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Part II: The Sun Hero

1. Tyre

In Philo of Byblos' History of the Phoenicians we find the following description of the highgod called Hypsuranios = "High Heaven":

"From these (the primordial mountains)," he (Philo) says, "were born Samemroumos, who is also called Hypsuranios, and Usoos." He says, "They took their names from their mothers, since women at that time mated indiscriminately with whomever they chanced to meet."

Then he says that Hypsouranios settled Tyre, and that he invented huts made of reeds, rushes, and papyrus. He quarreled with his brother, Usoos, who first discovered how to gather a covering for the body from the hides of animals which he captured. Once, when there were fierce rainstorms and gales, the trees in Tyre rubbed against one another and started a fire and it burned down their woodland. Usoos took part of a tree, cut off the branches, and, for the first time ever, dared to travel on the sea.  He dedicated two steles for Fire and Wind. He worshipped them and poured out to them libations of blood from the animals which he had hunted. He says that when these men died, those who survived them dedicated staves to them. They worshipped the steles and conducted annual festivals for them.

Hypsuranios is the highgod of Tyre living in huts of reeds, etc, i.e. being one with the green vegetation. He is fought by the great hunter, Usoos. Through rainstorms and burning forests Usoos traces the course of the sun with the first attempt to sail the sea. First water, then the opposite pole, fire, go beyond their boundaries. By sticking out the course of the sun and putting up the two rods forming the gate of the sun, cosmic order is created.

The festival commemorating this is also celebrated in memory of a time of chaos with 1) rainstorms, water and fire not being able to find their proper limit and balance in the universe 2) women mating freely 3) the two brothers, the symbol of duality fighting each other.

Cosmic order is set up by the two pillars of the sun-gate being raised, duality finally being established, cf. how the clashing plangtai were fixed by Jason's penetrating the great gate to the land of the sun.

The background for the biblical version of the flood (known from both Greek, North Syrian and Babylonian myth) is also fear of the ocean, the great abyss breaking its bounderies and uniting with the waters from above, and God´s promise Gen 8,22 is a promise of securing cosmic balance between "summer and winter, day and night", cold weather and hot weather. The sun shining on the dewdrops of the rainbow is a symbol of this balance.

The background for the biblical version of the flood (known from both Greek, North Syrian and Babylonian myth) is also fear of the ocean, the great abyss breaking its bounderies and uniting with the waters from above, and God´s promise Gen 8,22 is a promise of securing cosmic balance between "summer and winter, day and night", cold weather and hot weather. The sun shining on the dewdrops of the rainbow is a symbol of this balance.

A wall-painting from one of the east walls of Catal Hüyük shows three bull's heads between the poles forming the gate of the sun. It is the trinity of the high god.

In the lobby of Römisch-Germanische Museum in Cologne is reconstructed the beautiful memorial of a Roman officer. Its roof has the form of a pyramid covered with stone flakes similar to the flakes covering the pine cone, the fruit of the evergreen tree of life: the top of the pyramid is the summit of the world-mountain. In the depth of this mountain the bodies of the family rest and at THE TOP, THE SUMMIT, THE HERO OF LATIUM & ROME, AENEAS carrying his old father on his back and guiding his son by the hand. The triple sun-hero has not only reached his ultimate destination in the far west (Latium/Rome) but also the highest point of the sun-hero's life-journey, the navel of cosmos, the everlasting mythical mount beyond the ocean. At the bottom of the roof are shown two sea monsters, a mixture of dolphin and horse; the hippocamp is the animal bringing the Tyrian god, Melqart, over the great sea to the sunset in the far west – the motif is very common in Roman-Hellenistic art.(G.Precht, Das Grabmal des L.Poblicius 2.ed.,1979,fig. 38f.)

  

 

 

Old Tyrian coin (400 BC) showing Melqart travelling over the sea on the back of the hippocamp.

The maritime motifs so often met with in Roman funeral art, including a journey across the sea on the back of a hippocampus must be understood on the basis of eschatological hopes and aspirations taken over from the cult of Melqart in Tyre and Europa in Sidon. Below, the sarcophagus of a Roman woman, where the deceased is seen lifted up in apotheosis by hippocampi. (Roscher,V.1194f, fig.25)

The triple sun-hero fighting his way over the Western Sea is also behind a very short remark by Philo of Byblos:

Uranos, his son Demaros and Demaros' son Melqart went to war against the "Sea", were nearly defeated and had to promise an offering to escape. Also Odysseus has to accept help from both his father Laertes and his son Telemakos, and when he has finally won over the suitors, their bodies lie like fish brought up on the beach. The sun-hero has finally conquered the Sea of Chaos to make way for the sun to shine and establish cosmic order, see below the chapter on Odysseus.

 The strange story about the high priest Sichaeus living upon the Island of Tyre with his wife Elissa becomes understandable in the light of the killing of the bull-god during a boar hunt. The story is told by Menander and Justin. Acc to the latter, the Tyrian king died on his deathbed sharing his royal power between his daughter Elissa & and his son Pygmalion, who, acc to Menander, was only 9 years old.

Now, Pygmalion plotted against his brother in law, and finally got him killed during a boar hunt where he was pierced by a spear in some arranged accident. His ghost shows itself to his wife telling her the truth. Sichaeus was known to have a hidden treasure on the island, and Elissa promised to hand it over to her brother if he sent ships to carry it. Having done so, Elissa carried many bags of sand onboard the ships, but at high sea she made an offering to the gods, plunging all the bags into the water. Now the seamen, realizing that they would be severely punished when they came back without the treasure, decided to follow Elissa on her flight to North Africa where she founded Carthage, and this is the mythical story of the foundation of this city.

Certainly Sichaeus is the high god living on the paradise-island with the ambrosian rocks, and ruler over all the gold of transcendent glory. He is El with his wife Elissa, but he is killed by a younger god, acc to Justin still a boy (admodum puer). And his body is left unburied, thrown into a pit. Now the gardens of Adonis were thrown into the sea at the end of the feast, and in Byblos we find the myth that El Kronos killed his brother Atlas and threw his body into a deep pit. Both Sichaeus and Adonis are avataras of the high god being killed by a younger god during a hunt.

This is the myth retold in another version by Philo of Byblos: Hypsuranios is fought by his brother Usoos, where Usoos, like Pygmalion, is living in Palaityrus, also called Usu. Usoos being a hunter, Hypsuranios being the god of vegetation who was the first to construct huts of reeds and papyrus, it seems rather clear that H. is the dying god of vegetation.

The two gods representing vegetation and fire are also seen on a Punic razor^[1]. On one side of the razorblade the naked hunter with bow and dog, and with the club of Heracles and the lion´s skin hanging down his back, on the other side a young god sitting in the posture characteristic of Baal from Tarsus, the highgod contrasted with Sandan, the dynamic god. The god of vegetation is feeding a bird with a stalk of vegetation, and has his face turned towards another stalk or an ear of corn, where the hunter has his face turned towards the symbol of mystical fire: a star in the crescent moon. The same symbol is seen over the head of Melqart on a ring from the 4th cent. B.C. from Bordj Djedid^[2]. This Melqart brands his double axe in one hand, and with his bow in the other hand he is subduing a lion. A small picture from Palmyra shows the hunter with his axe standing close to his element, the fire subduing the lion. He is closely connected to the world pillar^[3]. The biblical hero Samson does not ascend in the pillar of fire on the altar as Heracles on Mt Oite, but the angel foreseeing his birth does, Judges 13, and he dies by turning over the two great pillars in the temple, symbols of the gate of Heracles.

