-l, “be expert,” §349.0.1, below, >>. The original Mesopotamian deity had both a female and male aspect. In Arabic legend, the female aspect was represented as the mother and ultimately the consort of Nimrod, called Sulkha (with transposition of the two last root letters, s-l-k instead of s-k-l), §186, above, >>. The Libyan tradition was that Athena was the literal daughter of Poseidon (otherwise the water spirit Triton), that is, precisely, of the Canaanite El, Sanchuniathon’s Elos-Kronos, but that she quarreled with her father, and went to Zeus (= Pallantios, Pallas), who made her his adopted daughter. (Herodotus IV. 180. Poseidon is identified with El the Producer of Earth in a Palmyrene inscription, Syria 19 [1938], 78f., the identification with the sea-god Poseidon being explained by the earlier identification of El the Producer of Earth with the water-god Ea in a bilingual inscription at Karatepe: Phoenician El, KAI 26 A III 18, Luwian “Ayash,” viz. Ea.) See further infra on the dual fatherhood of Athena. The original Canaanite name of Athena was Anat. Anat, like Athena, was titled the “Maiden.” Anat is found identified with Athena in Cyprian inscriptions dating from the fifth century BC. Both Anat and Athena were equated with the Egyptian goddess Neit (also written Neith). In Mesopotamia the warrior goddess, equipped with battle-bow and arrows, was called Anunitum (from the same Semitic root as Anat, according to Muss-Arnolt, viz. from ‛-n-n = ‛-n-h, “to be in agony, cry out”), and came to be assimilated to Ishtar, as the bow-bearing Neit was to Hathor, etc. Anunitum was the daughter of Anu (or Ilu = El), as Athena was of Elos-Kronos. Athena had two principal incarnations, one before, and one after, the Flood. The pre-diluvian incarnation was Naamah, the sister of Tubal-cain, that is, of the pre-diluvian Dumuzi. Naamah is equated with Minerva (the Roman name for Athena) in the Exordium to Eusebius’ Chronicle. The same identification is implied in Plutarch’s translation (§618, below, >>) of “Nemanous” (the name of a Phoenician goddess) as “Athenaïs,” meaning “a form of Athena.” According to post-Biblical Rabbinic tradition Naamah was the inventor of sewing and weaving. (E.g. Sefer ha-Zikhronot [Jerahmeel] XXVI. 18, ed., trans. Gaster, p. 56: “The sister of Tubal Cain was Naamah. It was she who invented the art of weaving and sewing silk, wool, and flax, and the whole art of the fancy-worker and the weaver.”) The post-diluvian incarnation was Anat. Anat was a tom-boy who delighted in weaponry. Hence the fusion of conflicting attributes in the personality of the Classical Athena, on the one hand, the patron-goddess of women’s crafts, sewing, weaving etc., on the other hand, the warrior amazon, brandishing weapons of war. The same applies in respect of the Egyptian goddess Neit. As the wife of Noah, Naamah was also, in a wider sense, the “Great Mother” of all the “gods,” and hence in Plutarch (De Is. et Os. 62), as in earlier native Egyptian texts, she (Athena/Neit) is equated with Isis, and her name interpreted to mean “I came from myself.” (See §181.4.0.9, above, >>, on Athena = Aramaic Athana, “She-ass” [cf. Naamah = Lilith, infra, the “ass-centaur”], as if = atha-ana, atha = “come from,” ana = “myself,” otherwise ana = Anah.) It is as though the name Anat (lit. “She who answers, replies, corresponds”) meant “reflection of herself.” The same Anat appears as the nymph Echo (“She who replies, answers”) in Classical myth, the sister of the Tammuz-like Narkissos (Narcissus). Appropriately Narkissos perished watching his own reflection in a pool. The association of Ayyah and Anah with the pool led to their identification with the two fishes of Pisces. (§330, above, >>.) In the Greek interpretation the northern fish is Aphrodite (= Ishtar = Anunitum = Anah), riding on the back of Eros (= Dionysus = Ayyah, §339, below, >>), the southern fish. Anunitum is specifically the northern fish in Pisces in Mesopotamian astrology. The position of the fishes indicates that Ayyah (the southern fish) carried Anah (the northern fish) in the sense that he discovered Anah abandoned at the Sirbonian lagoon and adopted her into his family.

337.1. Narkissos and Echo have already been shown to be the Biblical Ayyah and Anah of Genesis 36. 24, the children of Zibeon the Hivite. (See §181.4, above, >>.) Anat is the Canaanite form of the Biblical name Anah, with final t, instead of h, as commonly in that dialect. A similar play on Anah/Anat’s name (“she who calls back and forth”), and the pervasive and noticeable presence of owls, birds which “call back and forth,” in the Hivite heartland of Seir (Isaiah 34. 13), may be presumed to have led to the adoption of the owl as the symbol of Athena. The owls are called in Hebrew benoth ya‛anah, lit. “daughters of ya‛anah,” the latter word being from the same verbal root as Anah, to “call back and forth.” (On the translation “owls” see Cyril on Isaiah 13. 21, cited as the traditional Hebrew interpretation, Chrysostom on Job 30. 29.) The Rabbis identified the ya‛anah with the na‛ama, the “sweet(-singing)” bird, though they thought the ostrich was the species indicated. (Jastrow, Talmudic Dictionary, s.vv.) Na‛ama is from the same root as the name Naamah. There was therefore an ornithological connection between the roots from which the names Anah and Naamah were formed, as there was a theological one between the figures who bore them. Creatures that howl in the night symbolize demons and witches, hence also Lilith, the howling creature of the night (Gesenius-Tregelles, s.v.) in Isaiah 34. 14, the occupant, side by side with the owls, of the ruined wastes of Edom, is identified in Rabbinic tradition with the pre-diluvian Naamah: she was believed, witch-like, to have been the foremost amongst the daughters of man who committed fornication with the sons of God, according to Gen. 6. 2 (§422, below, >>). Athena, the post-diluvian incarnation of Naamah, has a demonic Lilith-like form in Greek myth also, viz. as Gorgo, the Gorgon. The star representing the head of the Gorgon in the constellation Perseus is called Algol (“the Ghul”) in Arabic, Algol being a translation of the Hebrew Lilith. (Bochart, Hierozoicon, Pt. II, Leiden, 1692, col. 831ff.) Anah is the daughter of Zibeon in Genesis 36, whereas Anat (Athena) is the daughter of Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon. The Libyan tradition says Athena had two fathers: Poseidon (Elos-Kronos) was her literal father, and subsequently she was adopted by Zeus (= Zeus Pallantios, Pallas). The Zeus who adopted her, according to the Defloratio Berosi, was Dionysius (that is, Dionysus, the “Zeus of Nysa”), titled “the Libyan Jupiter” after his father Ammon. (For the account in the Defloratio see §889.33, below, >>, §889.35, below, >>, §889.51, below, >>.) Pallas in Greek means “Brandisher.” Zibeon comes from the root ṣ-b-‘, meaning “to handle, brandish, shake, seize, ravine,” so Zibeon is the Greek Pallas, the “Brandisher,” and his name was bestowed on Ayyah (Dionysius), the son of Zibeon, and on Anah (Athena), when she was adopted into his family. Pallas was a giant, and Zibeon was of the giant stock of Canaan. Pallas is called the “son of Lukaon (Lukaôn),” and lukaôn is the word used to describe a man afflicted with a kind of madness whereby he becomes as “ravenous as a wild dog (lukos).” The same root ṣ-b-‘ means to “ravine” and supplies the noun “zabua” (ṣābû‘a), which is a ravenous or rapacious hyena-like animal. In Hebrew the name of the constellation Lukaon (Bootes) is precisely Zabua (ṣābû‘a), usually translated as “Hyena,” which demonstrates the equivalence of these terms. The same word for “hyena” is found in Arabic (ṣabu‘, ṣib‘ā’n, initial dad). The Arabic form Zibean (ṣib‘ā’n), “hyena,” corresponds precisely to Heb. Zibeon, and is native to Arabic but not to Hebrew (Gray, Studies in Hebrew Proper Names, London, 1896, p. 95). Thus, Zibeon = Zibean = Lukaon (Bootes). A variation on this nomenclature is that which represents Pallas (in this case, the female Pallas = Athena) as the daughter of one Palamaon (“seizer with the hand, handler,” translating the same Semitic root as supra), who is otherwise identified with Hephaistos and Daidalos. Hephaistos is, of course, a divine name, given to this person because he was an adroit “handler,” and because he was identified (supra) with the god Amun (Ammon) = Ptah = Hephaistos. Daidalos — of Daidalos and Ikaros fame — means “multicolored,” and this is an alternative translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic Zibeon (“versicolour” Gesenius-Tregelles, s.n., from the checkered coat of the hunting dog or “hyena”). Daidalos’ son I-karos is Ayyah, son of Zibeon: “I” = Ayyah, as in I-Sirios, see infra, and “kar” = “lamb” in Canaanite and the related dialects of Aramaic and Hebrew, lambs playing a significant role in the mythology which grew up around Ayyah’s death. Hence the constellation Bootes is also named Ikarios, this being the eponymus of the Icarian clan. Ikarios introduced the Athenians, the people of Athena-Anah, to viticulture, having entertained the migrant Dionusos (Dionysus, Huas, Ayyah) in his house. His daughter Erigone (identified with the constellation Virgo = Aphrodite/Athena, that is Naamah/Anah), hung herself in grief when Ikarios was slain on account of it. Here Ikarios, the Icarian eponymus, fuses the roles of the dying I-karos himself (= Ayyah), and his “Icarian” father (Zibeon), as Erigone fuses that of Aphrodite (Naamah, the Mesopotamian Inana who was hung up on a stake in Hell) and Athena (Anah). Otherwise Ikaros fell into the Icarian Sea, when he attempted to fly on the device which his father invented. (The Icarian Sea was so named after I-kar-os, and washed the shores of Caria, likewise named after “kar,” the “lamb,” Gesenius-Tregelles, s.v.) In antiquity this was explained in terms of a fall overboard from a ship (wings = sails), which interpretation harmonizes with the tradition that Maneros/Palaistinos/Ayyah fell into the waters of the Sirbonian lagoon from a ship. Astarte, according to Plutarch, was queen of Byblos at the time Isis visited the city, and transported thence by ship Astarte’s son Maneros, whilst Zibeon was a chieftain of the Hivite clan which controlled, amongst other areas of Canaan and the desert regions to the south, Astarte’s royal city of Byblos, and the coastal zone thereabouts, at the foot of Mount Lebanon. He was thus in a position to have some say in the family affairs of Elos-Kronos.

337.2. At the very end of the excerpt of Sanchuniathon cited by Eusebius appears a short passage (§406f., below, >>) mentioning a “child of Thabion” as the earliest hierophant of the Phoenicians who transmitted his system to his successors and others, the same person evidently being named subsequently “Ei Sirios,” and described as a brother of Khna-Phoinix, viz. of the Biblical Canaan. “All these stories the child of Thabion, the first hierophant of all the Phoenicians from the beginning, allegorized and mixed up with the physical and cosmical phenomena, and delivered to the prophets who celebrated the orgies and inaugurated the mysteries: and they, purposing to increase their vain pretensions from every source, handed them on to their successors and to their foreign visitors. Ei Sirios was also one inventor [or, discoverer] of these [mysteries, viz. the mystery] of the three letters, being brother of Khna, who first was renamed Phoinix.” This demonstrates a close and immediate genealogical connection between the circle of Ei Sirios, including his father Thabion, and the family of Canaan. Thabion is the Greek equivalent of the Biblical Zibeon (with initial Aramaic teth, and the corresponding Greek theta, for sade), who was a Hivite, and therefore descended from Canaan the son of Ham, and a Seirite, or, inhabitant of Seir. “Ei Sirios,” for which there is a variant “I Sirios” in the manuscripts, has been thought to be Sanchuniathon’s version of the name Osiris, and Osiris, in turn, can be identified with the Greek Huas = Hebrew Ayyah son of Zibeon. Sirios is a sobriquet of Osiris, and the Greek name for the most prominent fixed star in the sky (Sirios = Sirius), which was one of the astral forms of Osiris. Ei (or, I) Sirios, which would mean “Ei (or, I) the Seirite,” the child of Thabion, can only be this Ayyah son of Zibeon. A comparable nominal formation is I-karos (“Ay-lamb”), supra, of the brother of Pallas (= Athena = Anat = Anah), I-karos and Pallas being the children of Daidalos (“Multicolored”), as Ayyah and Anah are the children of Zibeon (“Multicolored”). The name is usually transcribed without a break as Eisirios, Isiris, etc., and a textual variant “Iris” (instead of the fuller Eisirios, Isiris), implies a different division might be envisaged: Eis/Is+Iris. For a more detailed treatment of the points referred to in the following summary, relating to the sacred flower, see §180.1ff., above, >>. The cult of Ayyah was associated with the ancient Hyacinth, the modern Iris Germanica, which is marked with the letters AI, or YI, on its petals. If Sirios is taken to be the gentilic “Sirios, Seirios,” “the Seirite,” the first component of the name is “Ei,” or, “I.” The name “I” can be broken down into two elements: the first is the Greek letter I, iota, corresponding to the Hebrew yod, and the second is the soft breathing preceding it, which corresponds to the Semitic aleph: together these form the letters AI (aleph + yod), as marked on the flower. The fuller form “Ei” breaks down into three elements: the initial soft breathing, and the letter iota = yod, as already described, and also the Greek letter E, epsilon, which is the equivalent of the Hebrew letter he: the corresponding Hebrew letters are then aleph + yod, and he + yod. He + yod is an alternative spelling for the word ay, “Woe” (otherwise aleph + yod), and therefore equivalent to the Greek AI. In another usage, the Greek epsilon is the Hehrew he, the Greek iota, the Hebrew yod, as aforesaid, and the smooth breathing represents, in transcription, the Hebrew ayin, rather than the Hebrew aleph: the Greek letters epsilon + iota with the smooth breathing correspond, in that case, to the three Hebrew letters he + yod + ayin, which are precisely the three letters in the Hebrew name Ayyah (ayin, yod, he). The primitive form of the Greek letter alpha, A (originally the Semitic aleph), was an upturned version of the primitive letter ayin (Y), and the yod was a simple line: all three markings (a simple line, an upturned, and a normal, Y) are found on the petals of the Hyacinth, and hence, it can be concluded, the mysterious reference in Sanchuniathon to “three letters” discovered by Ei/I. In the alternative reading, the original Oriental name Ei/I is followed by the Greek nominal termination sigma, s, Ei-s or I-s, which does not affect the equivalence of the significant letters of the name with the markings on the Hyacinth. The second component of the name (Eis/Is + Iris), according to that reading, is “Iris,” viz., the Hyacinth. Hence also the textual variant “Iris,” simply, instead of “Eisirios, Isiris.” As regards the three Hebrew letters, Yod, Aleph, and Ayin: these would spell in Greek the divine name IAO, Iota, Alpha, Omega (omega being the larger form of the Greek “o,” which was borrowed from the Phoenician ayin), and this was a title of Sabazios (Dionysus, Osiris), in the mysteries popular at the time Philo of Byblos translated Sanchuniathon into Greek. IAO is a later form of the divine name Ieuo which features in Sanchuniathon’s own account, and which goes back to the Canaanite Yw. These last two letters, yod and waw, are yet another combination traceable on the petals of the Hyacinth. Ei Sirios (Ayyah) was the “brother” of Khna-Phoinix, because he is the Dionysius (viz. Huas) of Nanni’s Defloratio Berosi, who adopted Osiris-Mizraim into the family of his father Hammon, and Canaan was the brother of Mizraim. (§180.1ff., above, >>.)

337.3. Ayyah and Anah being children of Zibeon, the son of Seir, the Hivite, the former by descent, the latter by adoption, both were Hivites or Minaeans. Accordingly Athena (Anat, Anah) is described as having been born at the River Triton located in Crete, the land of the Minoans, or Minaeans, where a place sacred to her commemorated the event (Od. V. 125, Hes. Th. 969, Diod. V. 76. 1). In Praesus Athena was believed to be the mother by Helios of the Corybantes or Curetes (Cretans) (Strabo X. 3. 19), and, in the Orphic literature, the leader of the Curetes (Procl. Ad Plat. Crat. p. 406D). The Argonauts built an altar to Minoan Athena in Crete (Ap. Rhod. IV. 1689), and Athena was the patron goddess of Gortyn (Solin. XI. 9). Daidalos made a statue of her at Knossos (Paus. IX. 40. 3); whilst Rhadamanthus, brother of the eponymous Minos, and Ai-akos, is said to have been educated in Rhodes by the daughters of Athena’s husband Helios (Etym. Mag. s.v. Rhadamanthus). The mention of Rhadamanthus (= Raamathi, the Raamathite of the tribe of Raamah) here, confirms the Minaean connection, as the Minaeans were Sabaeans, of the Cushite tribe of Sheba, son of Raamah, son of Cush son of Ham. Since Athena was an abandoned child, we might presume the disparate traditions summarized supra represent her affiliation on the side of her adoptive family. That is precisely the case in the version of the Libyan myth of Athena’s origin and adoption preserved in the Defloratio Berosi (§889.33, below, >>, §889.35, below, >>, §889.51, below, >>), and in greater detail in Diodorus Siculus (III. 68. 1ff.). In the Defloratio Athena (Anah) is discovered abandoned at Lake Tritonis in Libya and is adopted by Dionys(i)us (Ayyah) into the family of Ammon (the Libyan Zeus, viz. Pallantios = Zibeon). Ammon is described as the son of Triton, the son of Saba Turifer (Sheba), the son (actually grandson by Raamah) of Cur (the name of Cush in the Defloratio), the eponymous ancestor of the Curetes. Athena’s Sabaean or Minaean affiliation is explicitly stated here, as well as her genealogical connection to the Curetes (Cretans).

337.4. The Defloratio and Diodorus describe how Ammon had a dalliance with Amaltheia and begot by her Dionysius. This is the standard Classical Greek tradition in a Libyan guise. According to the Defloratio, Ammon’s wife Rhea was jealous of the affair and eventually left her husband to marry Chemesenuus, that is, Ham, son of Noah (the Egyptian Saturn, Kronos in Diodorus’ account). Chemesenuus had recently arrived in Africa from Kittim, which is wrongly (or rather, too narrowly) identified as “Italy” in the Defloratio. A battle ensued between Chemesenuus and his Titan allies on the one hand, and Ammon, Dionysius, Athena etc., on the other, that is, between the Titans and the gods. It played out over the coast of North Africa and the adjoining territories. Ammon was defeated and fled to Crete, whilst Chemesenuus reigned over Libya in his place. Here we have an explanation of the flight of Daidalos, the “Multicolored,” that is, of Zibeon (Ammon), and of his tribe, the Minaeans, Hivites, etc., to Crete, and of their establishment in that land. Zibeon fled from the region north-east of the Nile Delta around the Sirbonian lagoon, — named thus, no doubt after Zibeon himself, — to Crete, on account of his conflict as an idolatrous Hivite with the faithful patriarchs of the line of Ham. The tension between the clans continued to simmer in early Dynastic Egypt, as the clan of the hunting-dog (the totem of Shutekh or Seth), that is of Zibeon (Zabua = “hunting dog”), rivaled that of the solar falcon (the totem of Horus), that is of Ayyah, Ayyah being the name of a falcon (Gesenius-Tregelles, s.v., literally, “that which cries out”). It was Ayyah originally, the Defloratio’s Dionysius, who took Mizraim (Men, Narmer) under his falcon wing, and away from the camp of the patriarch Ham. The conflict in its later phase was political, not principally religious, however, as both parties were idolatrous. Its flare-up in the First Dynasty is alluded to in the Defloratio (§889.77, below, >>), where Osiris-Mizraim (of the falcon clan) is described as being murdered by his brother Typhon (= Seth of the hunting-dog clan), igniting a rebellion throughout the kingdom. Doubtless it was a reaction on the part of the previously dominant faction, the hunting-dog clan of Zibeon, to the advancement of the Hamitic family of Mizraim by Ayyah, that is, of the sub-clan of the falcon. The success of Mizraim in his new Egyptian domain would inevitably incite the envy of the earlier claimants to that territory. (For more on the conflict of Ham in North Africa with the people of Saba and its relation to early Egyptian history, see §626.25, below, >>, with cross-references.)

337.5. The Sirbonian lagoon was the original Lake Tritonis, so named after the River Triton, or Nile, from which it was fed. Triton was the god of water, identified with Poseidon, and was the “third” in the cosmic realm after the gods of heaven and the atmosphere, whence his name (Gk. trit- = Aramaic t-l-t = Hebrew sh-l-sh, “three”). As the name of a water-deity, Triton became attached to similar rivers and bodies of water elsewhere, e.g. to the Tritonis in Libya, to the River Triton in Crete etc. Through the spread of the tribe of Sheba into Libya, and their settlement in Marmarica, a lake at Irasa became known as Tritonis (Pherecydes, Schol. Pind. Pyth. IX 185a = 106), and the Siwa Oasis as the shrine of Ammon. The Marmaridae or inhabitants of Marmarica, accordingly, are traced to Sheba, son of Raamah, son of Cush in Syncellus (ed. Mosshammer, p. 51 = Dindorf p. 88, similarly in the Chronicon Paschale, apud Mosshammer, ibid.), and the Libyan eponymi of Marmarica are grouped together genealogically in the Defloratio: Ammon (= Ammonium, the Siwa Oasis) son of Triton (= Lake Tritonis at Irasa), son of Saba (Sheba) son of Cur (Cush). From the Biblical genealogical viewpoint, Ammon son of Triton in the Defloratio, corresponds to Zibeon, son of Seir. Seir means “Stormy, troubled” when used of water, and Triton is a spirit of rushing water; Seir then comes to mean “rough, agitated, bristling,” and to denote “agitated, rough, bristling, hairy” creatures, goats and the like. Seir otherwise, therefore, is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Saturos (Satyr), Seilenos (Silvanus), or Pan/Faunus, the eponymus of the goat-footed Satyrs, Silenuses, Pans and Fauns. When, in the battle of the gods against the Titans or anti-gods, the gods suffered defeat, Pan/Aigipan (“Goat Pan”) is said to have dived into the Nile (Triton) in order to evade them, and to have taken on the form of a goat-fish, Capricorn, that is, of a horned, puck-nosed, satyr with the tail of a marine creature. But this is precisely the form of Triton: a horned, puck-nosed (Cushite, negroid), satyr with the tail of a marine creature: and the same myth is told of Aigipan and of Triton, that they first took up a conch from the water for a war-trumpet, to blow mighty blasts against their demonic foes. This myth explains the escape of the Seirites by sea to Crete, as they battled against the Hamites, in terms of the transformation of the wood-satyr Saturos/Aigipan into the marine-satyr, Capricorn or Triton: that is, Seir, representing Zibeon’s Seirites of the wooded hills of Canaan, adopted latterly a sea-faring life (Saturos transformed into Triton, Pan into Capricorn) around the shores of the Sirbonian lagoon and the Mediterranean.

338. There were other sons of Elos-Kronos, according to Sanchuniathon: Kronos, Zeus-Belos and Apollo. The traditional conflation of the genealogy between Ninos A (Nimrod-Enmerkar, Elos-Kronos) and Ninos I (Shamshi-Adad I) produced the following genealogical series: Kronos, father of Zeus Belos, father of Ninos. The genealogy comprised three members in all, and two of them were Kronos and Zeus Belos, as in Sanchuniathon. Since this Kronos was called by Sanchuniathon “Kronos of the same name with his father” it is likely he represented a second “incarnation” of Elos-Kronos, i.e. of Nimrod-Enmerkar, and that he was identified with one of the figures in the genealogical line between Nimrod-Enmerkar and Ninos I found in Abydenus, Cephalion and Mar Abas Catina. The identification in Cyril of Alexandria of Arbelos, the father of Ninos (I), with Belos (Zeus Belos), the father of Ninos, is evidence that such a process occurred. (Contra Julianum, ed. Aubert lib. I. MS. p. 10 [Migne PG LXXIII, col. 516D]: Ninos, the first king of Assyria [our Ninos I], is called son of Arbelos, whilst in lib. III. MS. p. 110 [Migne ibid. col. 669A] Belos is first called Ara Belos, allegedly the first man deified, — the division in the name looks original, though ara has been assumed, rather improbably, to be the Greek particle, a mere grammatical element, as in Aubert [Migne]. Then immediately after he is called Belos father of Ninos [ibid.], i.e. father of our Ninos I.) In other words, Arbelos or Ara Belos, father of Ninos I, was the second “incarnation” of the original Belos, the father of Ninos A and founder of Babylon, that is, of Bel Marduk or Asshur, identified with Amun of Siwa, Hammon, the Biblical Cush. Sanchuniathon’s “Zeus Belos” was, in that case, Arbelos.

338.1. This deified predecessor of Ninos (I) was more than just a name. In Mar Abas Catina apud Moses of Khorene (History of the Armenians, lib. I. cap. XIV, §965, below, >>) certain details of a war are recorded between Aram, the father of Ara, and one Barsham or Barshamin, of the stock of the Titans, the king of Assyria. Ara, the son of Aram, was a contemporary of Ninos (I). Therefore Barsham represented the generation of Assyrian kings immediately before Ninos (I). His oppressive rule over Assyria was terminated by Aram, but subsequently he was deified. (See further Moses of Khorene, op. cit. lib. II. cap. XIII.) The name Barsham(in) is a Syrian form of the name Baal Shamin. His era is that of Arbelos, the predecessor of Ninos (I), and his name corresponds to Zeus Belos, the name of the deified Arbelos, since Baal Shamin (as in Sanchuniathon himself) was commonly equated with the Greek Zeus.

338.2. The Kronos figure opposed by this Zeus Belos or Baal Shamin, king of Assyria, is not mentioned in Mar Abas, but features in the related medieval Armenian Sibylline traditions preserved in Giovanni Nanni’s Defloratio Berosi (§884, below, >>, ed. 1512, fol. CXXIa sqq., §889.19, below, >>, sqq.). According to the Defloratio, the “Caspian,” otherwise “Scythian,” or “Aramean/Armenian” Saturnus, Sabatius Saga (§888.14, below, >>), who was the son of “Cur,” that is, of the Biblical Cush (genealogical chart in Defloratio Book II, §886.2, below, >>) as ancestor of the Curetes (= Dioskouroi, Corybantes, Kabeiroi etc.), flourished in the generation immediately preceding Ninus (I), rivaling Iuppiter Belus, then fled under threat of the rise of Ninus (I), via the regions bordering on the Black Sea, to “Italy” (originally Kittim, the Mediterranean islands and coastlands). The flight westward of Saturnus in this account is reminiscent of the flight of Kronos westward in Peri Theon. See further on this section of the king-list in Abydenus, Cephalion and Mar Abas Catina, §354.10.1, below, >>.

338.3. Three deities feature in the family of Sin in the god-list An = Anum (see the chart at §318.2, above, >>) who are not otherwise identifiable with members of the family of Elos-Kronos: these could be the three gods referred to by Sanchuniathon, viz. Kronos (II), Zeus Belos, and Apollo. In An = Anum Shamash, Adad and Tammuz are three coeval siblings, sons of Sin, the moon-god, like the triad of Elos-Kronos’ “sons” in Sanchuniathon. In the Epic of Creation the supreme god Marduk is identified with all three: he is titled Damu (Tammuz), Shamash and Adad. Successive kings were identified with Tammuz, particularly in the era between Enmerkar and Shamshi-Adad I: therefore any, and all, of these divine names might become attached to individual members of the royal line between Nimrod-Enmerkar and Ninos I, as suggested here. Note that the royal name Shamshi-Adad (= Ninos I) incorporates two of these divine names, implying particular reverence for the deities in his circle and in his era. The three divine names in An = Anum seem to represent successive cosmic realms from high to low: Shamash, the sun-god, is lord of the sky, Adad, the weather-god, is lord of the air, and Tammuz is the god of the netherworld and fertile earth. The same three realms were associated with the three deified sons of Noah: 1) Shem replaced Noah as lord of heaven, 2) Japheth was lord of the atmosphere, and 3) Ham was lord of the netherworld. (See §314, above, >>.) As the triad of cosmic gods in An = Anum are the sons of Sin, the moon-god, (representing Cush), in tandem with Sin’s daughter Ishtar (representing Noah’s concubine, the daughter of Cush), this triad can been seen as representing the incorporation of the three patriarchal tribal lines of the Semites, Japhethites and Hamites, into the family, and therefore under the dominion, of Cush, through his daughter’s relationship as spouse to their ultimate ancestor, Noah. (See §316, above, >>.) This relationship and dominion passed to Nimrod through his liaison with the same concubine. From Nimrod it passed down to his descendants in the line of Ninus. Thus Ninus in the Excerpta Barbari is identified with each member in turn of the equivalent Greek triad of cosmic deities, Poseidon, Zeus and Hades, “because he held great power over all mankind” (viz. had dominion over all three patriarchal lines). (See §101.17, above, >>.) The only difference here is that the sea-god Poseidon replaces the sky-god, for the reasons already given (§314, above, >>). A variation on the scheme is that found in the Sibylline Oracles (the Erythraean Sibyl, Sambethe, §237, above, >>), where Zeus is born to Kronos in the era of the twelve sons of Israel c. 1800 BC, that is, in the era of Ninus I (who is equated with Zeus in the Excerpta Barbari), along with his two brothers, Poseidon and Plouto. Here there are three separate individual god-men, or leaders of the respective tribal groupings, descended from Kronos. Plouto is born at Dodona, and that was settled from Ham’s territory, Africa (§118, above, >>), which confirms the equation Plouto = Ham. The equivalent gods in Phoenicia would be El (Kronos II) or Yam = Poseidon, Baal Hadad (Zeus Belos) = Zeus, and Resheph (Apollo), god of the netherworld. Resheph is identified, on the one hand, with Nergal, god of the netherworld, and, on the other, with Apollo. This is the same triad found in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle (§343.1, below, >>), viz. the triad of sons of El (= Kronos): Yam, Baal Hadad and Mot, with Mot standing in third place instead of Resheph, as god of the netherworld. Mot in Sanchuniathon is the Tammuz-like Mouth, and Tammuz, like Mot, is the ruler of the Underworld. Tammuz is similarly the third god in the triad in An = Anum. As the first god in the Phoenician triad is variously named El and Yam, and El in Phoenicia was a name of the sun-god, the transition between the triad in An = Anum and Sanchuniathon becomes clearer: 1) Shamash = El = Kronos (II), 2) Adad = Hadad or Baal = Zeus Belos, 3) Tammuz = Mot = Resheph = Apollo. We shall find that the list of kings in Abydenus, Cephalion and Mar Abas Catina includes three royal names which equate with Sanchuniathon’s Apollo, Kronos and Zeus Belos (in that order), and that the Kronos-figure is equated, in turn, with the Iranian eponymus of the Semites, Iraj son of Feridun. (See §354.9ff., below, >>, with cross-references.) As the Golden Age was thought to have ended around the time of Ninus, it would seem the gods of the god-list An = Anum, and the corresponding god-men in Sanchuniathon, were believed to have flourished, not only in the Golden Age (Philo of Byblos), but for the whole span of that period, till its end in the time of Ninus c. 1800 BC.

339. The two sons of Elos-Kronos by Astarte, Pothos and Eros are not listed amongst the sacrificial victims of Elos-Kronos in Sanchuniathon. Pothos, in Sanchuniathon the elder brother of Eros, was also an alternative name for Eros (Cornutus, Epidrome, c. 25). Pothos had a cosmic significance in the theology of Taautos, according to Sanchuniathon (§364, below, >>), as an organ of creative energy, and in the Orphic theology Eros played a similar role. Aphrodite the mother of Eros is said to have emerged from the cosmic Egg, as did Eros himself in the Orphic system. Eros (Pothos) was a form of the Logos, and was otherwise known as Phanes and Dionysus, i.e. Tammuz, Adonis, or Osiris. For the probable identification of these children of Astarte with the seventh and eighth kings respectively of the First Dynasty of Egypt, see §626.9f., below, >>. Eros can be identified with Philistim, Palaistinos or Pelusius, the child of Isis who fell into the Sirbonian Lagoon and gave his name to Pelusium. As the Philistines (Philistim) were also known as Caphtorites, because immigrants from Caphtor (Cappadocia) occupied Philistine territory towards the end of the second millennium BC, and as Cappadox, the eponymous ancestor of the Caphtorites was a son of Ninuas, the son of Ninus of Assyria (§626.11, below, >>), the Philistim are traced from Assyria in Peri Theon (§101.3, above, >>). For the same reason Aphrodite (Isis) and Eros (Palaistinos), the two fishes of Pisces, are said to have swum originally in the waters of the Euphrates in Assyria, and the emergence of Aphrodite from the egg is located on the banks of the same river. (German. c. 20, Hygin. Fab. 197, Hygin. l. 2, c. 31, Manil. l. 4, v. 577.)

340. Sanchuniathon’s Elos-Kronos has three principal wives, namely Astarte, Rhea and Dione, described as daughters of Ouranos, sent originally by Ouranos against Elos-Kronos, but captured by him and taken to wife. In native Canaanite mythology there are three principal goddesses, Ashtart, Asherah and Baalat Gebal (“Mistress of Byblos”), all wives of El. Ashtart, wife of El, is clearly Sanchuniathon’s Astarte, wife of Elos-Kronos. Asherah, chief wife of El, is the equivalent of Rhea, the principal wife of Kronos in Greek myth. Dione is Baaltis or Baalat, “Mistress,” of Byblos, a goddess commonly equated with the Egyptian Isis and Hathor. Isis acquired from Hermes the crowning horns of Hathor (§625, below, >>), and was commonly identified with Hathor, Hathor being the Egyptian equivalent of the Canaanite Ashtart or Astarte, who first wore the crown of horns (see the following paragraph). Hence in the Melitonian fragment already cited Baaltis or Baalat Gebal, i.e. Isis, has the same role as Astarte in Canaan, or as Inana and Ishtar in Mesopotamian myth, as wife of Tammuz.

341. Aphrodite (= Astarte-Aphrodite in Sanchuniathon) and Dione appear in the Sibylline Oracles amongst the goddesses who brought about a reconciliation between Kronos (in the Oracles = Shem) and Titan (Ham). The goddesses are named “Rhea and Gaia, And Aphrodite fond of crowns, Demeter, And Hestia and Dione of fair locks.” The epithet “fond of crowns” applied to Aphrodite relates to Sanchuniathon’s account of how Astarte-Aphrodite placed the horns of a bull on her head in the position of a crown. Rhea is the wife of Kronos (Shem) in the Oracles and Gaia the wife of Ouranos (Noah). Hestia, the Roman Vesta, is the wife of Ouranos in Euhemerus, and mother of Titan and Kronos, Euhemerus’ account being similar to that in the Sibylline Oracles. She also appears as one of Noah’s wives in medieval expansions of the Sibylline account. The concubine of Noah who gave birth to Canaan is likely Dione in the Oracles, as in Sanchuniathon, not Hestia. Sanchuniathon says Ouranos (= Noah) had “other wives” (plural) beside Ge: Hestia (Vesta) represents one of these. The other goddess is Demeter and Demeter was commonly equated with Rhea. If, as seems probable, Aphrodite, Demeter and Dione in the Oracles are the same as Sanchuniathon’s Astarte-Aphrodite, Rhea and Dione, then their mission to Elos-Kronos on behalf of Ouranos in Sanchuniathon has been interpreted in the Oracles as an attempt at reconciliation between the opposing factions of Ham (Titan) and Shem (Kronos).

342. In addition to his three principal wives, Sanchuniathon mentions two females sent similarly by Ouranos against Elos-Kronos, but won over to his side. Philo translates their names Hora “Daytime,” and Heimarmene, “One who has received her allotted time.” There are five females in a Ras Shamra myth associated with El: a group of three, Athirat (= Asherah), Rahmay, and Shapshu, and a pair of goddesses whom El meets by the seaside and whom later he takes to wife. The text is from a tablet discovered in the Library in the House of the High Priest on the Acropolis at Ugarit. The interpretation of the myth is disputed, but the narrative section seems to envisage El as already, at the opening of the story, associated with the three goddesses, Athirat (Asherah), Rahmay (some suggest this is a title of Ashtart, formed from the verb rḥm, “love”) and Shapshu (a sun-goddess like Hathor, i.e. Dione-Baaltis in Sanchuniathon). Subsequently he meets the other two goddesses at the shore of the Deep and gives them the option of treating him as their father or their husband. They choose the latter option. He enters into a sexual relationship with them and begets by them two male gods, called the “goodly, or, gracious gods.” It is commonly understood that there are more than one set of children born to the two wives, and that when they give birth to the first set of gods, the two male children are named Shahar and Shalim (Dawn and Dusk). However, the text is ambiguous on the number of birth-cycles, and it could also be interpreted in the sense that Shahar and Shalim are the names of the two goddess mothers, who otherwise would remain unnamed throughout the narrative — an unlikely situation in light of the fact that the myth revolves around them. Preferably the passage should be translated as follows, KTU/CAT 1.23, 48-61a:

“(48) …. So the two females become wives of El, (49) Wives of El and his forever. He bends down, kisses their lips, (50) See how sweet their lips are, Sweet as pomegranates. (51) When he kisses there is conception, When he embraces, there is passion. The two get grabbed and (52) engender, Dawn [Shahar] and Dusk [Shalim]. Word to El is brought, The two wives of (53) El have engendered. What have they engendered? A pair of infants (have) Dawn [Shahar] and Dusk [Shalim] (engendered). (54) Make an offering to Lady Sun (Shapshu), and to the stationary stars. (55) He bends down, kisses their lips, See how swee[t] their lips are, <Sweet as pomegranates>. (56) When he kisses there is conception, When he embraces, there is passion. He sits, (57) counts to five (months), Till S[itash, t]en [?], the total for both [?]. (58) The two get grabbed and engender, Engender the Goodly Gods [(’i)lm n‛mm], Day-old devourers, (59) day-old boys, Who suck the nipples of the breast. Word to El is brought, (60) The two wives of El have engendered. What have they engendered? Twin Goodly Gods [’ilmy n‛mm], (61a) Day-old devourers, day-old boys, Who suck the nipples of the breast ….”

Note: “Sitash” (line 57) is a reconstructed month-name, which suits the context. The text is unfortunately broken at this point, and only the initial letter of the proposed first word Sitash (tsade) is visible, and the last two letters (shin and resh) of the proposed second word ‛ashar (“ten”). Various other reconstructions of the text have been suggested, but the translation supra provides what appears to be a more fitting complement to the introductory phrases regarding El’s counting of the months to the birth of the twins, and the astral references in the preceding lines. Sitash is an alternative name for the month Sivan (Akkadian Ṣitaš = Simanu, Heb. Sivan), when the sun (Shapshu) in that era was in the constellation of Gemini, the Twins (Akkadian Mashu, Tu’amu). This is the appropriate month for the birth of the twin “Goodly Gods.” It was eight complete months subsequent to the beginning of the agricultural year in Ululu (Elul), and five months from the first clear signs of pregnancy in the third month, from around which point El was counting.

The relevant lines for the identification of Shahar and Shalim are KTU/CAT 1.23, 51-53: tqt[nṣn] w]/tldn šḥr wšlm rgm l’il ybl ’at[ty]/ ’il ylt mh ylt yldy šḥr wšl[m]: “(51) … The two get grabbed and (52) engender, Shahar and Shalim [rather than ‘… become pregnant with (or, give birth to) Shahar and Shalim:’ the original reads: tldn šḥr wšlm]. Word to El is brought: ‘The two wives of (53) El have engendered.’ ‘What have they engendered?’ ‘A pair of infants (have) Shahar and Shalim (engendered)’ [rather than ‘A pair of infants (namely) Shahar and Shalim:’ the original reads yldy šḥr wšl(m)].” In Isaiah 14. 12 Heilel (the “Shining One”) is called “son of Shahar [Dawn].” In the Septuagint Heilel is translated Eosphoros, lit. “light-bringer,” and Eosphoros in Greek myth is son of the goddess Eos, Dawn, corresponding to the Hebrew Shahar. Shahar is female in gender. Similarly in the Vulgate Heilel is translated Lucifer, “light-bringer,” Lucifer being son of the goddess Aurora, Dawn. Another name for Eosphoros is Phosphoros (light-bringer) and Phosphoros is the name of Polydeukes (Pollux), that is, in Classical myth, the star Beta Geminorum, which, although labeled Beta, is the brightest star in Gemini, the Twins, and is commonly identified in Classical times with Herakles or Ares, or as Ptolemy (Tetrabiblos I. 9) puts it, Pollux is called the “star of Herakles” and has “the same quality as Ares.” The other star, Castor (Alpha Geminorum) is identified with (the Pythian) Apollo, who is also known as Phosphoros, and is said by Ptolemy (ibid.) to have the “same quality as Hermes.” We thus have two Phosphoroi, or two forms of Lucifer, identified with the twin stars of Gemini, Castor and Pollux. The former, the Pythian Apollo, is called Bonus Puer, “Goodly Boy.” The same epithet is attached to Azizus, one of two “Phoenician” gods, Azizos (Ares, Mars) and Monimos (Hermes) of Edessa. (Roscher, Lex. s.v. Azizus.) The title “Bonus Puer” looks like a translation of the n‛m of the Ugaritic text supra, of the “Goodly” gods. That is the more likely as Monimos appears to be a formation (mun‛im) from the root n‛m: viz. Azizos and Monimos are the twin “Goodly Gods.” Azizos is from the Semitic root ‛-z, “strong,” denoting the planet-god Mars (Nergal, Eragal, Herakles, Ares), who is the god seen in duplicate (Herakles and Apollo, Meslamta-ea and Lugal-irra, §80 note, above, >>) in the constellation. Thus the “Goodly Boys” are Monimos and Azizos of Edessa, otherwise Hermes and Ares (which are the Interpretatio Graeca equivalents offered by Julian from Jamblichus, ed. Lacombrade, Julien, Oevres, II, 2, 128, 150 C-D), and they are also the Gemini Twins, otherwise Apollo, having the “same quality as Hermes,” and Herakles, having the “same quality as Ares.” The star Azizos is said to “forerun the sun” (Julian, 154 B = Oevres, II, 2, 133) because it immediately precedes the sun in its rising when the sun is in Gemini, as the path of the sun is a little to the south of Pollux (Azizos) in the sky. The “Goodly Gods” of the Ugaritic text might be variously identified as Lugal-irra and Meslamta-ea, Monimos and Azizos, Hermes and Ares, Apollo and Herakles, all these being names of the Gemini Twins. Shahar (Dawn), their mother, is the female Eos or Aurora (Dawn) of Classical myth, the mother of Phosphoros in both forms. In Psa. 110. 3 Adoni “My Lord” (a title of the Messiah identical to the Phoenician Adonis) is said to have been born from the “womb of Mishhar [Dawn],” the latter being the same as Shahar. The word “womb” shows Mishhar (Shahar), is symbolically female and a mother. If also, as seems probable, the name Shalim is the same as is found in the toponym Uru-Shalim, Jerusalem, that is “The City of Shalim,” then Shalim is identical with the Salem of the post-biblical tradition, who supplied the name for the city. (Salem = Shalem, the Greek initial sigma for Hebrew shin.) Salem in these post-biblical traditions is female. The rape of Salem by the House of Uruk (under Enmerkar = El) is discussed at §211, above, >>. Sanchuniathon’s account confirms the suggestion: Shahar means “Dawning of Day,” and is comparable to Philo’s Hora “Daytime,” and Shalim, meaning “End of Day,” literally “That which has run its course, or, is complete,” is comparable to Philo’s Heimarmene “One who has received her allotted time.” Both are raped by Elos-Kronos (= Nimrod-Enmerkar). There are two Salems in the post-biblical tradition (§209.2.3, above, >>), one, presumably, the female “Sidon” (Nanshe/Nina = Saida = Side = Sidon) of Sanchuniathon (§211, above, >>), who would be Salem I, the grandmother-in-law of Salem II, and the other, as here, Sanchuniathon’s Heimarmene (Nanshe/Nina = Kishshatu = Shalim), viz. Salem II. If further, as suggested at §209.2.3, above, >>, Salem II is Melam-Kishi of the second sub-dynasty within the first Dynasty of Kish, then her name means “Glory/​brightness [melammu] of Kish [= Salem].” This could be taken as a reference to the “glory/​brightness” of the founding mother of the city, Salem I, the mother of Shelah. In which case the name Shahar (“brightness of dawn”) is the Ugaritic equivalent of this word melammu, denoting Salem I, and Shalim is Salem II herself. The two names are two aspects of the city Salem, comparable to the revolving hemispheres of heaven at dawn and dusk in the Ugaritic myth, or otherwise the two aspects of Athtar, the planet Venus, as Morning (Shahar) and Evening (Shalim) star. (On the latter role see Dict. of Deities and Demons in the Bible, s.vv. Shahar, Shalim.) The gender of Athtar is ambiguous, but generally and more particularly at Ugarit, Athtar is a goddess, which is another indication that Shahar and Shalim are the two females of Sanchuniathon’s account. His representation of them as emissaries of Ouranos (Noah) captured by Elos-Kronos (Nimrod) is a reflex of the rape of the females of the Semitic line of Kish (Salem) by the House of Uruk under Enmerkar.

343. According to Sanchuniathon, Elos-Kronos first became jealous of, then buried alive, his “brother” Atlas son of Ouranos. Atlas son of Ouranos is the Biblical Japheth son of Noah. (§310 subsection 3, above, >>.) Typically, Elos-Kronos “robbed the soul” of his victims and thus became one with them. In this case, Elos-Kronos (= Nimrod) “robbed the soul” of Atlas (= Japheth). Sanchuniathon’s scheme is Ogdoadic in structure and the four sons of Ouranos, including Atlas, represent the four divinized elements of chaos. One of these elementary deities in the equivalent Mesopotamian scheme is Anshar, i.e. Japheth. Thus Asari, later Bel Marduk or Asshur, the sun-god who was the “soul” of Nimrod (refer to the chart at §318.1, above, >>), could be identified equally with Anshar, who was likewise the “soul” of Nimrod. As a more primitive avatar of the same solar divinity, Cush father of Nimrod, could be, and was, identified similarly with Anshar.

343.0.1. A conflict between Ouranos and Pontos is mentioned in Sanchuniathon, and the immigration of Thoth and El to the Land of the South, as follows:

[PE I. x. 26] …. “Opposed to these [rather than “contemporary with these,” these being Kronos (II), Zeus Belos and Apollo] are Pontos, and Tuphon, and Nereus father of Pontos.

[PE I. x. 27] “And from Pontos is born Sidon (who from the exceeding sweetness of her voice was the first to invent musical song) and Poseidon. And to Demarous is born Melkarthos [viz. Melqart, text: Melkathros], who is also called Herakles.

[PE I. x. 28] “Then again Ouranos makes war against Pontos, and he, having withdrawn, brings conflict to Demarous. And Demarous attacks Pontos, but Pontos puts him to flight; and Demarous vowed an offering to effect his escape ….

[PE I. x. 42] “The same author [viz. Sanchuniathon], in his History of the Jews, further writes thus: [PE I. x. 43] “Tauthos, whom the Egyptians call Thouth [viz. the Second Hermes], excelled in wisdom among the Phoenicians, and was the first to rescue the worship of the gods from the ignorance of the vulgar, and arrange it in the order of intelligent experience. Many generations after him a god Sour and Moubelos-Thouro [the gender of the latter is female], whose name was changed to Eusarthis [other reading: Khousarthis], brought to light the theology of Tauthos which had been hidden and overshadowed, by allegories.”

[PE I. x. 36] “But before this the god Tauthos imitated the features of the gods who were his companions, Kronos, and Dagon, and the rest, and gave form to the sacred characters of the letters. He also devised for Kronos as insignia of royalty four eyes in front and behind, but two of them quietly closed, and upon his shoulders four wings, two as spread for flying, and two as folded.

[PE I. x. 37] “And the symbol meant that Kronos could see when asleep, and sleep while waking: and similarly in the case of the wings, that he flew while at rest, and was at rest when flying. But to each of the other gods he gave two wings upon the shoulders, as meaning that they accompanied Kronos in his flight. And to Kronos himself again he gave two wings upon his head, one representing the all-ruling mind, and one sensation.

[PE I. x. 38] “And when Kronos came into the Land of the South he gave all Egypt to the god Tauthos, that it might be his royal dwelling-place.”

343.0.2. The names Sidon and Poseidon are juxtaposed as the offspring of Pontos, “Sea.” The implication is that the Greek divine name Poseidon has something to do with Sidon. Pos-Seidon would mean “Master/Posessor of Sidon,” which is equivalent to the native Canaanite Baal Sidon. The identity of Poseidon and Sidon is hinted at similarly in the textual exchange of the name Sidon for Poseidon as the husband of Libya in Cramer Anec. Oxon. 4. 221 (Roscher, Lexikon, s.v. Side). As the Baal of the maritime city of Sidon, whose contacts with Greece were largely, if not exclusively, maintained by mariners, the Sidonian god would naturally be treated as a sea-god by the Greeks, in the same way that Melqart the Baal of Tyre became the Greek sea-god Melikertes, though Melqart’s marine offices amongst the Tyrians themselves were secondary, like Eshmun’s in Sidon. Asklepios (Eshmun) and Melikertes, as well as Herakles (Melqart under another name), and the sea-god Glaukos (Poseidon), were all identified with the figure depicted in the watery star-sign Ophiuchus, the Serpent-wrestler. For the historical background of the mythological battle between Ouranos, Pontos and Demarous, see §354.2, below, >>.

343.1. Many of these figures appear in the Ugaritic literature. For example, in the Baal Cycle, El (Elos-Kronos) lives far away at the source of the rivers, amidst the springs of the two deeps, that is, somewhere in the vast territory around the junction of the Blue and White Nile (Sanchuniathon’s “Land of the South,” Pathros). In Sanchuniathon, Elos-Kronos (Nimrod) supplants Ouranos (Noah). In the Ugaritic literature, El is the Noah-like father of three gods, Yam (Pontos), Baal Hadad (Zeus Demarous, Adodos), and Mot (Mouth), who correspond positionally to Shem, (water, Enki), Japheth (air, Enlil) and Ham (earth, underworld, KUR). Elos-Kronos, i.e. Nimrod (El) incorporated the three lines into his lineage by his liaison with Noah’s concubine (see §316, above, >>). Strictly speaking, therefore, Yam represents the Semitic line descended from El, Baal the Canaanite (originally Japhethite) line descended from El, and Mot, the Hamite line descended from El, rather than the patriarchs personally. The House of Uruk has replaced Japheth in the tradition underlying this interpretation, taking the “Enlilship,” so here Baal Hadad is Canaan (Lugal-banda = Ninurta = Adad = Hadad). Baal Hadad is regularly styled son of Dagan, though Dagan (= Dagon = Ham) does not feature in the narrative. Ham as dramatis persona is Kothar-wa-Hasis (Ptah), see infra. The title “son of Dagan (Corn)” emphasizes, rather, the role of Baal as god of fertility. Similarly, Mot represents the Hamites descended from El, specifically, the New Kingdom pharaohs from Thebes (Pathros), not the patriarch himself. Baal Hadad (Canaan) acknowledges he is a servant of his two brothers, Yam (the Semites) and Mot (the Hamites). That has small bearing on his attempt to assume supreme power, except, perhaps, in respect of his deference to El’s temperamental and blood-thirsty daughter, Anat (Athena), the cosmic tom-boy, who delights in slaughter and jumps at every opportunity to defend Baal, when he might otherwise acquiesce in the status quo. Baal is also aided by the god of smithcraft Kothar-wa-Hasis (“Skillful and Wise”), whose home is Memphis in Egypt, and who has control of that region (= Ptah, Hephaistos, Ham). Baal’s battle is as much with El as it is with his two brothers, and this is the same scenario envisaged by Castor and Thallus in their account of the Titan War (= Genesis 14), viz. Zeus (Baal, Canaan) versus Kronos the Titan (El, Nimrod). Baal first defeats Yam, meaning the Semites, — doubtless, in one phase or aspect, the invading Habiru-Hebrews of the 14th century BC, — then builds his “palace,” that is, in the local interpretation, the temple of Baal in Ugarit, and, in the wider political sense, the independent dominion of the Canaanite chieftains in the north. Subsequently he is swallowed by Mot (the Hamites), — presumably a reference to the later New Kingdom incursions, when parts of Canaan were under Egyptian hegemony. Baal then defeats Mot with the help of Anat. In view of Sanchuniathon’s identification of Anat and Athena of Attica, this probably represents military aid regularly provided to the Canaanite kings by Cretan, Aegean and other Mediterranean elements, in this instance against Egypt. Though Baal and Mot both experience “death” (military defeat), they both revive, and the battle continues, in the political realm between Canaan and Egypt, as in the cosmic realm between the forces of fertility (Baal the god of thunder and rain) and drought (Mot, god of the barren earth and underworld). The more pressing danger at the time of composition (13th century BC) clearly was from New Kingdom Egypt (Mot). Sub-plots woven into the narrative are the attempt of Ashtar (Venus) son of El and Asherah to replace Baal when he is absent in the Underworld (the Descent of Ishtar theme), and the production by Baal, in union with a heifer, of a son, who is threatened by Mot with death even before he is born, — a reference to Dumuzi, the dying son of Nin-sumun (Mistress of the Wild Cows) and Lugal-banda (= Ninurta = Baal Hadad = Canaan).

343.2. The reference in Sanchuniathon to the obscuring of the theology of Tauthos and the light subsequently shed on it by the “god Sour and [the female] Moubelos-Thouro [Gk. Moubêlos-Thourô], whose name was later changed to Eusarthis,” is complementary to the statements made by Porphyrius, and cited by Eusebius, that Sanchuniathon lived in the “time of Semiramis,” and had access to records incorporating the Hebrew traditions of the Judge Jerubbaal (Gideon). This Semiramis, known also as Atossa, was the daughter of the 18th Assyrian king Belochos. The era of Belochos was one in which stories about the miraculous events of the Exodus and Hebrew prophetic traditions penetrated even the court of the Iranian king Kai Kaus. (§677.14, below, >>.) Sanchuniathon viewed himself as an exponent, similarly, of the historical truths underlying the allegories with which the theology of Tauthos had been shrouded. In this context, the mysterious female name Moubelos-Thouro (of one who threw light, like Sanchuniathon, on the theology of Tauthos), is likely to belong to some notable contemporary, or near contemporary, of Sanchuniathon. The aforementioned Assyrian Queen Semiramis, the contemporary of Sanchuniathon, and the bearer of a divine appellative, like Moubelos-Thouro, is a possible candidate. She is dateable to the generation immediately following Belochos, c. 1360 BC (traditional). One of the few, royal, Assyrian, females named in archaeological sources flourished in that very era. She was Muballitat-Sherua, daughter of Ashur-uballit I, who was the effective founder of the Assyrian Empire c. 1360 BC. Muballitat-Sherua was wedded to the Kassite king of Babylon. The Greek Belochos would be a typical representation of the second element in the Assyrian king’s name (-uballit > belochos [belleus is also attested]), the divine name Ashur, comprising the first element, having been discarded. (See on this latter phenomenon §95, above, >>.) The name Muballitat-Sherua is surely the Moubelos-Thouro of Sanchuniathon, with transposition of the theta and sigma, and of the final omega and the compound vowel omicron and upsilon (originally “Moubeloth-Sorou”), and the elision of the final “t” in the first element = Muballita(t)-Sherua > Moubeloth-Sorou > Moubelos-Thouro. The second element in the name of the Queen is a divine name, that of the goddess Sherua, and an alternative way of writing the divine name is Erua. If read Muballitat-Erua, rather than Muballitat-Sherua, the theta in Sanchuniathon’s form may represent the final “t” in the first element Muballitat. The preservation in this account only of the primitive and original form of the Queen’s name confirms its antiquity and authenticity. The divinity with whom Moubelos-Thouro was identified is called “Eusarthis” in Sanchuniathon: this probably represents the divine name Ashertu, Ashratu, etc., a Mesopotamian form of the name Asherah. “Atossa” could be another representation of the name, with the Canaanite “t” for “sh” in the first syllable, and rt > tt > ss in the last: Atartu (Ashartu) > Atattu > Atossa. Alternatively, the “sh” and “t” of the first and last syllables in the primitive form were transposed in the Greek. Ashertu was the spouse of the god Amurru, whose name, in respect of Mesopotamia, signified “the West, Syria, the Levant, etc.” The god Amurru (Sumerian Martu) was equated with Adad = Hadad, and Adad with the Babylonian and Assyrian High-gods Marduk and Asshur. Asshur is the eponymous patron-deity of Assyria/Syria. In Sanchuniathon, evidently, the Syrian eponymus is employed, instead of the Mesopotamian form; which is understandable, as Syria was not “the West” (“Amurru”) from Sanchuniathon’s perspective. The “god Sour [= Syria],” the consort of “Eusarthis,” in that case, stands for Asshur = Adad = Amurru, the consort of Ashertu. Ashertu was identified with Asshur’s divine wife Ishtar, and Ishtar with Belet-ili and hence with Marduk’s consort Zarpanitu. Zarpanitu, in turn, was identified with Sherua/Erua. The goddess was incarnated in Muballitat-Sherua, the Queen of Babylon, and the god in her husband, the king of Babylon. The Greeks knew the divine pair as Hera and Zeus, Semiramis and Ninus etc.

343.3. The Kassite kings of that era were in contact with Akhenaten’s Egypt, as demonstrated by the Amarna correspondence. It cannot be coincidence, in the light of the movement of reform evidenced in Sanchuniathon’s account c. 1350-1300 BC, that Akhenaten (c. 1350-1332 BC) was, notably, a religious reformer, who promoted a kind of monotheism reminiscent of that of the Hebrews. Akhenaten’s monotheistic Aten religion is thought to have penetrated Egypt from Ethiopia. It was Ethiopia, in that same era, which was the scene of a military incursion by the God-fearing Iranian king Kai Kaus, in alliance with “Kushan” (Kassite) forces (§677.0.1, below, >>), and he had religious leanings in sympathy with the Hebrews (§677-14, below, >>).

344. There are five family-lines in Sanchuniathon’s account, two in the pre-diluvian and three in the post-diluvian era. Ouranos in Classical myth had a few obscure ancestors, e.g. Chaos, Erebos, and the identification of Ouranos with Noah presupposes he, like Noah in Genesis, or like Ziusudra in Mesopotamian epic literature, should have some antecedents also. Because Noah was equated with the god of heaven, and this god (Anu in Mesopotamia) was believed to have emerged out of the divinized elements of chaos, which were four in number, the Mesopotamian god-lists represent Anu, or the conjoined An-Ki (“Heaven and Earth” before their separation), as having ten generations of “lords mothers fathers” whose names are so many different designations for these same four elemental deities. Though the original elemental deities represented the four couples in Noah’s family, the scheme was extended to cover earlier antecedents of Noah, and ten forms of their names were used to designate the ten pre-diluvian generations preceding him. (The god-lists show many minor variations, but the common pattern is as illustrated here.) Thus, one list (Deimel, Pantheon Babylonicum, p. 18f.) begins in the most remote generation from An-Ki with four names for the netherworld or the netherworld waters (corresponding to Apsu in Enuma Elish): working up the list from the bottom these are: En-uru-ulla (“Lord of the Distant City,” i.e. the Netherworld) and his wife, followed in turn by Alala (meaning “Abundance of Waters” written with the sign ALAM), Alala (this time written phonetically), and Ekur (“Netherworld House”), with their wives: then follows Lahma (= Lahmu in Enuma Elish) with his wife, followed by four forms of Anshar with their wives, namely Duru (meaning “Cycle of Time,” equivalent to the word “shar” in Anshar which can be translated that way), En-shar (“Lord Shar”), Anshar, and Anshargal (meaning “Great Anshar”), and finally Urash and his wife, making ten in all. The pattern is 4 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 10, which seems to reflect the list’s derivation from the four elements of chaos. The last deity Urash is a deity of the earth and of the rain and storm which fertilize the earth, is sometimes described as a “son” (= secondary form) of Ea-Enki, and serves also as a by-name of Marduk. Urash seems here, by default, to correspond to Mummu. The name Mummu is similarly an epithet of Marduk, as well as of Ea-Enki, god of the fertilizing waters of the earth. Lists like this were available to the Hurrians and Hittites, as is evident by the fact that the predecessor of Anu in the Hittite (originally Hurrian) myth is “Alalu,” i.e. Alala of the Mesopotamian lists, and Anu is said to have usurped him in the tenth “year” (having served him “nine years”), which is an obvious reference to the ten generations of “lords mothers fathers” preceding Anu, otherwise the ten pre-diluvian generations.

345. Two lines of pre-Ouranids, accordingly, are traceable in Sanchuniathon. These parallel the two pre-diluvian genealogies of Cain and Seth in Genesis and the pre-diluvian kings and apkallus in Mesopotamia. In the chart of pre-diluvian kings and apkallus (§412.1, below, >>) we find Noah-Ziusudra has ten antecedents in the lists on the right-hand side (corresponding to the Biblical Adam, Abel and the Sethites). Likewise in Sanchuniathon Ouranos has ten male antecedents: Tekhnites and Geinos Autokhthon, followed by Agros, Agroueros or Abrotes (or Agrotes), Amunos, Magos, Misor from whom was born Taautos, Suduk, and Elioun. The relevant passage of Sanchuniathon reads as follows:

[PE I. x. 12] “Afterwards there came of their race two youths, one of whom was called Tekhnites (“Skilled in Fashioning”), and the other Geinos Autokhthon (“Originating from the ground with the quality of earth”). These devised the mixing of straw with the clay of bricks, and drying them in the sun, and moreover invented roofs. From them others were born, one of whom was called Agros, and the other Agroueros, or Abrotes (var. Agrotes), he also whose image is much revered, and whose sacred abode is drawn by a pair of oxen; and who among the people of Byblos is named pre-eminently the greatest of the gods.

[PE I. x. 13] “These two devised the addition to houses of courts, and enclosures, and caves. From them came catchers of wild game (agrotai) and hunters with dogs. They are also called Aletai and Titans. From these were born Amunos and Magos, who inculcated villages and sheepfolds. From them came Misor and Suduk, that is to say “Thoroughly Unraveled” and “Just:” these discovered the use of salt.

[PE I. x. 14] “From Misor was born Taautos, who invented the first written alphabet; the Egyptians called him Thouth, the Alexandrians Thoth, and the Greeks Hermes [viz. the First Hermes].

“From Suduk came the Dioskouroi, or Kabeiroi, or Korubantes, or Samothraikes: these, he says, first invented a ship. From them have sprung others, who discovered herbs, and the healing of venomous bites, and charms. In their time is born a certain Elioun called “the Most High,” and a female named Berouth, and these dwelt in the neighbourhood of Byblos.

[PE I. x. 15] “And from them is born Epigeios or Autokhthon, whom they afterwards called Ouranos (heaven); so that from him also they named the element above us Ouranos because of the excellence of its beauty. And he has a sister born of the aforesaid parents, who was called Ge (earth), and from her, he says, because of her beauty, they called the earth by the same name. And their father, the Most High, died in an encounter with wild beasts, and was deified, and his children offered to him libations and sacrifices.”

If we were in any doubt that this represented a genealogy parallel to the line of Seth in Genesis, that doubt ought to be removed by the observation that the seventh named descendant from the initial pair, in the fourth generation inclusive preceding Ouranos (Noah-Ziusudra), is the notable figure Taautos, the Egyptian prophet-god Thoth: this is the First Hermes of later tradition, whom the Sabians of Harran equated with Enoch. Enoch is precisely the seventh inclusive in descent from Adam in the Sethite line in Genesis (Seth being the brother of Abel) and the fourth inclusive generation preceding Noah. (The initial pair in the list under consideration, viz. Tekhnites and Geinos Autokhthon, are probably twin aspects of the same person [the Biblical Adam], cf. the initial pair Aion and Protogonos in the other line of pre-Ouranids, §350, below, >>, who are likewise twin aspects of a single character.) The pair Misor and Suduk correspond to the Mesopotamian divine pair Misharu and Kittu (Law and Justice), the latter, kittu, being the East Semitic translation of the West Semitic noun formed from the root ṣ-d-q, which is absent in East Semitic. (See §83, above, >>.) In Sumerian the word kittu can be written with the sign DU (DU, read gin = kittu). This sign DU, duplicated, DU.DU (or Tutu) appears as the most significant component in the Sumerian name Ubara-DU.DU (Ubara-Tutu), the Sumerian equivalent of the Hebrew Methuselah (see §455, below, >>). Thus Sanchuniathon’s Suduk = Methuselah. Since Kittu (Justice) was commonly paired with Misharu (Law, righteousness, uprightness), Methuselah’s predecessor, Jared, was equated with Misharu (Sanchuniathon’s Misor), though in this genealogical scheme the pair is separated contextually by the insertion of Jared’s son Enoch (Sanchuniathon’s Taautos, son of Misor). The equation of Jared with Misharu could be justified on the assumption that the nominal component “dur-anki,” which formed the significant element in the Sumerian name for Jared, Enme-dur-anki (see §453, below, >>), signified the god Dur-anki, that is, the High god of Nippur and Babylon, Bel (Enlil, Marduk): one of the many titles of Bel as god of the planet Jupiter was the “Star of Kittu and Misharu.” Tutu in the name Ubara-Tutu (or DU.DU) was likewise a sobriquet of Bel (“Star of Kittu and Misharu”). The Hebrew name for the planet Jupiter is Zedek, which is the West Semitic equivalent of Kittu. Another of Sanchuniathon’s pre-Ouranids, Abrotes (or Agrotes), corresponds positionally to the Biblical Enosh. Sanchuniathon connects the worship of a supreme god with him, and similarly in Genesis it is recorded that Enosh (“man”) was “artfully designed” to worship God. (See further §450, below, >>.) The names of the Sethites and Sanchuniathon’s second line of pre-Ouranids line up as follows:

Biblical Name	Meaning	Name in Sanchuniathon	Meaning
1a. Adam (in the image of God)	From the bi-consonantal root dm, whence demuth image, hence Adam = “He of the Design/Image”	Tekhnites	“Skilled in Design/Fashioning” See §448, below, >>, on Adam = U-ana = ummanu, craftsman, expert
1b. Adam (made from the earth)	From adamah, “(blood-red) earth”	Geinos Autokhthon	“Originating from the ground with the quality of earth”
2. Abel	From the root hbl, “breath after”	Agros	“Yearned for” (agr- = hunt > yearn for)
3. Seth	“Appointed (as a replacement of Abel)”	Agroueros	“Taken for the part of (-eros from aireo, take, choose) Agros (Agros = Abel = “Yearned for”)
or 3. Enosh	Root ’–n-sh, 1) “be sickly, weak” 2) “be sophisticated” 3) “be companionable”	Abrotes	1) “Delicate” 2) “luxurious, splendid, materially advanced” 3) “charming, socially refined”
4. Cainan	Root q-n-n cognate to g-n-n, “protect, defend”	Amunos	“Defense”
5. Mahalalel	“Glorification of God”	Magos	“Expert in worship”
6. Jared	“Coming down” or “Descent” or “Felling,” Jared = Sumerian Enme-dur-ana, where dur = felling, otherwise Enme-dur-anki, §453, below, >>, where Dur-anki = Bel the “star of Kittu and Misharu,” and Misharu = Misor	Misor Greek: Eulutos	“Leveled” “Thoroughly Unraveled”
7. Enoch	“Initiated in wisdom”	Taautos	The god of wisdom
8. Methuselah	“Devotee of (the God who oversees) one’s moral path” (viz. as divine judge), Sumerian Ubara-DU.DU, §455, below, >>, in which DU = gin = 1) go 2) Kittu (Suduk)	Suduk	“(Divine) justice, vengeance”
9. Lamech	“Curving Over”	Elioun	“Rising Up Over”
10. Noah	“Relief” and “delightful” (for the latter meaning of the root nwḥ see Gesenius-Tregelles s.v. niyḥōaḥ)	Ouranos	“Delightful”

Excursus on the Kabeiroi

(For the continuation of the discussion on the two lines of pre-Ouranids go to §350, below, >>.)

346. The Kabeiroi appear several times in Sanchuniathon’s account. Their name is Semitic: kabbir = “great,” from kabar, “to be great, strong,” kindred to gibbor, “great one, mighty man, hero,” the word used to describe Nimrod in the Bible, from gabar, “to be strong” (Gesenius-Tregelles s.v. kabal). Kabeiroi is interpreted as “Megaloi Theoi” in Greek, that is “The Great Gods.”

