Une hypothèse sur la déesse à l’iconographie hathorienne dans la glyptique paléosyrienne

Abstract

The image of a goddess wearing a Hathoric tiara including horns and a Sun disc is present in the Syrian world of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Byblos milieu, and it was certainly used as a representation of the local Ba‘lat. However, she is also present in the Old Syrian glyptic in seals which cannot be ascribed to workshops of the Byblos region, and in the glyptic contexts where she appears in some instances also the images of the Rapi’uma, the deified royal ancestors of the Old and Middle Syrian religious world, are represented. This leads to infer that in the Syrian glyptic of Middle Bronze I-II this figure with an Egyptianizing iconography may have been used in order to represent the Sun-goddess Shapash. Moreover, it is peculiar that in the Old Syrian glyptic there is no female divine figure who may with some certainty be identified with Shapash.