#phoenician mythology

[kinginthemask]

𝓡𝓮𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓷 𝓯𝓻𝓸𝓶 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓕𝓲𝓻𝓮

[noctilionoidea]

Kinda meh Ashtart I worked on and off on during school. For the most part I wasn’t able to reference my design for her but I did get it close. I don’t like how the coloured pencil looks here though. Eh

[elizabeth-halime]

Asherah/Athirat/Elat = Mother goddess, queen of heaven, goddess of fertility, lady of wisdom, goddess of the seas, the creator of the gods together with the god El, queen of the gods, the one who walks on the sea, patron saint of sailors and fishermen

Athirat is a powerful Goddess, and the other Gods often ask Her to help them, or to try to influence her husband El for their good. As guardian of Wisdom, She is the one who chooses the successor of Aleyin (an aspect of Ba'al as the God of dying vegetation) and, after his death, She instructs Anat in the proper ritual necessary to ensure the fertility of the vines.

Like Ashtart, Athirat is associated with the lion. She is usually shown as a nude Goddess with curly hair covering her breasts with her hands. She is also associated with the snake, and an alternative name for Her is Chawat, which in Hebrew translates as "Hawah", or in English "Eve"; so She may well be the root of the biblical Eve. Like the Carthaginian goddess Tanit, whose name means "Serpent Lady", Athirat was represented as a palm tree or pillar with a snake coiled around her, and the name Athirat derives from a root meaning "straight".

Athirat is associated with the Tree of Life, and a famous ivory box lid of Mycenaean finish found at Ugarit, dated 1300 BC, shows it symbolically representing the Tree. She wears an elaborate skirt and jewelry, and although she is topless, her hair is delicately styled; She is smiling and in her hands holds sheaves of wheat, which she offers to a pair of goats.

[hecatesdelights]

The Hippocampus was known in various forms to many ancient civilizations. In Ancient Greek myths, they were the mounts of Nereids and gods.

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Baal cycle out of context

[illustratus]

The Abduction of Europa by Jean-François de Troy

[dreamsoffaerie]

women of myth & folklore [1/?] ↣ asherah, queen of the heavens (canaanite/phoenician myth)

you are boundless, there is nothing you can't do

[0ghostwatcher]

Here the man who maybe pissed more gods than Odysseus

How many gods have pissed Tiresias accord his stories:

Athena

Hera

Aphrodite

Apollo

[alpaca-clouds]

Mythologic Geekery: Ba'al

Given that I now have the theory that he might play into Nocturne - and the fact I wanted to speak about Abrahamitic and Semitic mythology this and next week either way... LET ME TALK BA'AL!

So, first things first: Ba'al originally was a title within several of the semitic languages, being best translated with "Lord". So several male gods used the honorific over the time. But within both Babylon and also the Canaanite culture the name became mostly associated with the god Hadad. (While the Phoenicians associated the name with El(ohim) - but I am gonna talk about Elohim next week and he is a bit different, because he never became a demon.)

Hadad was a good mainly of weather (especially storms) and of fertility, being associated with the harvest and agriculture in general. Statues of Hadad were also used in fertility rituals.

From Ba'al Hadad came Ba'al as a god on his own. And while he was usually not the head god of a pantheon, he very much fulfilled the same role as Zeus in the pantheon. Being association with weather and these things. Interesting enough he had also a reverse version of the same kinda myth like Persephone associated with him: According to this myth the hot and dry summer months were the time of the year he was forced to live in the underworld.

What happened, though, with the Hebrew culture was that YHW subsumed the same role within the pantheon that Ba'al originally fulfilled. So he basically took that role and on the longterm subplanted Ba'al. And when the Abrahamitic culture turned towards Monotheism around YHW, Ba'al first became one of the false idols. Those idols that the folks prayed to in the desert while Moses was on the mountain. (Also Ba'al was among the idols people in Mekka prayed too that Mohammed then worked against.)

So, when Judaism took of they used Ba'al to build out their demonology. Now, again, Ba'al is technically a title, but a lot of people do agree that the fact that the demon got called Ba'al Zebub (Lord of Flies) was for the reason that Ba'al was the god they were trying to subplant.

Now technically Ba'al Zebub also references another god (Ekron). Now, the role of Ba'al Zebub (or how you might more easily recognize the name: Beelzebub). Within early Judaist sources Ba'al Zebub is mostly associated with death and sickness. Hence also the name: Lord of Flies.

As mythology shifts over time, by the time of the Testament of Solomon Ba'al Zebub was called "the Prince of Demons", who also was said to once have been an angel who rebelled against God for which he was cast into hell. And yes, if you think about Luzifer here: This was probably the source for that. I will talk more about Luzifer next week.

And then came Christianity. While within the gospels Ba'al Zebub was still in the same role of "prince of demon", later Christian theology started to decide that he and Satan were the same character. Something that happened around the same time that Satan became seen as more and more "evil" (something he is not within the original Hebrew mythology). And the Christian theology turned Ba'al Zebub into Beelzebub, as which we still have him around to this day.

[sarafangirlart]

What do you think about Cadmus?

I don't remember reading myths where he does a lot of questionable things, but other than that, he's always been interesting to me, since where he comes from (Phoenicia) to his relationship with Harmonia, the fact that he's the first Greek hero is cool too tbh.

I kinda go back and forth on whether I like him, like he seemingly completely forgot about Europa after founding Thebes which sucks. Tho the first Greek Hero not being Greek is pretty funny.

[kinginthemask]

𝓜𝓮𝓵𝓴𝓪𝓻𝓽𝓱 𝓕𝓪𝓵𝓵 𝓐𝓼𝓵𝓮𝓮𝓹

Recently I've been addicted to Phoenician art style，so here is a new character. He is the first king who established the city of Tyre, and was equivalent to "Baal", the patrons of other cities in Canaanian area.

I know that cremation was common in their time, and Melqart was resurrected from the fire, but I saw the sarcophagus of King Hiram by coincidence, so it became like this :D

[elizabeth-halime]

The book of Jeremiah, written around 628 BC, refers to Asherah when it mentions the "Queen of Heaven" in chapters 7:18 "the children gathered the wood, and the parents kindled the fire, and the women prepared the dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven, and offer libations to other gods, to provoke me to anger" and 44:22 "So that the LORD could no longer bear the evil of your deeds/, the abominations that you committed Therefore your land became a wilderness, a terror and a curse, without inhabitants, as it is today." (could also be about Astarte or Ishtar)

The mother of the 70 or 77 gods (also 80 or more), possibly the Shekinah, creator of the gods and represented royalty

[freespiritlilith]

Lilith and Ishtar are not interchangeable that’s really disrespectful to say.

[ava-of-shenanigans]

Okay so I did Demeter and Demophoon/Isis at Byblos with eldritch horror gods.

[illustratus]

"Creta" Crete. Europa e il Toro | Europa and the Bull

[castilestateofmind]

“Apart from what separates them (which is not negligible), [European nations] are heirs of a common cultural matrix, which is at least five thousand years old".

 - Alain de Benoist.