The gibborim in Genesis 6 are the offspring of the unions between the “sons [or, males of the order] of God [Elohim = El]” and the “daughters [or, females of the order] of Adam” and are identified as the nephilim, “fallen ones,” who were “on earth” both before and after the Inundation. In Sanchuniathon similarly the Kabeiroi (= gibborim) are called Dios-kouroi (= “boys [or males of the order] of Zeus [= El]”). They are the sons of Suduk = Heb. Zedek = Jupiter (see the references supra and infra), Suduk being a cypher for the Sethite Methuselah (Sum. Ubara-Tutu). The Sethites (sons of God) commingled with the females of the debased Adamic line (daughters of Adam) and produced these genetically mutant gibborim or nephilim. The latter are also denominated in Gen. 6 “men of renown [lit. men of the Name, Heb. anshe-ha-Shem].” This harks back to an earlier period in pre-diluvian history when Enosh (the singular of the construct form anshe, “man”) was born to Seth the son of Adam, it being recorded of him (Enosh = “man”) that he was “artfully designed” to invoke the “Name” of the LORD (y-h-w-h). See for the details of the name Enosh and its meaning §450, below, >>. In this verse reference is made to both terms in the particular phrase applied to the gibborim or nephilim, viz. anshe-ha-Shem, “men of the Name:” Anshe = Enosh, Shem = Shem (y-h-w-h). In post-biblical midrash this was commonly interpreted as indicating a knowledge of the Ineffable Name of God granted to the nephilim or fallen angels. The commingling of the two lines was thought to have infused this element of divinity into their offspring, giving them more than human powers. We shall see infra that the Zodiacal sign of Methuselah was Scorpio, the eighth sign in order from Aries (Adam/Abel). Enosh’s sign was the third after Aries, as he was the third from Adam (Adam’s grandson by Seth), that is, Gemini. As the gibborim traced their “divine” (Sethite) lineage back to Enosh, who was the eponymus, as it were, of the anshe-ha-Shem, their particular sign under that designation was Gemini. In Mesopotamian astrology Gemini bore the name of “The Twins” (Akkadian Mashu [Mašû] and Tu’amu, “Twins,” whence it was borrowed by the Greeks [Didumoi] and Romans [Gemini]), represented by the symbol of two figures with weapons, conceived of as forms of Nergal, the god of the planet Mars, of masculinity and of male pursuits (Heb. Enosh = “fellowship,” “maleness,” “human resourcefulness”). The significant element in the Sumerian name corresponding to Enosh ([Enme-]galama) is also a title of Nergal ([Lugal-]galama, Deimel, Pantheon, 1883), meaning “Resourceful King.” The union of the sons of God (Gk. Dioskouroi = Didumoi) and the daughters of Adam was depicted accordingly as a union between (twin forms of) Mars, the ideal male, and Venus, the ideal female. In post-biblical midrash the god of Mars bore various names derived from the biconsonantal root ‛-z, “strong.” The “sons of God” in that system are Uzza and Azzael (§193.1, above, >>) or Az(z)a and Shemhazai (or Shemyaza, Shemhazael, containing the element ‛-z and the divine [el] name [shem]), etc. The ideal female, Venus (Heb. Eshterah), is represented by the prediluvian Naamah, or by Balthi, the consort of Noah and “wife of Ham.” See further on Shemyaza §677.13.2ff., below, >>, with cross-references. For the equivalent Greek and Roman astrological traditions, see §80, above, >>. In Hinduism Gemini is the sign of the Ashvin twins, those “possessed of horses,” two members of a chariot team, the name being at the same time a phonetic echo of the Semitic name of the month Sivan (Akkadian Simanu), when the new moon was in that sign. They are denominated in the Rig-Veda the “sons of God/Heaven” (divo napata, cf. “sons of God” and Dios-kouroi). The Ashvins are also known as Nasatya, a name which is folk-etymologically derived from nas “nose” (Parpola in Journal of Indological Studies, Nos. 16 and 17, 2004-2005, p. 35f.), but is surely a phonetic echo of the patriarchal Enosh and the term anshe-ha-Shem. The Heb. Enosh is derived from a root ’-w-sh, with infixed n, which likewise means “blow through the nose.” As the Greeks identified the twin forms of the god and planet Mars Apollo and Herakles, representing the upperworld, the realm of light (Apollo), and the underworld, the realm of darkness (Herakles), so in Hinduism Mitra (the god of light and the realm of day) and Varuna (god of the watery underworld) are doubles of the Nasatyas. (See §680.2ff., below, >>, for Mitra and Varuna [in a role equivalent to the twin forms of Nergal/Mars, Shemyaza and Azza] attempting to consort with the Hindu woman/goddess Ida/Ila [in a role equivalent to Ishtar/Eshterah].) The divine names (Nasatya, Mitra and Varuna) are attested as early as the second millennium in the Aramaean state of Mitanni. (Parpola in Journal of Indological Studies, Nos. 16 and 17, 2004-2005, p. 1ff).

The Kabeiroi according to Sanchuniathon were descended from Suduk (i.e. the Biblical Methuselah), and were the inventors of sailing ships. They were eight in number and the “eighth” was Asklepios. Asklepios was the Canaanite Eshmun, the god of healing. Bryant followed by Faber, long ago identified the Kabeiroi as the eight members of the Ogdoad, viz. Noah’s family, though the same Ogdoad had different incarnations, one of them the family of Cush (Thoth the Second Hermes of Hermopolis). Hence, here in Sanchuniathon, their connections are with ships and sailing, and their descent is traced from Suduk, who corresponds to the Biblical Methuselah, the son of Enoch (the First Hermes), and ancestor of Noah. At the same time, Sanchuniathon’s genealogy is a way of drawing a parallel between Thoth (the First Hermes), on the one hand, the son of Misor, and the Kabeiroi, on the other, the progeny of Suduk, who is paired with Misor in the Phoenician scheme. The home of the cult of Thoth in Egypt (Eshmunein, Hermopolis Magna) was also the home of the Ogdoadic theology. In Sanchuniathon the Kabeiroi are first connected genealogically with Taautos, the First Hermes, indicating the Ogdoad of Noah’s family, and subsequently are said to have come under the instruction of Tauthos, the Second Hermes in Egypt, indicating the Ogdoad of Cush’s family. Sanchuniathon says: “From Suduk came the … Kabeiroi …: these, he says, first invented a ship [i.e. the eight members of Noah’s family, the Ogdoad]. From them have sprung others [i.e. other Kabeiroi], who discovered herbs, and the healing of venomous bites, and charms.” The word “eight” (shemoneh in Hebrew) features significantly in the Kabeiric traditions, and its Semitic root has been thought to be present in the name Eshmun, as it certainly is in the Arabic name “Eshmunein” of Hermopolis, and in the name Semanan or Thamanin, for the towns, variously located, in the mountains of Ararat which were founded by the members of Noah’s family soon after the Flood. The more credible traditions cluster around Suk Thamanin of the Arabic geographers, which lay at a distance of one day’s journey from Jazirat ibn Umar, high up in the mountains. The 5th or 6th century Ethiopian “Book of Adam and Eve” or “Conflict of Adam” ed. Malan III. xiii: “After this Noah took his sons, and built them a city and called it Semanan; as they were eight souls that came out of the ark.” Said Ibn Batrik [Eutychius], Nazam al-jawahir, p. 43: “And when they were come out of the ark, they built themselves a city and called it Thamanin, according to their number, for (said they) “we are eight.”” Others (e.g. Tabari, chap. XLII, and often in Arabic writers) understood the name to mean “Eighty,” and took it for granted that eighty souls were saved in the Inundation. The root of both words, however, is the same. The original meaning was “eight,” as demonstrated by the ancient Egyptian name for Eshmunein, Khmunu, “eight.” The dual Eshmunein and the plural Thamanin may have been adopted to point out the fact that the towns so named were duplications or multiplications of the original family of eight members, a “Second Eight,” or “Multiple of Eight.” Methuselah (Sanchuniathon’s Suduk, ancestor of the Kabeiroi) was the eighth patriarch inclusive in descent from Adam. The eighth Zodiacal sign (and, accordingly, in post-Biblical Jewish tradition, Methuselah’s sign) was Scorpio, or, rather the serpent-wrestling Ophiuchus crushing Scorpio, — since the stars of the two signs coalesce, — and Ophiuchus was commonly believed to be Asklepios, Sanchuniathon’s “eighth” of eight Kabeiroi. The Zodiacal sign is that of the Jewish month Marcheshvan, the Mesopotamian araḥ shamnu or “month of oil.” The Semitic root of the words shamnu or shemen, oil, rather than, or as well as, of the word shemoneh, eight, is commonly seen in the name Eshmun for the god of healing, oil being a primary source of medicinal ointment. It was on the 17th day of this month, the second month of the agricultural year beginning with Tishri, and the eighth month of the alternative calendar beginning with Nisan, that the eight members of Noah’s family entered into the container (Gen. 7. 11, 13, Josephus, Antiquities I. iii. 3 = I. 80).

346.1. The traditional connection of Enoch with Asklepios (also written Aesculapius), and with his staff-bearing image (Ophiuchus, Methuselah), is brought out in the Chronography of Bar Hebraeus (Abu’l Faraj). Here it is claimed the common image of Hermes — of a man with wings, carrying a staff wrapped round with serpents — represented the ascension of Enoch-Hermes to heaven: the wings would naturally signify travel through air, and the serpents on a staff, the twisting of rain-bearing streams (serpents) round a common center (staff), that is, a whirlwind, the mode of transport to heaven, as in the case of Elijah (II Kings 2. 11). The image in after ages is said to have been transferred to Hermes’ disciple, Asklepios, the common representation of Asklepios being in all essentials the same. The fusion of the two Zodiacal signs, of Libra (= Enoch) and Scorpio (= Methuselah, Asklepios), into one in some astrological systems, reflects the fusion of mythological identities: the stars of Libra in these systems represented the “Claws” of Scorpio, the scorpion’s pincers. Asklepios’ role as the divine healer resulted in a reinterpretation of the figure of the staff on the part of Hippocrates, according to Bar-Hebraeus, as a symbol of moderate temperature. The following is from Bedrosian’s online translation (http://rbedrosian.com/BH/bh2.htm online as at 08/12, Chronography I. 5-6):

And after YARD {Jared} [came] HANOKH (ENOCH), who at the age of one hundred and sixty-five years begot MATHUSHLAH (METHUSELAH). And having pleased God for three hundred years he was translated to the place where God wished him [to be], and it is said, to Paradise, the place where the first ADAM was when he transgressed the command in days of old. Now this ENOCH made manifest before every man the knowledge of books and the art of writing. The ancient GREEKS say that ENOCH is HARMIS (HERMES) TRIS-MAGHISTOS (5) (the ‘THRICE GREAT’), and it was he who taught men to build cities; and he established wonderful laws. And in his days one hundred and eighty cities were built; of which the smallest is URHAI (EDESSA). And he invented the science of the constellations and the courses (orbits?) of the stars. And he ordained that the children of men should worship God, and that they should fast, and pray, and give alms, and [make] votive offerings, and [pay] tithes. And he rejected the foods [which produced] impurities, and drunkenness. And he ordered festivals for the entrance of the sun into each Sign of the Zodiac, and for the New Moon, and for every star (planet?) when it entereth its house or when it riseth. And he commanded [men] to present offerings of perfumes (sweet incense?), and beasts for slaughter sacrificially, and wine, and offerings of first-fruits of every kind. And they say that he received all this doctrine (or, learning) from ’AGHATHODAHMON (AGATHODAIMON), and they also say that ’AGHATHODAHMON was SETH, the son of ’ADHAM, that is to say, the priest of the priest of ENOCH. And they also say that ’ASKLAIPIDIS (AESCULAPIUS), the wise king, was a disciple of HERMES, that is to say, of ENOCH. And when God translated [6] ENOCH to Himself, ’ASKLAIPYADIS (AESCULAPIUS) was greatly afflicted because the earth and the inhabitants thereof were deprived of his blessings and his wisdom. And he painted his picture in most marvellous fashion, as one who is being taken up into heaven, and he set up an image of HERMES in the temple in which he used to pray and worship God. And when went into that temple he used to sit down before it as he used to sit before him when he was alive, and he was blessed thereby. And it is said that this thing which had been made was the cause of the worship of images in the world. Now after many generations the Greeks imagined that that image was the image of ’ASKLAIPYADIS (AESCULAPIUS), and for this reason they magnified it greatly, and they swore oaths by it before Christianity [existed]. For HIPPOCRATES said, ‘My disciples, I adjure you by the creator of death and life, and by the father of your father, ’ASKLAIPYADIS’. And he said, ‘His name is derived etymologically from beauty, and light, and healing, and therefore it is right that every physician should be like unto him in purity, and chasteness, and holiness’. And GALEN said, ‘It is not seemly to deny the healing which cometh to the sick when they go into the temple of ’ASKLAIPYADIS’. And HIPPOCRATES saith, ‘His staff on which he supported himself was the netaphta (i.e. marshmallow = hibiscum, or althaea ficifolia or officinalis)’. And GALEN saith, ‘It indicateth moderation, which is the most excellent thing, because the marshmallow is half-way between heat and cold’.

347. The mysteries of the Kabeiroi, celebrated in the Aegean islands of Samothrace, Lemnos and Imbros, Thebes on the Greek mainland, Troy, and several other locations, were held to be more ancient than those of Eleusis, though Demeter, Persephone and Plouto were central in both. Aside from Sanchuniathon’s “eighth” man-god, Asklepios, the only Kabeiric figure named by him, seven distinct Kabeiric deities can be identified in Classical sources : “They are silent in Samothrace respecting the Kabeiroi, but Mnaseas even gives their names: they are four in number: Axieros, Axiokersa, Axiokersos; Axieros is Demeter, Axiokersa Persephone, Axiokersos Hades; the additional fourth is Kasmilos, Hermes, as Dionysodoros relates it. The Kabeiroi are apparently named from Kabeiroi of the mountains in Phrygia [or, the Kabeiroi mountains of Phrygia] since it was from there they were brought across hither. Some say there were earlier two Kabeiroi: the elder was Zeus, the younger Dionysos.” (Scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica I. 917. As regards the original location in Phrygia: the Phrygians inherited the domain of the Hittites, which was “Little Armenia,” founded traditionally by Aram father of Ara at Caesarea; hence the belief that the landing place of Noah’s container in the “mountains of Ararat [Armenia]” was somewhere in Phrygia, e.g. at Apamea Kibotos, the location cited in the Sibylline Oracles.) Zeus features later in Varro along with two other Kabeiric divinities: Jupiter (Zeus = Heaven), Jupiter’s spouse, Juno (Hera = Earth), and Minerva (Pallas-Athena), i.e. the Capitoline Triad, which is alleged to have been introduced by Aeneas from Samothrace via Troy. All these deities correspond to figures who in Sanchuniathon are members of the bloody house of Elos-Kronos: Adodos Zeus (Demarous) corresponds to Jupiter, Astarte to Juno, Athena to Minerva; Persephone to Axiokersa-Persephone, daughter of Baaltis-Dione, viz. Axieros-Demeter; Plouto, the sacrificed son of Elos-Kronos corresponds to Axiokersos-Plouto-Hades; and finally Tauthos-Hermes, the religious mentor of Elos-Kronos corresponds to Kasmilos-Hermes.

348. Two of the male Kabeiroi are said (Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus II. 19) to have murdered their Kabeiric brother, Dionysos. A box containing his phallus was brought to Etruria in Italy by hierophants of the Kabeiric mysteries, who called the Kabeiroi Korubantes. The murdered brother with the severed phallus corresponds to Sanchuniathon’s Mouth (= Axiokersos-Plouto-Hades), who was castrated. The fratricides were the Kabeiric Zeus (Demarous) and Tauthos, the Kabeiric Kasmilos. The statues of two male Kabeiroi, holding spears, are said to have been brought to Rome by Aeneas along with the Palladium, a totem of Minerva, and preserved in the Temple of Vesta. As some sources list the three deities as Minerva, Jupiter and Mercurius (i.e. Kasmilos), it appears the statues were those of the latter, viz. of the two fratricides. Kasmilos is also written Kadmilos, which is a near perfect transcription of the native Canaanite name, corresponding to the Hebrew Kadmiel, “Servant of (lit. he who ministers before) El/God or a god” (Gesenius-Tregelles s.v.): the function of Tauthos was that of minister to El and to the Elohim. The traditional interpretation of the Kabeiric name Kasmilos/Kadmilos (Camillus in Etruria) was precisely “he who ministers before gods” (“Tuscos Camillum appellare Mercurium; quo vocabulo significant praeministrum deorum,” “The Etrurians call Mercurius Camillus, by which word they designate one who ministers before gods.” Macrobius Saturnalia III. 8, see also Servius in Aeneid. XI. p. 650; and Varro, De Ling. Lat. VI. p. 72 on the meaning of Casmilus as “administer Diis Magnis,” a minister to the gods of the Samothracian mysteries). According to the scholiasts on Lycophron (162, 219), Kadmos was a shortened form of the name Kadmilos, of the Boeotian and Etruscan Hermes. A Phoenician called Kadmos, the brother of Phoenix (Canaan), was the founder of Boeotian Thebes. Since Kadmilos (= Kadmos) was also a title of a minister of the Kabeiric mysteries, the founder of Boeotian Thebes was probably a minister of this type, envisaged as an embodiment of the divinized Cush (the Second Hermes), the brother of Canaan.

349. If we amalgamate the three sources, Sanchuniathon, Mnaseas and Varro, there are four male and four female divinities, making eight in all, the males being Asklepios, Axiokersos, Kasmilos and Zeus, the females Axieros, Axiokersa, Hera and Athena. Sanchuniathon’s Asklepios is Eshmun. Damascius (in Vit. Isid. apud Photius, Bibliotheca, 242, p. 352 ed. Bekker) claims this Asklepios, “Esmounos,” an “eighth” Kabeiric son of Suduk, was neither Egyptian, nor Greek, but a native of Phoenicia, and a lover of the hunt. He was pursued by Astronoe (a Phoenician goddess, described as “the Mother of the Gods,” viz. Astarte or Cybele), and in order to evade her advances, he emasculated himself. “He says the Asklepios in Beirut is neither Greek nor Egyptian, but rather a native Phoenician. Children were born to Saduk who are termed Dioskouroi and Kabeiroi. He [Asklepios] was most fair to look upon and a youth worthy of admiring glances, and so became the object of desire of the Phoenician goddess Astronoe, the Mother of the Gods. As he was accustomed to hunt with dogs in those dells, when he saw the goddess hunting him with dogs and pursuing him as he fled, and indeed about to seize him, he cut off his own genital parts with an axe. She thoroughly shared the pain of his suffering, and, calling the youth Paian, rekindled in him the fire of life by the heat of generation, and made him a god, called Esmounos [Eshmun] by the Phoenicians on account of the Fire [esh] of life. {The reference originally will have been to the fiery (ishum) serpent (ushum) Ama-ushumgal-ana, Ieoud, Heth (see §626.17.4, below, >>, and §349.0.2, below, >>), and on the name Heth and the root ḥ-y, life, see §140.2, above, >>.} Some prefer to interpret the Esmounos as ‘Eighth’ as he was the eighth son of Saduk.” This is the earliest recorded instance of “self-castration,” of the kind associated later with the priests of Atargatis of Hierapolis and the Phrygian Attis. The rekindling of life in Esmounos, according to the excerpt of Damascius, is analogous to the Egyptian belief that Isis rekindled life in the corpse of her lover Osiris by hovering over him. Indeed, the form of Osiris known in Hellenistic and Roman Imperial times as Serapis was as commonly identified in those same periods as Asklepios. Damascius says the Phoenician Asklepios was named Paian by the Mother of the Gods. Paian was an early Greek god of healing, identified in later times mainly with Apollo and Asklepios, but also with Zeus and Dionysus. The Paian was a chant sung in honor to the god, generally for health and success, for example, and significantly, to the dying god Huakinthos in the ancient cult of the Spartans. Eshmun-Asklepios was depicted in Carthage, Beirut, and elsewhere in Phoenicia, with the attributes of Triptolemos (chariot, serpents etc., Dussaud, Notes de mythologie syrienne, p. 152ff.), Triptolemos being, in some accounts, the name of the child who was offered up by Demeter in purificatory fire in the Eleusinian mythology, viz. a form of Tammuz, Osiris, Eshmun etc. Triptolemos was known as Epimenides and Bouzuges (Ausonius, Epist. ad Paulin. XXII. 46), Bouzuges being a later name for Epimenides (Aristotle apud Servius in Georgica, I. 19), with reference to his being the first to yoke oxen to a plow, but Bouzuges was just another name for Herakles (Suidas s.v. Bouzuges) and he was credited with the same discovery. Herakles is Melqart, the Baal of Tyre, who was identified with Eshmun (for example in the inscriptions of Kition and Idalion in Cyprus, CIS Pt. I, Vol. I, Nos. 16, 23, 24-28). This Orientalizing Herakles suffered death by fire. (See further infra, and §333, above, >>, with cross-references.)

349.0.0.1. Note that the castration motif appears in Sanchuniathon in connection with Ieoud, that is, Ama-ushumgal-ana, Heth, Sidon’s younger brother, whose mythology was fused with that of Tammuz. Elos-Kronos is said to have compelled the allies of Ieoud to be castrated, as well as Ieoud himself. If Asklepios (Eshmun) was amongst these allies, his castration may have been an historical fact. Hittite and Hivite are equivalent gentilics, and Hivite in Greek is Euios (§140.2, above, >>). This, in turn, is a title of the dying-god Bacchus, and also of the Phrygian Attis. “Euios” means “Beast, Female Serpent,” and is the eponymus of the Hittites/Hivites, or “Serpent-folk.” For the serpent in the cult of Eshmun-Asklepios, see infra. Attis is the Phrygian name for the castrated god. The Phrygians supplanted the Hittites of Asia Minor, and this explains the prominence of Attis in Phrygian mythology. Attis (Atus, Atys etc.) is a phonetic echo, if not the Phrygian transcription of, the name Heth or Hatti. Or rather, it represents the name Haddu (> Atu + Greek grammatical termination -s), Addi, Adi (Atti + termination), etc. = Hadad (Baal Hadad), which shares the same root as the name Heth/Hatti, that is, ḥ-d, ḥ-t, ḥ-ṭ, etc., “cut, divide into individual pieces, smooth, shave, polish,” and so forth. (§333, above, >>, also §354.10.4, below, >>) Attis was notorious for having emasculated himself, for having “cut off” (ḥ-d) his vital parts. According to Arnobius (Adv. Gent. V. 6) Attis was actually a Phrygian word, “attagus,” meaning “hairy goat,” which was applied to children (like the English “kid”): “attagus” is probably a transcription of a Semitic expression borrowed from the Hittites by the Phrygians, gedi ez or similar. (Gedi ez = “kid [gedi] of a she-goat [ez],” the phrase gedi izzim, “kid of she-goats,” being common in Hebrew, with prosthetic aleph in the first element, absorption of the initial g and consequent duplication of the d [gedi = agda > atta, cf. the names Agde, Agdistis in the Attis myth, infra] and ayin > g in the second element). The Semitic root g-d, meaning “cut, graze,” is a variation on the root ḥ-d, so gedi = the “cutter, grazer” (the grazing goat). Gedi is the Hebrew name for the constellation Capricorn, the goat-fish, and Capricorn’s mother is Amaltheia. Amaltheia is otherwise the (goat-)mother of Zeus or Dionysus, and is also Capella, the chief star in Auriga, which is Aix, “she-goat,” in Greek (= Ez, “she-goat”). Amaltheia in the Defloratio Berosi is the nymph with whom Hammon (the Libyan Zeus) had a dalliance, and by whom he engendered Dionysius (Dionysus). (§889.23, below, >>, §889.29, below, >>.) The name Agde for the mountain whence Cybele, Attis’ mother and lover, was titled Agdistis, is doubtless from the same root: for example guda in Aramaic (root g-d) means “wall, embankment,” which is an appropriate name for a mountain. As Attis is the dying Baal of Canaan, he is identified specially with Sabazius and Adonis (Sidon). In a transferred sense gedi means not “young goat” but “young grain, tender grain in the husk.” Thus, Attis was believed to have been born from a seed (gedi), either the seed of a “pomegranate” swallowed by the river-nymph “Nana,” or by “almond nuts” cherished in her bosom. But Greek side, “pomegranate,” is a phonetic echo of the name of the fish-goddess Side (= Sidon = Saida = Nina, Nenni [= Nana], Nanshe), who was the mother of Aiguptos-Mizraim-Osiris, and grandmother by him of Sidos (Sidon); and almond is shukdu (or shuqdu) in Akkadian (Hebrew shaqed), from which was derived the word for an “arrow” (made of almond wood), shukudu, and the name Shukudu for Sirius (the “Arrow-star,” the astral form of Ninurta), as well as the borrowed word for hunter or fisher (with arrows) in Sumerian, Shukud, as in Dumuzi Shukud = Sidon. (See §334ff., above, >>.) Thus “almond” in the myth, likewise, is a covert reference to Sidon (Sidos son of Aiguptos) and his grandmother Side. Thereafter, Attis was reared by a goat (gedi), for, after all, he was the “kid of a she-goat,” as well as a “tender seed.” The botanical seed which brought forth the youth is said to have sprung from the issue of Zeus. Here Zeus is the Phrygian sky-god = Ouranos = Noah, and the rain (issue of the sky, fertilizing seed in the earth) is a metaphor for the genetic seed of the patriarch: in the period immediately subsequent to the flood of Deukalion, Zeus spilled his issue by accident whilst cavorting with Cybele (the concubine Balthi), and from this issue Attis was ultimately born. The geographical context, of course, is Phrygia, Little Armenia. Otherwise Attis was the son of Masnes (vars. Manes and Masses, and Damases in Nonnus XXV. 451-552), which was another form of the name of the River Marsyas at Celaenae in Phrygia (Müller, FHG IV. p. 629b), Celaenae being the supposed site of the landing of Noah’s container. Marsyas was Damascus-Eliezer, and Damascus-Eliezer was identified with Canaan, the son of Noah, born to Noah by the concubine, and transferred to Ham. Masnes was the son of Heaven (Zeus) and Earth, as Canaan was the son of Noah (Heaven) and his wife and/or concubine (Earth). Hence Attis son of Masnes = Tammuz/Adonis son of Canaan.

349.0.1. The original Phoenician Eshmun was identified with Melqart, the High-god of the Tyrians. Ophiuchus, the starry Serpent-Wrestler, was not only identified with Asklepios, he was also identified with Apollo (Mercury), Kadmos (Hermes, Mercury), Hermes himself, and Hercules, as well as Glaucus = Melikertes = Melqart = Hercules, and Serapis, viz. Osiris or Adonis-Tammuz. He was commonly depicted holding a staff wrapped around with a great serpent and with a dog at his feet. Eshmun-Asklepios was the Baal of Sidon or “Baal Sidon.” He is titled “Adon,” in Phoenician inscriptions, viz. “Lord,” whence the Greek divine name Adonis. The name and mythology of the Phoenician Asklepios shows he was Adonis, Tammuz, etc., or rather, a fusion of Tammuz and the serpentine Ama-ushumgal-ana. His cult was a Canaanite form of that of the Mesopotamian god of healing, Damu, who was identified with Dumuzi. Dumuzi, specifically, was addressed as “My Damu,” which is the form of the god’s name in the El Amarna letters (EA 84:33), showing he was worshiped at least as early as the last third of the second millennium BC in Byblos. Hence “My Damu” is Adonis (Tammuz), and Adonis likewise means specifically “My Adon.” Eshmun is Adon, and Adon is equivalent to Damu when used in application to Tammuz as the personal god of the devotee. Damu means “the Son.” Greek words denoting a son or male child, accordingly, were read into the divine names Paian (as though from Gk. Pais, “Child, Boy”) and Euios (as though from Gk. ‘Uios, “Son”). Damu was called azugallu in the Semitic dialect of Babylonia, which is a transcription of the earlier Sumerian azu.gal, and means “Healer.” This probably is the title that was translated Eshmun, “Healer,” by the Canaanites, and the form of which was echoed in the Greek divine name Askl-epios (azu > as, gallu > kl, followed by a final element -epios), a suggestion strengthened by the tradition that the first element in the Greek god’s name (Askl-) represented the name also of his mother, Aigle: Damu’s mother was Gula (phonetically equivalent to the Greek Aigle), and Gula was likewise titled azu.gal, “Healer.” Her symbol was a dog, and the dog appears at the feet of Asklepios. The second element in the name of the Greek god -epios means “soothing, assuaging” in Greek, which is a reference to his healing prowess, but this is probably a deformation of an original Semitic word eph‛eh, viper, or, more probably, of ḥwy (with hardening of the w to p), “of the Hivite, or, serpent-race” (cf. Euios etc., also §626.17.7, below, >>). It is also probable that azu.gal, “healer, expert,” was actually a “Sumerianization” of a proto-Semitic word from the root s-k-l, “to be wise, expert,” cf. Aramaic sukla, “expertise, reason, sense.”

349.0.2. The typical motif of Asklepios, the serpent or serpents on a pole, is the symbol of the Mesopotamian dying-god Nin-gish-zida, the Lord of the Tree Zida, another form of Damu. The last element in this name is identical to the last element in the name Dumu-zi(da), meaning, “reed, support” etc., and is reminiscent of the Djed (zid) pillar of Tammuz-Osiris. As well as meaning “support,” lit. the “firm or strong reed,” this last element also means “right hand” (Sumerian zi[d] = Akkadian imnu, “right-hand), the “firm or strong hand.” The second element, gish, means “male, man” as well as “tree.” Nin-gish-zida might be interpreted to mean “Chief (Nin) Right-hand (zida) Man (gish).” In this sense it seems to have passed over into Egyptian as Khenty-Amentiu, lit. “Chief of those on the Right-hand” (Egyptian amen[tiu] = Hebrew yamin = Akkadian imnu), that is of the “Westerners,” since the right-hand bank of the Nile (looking south) was the “West.” The right bank was where the dead were interred, so these “Westerners” were the departed. Khenty (Chief, Lord) = Nin and Amenti(u) = gish-zida, thus Khenty-Amentiu = Nin-gish-zida = Damu = Asklepios. The serpents imply a connection with the cult of Ama-ushumgal-ana, who was yet another form of Damu. Dumuzi and Nin-gish-zida are paired as guardian gods of the Underworld and are the two gatekeepers of heaven in the Adapa myth, standing like twin pillars before the celestial doorway. They correspond to the brothers Sidon (Dumuzi) and Heth (Ama-ushumgal-ana, Ieoud) the sons of Canaan in Genesis. These are the original Dioskouric twins, the sons of Zeus, viz. of Adodos, Demarous, Canaan, the Sumerian Lugal-banda, who was identified with Ninurta, Gula’s divine husband, and father of the “Son,” Damu.

349.0.3. Sanchuniathon’s Asklepios is the son of Suduk. A traditional Arabic genealogy preserved by Yakut represents Sidon (Saidun), the eponymus of the city, as the son of “Sadaka” (= Suduk), the son of Canaan, the son of Noah, or of Canaan, the son of Ham, the son of Noah. (Yakut, Geographical Dictionary, s.v., apud Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d’archéologie orientale, tom. V, Paris, 1903, p. 207.) An ancient shrine dedicated to Nabi Saidun (“Prophet Sidon”), is located in the south-eastern section of the modern city of Saida (Sidon), in a region pockmarked with remants of the cult of Eshmun-Asklepios. Asklepios’ mother in Sanchuniathon is one of the seven Titanid daughters of Astarte, who are equivalent to the Seven Hathors of Egypt, that is, seven forms of Hathor, Astarte, or Venus (§334.0.5f., above, >>), and in modern Saida the cult of the Seven Venuses connected with the patron deity of Sidon is still remembered at the Hammam Al-Sabaa Banat (or Hammam Al-Souk), the “Hot Baths of the Seven Venuses,” today the site of a commercial bakery, where seven nymphs are said in ancient times to have taken their night-time ablutions. In Yakut’s tradition the Biblical Sidon, who is described in Genesis as the firstborn son of Canaan, has the same genealogy as Baal Sidon, that is, Eshmun-Asklepios. Evidently, the pagan patronymic of (Baal) Sidon, “son of Suduk,” has been left attached to the Biblical name Sidon of the son of Canaan, effectively identifying Eshmun with the Biblical eponymus.

349.0.3.1. The original pagan genealogy meant by Suduk: (a) the pre-Ouranid father of the earlier set of Kabeiroi, the contemporaries of Taautos, viz. Methuselah, ancestor of the eight members of Noah’s family; and (b), in the Ouranid or post-Ouranid era, the father of the later set of Kabeiroi, the contemporaries of Tauthos. (See §346, above, >>, and infra.) Suduk in the latter incarnation is the father of Asklepios (Baal Sidon, Sidon). Sidon in the Bible is the son of Canaan. Canaan in Sanchuniathon is called Demarous, Zeus, and Adodos, but is not identified with Suduk. There was an alternative genealogy of Sidos, however, which represented him as a son of Aiguptos. This provides an appropriate identification for the post-Ouranid (that is, post-diluvian) Suduk: Sidos son of Aiguptos = Sidon son of Sadaka (Suduk); and Suduk (II), the post-diluvian Suduk, is Aiguptos, the Biblical Mizraim son of Ham. For Suduk, the “Just,” as a traditional title of Aiguptos-Mizraim, see infra.

349.0.3.2. The genealogical connection of Suduk and Sidon-Sidos appears in post-Biblical traditions relating to Melchizedek, in a different, and revealing, manner. Melchizedek (“Zedek”) is said to have received his name “patronymically” from his father Melchi of the race of Sidos or Sidon: Heidegger, Historia Sacra Patriarcharum, Amsterdam, 1671, Vol. II, p. 42, citing from Hottinger an unedited Chronicon Regum in Greek “ex Bibliotheca Gesneri:” “From the race of Sidos son of Aiguptos, king of the Egyptians, sprang Melchi father of Zedek. The latter became a priest of God and king of the Canaanites. Melchizedek was so named patronymically, and, founding a city on the hill of Sion, called it Salem, the City of Peace, and reigned there 13 years.” The Rabbinic tradition was that Methuselah instructed Shem in divine doctrine before the Inundation, and Shem Melchizedek after it. The revelation of divine truth thus passed from Methuselah to Melchizedek. See further the references at §209ff., above, >>. This suggests the name Suduk originally denoted Melchizedek in Sidonian tradition, and that it became attached to the pre-diluvian patriarch Methuselah and the post-diluvian Hamite Mizraim through the identification of all three figures with the divinity traced in the stars of Ophiuchus (Tammuz, Serapis, Zeus, Jupiter, Hermes, Asklepios, Al Khidr, etc.) and the sharing of attributes, as a result of that identification, between them. The Sumerian names for Methuselah, Khenty-Amentiu (Osiris, Men, Mizraim) and Melchizedek, viz. respectively Ubara-DU.DU (Ubara-Tutu), Nin-gish-zida (Khenty-Amentiu), and Enme-baragesi, all contain the significant element “Justice,” Hebrew “Zedek” (Sumerian gin, zi[da], Akkadian kittu, West Semitic “zedek” [ṣ-d-q]), as follows: DU = gin, kittu = “zedek” = “Justice,” in the name Ubara-DU.DU (Methuselah), §345, above, >>; zida = kittu = “zedek” = “Justice,” in the name Nin-gish-zida (Khenty-Amentiu, Men = Mizraim), §349.0.2, above, >>; and si = zida = kittu = “zedek” = “Justice,” in the name Enme-barage-si (Melchizedek), §83, above, >>.

349.0.3.3. Mizraim is called Osiris Aegyptius and Iuppiter Iustus, that is, the “Egyptian Osiris” (= Serapis, Ophiuchus), and “Jupiter the Just,” in the Armenian Sibylline tradition preserved in the Defloratio Berosi of Giovanni Nanni. (§884, below, >>, Antiquitatum Lib. XV., ed. 1512, fol. CXIIa, CXIIIb, CXXIIII, CXXVb, CXXVII, CXXXIIIb, CXXXIIIIb, CXXXVb.) Zedek, or Suduk, translated the “Just” in Sanchuniathon, is a Canaanite and Hebrew name for the planet Jupiter (Zeus), and thus the sons of Suduk are otherwise referred to as “the boys of Zeus” (Dioskouroi). In Yosippon (ed. Breithaupt, Book VI. ch. 35) the name Zedek, as in the king’s name Melchizedek (called ibid. “Jehoram Melchizedek”), is that of the star Zedek, meaning the planet Jupiter, which is said to illumine the city Zedek, viz. Salem, Jerusalem. Mizraim’s personal name means “Very fortitudinous,” and in a moral sense this is equivalent to Zedek or Suduk (“moral fortitude”). Similarly his Egyptian personal-name Men means “Enduring” (physically or morally). The name Men, from the verb mn, “abide,” was associated in this sense, by word-play, at least, if not essentially, in ancient Egyptian texts with the divine name Min (Mnw): Min was equated with the Greek god Pan, and also commonly, through his assimilation to Amun, with the Greek god Zeus (Jupiter). Thus, the name Menes might be, and was, by Eratosthenes, interpreted to mean “Dionios” (Gk. Diônios, var. Dionios, “of Zeus,” Eratosthenes apud Apollodorus, in Syncellus, Chronographica, ed. Mosshammer p. 103 n. to line 13 = ed. Dindorf p. 171), though Eratosthenes’ text here is commonly emended to read “Aionios” (“Everlasting” as though a translation of the Egyptian mn, “Enduring”). In this one name Menes/Men the concept of “moral fortitude” and the name of the god Zeus/Jupiter were united, as they were in the divine name Zedek/Suduk. The Defloratio goes on to claim (fol. CXXVIIb) that the agricultural discoveries made by Osiris-Mizraim in Egypt led to his being titled the “Just,” that is upright and honest in his manner of life. Diodorus Siculus informs us (I. xiv. 1) Osiris promoted agriculture with the object of weaning his people off cannibalism. (Archaeological evidence confirms the practice in the earliest periods of Egyptian history and indicates the ruling elite, though perhaps not the common people, were involved in it.) According to the Defloratio the secrets of agricultural science were passed on by Osiris-Mizraim to Melchizedek (Zedek = Melchizedek) in Palestine: Melchizedek, as priest of the Most High God, was enabled by his instruction to offer Abraham bread, as well as wine, after the slaughter of the kings. (Gen. 14. 18. See further on the identification of Mizraim-Menes with Khenty-Amentiu, Osiris, §626.2, below, >>.) The truth is that the inventor of agricultural science was Noah himself, the father of the original eight Kabeiroi (the four male and four female occupants of the container), Gen. 9. 20, and Sanchuniathon (§389, below, >>) credits already to Dagon (Ham), the son of Ouranos (Noah), the invention of corn and of the plow, whence he was titled Zeus Arotrios. It may be that the skills Mizraim acquired in the house of his father, Ham, and which he passed on to Melchizedek, continued to be promoted by him in Egypt as a social benefit, subsequent to his adoption into the idolatrous (and cannibalistic) clan of the falcon.

349.0.3.4. Sidon, daughter of Pontos, and the female eponymus of the city of Sidon, was, according to Sanchuniathon, of the opposite party to Demarous: in other words, she was a member of the House of Kish (Salem), in opposition to the successors of Lugal-banda (= Canaan, Demarous) of the House of Uruk. Melchizedek, accordingly, a descendant of the Sidonian eponymus, was king of Salem (Kish).

349.0.3.5. Note the concept in Damascius that Eshmun (Esmounos) was hunted by the deity. Nimrod similarly is said to have become a mighty man (Heb. gibbor, which is equivalent to kabbir, a Kabeiros, one of the Kabeiroi) of hunted prey before the LORD. “Hunted prey” in Hebrew is “saïd,” ṣ-y-d, from the same root as the personal name Sidon of the son of Canaan, who features in the genealogy in Genesis 10 where the note about Nimrod appears. The identification of Enmerkar (Nimrod) with Ama-ushumgal-ana in the epic Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta, and hence with the hunted Sidon (Damu, Eshmun, the Kabeiric Asklepios, etc. = Ama-ushumgal-ana) has been examined supra.

349.1. The Phoenician Asklepios had other incarnations, all practitioners of the healing art. Sanchuniathon says: “From Suduk came the … Kabeiroi …: these, he says, first invented a ship [i.e. the eight members of Noah’s family, the Ogdoad]. From them have sprung others [i.e. other Kabeiroi], who discovered herbs, and the healing of venomous bites, and charms.” Asklepios is connected with Tauthos, the Second Hermes, in Sanchuniathon, as one who received instruction from him. There was also a “brother of the Second Mercurius [Hermes],” whom Cicero designates the “second Asclepius” (De Natura Deorum III. 57). In the Hermetic tract Asclepius, an Asclepius (Asklepios) older than the interlocutor of Hermes Trismegistus is mentioned as having lived in the same generation as Hermes of Hermopolis (the Second Hermes). He was the Egyptian Imhotep, the architect and physician of King Djoser of the Third Dynasty. As the Second Hermes was Cush, his brother would be, like him, a son of Ham, and Ham was equated with Ptah. The Egyptian Imhotep (Asklepios) was commonly described, accordingly, as a son of Ptah. Similarly in Greek sources, beginning with Herodotus (Hist. III. 37. 2), the Kabeiroi are called sons of Hephaistos of Memphis, viz. Ptah, or, according to Acusilaus (apud Strabo, Geog. X. 3. 19-21) sons of Kadmilos the son of Hephaistos (Cush son of Ham).

349.2. Conclusion:

The Kabeiroi were the eight members of the family of Noah, viewed as sons of Methuselah (the eighth descendant from Adam). The second set of Kabeiroi were eight sons of Mizraim (see further §626.3, below, >>, and §626.13, below, >>), who were under the instruction of Cush, the Second Hermes (Thoth, Tauthos). The name Suduk, as ancestor of the Kabeiroi, was attached to (1) Methuselah and (2) Mizraim secondarily, because they were both identified with the star-sign Ophiuchus, whilst the star-sign received the name Suduk (Zedek) from the post-diluvian patriarch Melchizedek (Melchi + Zedek), who similarly was identified with the Serpent-wrestling figure (Al Khidr = Hermes/Asklepios) depicted in it, on account of the divine doctrine passed down, via Shem, from Methuselah to Melchizedek.

End of Excursus on the Kabeiroi

350. The other line of pre-Ouranids in Sanchuniathon features first in order and must represent the Cainite line, the pre-diluvian kings, which similarly precedes the line of Seth in Genesis. That this is so is evidenced by the appearance of the pre-Ouranid metalsmith Khousor in the last position, precisely where we would expect him, corresponding to the pre-diluvian king Dumuzi, the god of smithcraft in later tradition, and the Biblical Tubal-cain, the metalworker. (Khousor [var.: Khrus(a)or] is the Ugaritic Kothar, a title “The Skilled One,” applied variously to the Egyptian Ptah and the Sumerian Enki, and in Sanchuniathon identified with Hephaistos, the Greek name for Ptah, and with Zeus Meilikhios, the “Gracious” Zeus, who shares that title, and other pertinent attributes, with Dionysus [= Dumuzi].) We should allow for a transformation of the first figure, Aion, from old age to youth (Aion [old age] and Protogonos [youth]), as indicated by the assertion in Nonnus (infra) that the Phoenician Aion changed his skin like a serpent, and thus renewed his youth, and by the statement in Sanchuniathon’s account that Genos was the son of “Aion and Protogonos.” The identity of Aion (and/or Protogonos) with the serpent who seduced Eve is indicated by Sanchuniathon’s assertion that he and his first-born son were “so-called” men, i.e. not truly human, and by the fact that it was he who discovered “food from trees.” The serpent instructed Eve in the benefits of eating the Tree of the Experience of Moral Extremes. That Aion himself had eaten of it is demonstrated by the existence of his sexually-generated son, Protogonos, “First-born,” in whom, no doubt Aion was thought to be reincarnated. The Bible refers to a “seed” of the serpent, in addition to the serpent himself, Gen. 3. 15, the word “seed” being used for “son” in a continuation of the botanical imagery of the Tree of Experience of Moral Extremes. A Phoenician myth is preserved by Nonnus in his Dionysiaca (lib. XLI. and XLII passim, esp. XLI. 143-184) which confirms Aion’s identification with the serpent, as well as the fact that he was the one who “removed the veil of righteousness” from the “first-manifest” woman. The latter is called Beroe by Nonnus, and is the eponymus of the Phoenician city of Beirut. Both Aion and the female eponymus of Beirut appear in Sanchuniathon (see infra), though in Philo’s excerpt no connection is made between them, as it is in Nonnus. Nonnus describes Beroe as the “root of life” (Gk. rhiza biou, viz. as of a tree). Compare the Biblical Eve, whose name signifies “Mother of all living,” and whose “seed” is referred to in Gen. 3. 15, confirming the symbology mother = tree. (See further §140.2, above, >>, on the connection between the Hebrew root of the name Eve and the “Hivite” city Beirut.) The city-name, Biruta in the El-Amarna letters, means “wells,” and is a word of feminine gender, from a root meaning “cut out, shape, or fashion.” This is an appropriate description of Eve, who was cut out of the side of Adam by the hand of God and shaped into a woman. Beroe is the singular form and Berouth, the eponymus found in Sanchuniathon, the plural. The word beer “well” in Hebrew is used to denote an unfaithful woman (like Eve) in Proverbs 23. 27. It is related to the word bor pit and the latter word is used similarly to denote Sarah the mother of Israel in Isaiah 51. 1. In Sanchuniathon’s account Berouth appears in the generation immediately preceding Ouranos (Noah), paired with Elioun (Elioun corresponding to the Sethite Lamech). As Berouth is the mother of Ge (Naamah), the wife of Ouranos (Noah), as well as of Ouranos himself, and her name has a plural form, it is probable she represents Adah and Zillah, the wives of the Cainite Lamech, according to Gen. 4. 19-23, since Zillah was the mother of Naamah, and both were “mothers” (mothers-in-law) of Noah by his marriage to Naamah. Adah and Zillah, — two latter-day incarnations of Beroe, the faithless “well,” mother Eve, herself, — might appropriately be named Berouth, the “wells.” Berouth/Beroe could be deemed the mother also of Khousor, that is, of Tubal-cain, since Naamah was the sister of Tubal-cain. We might construct a genealogy in which Aion by Berouth/Beroe begot Khousor (Tubal-cain), as well as Ouranos (Noah). The name Aion itself is a Greek translation of some native Phoenician noun, almost certainly the Canaanite ‘lm (Heb. ‘ôlām, Olam), meaning “a complete cycle of time, an age, etc.” The Phoenician sage Mochus (apud Damascius, Quaestiones de Primis Principiis, ed. Kopp, p. 385) recorded a theogony along precisely the lines suggested, with the divine name Olam standing in place of Aion: Oulomos (Olam), entering into sexual congress with his own self (cf. Aion/Protogonos), produced Khousoros (Khousor) called the “Opener,” and Ouranos, the latter in the form of an egg (which was the Ogdoadic egg in Egypt). In the Egyptian scheme (cf. Damascius, id., p. 385f.) these generations comprised the Trinity of Amuns: 1) Amun Kem-atef (Kem-atef, means “He who has completed his time,” corresponding to the Phoenician Oulomos, and having the form of a serpent), 2) Amun Irta, identified with Ptah Ta-tenen (having likewise the form of a serpent), who produces the Ogdoadic egg in which is contained 3) Amun of the Ogdoad. The second generation here is Ptah (the “Opener”), the Egyptian god identified with Khousor. Thus 1) Aion = Kem-atef = Oulomos = the serpent and/or Lamech as consort of Beroe/Berouth, that is, of Eve and/or Adah-Zillah, 2) Khousor = Ptah = Khousoros = Tubal-cain, the offspring of that union, and Ouranos = the Ogdoadic egg = Mochus’ Ouranos in egg-form = Noah, the brother​(-in-law) of Tubal-cain, as 3) one of the eight (the Ogdoad) saved in the Inundation. A difference of no great significance in Sanchuniathon’s scheme is that (El) Elyon (Elioun) replaces (El) Olam (Oulomos) as the name of the father of Khousor, meaning Lamech was identified with a different form of El (El Elyon), but still a “serpent” (Cainite) of the “race” (Genos) of the original serpent (El Olam), the father of Genos-Cain. So many forms of El in the Phoenician pre-Ouranid scheme substitute for the different more primitive forms of An (= ilu, El), the male component of the An-Ki combination, in the “lords mothers fathers” section of An = Anum. The myth of Aion and Beroe in Nonnus is summarized as follows by Faber. (Origin of Pagan Idolatry, vol. I. p. 226f. The emphases and square brackets are mine.) Faber rightly points out that the references to Oceanus, the flooding of the world, and purification in the waters of the ocean, indicate a fusion in the underlying mythology of Adam and Eve with Noah and his wife, as the founders of a new race at the beginning of a new age.