The scene where he visits a whore in the town of the enemy, rises at midnight, and has to break out of the town by lifting the gate out of its post-holes, is a symbol of the sun hero having holy wedlock with the opposite pole in cosmos, the dark queen of the underworld, (as Nergal and the queen of the nether world) and at midnight beginning his ascent through the iron gates of hell.  The myth is found much later in the Mandaean story about Hibil Ziwa´s wedlock with the princess of the underworld.

On a relief from the temple of Bel in Palmyra Heracles is seen with a conquered lion and his wife, the goddess, and the two holy twins (a new version of the triple sun hero).

But he can also be seen as a bowlegged dwarf (Pygmalion, cf Greek pygmaioi, the Pygmies, cf. the Bes-figure so common in Palestinian art) and later as the child Amor.

      

The city-founding myth is a myth about creation out of chaos. In Rome the tracing of a fixed borderline by Romolus ploughing.

In Tyre the creation of the city involves the killing of the bird of ecstasy flying in the top of the burning tree and in an universe without border-lines, going from one extreme to the other - from fire to flooding. Usoos makes his first attempt to sail the sea and raises the two pillars that form the gate of the sun, thereby creating a structured universe.

Usoos's journey is the travel of the sun(-hero) over the sea to the rock (Tsor which is the Semitic name for Island-Tyre), the paradise-mountain, on coins from Tyre called the Ambrosian Rocks. The Rock was a wandering island, floating until the offering of the bird and the fixing of the gate of the sun. The flight of the bird, the floating of the island are symbols of the floating unfixed state of the universe before creation.

The tree that burns without being eaten up by the flames is a symbol: Life-juice and fire are being held together in some sort of mystical balance (although they are opposites). The same speculation about fire and water going beyond all limits and being held together in the mystical APEIRON is the key to Anaximander's cosmology.

The killing of Remus, the fighting of Hypsuranios with Usoos, his brother, is creation seen as the splitting up of duality. Also the Bible has couples of brothers fighting:

 Cain and Abel (shepherd)

 Isaac and Ishmael (man of the desert)

 Jacob and Esau (hunter)

1a. Melqart

 

The axe, the kilt, the scull-cap show that he is the typical Great Hunter-type. Note that the axe is in the left hand.^[4] But he is more than that, a typical product of syncretism: like the Greek Heracles a mixture of the mad hunter demanding the sacrifice of children (even Heracles does this, when he returns from his descent to Hades, he is ridden with madness and flings his own children on a bonfire) and the brave sun warrior sailing across the great ocean to the sunset and paradise with the tree of life, fighting to create or clear a path for the sun to run its course, securing this path by erecting the two pillars to provide a gate for the sun. A Greek inscription found in the environs of Rabbot Ammon/Philadelphia examined by F.Abel^[5] talks about a certain "Maphtan, son of Diogenes, gymnasiarch in two day … raiser (egerseítês) of Heracles…" This title, egerseítes, Abel compares with a text from Menander of Ephesus quoted by Josephus^[6] where it is told that king Hyram of Tyre (living at the time of king Solomon) was the first who celebrated the raising (égersis) of Heracles (= Melqart) in the month of peirithios. The picture is a drawing of the inscription made by F.Cumont on location and sent to Clermont-Gannau^[7]:

By Eudoksos of Knidos^[8] it is told that Heracles was dead, but was raised by his servant Jolaos by the smell of a roasted quail. Clermont-Gannau thinks that the quail is a symbol of Heracles-Melqart´s mother Asteria (Ashtarte), sister to Latone (the coiling snake Ladon/ltn). Only his mother who gave him life can revive him (p.151). But in our opinion it is much more probable that the quail refers to the great passage of migratory birds in spring. By the appearance of the vast flocks of quails the life force in vegetation conquered by the winter storms will rise again. Gymnasiarch must be the leader of the sportsgames that had to revive Melqart, the sun weakened by winter. Clermont-Gannau mentions as a parallel a custom from the temple of Jerusalem, which really created the dismay of the High priest and was abolished. Each morning the Levites would rouse God with the call from Ps. 44,24: "Wake up, why do you sleep Adoni? Rise!" The Levites with this duty were called  "rousers"(ma'urrîm^[9]). Melqart is the young sun-warrior tracing his route across the sea towards the sunset. He is a parallel to the Greek Heracles, who through 12 "labours" completes his task on earth. In the 11th he reaches the Garden of the Hesperides (paradise). The Heracles/Hercules-name seems to have some connection to Nergal (Hercal). Heracles also seems to have some similarity to Ninurta. A text composed perhaps in the Ur III period is a mixture of myth and accumulation of praise: Ninurta returns from the kur = the world mountain and is called the "great bull of the kur", "the horned wild bull", "wild ram", "stag". The monsters he is credited with having vanquished are listed and the way they are all hung on his "shining chariot". He drives his cattle into E-kur (the temple as a model of the world mountain). The reason for his journey to the mythical world mountain and his fighting the monsters there is to gain power, and on his return to Ekur he makes claims for "kingship of heaven"^[10]. In another text a monster is born out of the union of Heaven and Earth. This monster is coupled with the world mountain, kur, and gives birth to stone things and grows continually, but is finally defeated by Ninurta and changed to hur-sag (mountain) which Ninurta heaps up over the kur and thereby subdues the floodwaters which emanate from kur and arranges for the waters to flow into rivers and canals^[11] (cosmic organization). These travels of the god to the world mountain have rightfully been compared with Apollo's travel to Parnassos in the Homerian Hymn, conquering the holy mountain in the navel of the earth from the Pythonsnake^[12].

In the Tyrian myth Melqart is represented by Usoos, the first to sail the sea (acc.to Nonnos Dion 40 the credit for that had to be given to Melqart/Heracles).

West Tyre, the island-part of the city was founded on the swimming paradise mountain. A. B. Cook^[13] brings a small collection of coins showing the two stelai erected by Usoos. They (or the ground they stand on) often carry the inscription "Ambrosian Rocks", denoting the paradise-island. As rightly seen by E.Will ^[14] they are identical with the island, symbolic representations of the island. Acc to Herodot (II, 44) these two stelai could be seen in the temple of Melqart, one made of gold, the other made of emerald glowing in the night, cf Theophrast (lap.24) who also mentions the emerald stele. Acc. to Philo (I,10,10) they were consecrated to wind (giving rain and vegetation) and fire (the burning summer heat). They are, as we can see, a symbol of the two great poles in cosmos experienced by Usoos in the fierce rainstorms (of winter?) and the fire burning the woods. The coins also show us the wonderful tree growing in the midst of the rock.

However, sometimes it does not grow in the centre but is moved to the right, and a fire altar is standing to the left. Obviously the mystical burning tree in the real world had to be represented by two cult objects which only gave the spectator a glimpse of what was meant to exist. While the burning tree symbolises the mystic unity of the two divine poles (vegetation and fire), the duality of the visible world is represented by the two stelai the golden for fire, the emerald for green vegetation.

Will does not understand why a small stream of water on the last coin is seen gushing forth from the Ambrosian Rocks ("this detail must stay unexplained"). The explanation is simple: The water of life is just as important a part of the paradise-symbol as the tree of life. Will mentions that the same cult inventory was found in the temple of Heracles-Melqart in Gades. An eternal fire is mentioned by Silius Italicus (III,29: irrestincta focisservant altaria flammae), and there was also in Gades a model of the tree of life in gold with fruits of emerald.

   

J.Morgenstern ("The King-god among the Western Semites and the meaning of Epiphanes")^[15] has a bold and very interesting suggestion of what ideas were at the very centre of the temple cult in both Tyre and at the temple of Solomon. The notion of the pillars of Heracles seems to play an overall important role in Tyrian mythology. Strabo tells us that Tyre sent out several expeditions to look for the exact position of this Western Gate. Acc. to the oldest tradition they were in the Middle of the Mediterranean and the first attempt to sail the sea resulted in a landing on their island. Later they were localised at Gibraltar, later still farther west by Gades and at last by Cape Vincent, the South West corner of Portugal.

