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25-779: An altar dedicated to the Semitic deity, Baalshamin in 94 CE, now in the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, indicates that a Nabatean religious building previously stood on the site. There is a reference to a building in a lawsuit in 216, however in 245 CE, in the reign of the Roman Emperor Philip the Arab , the Roman Temple of Dumeir , located in the center of the old town, was dedicated to Zeus Hypsistos The shape

50-408: A curse is laid against King Baal if he breaks the treaty, reading in part: "May Baal-sameme, Baal-malage, and Baal-saphon raise an evil wind against your ships, to undo their moorings, tear out their mooring pole, may a strong wave sink them in the sea, a violent tide [. . .] against you." The god Baal-malage is otherwise unexplained. Baal-saphon here and elsewhere seems to be Ba'al Hadad, whose home

75-532: A royal scribe in Egypt and the king of Tyre called on him as a divine witness on a treaty with the emperor of Assyria in 677 BCE. It appears in the Hebrew Scriptures as Mount Zaphon ( Hebrew : צפון Tsāfōn ). In ancient Canaanite religion , Mount Sapan was sometimes accounted as the home of all the gods, not only Baʿal and his sister . As Mount Zaphon, it appears in that role in

100-439: A thunderbolt at the peak struck the animal he was about to sacrifice. In spring 363 the last pagan emperor, Julian , scaled the mountain, where he had an epiphanic vision of Zeus Kasios, according to his friend and correspondent Libanius . Greek theophoric names Kassiodora and Kassiodorus , equally a "gift of Kasios", recall a vow of one or both parents made to ensure fertile conception. Christian hermits were drawn to

125-674: A tower at Dumayr. A Greek inscription engraved by al-Mundhir credits himself for its construction and thanks God and St. Julian . A monastery associated with the Ghassanids called Dayr al-Matirun, likely an Arabicized version of the Greek martyrion , existed about 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) east of Dumayr. A cemetery was built in 1960 for the French casualties of WWI and WWII in Al-Dumayr. The Syrian Arab Air Force Al-Dumayr Military Airport

150-554: Is also located in Al-Dumayr. 33°38′31″N 36°41′34″E  /  33.64194°N 36.69278°E  / 33.64194; 36.69278 Baalshamin Baalshamin ( Imperial Aramaic : ܒܥܠ ܫܡܝܢ , romanized:  Baʿal Šāmīn or Bʿel Šmīn , lit.   'Lord of Heaven[s]'), also called Baal Shamem ( Phoenician : 𐤁𐤏𐤋 𐤔𐤌𐤌 , romanized:  Baʿl Šāmēm ) and Baal Shamaim ( Hebrew : בַּעַל שָׁמַיִם , romanized :  Baʿal Šāmayīm ),

175-528: Is here regarded as a sun-god and the bringer of rain, or whether he is regarded as the cause of drought. Writers in Syriac refer to Baalshamin as Zeus Olympios Zeus who shines. Mount Aqraa Jebel Aqra ( Arabic : جبل الأقرع , romanized :  Jabal al-ʾAqraʿ , [ˈd͡ʒæbæl al ˈʔaqraʕ] ; Turkish : Kel Dağı ) is a limestone mountain located on the Syrian – Turkish border near

200-420: Is highly unusual, and construction may have commenced as a public fountain or staging post, but in its final form it is clearly a temple. It was fortified in the Arab period, the arch on the rear wall being filled in with stones and defensive devices. The temple has been restored as the result of much research and reconstruction work. The Ghassanid phylarch (tribal king) al-Mundhir III ibn al-Harith built

225-466: Is in a treaty of the 14th century BC between Suppiluliumas I , King of the Hittites , and Niqmaddu II , King of Ugarit . Although this could be a reference to Baal Hadad, and again when the name appears in a Phoenician inscription by King Yeḥimilk of Byblos , other texts make a distinction between the two. In the treaty of 677 BC between King Esarhaddon of Assyria and King Ba‘al I of Tyre ,

250-652: Is on Mount Ṣaphon in the Ugaritic texts. But interpreters disagree as to whether these are here three separate gods or three aspects of the same god, a god who causes stormy weather on the sea. In any case, inscriptions show that the cult of Ba'al Šamem continued in Tyre from Esarhaddon's day until towards the end of the 1st millennium BC. Baalshamen is mentioned as an idol among other Aramean gods in Mesopotamia by Jacob of Serugh : In Sanchuniathon 's main mythology

275-473: Is regularly equated with Zeus Helios , that is Zeus as a sun-god. Sanchuniathon supports this: "... 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'." Unfortunately, it is not clear whether Baalshamin

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300-731: The Hebrew Scriptures ' Book of Isaiah , along with the Mount of the Congregation . From its importance and its position at the northern end of Canaan , it also became a metonym and then the word for the direction " north " in the Hebrew language . Under various forms , worship continued through antiquity , when it was called Mount Casius ( ‹See Tfd› Greek : Κασιος , Kasios ; Latin : Casius Mons ; Armenian : Կասիոս Լեռ , Gassios Ler ) and lay 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) north of Posideium (modern Ras al-Bassit ). Even closer,

325-402: The shrine of Zeus Kasios, with its pointed roof on pillars, and a representation of its rounded sacred stone, or betyl . Trajan's adoptive son Hadrian accompanied him; he returned in 130 AD to scale the mountain at night, no doubt, Lane Fox remarks, to witness the rising of the sun, visible for several minutes from the peak, while the land below lay still in darkness; it was said later that