Some have thought, that the Eon [Aion], whom he [i.e. Sanchuniathon] joins with Protogonus, ought to be esteemed a female; and indeed that part of the legend, which makes this person the first who plucked fruit from trees, seems to contain no obscure allusion to the transgression of Eve: but Philo, his Greek translator, speaks of Eon as a male …. This Eon of Sanchoniatho [Sanchuniathon] is clearly the Eon mentioned by Nonnus in his remarkable episode of the birth of Beroe: for the former of these writers professedly treats of Phenician [Phoenician] mythology, and the latter is here giving us a curious portion of the same mythology. The seanymph Beroe, whence the city Berytus [Berutos, Beirut] derived its name, is represented as being the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys: and she is celebrated as the root of life …. Her birth is said to have taken place, when the whole earth was washed by the ocean, when the star of Orchomenus … rode high in the heavens, and when all the brute creation dwelt together in peace and amity: and she herself is exhibited to us as the first apparent female, as equalling the world in antiquity, and as being produced at the commencement of a new age …. Accordingly, as soon as Beroe is born … a venerable personage named Eon is introduced to our notice. He is said to have been a prophet [serpent in Hebrew is nahash meaning literally “whisperer of spells,” as of a sorcerer]; and he is described, as having been washed in the swelling floods of justice. In consequence of this oceanic purification, he is restored from the decrepitude of old age to the vigour of youth, in the same manner as a serpent at stated intervals casts its skin and becomes young again. Approaching to the newly born Beroe with whom he is represented as being strictly coetaneous, he looses the veil of justice with which she had been swathed, and removes the mysterious covering that shrouded her …. Such events were supposed to occur at the beginning of every world: hence Sanchoniatho rightly places Eon at the head of his mythological genealogy.

350.1. Sanchuniathon’s account of the first line of pre-Ouranids is as follows:

[PE I. x. 7] “Then he says that from the wind Kolpias and his wife Baau (which he translates “Night”) were born Aion and Protogonos, mortal men, so called: and that Aion discovered the food obtained from trees. That their offspring were called Genos and Genea, and inhabited Phoenicia: and that when droughts occurred, they stretched out their hands to heaven towards the sun; for him alone (he says) they regarded as god the lord of heaven, calling him Beelsamen, which is in the Phoenician language “lord of heaven,” and in Greek “Zeus.”

[PE I. x. 8] “And after this he charges the Greeks with error, saying: “For it is not without cause that we have explained these things in many ways, but in view of the later misinterpretations of the names in the history, which the Greeks in ignorance took in a wrong sense, being deceived by the ambiguity of the translation.”

[PE I. x. 9] “Afterwards he says: “From Genos, son of Aion and Protogonos, were begotten again mortal children, whose names are Illumination [Phos], Burning [Pur] and Kindling [Phlox]. These, says he, discovered fire from rubbing pieces of wood together, and taught the use of it. And they begat sons of surpassing size and stature, whose names were applied to the mountains which they occupied: so that from them were named mount Kassios, and Libanos, and Antilibanos, and Brathu. From these, he says, were begotten Memroumos and Hupsouranios; and they got their names, he says, from their mothers, as the women in those days had free intercourse with any whom they met.”

[PE I. x. 10] “Then he says: “Hupsouranios inhabited Tyre, and contrived huts out of reeds and rushes and papyrus: and he became involved in a family conflict with his brother Ousoos, who first invented a covering for the body from skins of wild beasts which he was strong enough to capture. And when furious rains and winds occurred, the trees in Tyre were rubbed against each other and caught fire, and burnt down the wood that was there. And Ousoos took a tree, and, having stripped off the branches, was the first who ventured to embark on the sea; and he consecrated two pillars to fire and wind, and worshiped them, and poured libations of blood upon them from the wild beasts which he took in hunting.

[PE I. x. 11] “But when Hupsouranios and Ousoos were dead, those who were left, he says, made maces the objects of a cult in their honor, and year by year worshiped their pillars and kept festivals in their honor. But many years afterwards from the race of Hupsouranios were born Agreus and Halieus, the inventors of hunting and fishing, from whom were named huntsmen and fishermen: and from them were born two brethren, discoverers of iron and the mode of working it; the one of whom, Khousor [var.: Khrusor], practised oratory, and incantations, and divinations: and he was Hephaistos, and invented the hook, and bait, and line, and raft, and was the first of all men to make a voyage: wherefore they reverenced him also as a god after his death. [PE I. x. 12] And he was also called Zeus Meilikhios. And some say that his brothers invented walls of brick.”

351. The second line of pre-Ouranids (the Sethites, apkallus, above) appear in Sanchuniathon after Khousor-Khrus[a]or, as in the Bible (the Sethite line listed after Tubal-cain, Gen. 4. 22-24, 25f.), and as also in Berossus, where the apkallus appear around the time of the Bad-tibira dynasty of Dumuzi (= Tubal-cain). The names match the pre-diluvian Cainites as in the chart infra.

Biblical Figure	Circumstances	Sanchuniathon’s Name	Circumstances
The Original Serpent and his first offspring (seed) by sex	The human-like Serpent causes the Fall, and death as a consequence, by inducing Eve to eat the fruit of the Tree of the Experience of Moral Extremes.	Aion Protogonos	These are “so-called men” subject to death. Aion discovers the eating of fruit from trees.
Cain “Generation” and his wife	First recorded worship of the One God.	Genos “Generation” and Genea	First recorded worship of the sole “Lord of Heaven.”
Enoch “Inauguration in Wisdom, brightening, illumination”		Phos “Illumination.” Cf. Enoch = Sumerian A-lalgar which can be interpreted “ray of light (a, lit. horn) from the deep (lalgar),” the “inauguration” of day and the light of life, §415, below, >>, and the Heb. root of the name Enoch supplies also the word Hanukkah = Dedication/Inauguration, the festival of “illumination, lights” (Gk. phos).	This and the next two figures: (1) discovered the lighting of fire …
Irad “Fold” lit. “Protected with lopped wood”		Irad = Eder (by metathesis, see below, >>), “Fold,” but the root ‘dr = ‘dd (= gdd, cf. LXX Gaidad) = ‘wd = ’wd = “firebrand,” (Gesenius-Tregelles, s.v. ’wd), hence the name Pur here, “firebrand.” The corresponding Sumerian name En-sipa-zi-ana is the name of the celestial “light/fire” (Gk. pur), Orion.	… (2) by rubbing pieces of wood together …
Mehujael “Striking of God”		Phlox “Kindling/Flame/Flash,” cf. Mehujael = “Striking of God,” as, perhaps, of the striking of a light or by lightning. The significant element in the corresponding Sumerian name (§417, below, >>) Enme-ushumgal-ana, viz. ushum translates the Akkadian nalbubu, “burn” with rage, from the root l-b-b = be fiery, flame. Gk. phlox similarly denotes a light or flash.	… and (3) taught the use of it (that is the use of fire-sticks to kindle flame).
Methushael “Man of God”	The giant Nephilim are on earth at this time, having descended, according to the Enoch literature, from heaven to earth on Mount Hermon, which receives its name from their “compact” against God.	Memroumos “Man of Heavenly Highness”	The giants Kassios [Cassius], Libanos [Lebanon], Antilibanos [Antilebanon, viz. Hermon], and Brathu give their names to mountains which they occupy.
Lamech “Curving Over”	Lamech kills “a man [Heb. ish, cp. the root ’–w-sh = “blow vehemently,” Jastrow, Talmudic Dictionary s.v.], a young man,” by implication, a brother of his, as Cain [also termed an ish, “man” acquired by Eve, Gen. 4. 1] earlier killed his own brother Abel.	Hupsouranios “Like the Heavenly Vault”	Hupsouranios has a family feud with his own brother, Ousoos, who worshiped fire and wind after a violent windstorm and conflagration in the trees (cp. the Heb. ish, and the root ’–w-sh, [whence presumably Sanchuniathon’s Ousoos] = “blow vehemently”).
	The sons of God commingle indiscriminately with the daughters of man. Lamech marries two wives, Adah and Zillah.		The above receive their names from their mothers, as women in this era commingle indiscriminately with whomever they encounter.
Jabal “Smeared”		Agreus “Hunter” the Mesopotamian Enmen-lu-ana (§420, below, >>), identified with Dumu-zi(d) = Sid in Canaan, the “hunter/fisher”	From this and the next figure were named hunters …
Jubal “Made lordly”		Halieus “Fisher” the Mesopotamian Enmen-gal-ana (§421, below, >>), identified with Dumu-zi(d) = Sid in Canaan, the “hunter/fisher”	… and fishers.
Tubal-cain “A portable product of shafted weaponry”	A metalsmith	Khousor, var.: Khrus[a]or = “Equipped with a portable weapon the color of burnished metal” a.k.a. the god Hephaistos. Gk. Hephaistos = Latin Vulcanus, with whom Tubal-cain is identified in the Exordium to Eusebius’ Chronicle. This is the Mesopotamian Dumu-zi(d), the “Artificer” or god of smithcraft.	A metalsmith

352. The emphasis in Sanchuniathon’s account of these pre-Ouranids on fire, the sun, hunting, fishing, and sexual promiscuity, probably has to do with a deliberate recasting of the tradition drawn on by Sanchuniathon in favor of those particular traits. In Mesopotamia some of the pre-diluvian kings (those of Bad-tibira and Larak) were identified with Dumuzi (Tammuz). The pre-diluvian Dumuzi (Tubal-cain) was the god of smithcraft and of the smithy’s fire. The post-diluvian Dumuzi was the “fish-catcher.” Dumuzi was identified with the constellation Orion, the “faithful herder of heaven,” whose figure in the night-sky holds a hunter’s bow aimed at the charging bull, Taurus. Dumuzi was the most notable paramour of Inana-Ishtar, the goddess of erotic love. The Phoenician Tammuz, Adonis, was identified with the Egyptian Osiris, and the latter commonly with the sun-god. The translation of the names of Sanchuniathon’s first line of pre-Ouranids reflects this recasting in favor of the cult of Tammuz: Genos and Genea, meaning sexual generation, a male and female pair; Phos, Pur and Phlox, three forms of fire, and Khusor-Khrus[a]or-Hephaistos, the smith-god; Memroumos (meaning “man of heavenly highness”) and Hupsouranios (meaning “like the heavenly vault”), two names echoing that of the sun-god Baal-shamen, “lord of heaven,” who was worshiped by Genos and Genea; the remaining two figures are Agreus, “hunter,” and Halieus, “fisher.” The sun​(-god) was commonly called Shamash in Mesopotamia, Shemesh in Hebrew and Shepesh or Shapshu in Canaan. Sanchuniathon says the Greek name for the same god was “Zeus” and in this case, evidently, the Greek was a transcription of the Canaanite Shepesh, Shepsu etc.: the initial Oriental “sh” was substituted for “z” in Greek (as in the name Zames, §290, above, >>), and the medial “p” in the Canaanite form of the name diluted to a “w” (the Greek digamma), thus: Sh-e-p-esh > Sh-e-p-s > Z-e-w-s > Zeus. For a similar example of the transformation of the original medial m in this divine name to w, and then to a vowel, in Greek transcription, cf. the form Saôs for Shamash, Hesychius s.v.: “Saôs. The sun. (Sic) the Babylonians.” Cf. also the Greek transcription of the Babylonian personal name Saôs-doukhinos.

352.1. The three sons Phos, Pur and Phlox, “Light, Fire and Flame,” correspond to the three Cainite patriarchs, Enoch, Irad and Mehujael, and to the three pre-diluvian Sumerian kings, Alalgar, En-sipa-zi-ana and Enme-ushumgal-ana. The reference in Sanchuniathon to their discovery of lighting fire by rubbing sticks together, in combination with the traditions surrounding the Biblical and Sumerian figures, and their father Genos in Sanchuniathon’s account, the inventor of the sun-cult, suggests the fire-sticks symbolize the sun. The swastika similarly represents fire-sticks and is a symbol of the sun. Since Enoch-Alalgar is the eponymus of the city of Enoch (Atlantis in Sri Lanka), Irad of Cadiz in Spain, and Mehujael is the Sumerian Enme-ushumgal-ana, the significant element in whose name (Ushumgal-ana) is a title of the sun-god Tammuz, the reference in Sanchuniathon might also relate to a spread of the Cainite solar cult in the Old Stone Age from the city of Enoch in Sri Lanka, eastwards via the American Continent, over the Atlantic Ocean to Spain (Cadiz), and thereafter to Mesopotamia. It was specifically, according to Plato, an invasion of Atlantians from the American continent over the Atlantic Ocean, and aiming to occupy the whole of Asia east of Egypt, which was terminated c. 9,500 BC by the catastrophic overwhelming of Atlantis and its dependent territories in the waters of the melting ice-sheets. (See further on Enoch-Atlantis, and the invasion of Europe east of Etruria and Asia, §482ff., below, >>.)

353. In the family of Ouranos (corresponding to the post-diluvian period) there are three family lines:

1) The line of Elos-Kronos himself: his family consists of: a) Persephone, Athena (two females) and Sadidos: the first dies a virgin, the latter two are killed by Elos-Kronos; b) by his wife Astarte: seven daughters, one of whom becomes the mother of Asklepios, the eighth of eight Kabeiroi, and two males, Pothos and Eros; c) by his wife Rhea: seven children, one of them, “Most Youthful,” offered up in a sacred ritual, and Mouth (Plouto-Thanatos), castrated and sacrificed; d) by his wife Dione or Baaltis (Baalti), several unnamed children; e) one son by the nymph Anobret, called Ieoud, “Only One,” who is offered up in a sacred ritual, dressed in royal apparel, to avert a natural calamity; f) three sons: Kronos (II) having “the same name as his father,” Zeus Belos and Apollo born “also” in Trans-Euphrates.

2) The line of Dagon, or rather of Dagon by proxy for Ouranos: Ouranos’ son brought up as Dagon’s son, Demarous, also called Adodos and Zeus, king of the gods, and Demarous’ son, Melkarthos (Melqart).

3) The line of Nereus, viz. Nereus’ son Pontos and his contemporary Tuphon, and Pontos’ children Sidon (female) and Poseidon.

354. As outlined above:

1) The first section represents the family credited to Nimrod-Enmerkar (= Elos-Kronos, El), including Sidon-Asklepios, i.e. Tammuz (Dumuzi, Adonis). The latter was worshiped as a god after he was killed in mysterious circumstances on a hunting expedition in Lebanon. One of Nimrod’s wives was Eshterah-Nin-sumun (= Astarte, Alphesiboea). She was the wife he left subsequently to Canaan-Lugal-banda, who was the literal father of Sidon-Tammuz. Other “sons” were Ieoud and Mouth. Ieoud is the Sumerian Ama-ushumgal-ana and the Biblical Heth, the literal son of Canaan, and younger brother to Sidon. Ama-ushumgal-ana was identified with Tammuz. Nimrod-Enmerkar “robbed the souls” of Ieoud, Mouth and several others, by the ritual of sacrifice, which in some cases involved dismemberment and cannibalism. By this process he was supposed to have absorbed their personality and to have become one with them. Nimrod-Enmerkar’s original home was Trans-Euphrates, the land of Shinar (southern Mesopotamia), but he migrated subsequently to the land of Canaan (Byblos) and finally to Egypt. One of his “children,” the ancestor of the Philistines, was lost overboard in an incident at sea, and likewise identified in death with Tammuz (and therefore also with Nimrod-Enmerkar through the “robbing of his soul”) by Nimrod-Enmerkar’s other wife Baalti (Isis), the “Mistress of Byblos.” Baalti had been a lover of Tammuz. Tammuz was commemorated in tombs in Egypt bearing the name of the Egyptian god-king Osiris (called Khenty-Amentiu in the early days). The many tombs of Osiris in Egypt were constructed by Isis. The kings of Uruk were identified as gods by the prefix of the Sumerian divine name An, the “High One,” god of heaven, corresponding to the Semitic Ilu or El, “God,” and the kings of Egypt were similarly identified by the prefix of the divine name Horus, the “High One,” god of heaven. The king’s attendants were known as the “Shemshu” or “followers” of Horus, and in Canaan as the Elohim or attendants of El.

2) The second section represents the family-line acknowledged in Sanchuniathon to be that of Canaan-Lugal-banda (= Demarous, Adodos, Zeus), including particularly his son by Eshterah-Nin-sumun (Ashtart, Astarte, Gula), Amraphel-Gilgamesh (Melqart [Nergal]). These ruled in Mesopotamia and Canaan, when Nimrod-Enmerkar migrated to Egypt.

3) The third section represents a line opposed to the second section, historically the line of Kish. Specifically, Nereus seems to correspond to the native Canaanite mythological figure, Nahar, “River,” a title of Yam. Pontos and Poseidon, descended from Nereus, represent so many successive forms of the same figure, Yam, as Yam can mean simply “sea” (Greek Pontos), and also “god of the sea” (Greek Poseidon). According to the texts from Ugarit an earlier form of the name Yam was Yw, and it is generally thought this is the god “Ieuo” of Sanchuniathon, and the Jehovah or Yahweh of the Hebrew Scriptures. (The divine name Yhwh, or Yah, Jehovah, Yahweh, Yah, is also written Yw, Yo, as e.g. in the name Yo-natan, Jonathan, “Yo has given,” and compare the alternative forms of the personal name Abi-jah, Abi-yah, “The father is Yah,” II Chron. 13. 1-22, and Abi-jam, Abi-yam, “The father is Yam,” as the same king is called in I Kings 15. 1-8.)

354.1. The battle of Demarous with Pontos is that of Baal-Hadad with Yam in native Canaanite mythology, and this, in turn, is a Canaanite version of the Kingship in Heaven Theme. In Mesopotamia the hero-god in that theme, Ninurta (later Marduk and Adad = Hadad, Sanchuniathon’s Adodos, Demarous), defeats the opposing god of storm Anzu (later the sea-monster, Kingu, corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Tuphon, champion of Tiamat, “Sea,” corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Pontos). This in turn reflects a political contest in early Sumer between the descendants of Lugal-banda (= Canaan, Demarous) of the First Dynasty of Uruk (represented by the hero-god Ninurta) and the opposing dynasty of Kish (represented by Asag, Anzu).

354.2. It is a fact that the name of one of the kings of the First Dynasty of Kish is literally a river-name, Balih. Balih is the Biblical Damascus-Eliezer. The flaying of the fluvial deity Marsyas (Damascus-Eliezer) at Damascus by the triumphant deity Apollo, Hermes, or Dionysus, in the Levantine myth reworked by Greeks, is a variation on the earlier Oriental theme of the subjugation, slaying and dismemberment of the watery god Tiamat, Yam or Nahar. Tiamat is titled “Mother Khabur” in the Epic of Creation, viz. the ultimate source of the river Khabur, and the Khabur flows into the Euphrates in the vicinity of the Balih. Eliezer-Balih is, in that case, the mythological figure “Nahar” (“River”), Sanchuniathon’s Nereus. Balih’s (adoptive) father Etana, Ethan-Abraham, also bears a name with fluvial associations: Ethan (eytan) in Hebrew means “perennial brook,” as well as “mighty one,” and Abraham was identified by the Magians with Zoroaster, and Zoroaster with the water-spirit Al Khidr (Glaukos, Nereus, the genius of the Indus etc. in later tradition, Apsu-Enki in the earlier interpretation). Balih’s successors in the Sumerian King List include Enmebaragesi and his son Aga. These historically came into conflict with Tammuz and Gilgamesh of the First Dynasty of Uruk. Two successive generations of the line of Kish (Enmebaragesi and his son Aga) are represented in Sanchuniathon by Pontos and Tuphon (Anzu, Asag, Kingu). In the Levantine context, Tuphon is the River Orontes, which was known variously as the Tuphon, the Drakon (Snake) and the Ophites (Serpentine). Both Pontos and Tuphon are said to have been “opposed” to the “gods,” that is, to the divinized kings of the dynasty of Uruk. Given the identity of Enmebaragesi and Melchizedek, and the belief that Melchizedek was another manifestation of the water-spirit Al Khidr, it is understandable how he might have come to be given the name Pontos. The identification of Melchizedek with Pontos tends to be confirmed by Sanchuniathon’s assertion (§398, below, >>) that Pontos’ remains were interred in Beirut, as Beirut was named after Sanchuniathon’s Berouth, the wife of “Elioun” (§378, below, >>), and Elioun is a Greek transcription of Elyon, the “Most High,” which was the title of the God Melchizedek served as priest (Gen. 14. 18). In Sanchuniathon (§343.0.1, above, >>), further, Ouranos (Noah) is said to have conflicted with Pontos (Melchizedek), but afterwards to have come to terms, whereupon Demarous (Canaan) entered the fray. Demarous fought with Pontos, was worsted, and made offerings to effect his escape. This reflects the phase in which Melchizedek (Pontos) was under the dominion of, and consequently within the camp of, Canaan, whose line was opposed to Noah (Ouranos). After Melchizedek’s separation from the idolatrous party, Canaan (Demarous) was in open conflict with the supreme patriarch, without the involvement, and perhaps, more importantly, without the cover offered by the religious authority, of Melchizedek. Canaan (Demarous) was now opposed to Melchizedek (Pontos), as well as to Noah (Ouranos). Melchizedek worsted him (cf. the Battle of the Kings infra), and Canaan made expiation to effect his escape (probably a reference to Elos-Kronos’ child-sacrifice, adopted by the Canaanites, which was instituted as an offering specifically to Ouranos, §398, below, >>).

