Sources, Volume VIII
The Levantine Borderlands
How to weigh the evidence for this room, where to read the texts, and what survives for each of its three bays.
How to read the evidence
Evidence for the Aramaean, Nabataean, and Palmyrene cults of Syria, Petra, northern Arabia, and the caravan cities should be read in a hierarchy: dated and provenanced primary objects first; critically edited literary or ritual texts second; ancient reception and interpretation third; modern synthesis last.
Read the texts online
- Trismegistos, papyrological and epigraphic metadata
- OCIANA, Online Corpus of the Inscriptions of Ancient North Arabia
Further reading
- Dirven, Lucinda. The Palmyrenes of Dura-Europos. Brill, 1999.
- Drijvers, H. J. W. Cults and Beliefs at Edessa. Brill, 1980.
- Healey, John F. The Religion of the Nabataeans: A Conspectus. Brill, 2001.
- Healey, John F. Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period. Oxford University Press, 2009.
- Kaizer, Ted. The Religious Life of Palmyra. Franz Steiner, 2002.
- Millar, Fergus. The Roman Near East, 31 BC–AD 337. Harvard University Press, 1993.
- Niehr, Herbert, ed. The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria. Brill, 2014.
- Patrich, Joseph. The Formation of Nabataean Art. Magnes Press, 1990.
- Smith, Mark S. The Early History of God. 2nd edition. Eerdmans, 2002.
- Teixidor, Javier. The Pagan God: Popular Religion in the Greco-Roman Near East. Princeton University Press, 1977.
The Aramaean Gods of Syria
What survives
- Semitic inscriptions
- Divine names, titles, dedicants, kin groups, dates, and sanctuaries are primary; damaged readings and restored vowels must be marked.
- Greek and Latin inscriptions
- These document bilingual civic and imperial translation, sometimes with explicit divine equations.
- Reliefs and aniconic stones
- Iconography and betyls reveal cult form, but a visual attribute does not automatically supply a literary biography.
- Coins
- Civic types date official iconography and political claims while remaining selective public media.
- Temples and sacred topography
- Architecture, processional routes, banqueting spaces, and deposition establish institutional practice.
- Late literary witnesses
- Lucian, church historians, rabbinic texts, and Islamic-period antiquarians are valuable but culturally and chronologically distant.
- Aramaic royal inscriptions
- Direct named testimony tied to specific kingdoms and rulers.
- Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess
- A major imperial-period ethnographic-literary description of Hierapolis.
- Reliefs and temple archaeology
- Material context establishes iconography and civic practice.
Entry by entry (6)
- Hadad §1.1 Hadad is documented from numerous Aramaic and Greek inscriptions across Syria.
- Atargatis §1.2 Atargatis is documented chiefly through Lucian's De Dea Syria (the Greek text, traditionally attributed to Lucian, is now sometimes assigned to a contemporary or imitator; see Jane Lightfoot's Lucian: On the Syrian Goddess, 2003, the standard edition with extensive commentary).
- Baalshamin §1.3 Baalshamin is documented in numerous Aramaic and Greek inscriptions from Syria.
- Allat (The Aramaean Goddess) §1.4 Herodotus's reference (1.131, 3.8) is among the earliest.
- Simios §1.5 Simios is named in Lucian's De Dea Syria (chapters 32-33, 36) and in scattered inscriptions and references; the figure is one of the most obscure of the major Hierapolis deities, with much of what we know about him filtered through Greek interpretation.
- Sin Of Harran §1.6 The Harranian cult of Sin is documented from cuneiform inscriptions of the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods (especially the Nabonidus inscriptions, well-edited by Paul-Alain Beaulieu, The Reign of Nabonidus, King of Babylon, 1989), through the Roman-imperial period (Ammianus Marcellinus 23.3.2 on Julian's visit), into the Islamic period (the standard treatment of the Sabians is Tamara Green's The City of the Moon God: Religious Traditions of Harran, 1992).
The Nabataean Pantheon of Petra and the Hijaz
What survives
- Semitic inscriptions
- Divine names, titles, dedicants, kin groups, dates, and sanctuaries are primary; damaged readings and restored vowels must be marked.
- Greek and Latin inscriptions
- These document bilingual civic and imperial translation, sometimes with explicit divine equations.
- Reliefs and aniconic stones
- Iconography and betyls reveal cult form, but a visual attribute does not automatically supply a literary biography.
- Coins
- Civic types date official iconography and political claims while remaining selective public media.