Now acc. to Morgenstern Baalshamem´s eagle was a Phoenix ever renewing itself in fire, and the young god Melqart and the old god Baalshamem were one.  The young god travelled, fighting his way across the sea. But as the year grew old and the seasons shifted to autumn and winter he would grow weaker and finally go down to Hades.

But like for the Phoenix when it feels it has to die, a flame will break out of its body and consume it, so Melqart is burned in fire but renewed out of the ashes giving rebirth to himself in a never ending cycle, always like the rising sun ready to make a new journey pouring life and energy into nature.

Morgenstern is right in stressing that Baalshamem is the god of the uncleft world mountain, (i.e. the paradise mountain with the bird of ecstasy flying at the top of the tree). In the myth he is represented by Hypsouranios. And Melqart is the god of duality, the world mountain split into two pillars, as Usoos putting up the sun's gate.

Morgenstern's understanding of Melqart has not won the general acceptance of the scholarly world. A very thorough investigation into the nature of this god, the doctoral thesis of C.Bonnet^[16] has only little to say to the attempt of Morgenstern.

Clem recogn. X,24 tells us that "the grave of Hercules was shown in Tyre, where he was burnt in fire". But by that time sacra Herculis were long ago transferred to Gades (Justin 44,5), and Mela says "his bones" were put to rest in his sanctuary (3,6).

Bonnet is right in stressing that the words "rouser of Heracles" covers over a cult-title. A human "up raiser" (mqm) plays an important part in the ritual ^[17]. Bonnet does not seem to notice that this human helper is also represented in the myth by Jolaos trying to wake up the god by the good smell of food, and Hermes or Cadmos trying the make Zeus/Sandan energetic by restoring his sinews to him. Both gods seem to be in some state of immobility from which he is brought into "energy" by a human helper. This unenergetic state is the primitive notion of the state of the dead souls in Hades. Melqart-Usoos is a god not reborn, but raised from the underworld coming hungry and eager to partake in the meal of roasted flesh. I think Bonnet is underestimating the chthonic element in the nature of the god. As the first to sail the sea he is one in the row of the many benefactors of the human race enumerated by Philo, but all living in a distant past. The dance to his honour described by Heliodor (Aethiopica IV,17) is a very wild dance, where the dancers act as if obsessed by demons: "Soon they would jump sky high in the air, soon crouching on the ground and whirling around themselves like possessed by demons". Such dances reaching beyond exhaustion into a state of trance have as their main purpose to lead to ecstasy and an experience of obsession by forefathers coming from a distant past.(Ex.: The ghost dance from North America). Melqart is the spirit of the great hunter, the first to kill animals and make a kilt from their hide.

Bonnet stresses ^[18] that the two items seen on the coins are not the pillars of Heracles, but stelai with a rounded top unable to serve as pillars. But the special form of the stelai shows that they are in fact the world mountain cleft into two, and in its function as the gate of the sun it can also be drawn as two pillars.

It is a picture of primordial totality dissolved into duality, and therefore they could also be identified with the polarity "fire" and "moisture". Another symbol of duality and mystic unity is the famous tree surrounded by flames. By Achilles Tatios the paradox is stressed: "The plant is nourished from the fire", "Athene (the owner of the sacred olive tree) does not fly from Hephaistos".

On the walls of the gates to the temple in Gades were pictures of the "labours" accomplished by Heracles, but not those located in the far west: the fight with Geryon, the encounter with Atlas, and the intrusion into the garden of the Hesperides. In their place and at the centre of all the labours was seen the big bonfire of apotheosis. Obviously this was where acc. to Tyrian tradition the story ended, not in some bonfire at Mt. Oite, but if Melqart's journey was the journey of the sun to the sunset, the fire had to be the final goal in the utmost western part of the world.