354.3. One phase of this ancient conflict was the battle recorded in Genesis 14 between Amraphel (Gilgamesh) and Abraham (Etana of Kish), in which the latter was aided by his adopted son, Eliezer (Balih), and the Anakites of Hebron (Arba/Mamre), and supported by Melchizedek (Enmebaragesi of Kish). As for Aga or Agga, otherwise spelled Aka, the son of Enmebaragesi in Sumerian tradition: “Anak” (as a collective noun = the Anakites of “Mamre/Ogugos”) played a significant role in the battle, and there is an obvious phonetic resemblance between these names. The Hebrew root of the name Anak is related to the verbs ‛wq, ‛wg, and ‛qh, meaning to “surround, go round, strangle, chain the neck” etc. A nominal form like Og or Anak, formed from the same root verbs (Gesenius-Tregelles s.vv.), might be represented in Sumerian as Aga, Agga etc. Sumerian epic literature recounted a conflict between Gilgamesh (Amraphel) and Aga, analogous to the battle recorded in Genesis 14 between Amraphel and the Anakites (“Anak/Mamre/Arba/Og/Ogugos”). Similarly in a fragment of an Oriental version of the Kingship in Heaven theme preserved by Pausanias of Damascus, Perseus (= the Baal of Persea/Tarsus, viz. Melqart), that is, Amraphel, subdued the raging waters of the Drakon river (the Orontes, or Tuphon), that is, the Hivites = Hittites = Anakites settled thereabouts, by praying down a fireball from heaven (the destruction of Sodom). (FHG IV, p. 467, Pausanias Damascenus, Fr. 3, see further §279 note, above, >>, §112, above, >>, with cross-references for the greater context, and §140.2, above, >>, on Hivites = inhabitants of Hebron/Mamre, the original owners of the Cave of Machpelah, Gen. 23. 3, 10 etc.) According to the account in Genesis the Anakites managed to free captives held by Amraphel by conducting a razzia on his departing army. The Rabbis identified the “escaped one” who initially informed Abraham that captives had been seized by Amraphel, specifically as the giant “Og.” The word “escaped” was understood by them to be a covert reference to his “escape” from the Flood. Og was yet another manifestation of the Immortal Al Khidr, hence the disregard of historical chronology here; though, as before stated, his name appears to be a mere variant of the tribal eponymus Anak. The Sumerian Epic explained the failure of Gilgamesh to destroy Aga in a conflict between the two, as a response to an earlier incident in which Aga attacked, but then voluntarily withdrew from, Gilgamesh’s city of Uruk. The Genesis account and the Epic agree that the enemy of Amraphel-Gilgamesh went free. If Agga = Anak/Og/Ogugos, then he was a “son” of Melchizedek-Enmebaragesi in the sense that he was the latter’s disciple. This harmonizes with the view already examined that Melchizedek-Enmebaragesi was a virgin priest. The corresponding figure in Greek myth, Ogugos, like Og in post-Biblical Rabbinic tradition, is associated with an ancient deluge, and the Greeks named the deluge after him the “Ogygian” Flood. The Aramaic Agoga (’āgôgā’, Jastrow Talmudic Dictionary, s.v., which might be pronounced “Ogoga”) means a “torrent pouring from/through a constricted fissure” from the root ’-g-g = ḥ-g-g, viz. the same basic root as Og and Anak, “to surround, go round, constrict.” Compare the Aramaic “Ogoga” with the Greek Oguges, earlier pronounced Oguga(s). Thus the eponymus Anak might easily be mythologized as a deity of the watery depths. The historical eponymus, the “father [ancestor] of Anak [the Anakites]” (Joshua 15. 13, 21. 11) was Arba, after whom Hebron was first called Kiryath-Arba, the “City of Arba.” (On Arba see further §318.0.2, above, >>, §209.2.2, above, >>.) The Hebrew Arba is derived from a root which means “to lie foursquare [like a beast], to cover,” and hence “to impregnate, fecundate, inundate [of land].” Arba could be interpreted to mean “the Inundator,” and this would nicely tie in with his role as the prototypical Anakite, given the root connection between the words Anak and Agoga (= Oguges), “torrent.” A midrash, furthermore, on Joshua 14. 15, with reference to the ancient name Kiryath-Arba, explains it this way: “He [Arba] is Adam the Great [thus interpreted, rather than, “the great man”, Hebrew ha-adam ha-gadol] amongst the Anakites.” The Scriptural phraseology is remarkable, and could be taken to imply Arba was treated by the Anakites not merely as a “great man,” but as an Adam-like founding father. The midrash led to the belief that Kiryath-Arba and the dependent Anakite territories as far as El-Paran (“the terebinth of Paran”), which are referred to in Genesis 14 as the scene of the war between Amraphel and the Anakites of Kiryath-Arba, were actually the home-territory of Adam (“Arba”), the location, that is, outside Paradise where he was formed from the dust, and whither he returned after the Fall. (This region is called “Campus Damascenus” in Medieval literature, meaning, the scene of the battle between the Anakites allied with Abraham and Amraphel, which was terminated by the victory of Abraham near Damascus.) Reverting to the oceanic simile, Arba, the Anakite “Adam,” was the “fountain” of the race of Anak, in the same way the original Adam was the “fountain” of the human race. In this respect, at least, there would be reason to identify Ogugos (Aga) with the oceanic anti-god, Tuphon. That is aside from the Oriental belief that Og was a manifestation of the water-spirit Al Khidr. Some etymologists go further and equate the name Ogugos with the ancient Greek term Ogen, and similar forms, for Okeanos (“Ocean”). In Aramaic Okeanos can be spelled Onkyyanos (’-n-k-y-y-n-w-s, Jastrow, Talmudic Dictionary s.v. ’-w-k-y-y-n-w-s): the first element (onk-) is formed from the root ’-n-k, which is a variant of ‛-n-q, “grasp, surround, constrict,” etc., whence Anak. Since the Anakites were Rephaim, “giants, dead spirits,” it is likely the Rabbinic interpretation of Onkyyanos as “sea (yam) of the dead (ha-meth)” (Jastrow, ibid.), understands the first element (onk-) to represent, as suggested here, the name Anak or Anakite (meaning “the dead” Rephaim), and the second element (-yyanos) to represent the word “sea” (yam, from the root y-m-m = y-w-m = y-w-n = y-y-n, see Gesenius-Tregelles s. y-w-m and y-w-n). The second element happens also to form in Aramaic the divine name Janus (Yanos), otherwise Eanus (Servius ad Aen. VII. 610), like the final -eanos in Okeanos. This was the title applied to the post-diluvian Adam, Noah, according to the Defloratio Berosi, from the Aramaic “yayin,” wine. As demonstrated in an earlier place (§101.13, above, >>), the consonants of this word represent the second element (ZI) in the Sumerian form of Noah’s name, UD.ZI, which can appear in Semitic guise variously as y-m-n, y-w-n, y-y-n: this element could be held to signify, amongst other things, Hebrew yam, “sea,” Akkadian imnu (root y-m-n) = “support,” Hebrew yawan, “Greeks, Ionians,” and yayin, “wine.” Thus Onk-yyanos (Oceanus) might be interpreted to mean “That which encircles (onk-) the supporting pillar [of the earth] (yyanos from the root y-m-n [= y-w-n, y-y-n] = imnu, support),” namely the encircling cosmic Ocean, whilst Yanos (Janus) would be the pillar itself (as the idol of Janus was a pillar at the door, representing the cosmic pillar); or Onk-yyanos might mean “The circle (onk-) of the sea (yam, as supra on the root);” or “The choking hold (onk-) of wine (yayin, again as supra on the root).” These ideas and many others could be read into the name Oceanus in its Semitic form, along with the important civil reference to the descent of the “people of Oceanus” from Anak. Returning to the Oceanic gods in the account of Sanchuniathon: the following series of three manifestations of the water-spirit Al Khidr correspond to the series of water deities in Sanchuniathon: Eliezer (adopted son of Ethan-Abraham) = Al Khidr I, corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Nereus; Melchizedek (descended from Canaan, the latter being identified with Eliezer) = Al Khidr II, corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Pontos son of Nereus; and Og (identified with Canaan/Eliezer) = Al Khidr III, corresponding to Sanchuniathon’s Tuphon (Tuphon = Seth = Baal Melqart = Melikertes = Ophiuchus = Kadmos/Hermes = Al Khidr). It is no surprise, therefore, to find Oguges in one place identified directly with Kadmos, the Boeotian Hermes, corresponding to the Oriental Al Khidr, or Canaan/Eliezer, Hermes Trismegistos. (Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae, 1701, p. 15, citing the Vatican Appendix to the Greek Proverbs, “Vatic. App. Cent. 4. Prov. 52:” “Ogygian evils, when difficult straits arise, on account of what happened to Kadmos Oguges, when he fell into evil times because of his daughters.” Stillingfleet rejects the theory this should be amended to read “Kadmos son of Oguges,” as the genealogy appears in Suidas. Both readings might stand, given the multiple identities of the figure[s] corresponding to Kadmos-Oguges in the Oriental tradition.)

354.4. The conflict historically, as well as in the Mesopotamian and Canaanite myths, went through an initial phase in which Kish (Anzu, Kingu, Yam) was dominant, then through a phase in which the First Dynasty of Uruk (Ninurta, Marduk, Baal-Hadad) overmastered the previously dominant power and brought it to heel. The triumph of Ninurta in Sumerian myth reflects this phase, the heyday of Uruk. The reign of Gilgamesh, on the other hand, marked the end of the heyday. It was symbolized on the astral level by the identification of Gilgamesh with Nergal, Mars, the rebellious planet-god, who, as in the Mesopotamian myth of Erra, was held to be responsible for the upsetting of the political status-quo. The Biblical account dwells on this phase. It represents the turn of the tide against Sumer and the beginning of the rise of the Amorites.

354.5. Note: on the sea and river deities of Sanchuniathon as representing the earlier kings of the line between Bel Titan and Ninus in Abydenus and Cephalion. Abydenus’ royal genealogy from Bel Titan (= Nimrod according to Mar Abas Catina) to Ninus is as follows: Bel Titan, Bab, Anebis, Arbel, Chael, Arbel, Ninus. The latter Arbel is Arbelos or Ara Belos, viz. Zeus Belos father of Ninos, Bel of Babylon, the second incarnation of Belos = Cush. (See §338ff., above, >>.) That suggests the earlier Arbel in the list is also a form of Bel of Babylon. Bel of Babylon was identified both with the Greek Zeus and with the Baal of Tyre, Melqart, Herakles. According to Fürst (Lexicon s.v.) Arbel is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek Herakles (Latin Hercules). (On the initial element Ar- as the significant element in the name Eragal = Nergal, Herakles etc., and its etymology, see §626.17.4, below, >>. Arbel = Ar-bel, cf. Ar-belos, Ara Belos.)

354.6. Given the identification of the earlier Arbel with Herakles, and the apparent association of his successor Chael with Asia Minor in Mar Abas Catina (§286.0.3, above, >>), there appears a close correspondence between the latter section of Abydenus’ royal genealogy and that of the Lydian Heraklids in Herodotus: Abydenus — Arbel, Chael, Arbel (= Ara Belos, Zeus Belos), Ninus; Herodotus — Herakles, Alkaios, Belos, Ninos. The Hercules here is the Egyptian, otherwise the Libyan, Hercules (= Shu, Sosis, the elder Horus, Arueris), according to Nanni’s commentary on the Defloratio (ed. 1512, fol. CXLab). However, the relationship of Alcaeus (Alkaios, Alteus in the Defloratio) to Hercules, as of son to father, instead of grandson to grandfather, reflects a fusion of identities in the underlying tradition of the Egyptian with the Greek “Herakles,” the son of Amphitryon, dateable to the generation immediately prior to the Trojan War. (Ibid.) That is, the Greek hero, whose proper name was Alkaios, was called “Herakles” after the much earlier Egyptian Herakles, and the Greek hero’s son came to be called “Alkaios,” after Alkaios the grandson of the Egyptian Herakles. (The Egyptian genealogy in the Defloratio is: the Egyptian Hercules begot Tuscus, and Tuscus begot Alteus/Alcaeus.) Subsequently, because of the confusion of the Egyptian with the Greek hero, Alkaios the grandson of the Egyptian Herakles came to believed to be the son of the same, as in the Lydian genealogy quoted by Herodotus. This Egyptian (and Lydian) Hercules flourished up to a millennium earlier than the Greek hero, two or three generations anterior to Belus and his son Ninus (the founder of the Assyrian Empire). The presence of the Egyptian Hercules in Lydia is understandable, given that the Biblical figure represented by the Egyptian god is Heth, son of Canaan (= king Djet of the First Dynasty of Egypt), who was the eponymous ancestor of the Hittites of Asia Minor (Lydia), that is, of the primitive inhabitants of that region, and of Syria. (See §333, above, >>, with cross-references.)

354.7. The name Kleolaos is substituted for the Alkaios of the Lydian genealogy in Diodorus Siculus 1V. 31. The list in Abydenus, compared with the Lydian genealogy, is now as follows: the Egyptian Hercules/Arueris (= Arbel), father of Alcaeus/Cleolaus (= Chael), father of Belus/Arbelus (= Arbel), father of Ninus.

354.8. As Hercules is the Egyptian Hercules, and Bel Titan at the head of the list the Egyptian Geb (= Nimrod), according to Mar Abas Catina, the intervening names are likely to be Egyptian. In the traditional Egyptian lists of gods and demigods who were believed to have ruled Egypt before the historical dynasties, as transmitted through Greek intermediaries, Hercules is immediately preceded by Anubis (in Syncellus, see infra), and Anubis by Tuphon (in the Excerpta Barbari, infra), Babus being a by-name of Tuphon. Tuphon, in turn, is the son of Geb = Nimrod-Bel-Titan. In Abydenus and Cephalion, similarly, Arbel (Hercules) is immediately preceded by Anebis (which looks like Anubis) and Anebis by Bab (which looks like Babus, viz. Tuphon). Bab is preceded in Abydenus and Cephalion by his father Bel-Titan, as is Tuphon-Babus by his father Geb (= Nimrod-Bel). Anubis is equated further with the Greek Hermes (also in combination named Hermanubis), the god of the planet Mercury. Hermes is the father of Arueris (= Hercules), according to Plutarch (§613, below, >>). Anubis not only succeeds, but is also the son of Seth/Tuphon-Babus, alternatively of Nephthus, the wife of Tuphon. The full genealogy is now: Geb (Bel Titan), father of Babus (Bab), father of Anubis (Anebis), father of Arueris/Hercules (Arbel), father of Alcaeus/Cleolaus (Chael), father of Arbelus/Belus (Arbel), father of Ninus. The order of the first four names (the Egyptian names) is identical to that of the last of the Egyptian gods and first two demigods in the Excerpta Barbari: viz. Tuphon (last of the gods who ruled Egypt after the Flood [and usually represented as the son of Geb] = Babus, Bab), followed by the first two demigods, Anubis (= Anebis) and “Samusis” (for Saousis = Sosis, Shu = Arueris/Hercules). The relevant section of the Excerpta Barbari reads as follows (original Latin text, ed. Waddell, LCL Manetho, p. 18, ignoring Frick’s conjectural emendations) “….Tyfon [= Tuphon, last of the gods who ruled Egypt after the Flood]. Then the dynasty of demigods as follows: first, Anubis [“Anube”] and Samusis: the one of whom also composed Egyptian scriptures, for 83 years; and after him the one whom Apion the grammarian interprets as having been a contemporary of Inachus, for 67 years, (that Inachus, namely,) who was at the beginning of the Argive kingdom; (so long) did they reign.” That Samusis here is a form of the name Shu (the Egyptian Hercules) is demonstrated by the appearance of Hercules (“Herakles”) immediately following Anubis in the list of post-diluvian demigods in Syncellus (ed. Mosshammer, p. 19). The synchronism of Samusis (the Egyptian Hercules) with the earlier Inachus of Argos in the Excerpta Barbari confirms the chronology of the Defloratio, whereby Hercules’ father (and contemporary) Mizraim-Osiris-Apis consorts with Niobe daughter of the same earlier Inachus (§894.1, below, >>).

354.9. As the Egyptian Hercules, the elder Horus, Arueris, fought against Tuphon (Horus versus Seth in the native Egyptian mythology), and this Hercules corresponds to Arbel in Abydenus’ king-list, we have further confirmation that the Kronos, Zeus Belos and Apollo of Sanchuniathon, who, similarly fought Tuphon and his kin, are the latter kings of Abydenus’ list. Apollo, indeed, is a common alternative Greek name for the Egyptian Arueris. It is noticeable that five generations of divine heroes appear, in that case, between Kronos I (= Geb, Bel-Titan) and Ninos in Sanchuniathon and Abydenus, that is, two earlier generations of Tuphonic anti-gods, followed by three generations of gods, thus: Nereus (= Babus, Bab), and his son Pontos (= Anubis, Anebis), that is, the two generations of Tuphonic oceanic anti-gods, followed by the latter’s son, Apollo (Arueris, Arbel, Herakles), his son Kronos II (= Chael, Alkaios), and his son, Zeus Belos (Arbel, Belos). Similarly in Christian Syriac chronicles (§677.13.1ff., below, >>), drawing on the “books of Zoroaster,” five kings of Babylon are listed between Nimrod and Ninus, there given Iranian or Arabic names, as follows: Nimrod followed by 1) Qombaros (= Gayomart), followed by 2) Samiros (= Shemyaza), followed by 3) Kisaronos (= Dhu’l Karnaim), followed by 4) Arphaxad (= Iraj son of Feridun), followed by 5) Belus, then Ninus.

Sanchuniathon	Herodotus	Excerpta Barbari	Abydenus	Syriac Chronicles
Elos Kronos		(Geb)	Bel Titan	Nimrod
Nereus		Tuphon	Bab	Qombaros
Pontos		Anubis	Anebis	Samiros
Apollo	Herakles	Samusis (Herakles)	Arbel	Kisaronos
Kronos	Alkaios		Chael	Arphaxad
Zeus Belos	Belos		Belus	Belus
——	Ninos		Ninus	Ninus

The Egyptian Hercules represents the first of the hero-gods (Hercules = Sanchuniathon’s Apollo, Herodotus’ Herakles, the Excerpta Barbari’s Samusis or Sosis-Shu, and Abydenus’ Arbel), opposed to the earlier Tuphonic kings. The conflict is reflected in the Syriac scheme, according to which the corresponding figure Kisaronos (Dhu’l Karnaim) slays his predecessor Samiros (Shemyaza). Kisaronos is also said to have imported the cult of Cainan (= Hermes, Gayomart, §448, below, >> sub fin.) into Egypt under king “Aphintos” the builder of Memphis. (See further on the Syriac tradition §677.13.1ff., below, >>.)

354.10. In the original Mesopotamian scheme the anti-gods represented the dynasty of Kish, who were opposed by the “gods” of the First Dynasty of Uruk. In the Egyptian interpretation (and here the hero-god is the Egyptian Herakles) the Tuphonic anti-gods represented the Asiatics of Canaan, opposed by the god-kings of Egypt. The last column in the next chart represents the historical identifications suggested at §677.13.1ff., below, >>.

354.10.1. For background on the following passages see §338ff., above, >>, and §677.13.1ff., below, >>. Several of these same figures feature in the Defloratio Berosi and Mar Abas Catina in the era between Nimrod and Ninus I: viz. Herakles (Hercules Libycus and his son Alteus = Alkaios), Belos (Iuppiter Belus), and Ninos, interacting with their contemporaries, the kings of Armenia. Similarly in the Georgian, Armenian and Syriac chronicles, §677.13.1ff., below, >>. Generally speaking, the picture is one of conflict between the Hamites on one side (that is, Ham-Zoroaster himself, or Ham as re-embodied

Abydenus	Syriac Chronicles	Historical*
Bel Titan	Nimrod	(Kish I) Nimrod
Bab	Qombaros	(Kish II) Emim (Arba)
Anebis	Samiros	(Kish III) Melchizedek/Anak
Arbel	Kisaronos	(Uruk) Amraphel
Chael	Arphaxad	Akkad Dynasty
Belus	Belus	(Old Assyrian Empire) Belos
Ninus	Ninus	(Old Assyrian Empire ctd.) Ninos

* See further on the Historical identifications §677.13.10, below, >>.

in Zoroaster, Sabatius the son of Cush son of Ham, and Eliezer son of Nimrod the grandson, or of Canaan the son, of Ham), and the family of Ninus on the other (Hercules, Belus, Ninus, Ninyas etc.). In mythological terms, it was a conflict between the Titanic Saturnian and the Jupiter parties. The Saturnian faction has fluvial associations, like the earlier generations in the king-list supra. According to the Defloratio, the “Caspian,” otherwise “Scythian,” or “Aramean/Armenian” Saturnus, Sabatius Saga (§888.14, below, >>), who was the son of “Cur,” that is, of the Biblical Cush as ancestor of the Curetes (= Dioskouroi, Corybantes, Kabeiroi etc., genealogical chart in Defloratio Book II, §886.2, below, >>), flourished in the generation immediately preceding Ninus (I), rivaling Iuppiter Belus, then fled under threat of the rise of Ninus (I), via the regions bordering on the Black Sea, to “Italy” (originally Kittim, the Mediterranean islands and coastlands). The flight westward of Saturnus in this account is reminiscent of the flight of Kronos westward in Peri Theon. In the Defloratio, Sabatius Saga is left as king of the Sagae (viz., as Nanni states in his commentary, of the Armenians), and as rival to the Assyrian Iuppiter Belus (Jupiter, Zeus Belos) by Araxa Senior and Scytha Senior, the latter’s sons being Prutus and Napis. Scytha’s mother in the Defloratio is Araxa Senior, the eponymus of the River Araxes. The Araxa-Scytha genealogy in the Defloratio is a variation on that found in Diodorus Siculus II. 43: Zeus begot on an half-human, half-serpentine woman in Scythia a son, Skuthes, who in turn begot Ploutos or Palos and his brother Napes. (On Araxa, Araxes, Scytha, Saga and the Armenians in the commentary to the Defloratio, see Nanni, ibid., fol. CIXab and fol. CXIIb.) There is another Araxa in the Defloratio, Araxa Junior, who

Chart of the Genealogy of Araxa and Araxes

Noah

Shem

←

(1) =

Araxa I

Taklad (Togarmah)

Cush

←

(2) =

Sabatius

Scytha I

Hayk

Triton

Prutus (= Palos = [?] Pulos)

Aramaneak

↓

?

