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Sun and Sun Worship THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
Clermont-Ganneau (Archives des missions scien
tafiques et littkraires, 3d series, xi. 182, no. 23, Paris,
1885) describes the bronze head of a statue with
3. Xonu- rayed crown from Tripoli (cf. Gress
mental mann, ut sup., ii. 74), and numerous
Testimony. evidences of the same sort might be
adduced. Julian (Oratio, iv.) speaks of
Edessa as long the sacred territory of the sun. At
Emesa honey was offered in sacrifice to the same
deity (Athenxus, xv., emended text). One of the
deities of this city was Elagabalus who became a
solar god (he was perhaps a god of the hill-top), and
his namesake the Roman emperor (see ELAGABA
Lus) endeavored to force his cult upon the empire
as the sole legitimate worship (cf. J. H. Mordtmann,
in ZDMG, xxxi., 1877, pp. 91-99) ; a conical stone
stood in the temple of this deity, and this, once
more, shows that between sun-worship and the
phallic cult there were interconnections. The coins
of Emeaa often bear the image of a deity with rayed
crown. For Palmyra the fact of the existence of
the cult is so well-known as hardly to need addi
tional testimony. While Shmsh (however vocal
ized) is the predominant object of worship, other
deities there were brought into relations with the
sun; coins of the city bear the usual head with
rayed crown, and monolingual and bilingual in
scriptions add further witness. The worship of
Shamash appears to have been very ancient. One
deity known as Mlkb'l (" Baal is king " ?) is identi
fied as Sol on an altar inscription in Rome, and the
solar eagle is present (Lidzbarski, ut sup., p. 477,
no. 2). The predilection for solar deities in this
region is perhaps in this city most strongly repre
sented, as is attested by the fact that the deity
Yrhb'l (" Moon is lord "; cf. yareah as a name for
the moon in MOON, HEBREW CONCEPTIONS OF, § 1)
was identified with the sun (CIL, iii. 108), and a
relief of this god wears the rayed crown of a solar
deity (Ronzevalle, in Comptes rendus de l'aca&mie
des inscriptions, 1903, pp. 276 sqq.). At Baalbek
the evidences of sun-worship, outside of those be
longing to the Roman imperial age, are well known;
among these are many evidences of Egyptian in
fluence on the art side at least, the disk with uraeus
appearing in the reliefs; there are also traces of
Phenician influence. The Greek name Heliopolis is
indicative of the controlling worship of the place,
and the bronzes and other art objects found there
show both the rayed crown and gilding. The coins
often carry this same crown together with an eagle,
while the inscription CIL, iii. 14386d. mentions the
sun. Even Balanios, originally perhaps a form of
Hadad (see RIMMON) came to be accepted as solar.
Farther east, at Hierapolis on the Euphrates, Lucian
(Des Syria, § 34) reports a temple in which was a
throne for the sun-god, but no image of him; and
from a place called Nizib to the north comes a
bronze eagle which bears the inscription Helios (R.
Dussaud, Notes de mythologie syrienne, Paris, 1903)
-the connection of the eagle with the sun-god,
which has been assumed in the foregoing, is made
certain for the Semitic region by the very numerous
occasions in which they are brought together, by
the explicit identification just noted, and by the
Arabian conception of an eastern and a western
Nasr (" eagle "), evidently referring to the rising and the setting sun. The same connection so common in Egypt is confirmatory, not evidential. A large number of additional witnesses might be adduced from the region south of Hermon and east of the Jordan, but most of them would be but supplementary to the testimony already cited. In the Amarna Tablets Akizzi of Katna near Emesa speaks of Shamash as the God of his fathers; the Senjirli and Nerab inscriptions name Shall apparently as one among a number of deities; Shamash was worshiped at Gebal (Amarna Tablets, nos. 87, 65 in Wincklei s numbering). There was an Amoritic deity Sharebu, " heat," who is perhaps to be connected with the sun (Schrader, KAT, p. 415); Nergal is mentioned on a Canaanitic seal cylinder at Taanach, probably as the name for a local sun-god (E. Sellin, Tell Ta'annek, pp. 27, 105, Vienna,, 1904), and is mentioned also in the Amarna Tablets, nos. 13, 25, 37. The Egyptian deity Amon-R.a was known in North Syria and was identified with Sha,mash at Gebai. One of the eight temples of Gaza was dedicated to the sun.
From ancient testimony like that of Servius (an annotator of Vergil's ,Eneid, on i. 729) there is raised the presumption that in this region where the
name Baal is used of a deity,,the sun 4. Arabs is meant. It has already appeared and Naba- that the title of the sun-god varied,
ta3ane. now appearing as Bel or Baal, Greek Despotes; now as Melek or " King," Greek Basileus, and later as Mar, Syrian for " Lord." Not infrequently he received also the title " savior," especially when he was regarded as a deity of healing. Even Saturn was blended with this cult in late Roman times. The spread of the Mithra cult only emphasized the general tendency, for as a solar god he gained recognition, although the myth distinguished him from the sun and made him the subduer of that luminary and the master assigning tasks to it. Even Tammuz (q.v.) at Byblos, became a sun-deity (E. Renan Mission de Phenicie, plate xxxii. 2, Paris, 1864; Macrobius, Saturnalia, I:, xxi. 1, " Adonis is surely the sun "). As bearing on the later Nabataean conceptions it may be remembered that in Arabia Shams was feminine, and the testimony of proper names attests the fact of worship. Aramaic names among the Nabatxans (q.v.), such as Shmsh-grm (see above, § 2), do not carry conclusive weight, because of the borrowing of language which characterized the Nabataeans. Yet much might be said for the original Nabatman origin of this name. Strabo (XVL, iii. 26)'reports that these people had altars to the sun on their houses, and the tendency is to see the sun in Dusares (see NABATlEANa, IL, § 3; cf. J. H. Mordtmann, in ZDMG, xxix., 1875, pp. 99-106), especially as the epithet " invincible' so common in association with solar deities is applied to him. This solar character may, however, have been acquired after he came to Aramean soil, for the indications are plain that he was originally a god of fertility (Lidzbarski, Ephemeris, ut sup., p. 262).
s. The Hittites: In the present state of limited knowledge of the Hittites reserve respecting their religious- ideas is eminently becoming From the