- Temples and sacred topography
- Architecture, processional routes, banqueting spaces, and deposition establish institutional practice.
- Late literary witnesses
- Lucian, church historians, rabbinic texts, and Islamic-period antiquarians are valuable but culturally and chronologically distant.
- Nabataean inscriptions
- Names, vows, kinship, and findspot form the evidentiary core.
- Betyls and cult niches
- Shape and placement illuminate aniconic practice without supplying mythology.
- Petra and Hegra archaeology
- Temple, tomb, procession, and banquet contexts define institutions.
Entry by entry (7)
- Dushara §2.1 The aniconic tradition and the baetyl-cult is treated in Frank Moore Cross's Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (1973) and in Tryggve Mettinger's No Graven Image?
- Al-Lat §2.2 Al-Lat is documented in Nabataean inscriptions, in the Greek and Latin sources (Herodotus 1.131, 3.8; Strabo 16.4.26; the Suda), and in the early Islamic sources (the Kitab al-Asnam of Hisham ibn al-Kalbi, c. 819 of our era).
- Al-Uzza §2.3 Al-Uzza is documented in Nabataean inscriptions (especially from Petra and Hegra), in the early Islamic sources (the Kitab al-Asnam, the Sira of Ibn Ishaq), and in Greek-Roman sources where her cult was carried into the Roman provincial system.
- Manat §2.4 Manat is documented in Nabataean inscriptions, in the early Islamic sources, and in the pre-Islamic Arabic poetry (where she is often invoked, particularly in the contexts of fate and death).
- Hubal §2.5 Hubal is documented chiefly in the early Islamic sources — the Sira of Ibn Ishaq, the Kitab al-Asnam, and the various traditions preserved in the hadith literature.
- Obodas §2.6 Obodas is documented in numerous Nabataean inscriptions, particularly from Avdat (Oboda), Petra, and Hegra; the standard reference for the inscriptions is John Healey's Aramaic Inscriptions and Documents of the Roman Period (2009) and the volumes of the Recueil des inscriptions sémitiques.
- Qaus §2.7 Qaus is documented chiefly in the Edomite epigraphic record — seals, ostraca, bullae from Tell el-Kheleifeh, Umm el-Biyara, Buseirah, and other sites — and in the later Nabataean inscriptions where his cult continued.
The Gods of Palmyra
What survives
- Semitic inscriptions
- Divine names, titles, dedicants, kin groups, dates, and sanctuaries are primary; damaged readings and restored vowels must be marked.
- Greek and Latin inscriptions
- These document bilingual civic and imperial translation, sometimes with explicit divine equations.
- Reliefs and aniconic stones
- Iconography and betyls reveal cult form, but a visual attribute does not automatically supply a literary biography.
- Coins
- Civic types date official iconography and political claims while remaining selective public media.
- Temples and sacred topography
- Architecture, processional routes, banqueting spaces, and deposition establish institutional practice.
- Late literary witnesses
- Lucian, church historians, rabbinic texts, and Islamic-period antiquarians are valuable but culturally and chronologically distant.
- Palmyrene inscriptions
- Dated bilingual and local texts define dedicants, clans, and divine titles.
- Temple of Bel and Baalshamin archaeology
- Architecture and relief programs establish cultic grouping.
- Dura-Europos evidence
- Diaspora Palmyrenes show how cult traveled in military and commercial settings.
Entry by entry (7)
- Bel §3.1 Bel is documented in the great corpus of Palmyrene inscriptions; the standard reference is the Recueil des inscriptions palmyréniennes and the various catalogs of Palmyrene epigraphy.
- Yarhibol §3.2 Yarhibol is documented throughout the Palmyrene inscriptions.
- Aglibol §3.3 Aglibol is documented in the Palmyrene inscriptions and in the cult-reliefs of the Temple of Bel.
- Malakbel §3.4 Malakbel is documented in numerous Palmyrene inscriptions and reliefs.
- Allat (Palmyrene) §3.5 The Palmyrene Allat sanctuary was excavated by the Polish-Syrian mission directed by Michał Gawlikowski; the standard publication is his Le sanctuaire d'Allat à Palmyre (with various contributors, in multiple Polish and French publications from the 1970s onwards).
- Arsu §3.6 Arsu is documented in numerous Palmyrene inscriptions and reliefs.
- Azizos §3.7 Azizos is documented in Palmyrene inscriptions and in dedications from across the Roman empire.