Like her teacher E.Lipinski^[19] Bonnet has chosen to pay special attention to a small vase from the Pergamonmuseum - now disappeared – possible date 4th cent.B.C., about 15 cm high. Along the brim of the vase an ouroboros-snake and on the vase some gods (?), one standing with birds surrounded by symbols of vegetation and with the name Baal kr. acc. to Lipinski "Baal of the furnace/oven". But where is that furnace? In my opinion it is safer to translate: "Baal of the worldmountain" (kur. In Ebla the most prominent god was Kura, the tutelary god of the king and queen of Ebla.) One scene shows the god burning between a high pole with a snake ascending and the crescent moon over an incense burner (?), the anchor underneath could point to Gades. The scene above Baal kr shows Melqart standing in his temple with two Dioscuri as servants, each in a side chamber. How the two figures on each side of the burning altar could be identified is not easy to see, but they are dressed in much the same way and seem to hold the same instrument. The 4th scene shows the mystical bird over a symbolic representation of the primordial mountain and two priests attending this holy symbol. Acc. to the interpretation of Lipinski-Bonnet, it is the mausoleum with the ashes of Melqart.

1b. The Hanno Expedition

At the end of the 5th cent.B.C. a fleet of 60 warships and about 30 000 men and women led by admiral Hanno went out from Carthage. The goal was the foundation of new colonies west of the Gibraltar. Hanno´s report was later written on a slab and put up in the temple of Saturn. The text is preserved in Greek translation in a hand writing not older than 10th cent.A.C. and perhaps somewhat spoilt through copying. J.Blomqvist ^[20] pleads for a date before 400 B.C. for the Greek translation. Most scholars have been eager to find a historical kernel behind the text. But great problems arise when the last part of the report is compared with the geography of our present time. The first part of the route can easily be identified: along the coast of present Marocco are founded 6 towns and a temple. From here the fleet sets out for the river Lixus, where a friendly population received them and where they stayed for some time and got interpreters for the trip farther south. From there they sailed south for two days, and then east for one, and there they founded the last colony, the later on so famous city of Cerne. But now something strange happens to the distances. Until now they have been sailing for ½-2 days between each landing, but then suddenly Hanno sails for 12 days and reaches high mountains covered with sweet smelling trees. It takes him two days to sail around the mountains, and now they reach a great bay, which their interpreters called the "the Western Horn". In the bay was situated a big island, on the island there was a lake with salty water, and in this lake another island. They went ashore, and saw nothing but forest, but when night came, they heard the sound of many voices and flutes, drums and cymbals. They were seized with fear, and the omen takers ordered them to leave the island. Then they sailed along a fiery coast for 4 days. The coast was full of "burning incense", and great streams of lava were running to the sea. By night they saw that the whole country was full of flames, and halfway a giant flame which seemed to reach the stars. When daylight came, they saw that it was a big mountain, which they called "Chariot of the Gods". After three more days of sailing along more burning coasts, they finally reached a bay called "the Horn in South" and here they were met with the same scenario as at the Western Horn, an island with a lake, and in the lake a smaller island full of wild human beings called gorillas by the natives. Most of them were women, and the colonists succeeded in catching a few, but the male species defended themselves with stones.

The only volcano high enough to meet the description of a top reaching the sky is Mt Cameroun, and is it really possible that Hanno would go so far with such a big fleet? The state of the wind is such around the Equator that the Punic sailors would have to row in the immense tropical heat. Is it really to be trusted that the fleet by mere chance should come across a volcanic eruption of such dimensions and is it really to be trusted that the Berbian speaking interpreters would be able to understand the language so far south? And the Punic merchants would not be interested in founding colonies so far south where the long and dangerous routes of transport would swallow up every profit.

It is much more likely that the last part of the "report" is moving into some kind of mythological landscape. A Hellenistic novel called "Wondrous Things beyond Thule" tells about a brother and a sister from Tyre making journeys which take them even beyond Thule to the island of the moon. At the top of the typical Phoenician semeion, symbol of the ascension to heaven, the moon is situated as the top of the heavenly journey. The two "Horns" are the horns of the crescent moon. The burning landscape is the light of the moon, shining (=burning) by night.

The island situated in a lake on another island in a bay is typical omphalos (=world-navel") and world mountain symbolism: the primordial island emerging out of the primordial salty sea in a double "emerging". But it is the split world mountain, and to the first "horn" is attached the culture of the hunter: ecstatic music - to the second the symbolism of man being one with nature and hairy like an animal.

du Mesnil du Buisson (Tess.pp.427ff.) has collected several drawings of the Westsemitic Semeion. He thinks the discs could symbolise the 4 elements. H.Ingholt ^[21]pleads for the 5 planets and sun and moon, and this is in fact the right explanation. The first example shows 4 planets, the sun and at the top the moon with the morning and evening star at its horns.

D is from Carthage, F from an altar dedicated to Semia in Dura Europos. On a picture of the famous Semeion from Mabbug a small man is climbing the top and greeted by the dove of the goddess with the wreath of victory (du Mesnil du Buisson, Tess. fig.261f.). Her semeion has 4 planets, the wedlock of sun and moon, and on the breast of the goddess the morning and evening star. On C the unity of sun and moon and morning & evening star, no.6, is given a special disc.

We need to acknowledge the strange fact that the journey to the end of the world and the mountain of the gods is also seen as ascension to heaven. Now we have already in the Ugarit text "Liturgy of the nocturnal sacrifices" seen that the king travelling in the course of the sun through the netherworld has to bring 7 sacrifices and a bird. The bird of ecstasy sitting at the top of the semeion with its seven stages of ascent is the explanation to this.

Now the journey to the ultimate goal can be a geographical journey in the course of the sun to the mountain of the gods, the mountain looking like a high pillar of fire is the mountain of god, the symbol of unity, flanked with the symbols of duality, the two "horns". But it can also be an ecstatic journey through seven levels. And it can be a nocturnal journey with the sun through night and darkness to the dawning of light. We shall later return to this last aspect.

---

^[1] E.Acquaro, I rasai punici,1971,fig.38

^[2] A.Parrot et alii, Les Phéniciens, 1975, fig.196, p.181

^[3] H.Ingholt et alii, RTP 233, du Mesnil du Buisson, Tess., p.295

^[4] Stele 9th cent. B.C. Breg by Aleppo,ANEP 499.

^[5] R.B.5, 1908, pp.567-78.

^[6] Ant.Jud.VIII 146

^[7] Recueil d´Archeol.Or. VIII, 1924, pp.121ff.; cf. VII, pp.147ff.

^[8]  ap.Athenaeos IX 392

^[9] Levy, Neuhebr.Wörterbuch,III,629.

^[10] Text & transl. Jerrold S.Cooper, "The Return of Ninurta to Nippur", Analecta Orientalia 52,pp.53-103, 1978.

^[11] J.J.van Dijk, Lugal ud me-lám-bi nir-gál: Le récit épique et didactique des traveaux de Ninurta,1-2,1983.

^[12] Ch.Penglase, Greek Myths and Mesopotamia,1994,pp.49-125.

^[13] Zeus III,2,p.980.fig.783-89

^[14] "Au Sanctuaire d'Heracles a Tyr", Berytos 10,1950-1,pp.1-10

^[15] VT 10,1960,pp.138-97.

^[16] Melqart, 1988, 494 pages, 13 maps, 12 extra pages with pictures!

^[17] Melqart p.437.

^[18] p.101.

^[19] "La fête de l'ensevelissement et de la résurrection de Melqart",Actes de la XVIIe RAI,1970,pp.30-58.

^[20] The Date & Origin of the Greek Version of Hanno's Periplus, with text and transl.

^[21] Parthian Sculptures from Hatra.

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