“nephews” (third cousins)

Hammon

Araxes son of Pulos

←

→

Aramayis

↓

Osiris (Mizraim)

=

Araxa II

Hercules Libycus

The tree shows the proposed genealogical connection between Araxes, Araxa I and II, and the lines of Hayk and Sabatius. For the position of Taklad (Togarmah) here, see the comments at §940, below, >>.

engendered Scytha Junior by consorting with Hercules Libycus. The myth of Hercules and Araxa Junior in the Defloratio is a variation on that found in Herodotus: Herakles consorted in Scythia with a woman who was also a “serpent” (echidna, cf. Herakles = Arueris = Djet = Heth, ancestor of the Hittites = Hivites or serpent-folk), and by her became the father of Skuthes, the eponymus of the Scythians (Herodotus IV. 8-10). The father of this Echidna (= Araxa Junior) is named in another source (the marble relief of the Reposing Herakles from the Villa Albani, Jahn, Bilderchroniken, p. 72) Araxes. In Mar Abas Catina (op. cit. lib. I. cap. XII, §956, below, >>), the River Araxes is named after Aram’s uncle Arasd (Arasd or Erast = Araxes). Arasd is the male eponymus of the Araxes in Mar Abas Catina, corresponding to Araxes father of Echidna/Araxa Junior. These eponymi of the River Araxes share an antithetical association with Iuppiter Belus (Arbelos): Araxa Senior and her son Scytha Senior appointed Sabatius Saga as a rival king to their old foe, Iuppiter Belus; whilst Araxa Junior was daughter of the male Araxes, who fought against Arbelos (Iuppiter Belus). The underlying tradition is at least as old as a work called De Fluviis (c. AD 300?) credited to Plutarch, which derives the name of the River Araxes, like Mar Abas Catina, from a male eponymus closely connected with Arbelos (De Fluviis XXIII. 1). According to this work the male eponymus Araxes “son of Pul[os]” fought against and slew Arbelos (the Barsham = Baal Shamin of Mar Abas and the Iuppiter Belus of the Defloratio). Considering Araxes is the male form of Araxa, and both are eponymi of the same river, Pul(os) in De Fluviis is probably a variation on the name Palos (otherwise Ploutos, Prutus) of the son of Scytha (Skuthes) I, son of Araxa Senior. It seems likely Araxes’ war against Arbelos is the same war Araxes’ nephew, Aram, fought against Barsham. Since Arbelos, in De Fluviis, is also the “grandfather/ancestor” (Gk. pappos) of Araxes, the avenging furies are said to have driven the latter to commit suicide in the River which thereafter bore his name. According to the French Renaissance antiquarian Couillard (ref. in §889.2.3.9, below, >>) drawing on unspecified medieval sources, Sabatius (son of Cur/Cush) was the son of Araxa Senior, which means his father was Cush son of Ham, and his mother Araxa Senior. However, another tradition afloat in the Renaissance, this one preserved by the French antiquarian Charron (Histoire universelle, 1621, p. 10), held that Araxa Senior was the wife of Shem-Melchizedek. If both traditions are true, we may presume Cush (= Belos/Arbelos, Iuppiter Belus) took Shem’s wife Araxa Senior by force, in the violent manner Cushites of the family of Nimrod are known elsewhere to have practiced in their relationships with Semitic females, and the antipathy between the two family lines is explained. If Pulos father of Araxes in De Fluviis = Palos son of Skuthes (Scytha I) son of Araxa Senior, then Cush, the consort of Araxa Senior, was indeed the great-grandfather (Gk. pappos) of Araxes, as stated in De Fluviis. Couillard also refers to Sabatius as the “father,” rather than the uncle, of Triton (ref. ibid., Sabatius’ brother Saba Turifer being the father of Triton in the text of the Defloratio). Since Triton was the ancestor of Hercules Libycus by the adoption of the latter’s father Osiris-Mizraim into the family of Hammon son of Triton, then Hercules Libycus could trace his descent from Araxa Senior and justify on that basis his right to rule over Scythia.

354.10.2. Returning to the account in the Defloratio: Sabatius Saga left his son “Barzanes” as ruler of the Caspian homeland when he migrated to Asia Minor. Barzanes already features in Ctesias (Diodorus Siculus II. 1) as an Armenian contemporary of Ninus, who submitted to the latter after suffering some losses, but his father, Sabatius, is only found in the Defloratio. According to the genealogical chart reproduced by Nanni in Lib. II of the Defloratio (fol. CXIIa, §886.2, below, >>), the sons of “Cur” (= Cush) were Arabs, Saubecres, Saba thurifer, Sabatius Saga and Nymbrotus (= Nimrod). In fol. CXIIb Nanni says Arabs is the Biblical “Saba,” which might mean, according to the Vulgate transcription, either Seba, the first son of Cush in Gen. 10. 7, or Sheba, the son of Raamah, son of Cush (grandson = “son” in ancient terminology). However Sheba is clearly the Defloratio’s Saba thurifer (“incense-bearing”) son of Cur, as Sheba was renowned in antiquity for its incense, whilst Sauberces is equated with the Biblical Sabtecha by Nanni himself (fol. CXIIIb). (For Nanni’s commentary on “Arabs” and “Saubecres,” see §886.2.1, below, >>) Sabatius can only be the remaining son of Cush in Genesis 10.7 whose name begins in Greek with sigma followed by beta, corresponding to the Latin s and b (Hebrew samekh or shin, followed by beth), viz. Sabtah. This name contains also the consonant “t.” Sabtah, according to Josephus (Ant. I. 134 = I. vi. 2) was the ancestor of the Astaborans or Cushites of Meroe. Meroe was the heart and capital of the Cushite kingdom and the home of the Queen of Sheba. But in Syncellus (ed. Mosshammer p. 50 = Dindorf p. 87) Sabtah (“Sebata”) son of Cush is the ancestor of the Sabines, precisely as is Sabatius in the Defloratio (infra). Syncellus, in fact, traces a number of tribes in Asia Minor back to Biblical eponyms descended from Ham (ed. Mosshammer p. 52f = ed. Dindorf p. 89f.) in a way reminiscent of the Defloratio’s account of the sojourn of Cush’s son Sabtah/Sabatius in Asia Minor. Sabus, ancestor of the Sabines, in the Defloratio the son of Sabatius Saga, is also known as Sabazius, the latter being the Phrygian Dionysus, and otherwise Atys son of Cybele. The names Sabazius and Sabbus (Sabus) are related to the Hebrew word Sabbath, according to Plutarch, Symposiacs IV, Question vi. The Hebrew Noah, the discoverer of wine, who is identified with Dionysus (Sabazius) in Tzetzes (§125, above, >>) is translated “Rest” precisely with reference to the Sabbath (“Sabbaton” and “Sebeth”) in Epiphanius (Haer. XXX, ed. Migne PG XLI, col. 468): “The Great Sabbath arrived which is Christ, Who caused us to rest from our sinful works, and Noah was a type of Him. When his father [Lamech] saw him [Noah] at birth he prophesied by giving him his name, uttering the following words: ‘This one shall cause us to rest from our sins, that is, our wicked works.’ But Noah did not give us rest from our sins. However Lamech prophesied what he uttered of Noah in respect of Christ, being interpreted in the true sense. Noah is interpreted “Rest” [Gk. anapausis], and Sebeth [Heb. shabbath], which is “rest” [Gk. anapausis], is also interpreted Sabbath [Gk. Sabbaton], which is Christ, in Whom the Father rests, and His Holy Spirit, and all saintly men have rested through Him, having ceased from their sinful works.” Sabatius is described in the Defloratio as joint-ruler with Janus-Noah of “Saba” [Sheba], which presumably means the Sabines here, §891.24, below, >>, §889.43, below, >>. Being a foundational tribal ancestor, Sabtah/Sabatius is also equated in the Defloratio with the planet-god Saturn (Heb. “Shabbati”), the patron deity of the Sabbath, Saturn’s day. Sabatius is Saturnus fol. XXIIb, according to the principle explained in another of Nanni’s Antiquitates, “Xenophon De Aequivocis,” fol. XXXIIIIb, §891.82, below, >>.

354.10.3. Returning to the Defloratio’s account of the migration of Sabatius: on arrival in Kittim (Italy), Sabatius Saga was welcomed by his great-grandfather Janus (identified with Noah). Nanni represents this event as the origin of the Roman myth of the reception of Saturnus by Janus. In his commentary, Nanni equates Sabatius Saga with the Italian deity Semo Sancus, the father of Sabus, Sabus being the eponymous ancestor of the Sabines, as well as Sabazius under a slightly different form of the name. Semo is interpreted to mean “Semipater” or “Semirex” (“Joint-ruler” [with Janus]), and Sancus to be the equivalent of the Oriental term Saga, meaning “Holy.” There was a corresponding female figure in medieval Sibylline tradition, viz. the Sibyl “Sambethe,” otherwise known as “Sabbe.” Sabbe is the female form of Sabbus (Sabus), which is related to the Hebrew word shabbath (Sabbath) according to Plutarch. Sambethe is a transcription of the same Hebrew word, with dissimilation of the medial double “b” (-bb- > -mb-). The Astaborans of the Sabtah clan were the rulers of Sheba (= Sabines), hence in the Defloratio Sabatius (Sabtah) is described as the “father” (ruler) of the Sabine eponymus Sabus. He represents the royal line of the Cushite, Sabean, Yemenite, or Minaean migrants who spread Minoan civilization into the western Mediterranean. (Cf. the migration of the Minaean Zepho = Saturnus etc. to Italy. The Sabines were held to be of Lacedaemonian descent, Ovid, Fast. i. 260, iii. 230, Sil. Ital. ii. 8, viii. 412 etc., Plut. Rom. 16, Hygin. ap. Serv. ad Aen. viii. 638, that is, they were Spartoi, Spartans, of the line of Kadmos = the Etruscan Kadmilos = Hermes, Cush, §348, above, >>.) Sabatius is first depicted as inhabiting the mountains of Ararat around the Caspian and the land of the “Sagae” (Scythians/Armenians), where he competed with the Assyrians, viz. the House of Ninus. Here Sabatius = Sabtah as a Kushan or Kassite tribe (Kushan/Kassite = Cushite) in league against the Assyrians with the Armenian House of Aram. Hence the driving of Sabatius into Bactria by the Assyrians, comparable to (and probably the same event as) the driving of Zoroaster (I) to the borderlands of the White Huns, prior to his reconciliation with Semiramis, according to Thomas Artzruni, §285, above, >>. The dominance of the Kushans is mentioned by Mar Abas in the context, and dated to the era, of the wars of Aram (Moses, op. cit., lib. I. cap. XIII.), and elsewhere (in lib. II. cap. II.), in Macedonian times, he refers to them as inhabiting Parthia or Bactria. Note that Gartos-Ara (“Zoroaster”) son of Ara (“Zoroaster”) son of Aram may well be the specifically Kassite king Gaddash, the founder of the earliest Kassite dynasty in Babylonia around the time of Semiramis (ibid.).

354.10.4. The pattern of migration here is the same as that of the progeny of Damascus-Eliezer, son of Canaan, who was also a Cushite according to the genealogy which made him out to be the son of Nimrod, the son of Cush: Eliezer fled from Isaac to Mount Ararat, then his offspring migrated to Pontus in Asia Minor with the family of Hayk/Haig. Damascus-Eliezer was Hermes Trismegistos, the Third Hermes, Cush being the second in the series, and, under another name, the Theban and Spartan Kadmos, and the Etruscan Kadmilos. In Phrygia he was identified with the River Marsyas (§140, above, >>) or Masnes. Masnes was the father of Attis/Atys (§349.0.0.1, above, >>), who was equated with Sabazius (Sabus), and Atys, in turn, the father of Tyrrhenus (Gk. Turrhenos), the eponymus of the Etruscans. Tyrrhenus migrated from Asia to Italy (Herodotus I. 94). The connection of this tradition with that relating to Hercules and Araxa is confirmed by the Defloratio’s account of how Araxa further bore to Hercules Thuscus (or Tuscus or Tussus, the eponymus of the Tusci, Etruscans), otherwise known as “Tuscus engendered from Ato,” and that he migrated to Italy from the Tanais (Don) by invitation of his father (§889.79, below, >>, §889.81, below, >>); as by the alternative genealogy of Tyrrhenus (the other eponymus of the Etruscans) in the Defloratio, Tyrrhenus, son of Atys (Ato) son of Hercules (instead of Masnes). For these figures cf. the last genealogical chart in Defloratio Book II, §886.2, below, >>, and §889.98ff., below, >>. The two names for the father of Tuscus, Hercules Libycus and Ato, implies Hercules Libycus = Ato, though there may also be some confusion with Tyrrhenus son of Ato son of Hercules. Since Hercules Libycus is Heth, ancestor of the Hittites (Hatti) of Asia Minor, it is likely Ato here (otherwise Atys, Attys, etc., earlier Haddu, Hadad) is the eponymus of Hatti = Heth = Hercules Libycus, as suggested at §349.0.0.1, above, >>. Hercules father of Ato would be an alternative way of representing the derivation of the Hittites (Ato in this case being the gentilic) from Hercules/Heth.

354.10.5. The immigrant Sabatians had an harmonious relationship with the Javanite offspring of Noah (Javan = Janus, §101.13, above, >>) in Italy (Kittim). In the mythological interpretation the Javanites, like Janus-Noah himself, represented “Heaven” (positively) or “Chaos” (negatively), and the immigrant Sabatians, “Saturn.” Saturn was followed by his son and grandson, thus: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars. Specifically, the Edomite (“Minoan”) Zepho, whose name in Hebrew means “Surfeit, superabundance,” and who in Yosippon ([Book I] Pereq 2) is said to have arrived in Italy and founded the line of the kings of Rome when the Sabines were already present there, seems to have given his name to the Latin planet-god Saturn (Latin “Saturnus” = “surfeit, superabundance”). In the Defloratio the equivalent figure is a “son of Roma,” of the “Romanessian” clan (“Romanessus”), who is said to have ruled somewhat later than Sabatius, Thuscus etc.; he was the “first consecrated” Saturnus, being succeeded by his son Picus Priscus. (§889.89, below, >>, §889.97, below, >>.), and was the founder of a new line: hence he was identified with the outermost (most ancient) planet-god, his son with the planet-god Jupiter, and his grandson with Mars (Hercules), in the traditional manner. In the interval between Janus (Noah) and Picus Priscus in the Defloratio, all the migrant settlers arriving in Italy and identified with planet-gods, are identified, in fact, with Saturn: Chemesenuus (Ham), the “Egyptian Saturn,” king of the Aborigines, dismissed from Italy by Janus, and ending his days in Armenia under the name “Zoroaster;” Sabatius (the “Armenian Saturn”), ancestor of the Sabines; and the son of Roma (“consecrated Saturn”), the Roman eponymus. Other migrants in the same interval are noted in the Defloratio, all connected in some way with the Armenian Pontic traditions: the Armenian Griphonii of Perugia, the Ausonians descended from Auson, identified in the commentary with the Biblical Uz (in Josephus the founder of Damascus, cf. Damascus Eliezer), and Hercules’ son Tuscus. This might be termed the “Saturnian” phase of immigration and settlement in Italy, following the earlier “Caelian” or Javanite phase (Javan = Janus = Caelus, Heaven), and immediately followed by the “Jupiter” phase (Picus-Zeus and his successors).

354.10.6. In the Asian homeland the same general, mythological, pattern can be traced in the traditions relating to the Lydian royal line preserved by Herodotus. The eponymous ancestor of the Lydians, Lydus, was a brother of Tyrrhenus and thus belonged to the family circle of the Titanic or Kronos-like line of Masnes-Atys/Sabazius/Sabatius-Lydus. The foundational family circle was that of Lydus, the First Dynasty of Lydian kings, the Atyadae. Succeeding that dynasty, Herodotus traced a second royal line from Herakles through his son Alkaios, followed by Belos, then Ninos, and the latter’s son Agron. Agron was the founder of the Second Dynasty of twenty-two Lydian kings, the Heraclidae, so called on account of their descent from Herakles, ruling over 505 years. Here is what might be termed the “Zeus” or “Jupiter” line of Assyrian kings succeeding and supplanting the “Kronos” or “Saturn” circle of Masnes (as Iuppiter Belus and his son Ninus are opposed to Sabatius in the Defloratio). Given the Levantine and Egyptian connections of the Lydians, we should see in Herodotus’ Herakles here the Tyrian Herakles, the Jupiter-like Baal Melqart, assimilated to the Egyptian Hercules, or Arueris, the Elder Horus. (See further on Arueris in this context, §354.5ff., above, >>.) Doubtless the Lydian kings traced their line back through Agron son of Ninos-Picus-Zeus, the fugitive king of Assyria, as he was believed to have set up a new kingdom in Crete, and there to have become the father of Minos (as well as of Agron) and ancestor of the Minoans, and thus also of the Minyans/Milyans of Asia Minor. The third and last dynasty of Lydia was that of the Mermnadae, with whom the Greeks in historical times had most dealings. The mythological pattern behind the three Lydian dynasties is the typical threefold generational series: Kronos-Saturn (the Atyadae), Zeus-Jupiter (the Assyrian Heraclidae) and Herakles-Mars (the Mermnadae)

354.11. The order and nature of the second, third, and fourth figures in the Syriac king-list suggest comparison also with an otherwise mysterious fusion of Greek and Egyptian mythology in Diodorus Siculus. The fourth figure in the chart supra (Kisaronos) is the Egyptian Hercules (Arueris, Horus of Edfu), whose campaigns against Asiatics (“Seth” or “Tuphon” and his allies, here including Anubis) in the early post-diluvian period were celebrated in Ptolemaic Egypt. The third figure is Shemyaza (Samiros), the “Semite” giant opposed by the heroic fourth figure. The second figure is Gayomart (“Adam,” Qombaros). The Iranian Gayomart is equated with Adam, and Adam with Prometheus (§670, below, >>). The scheme, therefore, is one in which “Prometheus” (Gayomart/Qombaros), the second figure, is succeeded by the giant Shemyaza/Samiros, the third figure, who is slain by the Egyptian “Hercules” (Kisaronos), the fourth figure. But this is precisely the scenario envisaged in the following passage of Diodorus Siculus (ed. Wesseling) I. 17-19. {Trans. Booth with modifications} “It is moreover reported, that Osiris being a prince of a public spirit, and very ambitious of glory, raised a great army, with which he resolved to go through all parts of the world that were inhabited, and to teach men how to plant vines, and to sow wheat and barley …. Having therefore settled his affairs in Egypt, and committed the government of his whole kingdom to his wife Isis, he joined with her Hermes, as her chief counselor of state, because he far excelled all others in wisdom and prudence. But Hercules, his near kinsman, he left general of all his forces within his dominions, a man admired by all for his valor and strength of body. As to those parts which lay near Phoenicia, and upon the sea-coasts of them, he made Busiris lord lieutenant, and of Ethiopia and Lybia, Antaeus. Then marching out of Egypt, he began his expedition …. 19. While they were thus employed, it is said that the river Nile, about the dog-days, (at which time it is customarily the highest), broke down its banks, and overflowed the greatest part of Egypt, and that part especially where Prometheus governed, insomuch as almost all the inhabitants were drowned; so that Prometheus was near unto killing of himself for very grief of heart: and, from the sudden and violent eruption of the waters, the river was called Eagle. Hercules, who was always for high and difficult enterprises, and ever of a stout spirit, presently made up the breaches, and turned the river into its channel, and kept it within its ancient banks; and therefore some of the Greek poets from this fact have forged a fable, that Hercules killed the eagle that fed upon Prometheus’s heart.”

354.12. The context is one in which Mizraim (Men, Osiris), the first king of Egypt, has embarked on his campaign to spread “civilization” around the eastern Mediterranean. He leaves his relative Heth (Hercules, Djet, the fourth king of the First Dynasty of Egypt, identified with Horus of Edfu) in charge of the Egyptian state while he is absent. The demon opposed by the latter is the flooding Nile (the “Eagle”), which he manages to bring, eventually, under his control. The political interpretation is not in view here, but in the original Egyptian mythology Asiatics were identified with chaotic forces of nature, particularly water-monsters (hippopotami, snakes etc.), and these were conceived of as so many forms of Seth (Tuphon): subduing the raging waters of the Nile was thought to be very much the same thing as subjecting native Asiatics to the ruling elite. The homeland of the Dynastic elite of Egypt was Mesopotamia in the Jemdet Nasr period, where they opposed the First Dynasty of Kish. The latter was represented, similarly, in Mesopotamian mythology by the storm-bird, or griffin (“eagle”), Anzu, the emblem of Kish. Eliezer (Balih), Phineus (Pu-annum, see §889.2.4, below, >>) and Melchizedek (Enme-baragesi) were Kishites (Shalemites). The Asiatics of Palestine and Northern Egypt were their relatives. Thus, the “Eagle” (storm-bird) which afflicted the Asiatics of Northern Egypt was the spirit of what the Dynastic elite considered to be their erroneous religious beliefs, subjecting them, on account of the “uncivilized, uncultivated,” lifestyle they associated with those beliefs, to the devastating effects of the flood-waters of the Nile. The “culture-hero” Heth (Djet, Horus of Edfu) delivered them, according to this account, from the spirit itself, as well as from its destructive consequences. Doubtless his introduction of the apostate doctrines of Cainan-Hermes, of Babylonian science and technology, into Egypt, was part of the process. That it may have backfired on him is indicated by the tradition recorded in Manetho’s king-list that during the reign of the fourth king of the First Dynasty of Egypt, viz. Djet, Egypt suffered a severe drought. Surely there is some connection here with the engineering-works “Hercules” performed on the overflowing Nile. If so, there were further consequences for him personally. Ieoud (= Djet, Heth, Ama-ushumgal-ana, Hercules), according to Sanchuniathon, was offered up in sacrifice as a burnt-offering precisely to avert a natural calamity which had befallen the land in his days.

For the Egyptian kings of the Old Kingdom synchronized here with the Babylonian kings, see §626.18ff., below, >>.