350-488: The 1920s, including the Baal Cycle , showed its residents considered the peak of Mount Sapan to house the lapis and silver palace of their storm god Baʿal ( lit.   ' The Lord ' ) and his sister ʿAnat . Baʿal is now often identified with Hadad and his variations understood as local cults. The form Baʿal Zephon was worshipped widely: his temple at Ugarit held a sandstone relief dedicated to him by

375-517: The eagle and the lightning bolt, and he perhaps formed a triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Malakbel . The title was also applied to Zeus . The earliest known Phoenician reference to Baalshamin is in the Yehimilk inscription , dated to the 10th century BCE. This name was originally a title of Baal Hadad , in the 2nd millennium BC, but came to designate a distinct god circa 1000 BC. The earliest known mention of this god or title

400-547: The earliest Hellenic foothold in the Levant lies at the beach on its northern flank at Al Mina . Here Euboeans and Cypriotes experienced some of their earliest on-site experience of northwest Semitic cultures, from the early eighth century BCE onwards. "The Hittite name persisted in neo-Hittite culture into the ninth century [BCE] and so when Greeks settled on the north side of Mount Hazzi they continued to call its main peak 'Mount Kasios'", Lane Fox points out, observing that it

425-557: The god he calls in Greek ' Uranus '/'Sky' has been thought by some to stand for Ba'al Šamem. Sky is here the actual father of Baal Hadad (although Baal Hadad is born after his mother's marriage to Dagon ). As in Greek mythology and Hittite mythology , Sky is castrated by his son, who is in turn destined to be opposed by the thunder god. In Sanchuniathon's story, Sky also battles Sea; Sky finds himself unable to prevail, so he allies himself with Hadad. In Nabatean texts in Greek, Baal Shamin

450-498: The home of their storm god Teshub . The Hittites continued his worship, celebrating Teshub's victory over the sea in the Song of Kumarbi found in their capital Hattusa . They also celebrated the mountain in its own right, naming it as a divine guarantor on their treaties and observing rites in its honor. The ancient port of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra ) lies 30 kilometers (19 mi) to its south. Texts discovered there in

475-423: The mountain Ḫazi ( 𒄩𒍣 ) and Ḫazzi ( 𒄩𒊍𒍣 ), which was a name also used for it in early Akkadian texts. The Hurro-Hittite name gave rise to the mountain's Ancient Greek name of Kásion ( Κάσιον ). Zaphon, like Mizpah and Mizpeh, is derived from a noun meaning lookout point. Jebel Aqra has a long history as a sacred mountain . The Hurrians called it Mount Hazzi and considered it

500-518: The mountain's border location. The ancient Semitic name of the mountain, Ṣapōn, is recorded in Akkadian as Ṣapūna ( 𒍝𒁍𒈾 ), Ugaritic as Ṣapānu ( 𐎕𐎔𐎐 ), Egyptian as ḏꜣpwnꜣ ( 𓍑𓄿𓊪𓏲𓈖𓄿𓌙𓈉 ), Aramaic as Ṣapōn ( 𐡑𐡐𐡅𐡍 ), Phoenician as Ṣapōn ( 𐤑𐤐𐤍 ), and Hebrew as Ṣāp̄ōn ( צָפוֹן‎ ). The Hurrians and the Hittites respectively called

525-511: The mountain; Barlaam challenged its demons by founding a monastery near the treeline on its eastern slopes, and Simeon Stylites the Younger stood for forty years on a pillar near its northern flanks until his death in 592. The cult site is represented by a huge mound of ashes and debris, 180 feet (55 m) wide and 26 feet (7.9 m) deep, of which only the first 6 feet (1.8 m) have been excavated. Archaeologists only reached as far as

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550-531: The mouth of the Orontes River on the Mediterranean Sea . Rising from a narrow coastal plain , Jebel Aqra is a mariners' landmark that gathers thunderstorms . The mountain was a cult site in ancient Canaanite religion and continuing through classical antiquity . A mound of ash and debris remains; an archaeological investigation was broken off because of military restrictions imposed due to

575-487: Was a Northwest Semitic god and a title applied to different gods at different places or times in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions, especially in Canaan / Phoenicia and Syria . The title was most often applied to Hadad , who is also often titled just Ba‘al . Baalshamin was one of the two supreme gods and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria ( Bel being the other supreme god). There his attributes were

600-437: Was a notable cultural occasion. Seleucus I Nicator sought there the advice of Zeus in locating his foundation, a Seleuceia (one of many) on the coast. Coins struck there as late as the first century BCE still show the city's emblem, the thunderbolt , sometimes placed upon the cushion of a throne. In the winter of 114/15 CE Trajan was spared in a major earthquake that struck Antioch ; commemorative coins were struck featuring

625-766: Was the Mount Olympus of the Near East. The cult of the god of the mountain was transferred, by interpretatio graeca , to Zeus Kasios , the "Zeus of Mount Kasios", similar to Ras Kouroun in the Sinai. Tiles from the Greco-Roman sanctuary at the site, stamped with the god's name, were reused in the Christian monastery that came to occupy the eastern, landward slopes of Kazios. When kings and emperors climbed Mount Kasios to sacrifice at its peak sanctuary , it

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