Divine Roaming: Deities on the Move between Phoenician, Aramaic and Luwian Contexts

Abstract

From about the second half of the 9th century BCE, Phoenician, Aramaic and Luwian communities began to experience a phase of intensive contacts. Among the most representative expressions of the interrelations were the religious traditions and, in particular, the presence in some western Syrian and south-eastern Anatolian contexts of divine figures (such as Pahalatis/Baalat [?], Baal Hammon, Melqart, Baal Shamem and Eshmun) who for the most part –according to some widely accepted readings – probably originated in Phoenician territories. The aims of the present
observations are to revisit the available data and to attempt to understand the possible position occupied by those gods and goddesses in the framework of cultural relations, being their cult diffused, and shared, among the above-mentioned communities.