Melqart: Encyclopedia II - Melqart - Cult

Melqart - Cult

The historian Herodotus recorded (2.44):

In the wish to get the best information that I could on these matters, I made a voyage to Tyre in Phoenicia, hearing there was a temple of Heracles at that place, very highly venerated. I visited the temple, and found it richly adorned with a number of offerings, among which were two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of smaragdos, shining with great brilliancy at night. In a conversation which I held with the priests, I inquired how long their temple had been built, and found by their answer that they, too, differed from the Hellenes. They said that the temple was built at the same time that the city was founded, and that the foundation of the city took place 2,300 years ago. In Tyre I remarked another temple where the same god was worshipped as the Thasian Heracles. So I went on to Thasos, where I found a temple of Heracles which had been built by the Phoenicians who colonised that island when they sailed in search of Europa. Even this was five generations earlier than the time when Heracles, son of Amphitryon, was born in Hellas. These researches show plainly that there is an ancient god Heracles; and my own opinion is that those Hellenes act most wisely who build and maintain two temples of Heracles, in the one of which the Heracles worshipped is known by the name of Olympian, and has sacrifice offered to him as an immortal, while in the other the honours paid are such as are due to a hero.

Josephus records (Antiquities 8.5.3), following Menander the historian, concerning King Hiram I of Tyre (c. 965–935 BCE):

He also went and cut down materials of timber out of the mountain called Lebanon, for the roof of temples; and when he had pulled down the ancient temples, he both built the temple of Heracles and that of Astarte; and he was the first to celebrate the awakening (egersis) of Heracles in the month Peritius.

(William Whiston's translation incorrectly has "first set up the temple of Heracles in ..".) The Macedonian month of Peritius corresponds to our February, indicating this annual awakening was in no way a solstitial celebration. It would have coincided with the normal ending of the winter rains. The annual observation of the revival of Melqart's egersis 'awakening' may identify Melqart as a life-death-rebirth deity.

Archaelogical evidence for Melqart's cult is first found in Tyre and seems to have spread westward with the Phoenician colonies established by Tyre as well as eventually overshadowing the worship of Eshmun in Sidon, The name of Melqart was invoked in oaths sanctioning contracts, according to Dr. Aubet, thus it was customary to build a temple to Melqart, as protector of Tyrian traders, in each new Phoenician colony: at Cadiz, the temple to Melqart is as early as the earliest vestiges of Phoenician occupation. (The Greeks followed a parallel practise in respect to their Heracles.) Carthage even sent a yearly tribute of 10% of the public treasury to the god in Tyre up until the Hellenistic period. In Tyre, the high priest of Melqart ranked second only to the king. Many names in Carthage reflected this importance of Melqart, for example, the names Hamilcar and Bomilcar; but Ba‘al or Ba‘l as a name-element in Carthaginian names such as Hasdrubal and Hannibal almost certainly does not refer to Melqart but to Ba‘al Hammon the chief god of Carthage, a god identified by Greeks with Cronus and by Romans with Saturn.

Melqart protected the Punic areas of Sicily such as Ras Melqart 'Cape of Melqart', where his head, indistinguishable from a Heracles, appears on locally-minted coins of the 4th century B.C.

Temples to Melqart are found at least three Phoenician/Punic sites in Spain: Cadiz, Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, and Cartagena.

Near Gades/Gadeira (modern Cádiz) was the westernmost temple of Tyrian Heracles, near the eastern shore of the island (Strabo 3.5.2–3). Strabo notes (3.5.5–6) that the two bronze pillars within the temple, each 8 cubits high, were widely proclaimed to be the true Pillars of Heracles by many who had visited the place and had sacrificed to Heracles there. But Strabo believes the account to be fraudulent, in part noting that the inscriptions on those pillars mentioned nothing about Heracles, speaking only of the expenses occurred by the Phoenicians in their making.

Another temple to Melqart was at Ebusus (Ibiza), in one of four Phoenician sites on the island's south coast. In 2004 a highway crew in the Avenida España, (one of the main routes into Ibiza), uncovered a further Punic temple in the excavated roadbed. Texts found mention Melqart among other Punic gods Esmum, Astarté, and Baal.

Yet another Iberian temple to Melqart has been identified at Carthago Nova (Cartagena). The Tyrian god's protection extended to the sacred promontory (Cape Saint Vincent) of the Iberian peninsula, the westernmost point of the known world, ground so sacred it was forbidden even to spend the night.

Melqart is likely to have been the particular Ba‘al found in the Tanach from 1 Kings 16.31–10.26 whose worship was prominently introduced into Israel by King Ahab and largely eradicated by King Jehu. In 1 Kings 18.27 it is possible there is a mocking reference to legendary Heraclean journeys made by the god and to the egersis 'awakening' of the god:

And it came to pass at noon that Elijah mocked them and said, "Cry out loud: for he is a god; either he is lost in thought, or he has wandered away, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is sleeping and must be awakened."

The Hellenistic novelist Heliodorus of Emesa in his Aethiopica refers to the dancing of Tyrian sailors in honor of the Tyrian Heracles: "Now they leap spiritedly into the air, now they bend their knees to the ground and revolve on them like persons possessed."

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Cult", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki