| Melqart | |
|---|---|
 Phoenician Melqart, 6th century BC (Barracco Museum of Antique Sculpture) | |
| Major cult center | Pillars of Melqart Tyre,Phoenicia Gadir,Iberia |
| Abode | Underworld |
| Symbol | Axe,lion |
| Festivals | Egersis |
| Genealogy | |
| Parents | |
| Siblings | paternal:Anat,Attar,Mot,Shahar,Shalim,Shapash,Yam |
| Equivalents | |
| Greek | Heracles |
| Roman | Hercules |
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Melqart (Phoenician:𐤌𐤋𐤒𐤓𐤕,romanized: Mīlqārt) was thetutelary god of thePhoenician city-state ofTyre and a major deity in thePhoenician and Punic pantheons. He may have been central to thefounding-myths of various Phoenician colonies throughout theMediterranean, as well as the source of several myths concerning the exploits ofHeracles.[1][2] Many cities were thought to be founded (in one way or another) and protected by Melqart, no doubt springing from the original Phoenician practice of building aTemple of Melqart at new colonies.[1] Similar toTammuz andAdonis, he symbolized an annual cycle of death and rebirth.
Reflecting his dual role as both protector of the world and ruler of the underworld, he was often shown holding anAnkh orFlower as a symbol of life, and afenestrated axe as a symbol of death.
As Tyrian trade, colonization and settlement expanded, Melqart became venerated inPhoenician andPunic cultures across the Mediterranean, especially its colonies ofCarthage andCádiz.[3] During the high point of Phoenician civilization between 1000 and 500 BCE, Melqart was associated with other pantheons and often venerated accordingly. Most notably, he was identified with theGreekHeracles and theRomanHercules from at least the sixth century BCE, and eventually became interchangeable with his Greek counterpart.[4]
InCyprus, Melqart was syncretized withEshmun andAsclepius,[5][6] and also inIbiza, as given by a dedication reciting: "to his lord, Eshmun-Melqart".[7] In Tyre, women, foreigners, andpork were not allowed in thesanctuary of Melqart's temple.[8]
Melqart was written in the Phoenicianabjad asMLQRT (Phoenician:𐤌𐤋𐤒𐤓𐤕Mīlqārt).Edward Lipinski theorizes that it was derived fromMLK QRT (𐤌𐤋𐤊 𐤒𐤓𐤕Mīlk-Qārt), which means "King of the City".[9] The name is sometimes transcribed asMelkart,Melkarth, orMelgart. InAkkadian, his name was writtenMilqartu.
To the Greeks and the Romans, who identified Melqart withHercules, he was often distinguished as theTyrian Hercules.
Melqart was possibly theBa‘al found in theHebrew Bible, specifically in1 Kings 16:31–10.26) whose worship was prominently introduced toIsrael by KingAhab and largely eradicated by KingJehu.[citation needed] In1 Kings 18:27, it is possible that there is a mocking reference to legendary Heraclean journeys made by the god and to the annualegersis (Ancient Greek:ἔγερσις,lit. 'awakening, resurrection') of the god: "And it came to pass at noon thatElijah 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 Phoenician[10] novelist,Heliodorus of Emesa, in hisAethiopica, refers to thedancing of 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."
The historianHerodotus 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 ofsmaragdos, shining with great brilliance 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 toThasos, where I found a temple of Heracles which had been built by the Phoenicians who colonised that island when they sailed in search ofEuropa. Even this was five generations earlier than the time when Heracles, son ofAmphitryon, was born inHellas. 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 ofOlympian, 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 of the Jews 8.5.3), followingMenander of Ephesus the historian, concerning KingHiram I of Tyre (c. 965–935 BCE):
He also went and cut down materials of timber out of the mountain calledLebanon, for the roof of temples; and when he had pulled down the ancient temples, he both built the temple of Heracles and that of`Ashtart; and he was the first to celebrate the awakening (egersis) of Heracles in the month Peritius.[11]
The annual celebration of the revival of Melqart's "awakening" may identify Melqart as adying-and-rising god.
Melqart played the central role in the Phoenician spring festival during which he died and was resurrected.[12]
The Roman EmperorSeptimius Severus was a native ofLepcis Magna in Africa, an originally Phoenician city where worship of Melqart was widespread. He is known to have constructed in Rome a temple dedicated to "Liber and Hercules," and it is assumed that the Emperor, seeking to honour the god of his native city, identified Melqart with the Roman god Liber.[citation needed]
The first occurrence of the name is in the 9th-century BCE the "Ben-Hadad" inscription found in 1939 north ofAleppo in today's northernSyria; it had been erected by the son of the king ofAram "for his lord Melqart, which he vowed to him and he heard his voice".[13]
Archaeological evidence for Melqart's cult is found earliest in Tyre and seems to have spread westward with the Phoenician colonies established by Tyre as well as eventually overshadowing the worship of Eshmun inSidon. The name of Melqart was invoked in oaths sanctioning contracts, according to Dr.María Eugenia Aubet,[14] thus it was customary to build a temple to Melqart, as protector of Tyrian traders, in each new Phoenician colony: atCádiz, the temple to Melqart is as early as the earliest vestiges of Phoenician occupation. (The Greeks followed a parallel practice in respect to Heracles.)Carthage even sent a yearly tribute of 10% of the public treasury to the god in Tyre up until theHellenistic 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 namesHamilcar and Bomilcar; butBa‘l "Lord" as a name-element in Carthaginian names such as Hasdrubal andHannibal almost certainly does not refer to Melqart but instead refers toBa`al Hammon, chief god of Carthage, a god identified by Greeks withCronus and by Romans withSaturn, or is simply used as a title.
Melqart protected thePunic areas ofSicily, such asCefalù, which was known under Carthaginian rule as "Cape Melqart" (Punic:𐤓𐤔 𐤌𐤋𐤒𐤓𐤕,RŠ MLQRT).[15] Melqart's head, indistinguishable from a Heracles, appeared on its coins of the 4th century BCE.
TheCippi of Melqart, found onMalta and dedicated to the god as anex voto offering, provided the key to understanding thePhoenician language, as the inscriptions on the cippi were written in both Phoenician andGreek.[16]
Temples to Melqart are found at at least three Phoenician/Punic sites in Spain: Cádiz, Ibiza in theBalearic Islands and Cartagena. Near Gades/Gádeira (modernCádiz) 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 truePillars of Heracles by many who had visited the place and had sacrificed to Heracles there. 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 incurred by the Phoenicians in their making.
Another temple to Melqart was at Ebyssus (Ibiza), in one of four Phoenician sites on the island's south coast. In 2004 a highway crew in the Avinguda Espanya, (one of the main routes into Ibiza), uncovered a further Punic temple in the excavated roadbed. Texts found mention Melqart among other Punic gods Eshmun, Astarte and Baʻl.
Another Iberian temple to Melqart has been identified atCarthago 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.
Another temple to Melqart was atLixus, on the Atlantic coast ofMorocco.
Hannibal was a faithful worshiper of Melqart: the Roman historianLivy records the story that just before setting off on his march toItaly he made a pilgrimage toGades, the most ancient seat of Phoenician worship in the west. Hannibal strengthened himself spiritually by prayer and sacrifice at the Altar of Melqart. He returned toNew Carthage with his mind focused on the god and on the eve of departure to Italy he saw a strange vision which he believed was sent by Melqart.[17]
A youth of divine beauty appeared to Hannibal in the night. The youth told Hannibal he had been sent by thesupreme deity,Jupiter, to guide the son ofHamilcar to Italy. “Follow me,” said the ghostly visitor, “and see that that thou look not behind thee.” Hannibal followed the instructions of the visitor. His curiosity, however, overcame him, and as he turned his head, Hannibal saw a serpent crashing through forest and thicket causing destruction everywhere. It moved as a black tempest with claps of thunder and flashes of lightning gathered behind the serpent. When Hannibal asked the meaning of the vision the being replied, “What thou beholdest is the desolation of Italy. Follow thy star and inquire no farther into the dark counsels of heaven.”[17]
It was suggested by some writers that the PhoenicianMelicertes son ofIno found in Greek mythology was in origin a reflection of Melqart. Though no classical source explicitly connects the two, Ino is the daughter ofCadmus of Tyre. Lewis Farnell thought not, referring in 1916 to "the accidental resemblance in sound of Melikertes and Melqart, seeing that Melqart, the bearded god, had no affinity in form or myth with the child- or boy-deity, and was moreover always identified with Herakles: nor do we know anything about Melqart that would explain the figure of Ino that is aboriginally inseparable from Melikertes."[18]
Athenaeus (392d) summarizes a story byEudoxus of Cnidus (c. 355 BCE) telling howHeracles the son ofZeus byAsteria (= ‘Ashtart ?) was killed byTyphon inLibya. Heracles' companionIolaus brought a quail to the dead god (presumably a roasted quail) and its delicious scent roused Heracles back to life. This purports to explain why the Phoenicians sacrifice quails to Heracles. It seems that Melqart had a companion similar to the Hellenic Iolaus, who was himself a native of the Tyrian colony ofThebes.Sanchuniathon also makes Melqart under the name Malcarthos or Melcathros, the son ofHadad, who is normally identified with Zeus.
ThePseudo-Clementine Recognitions (10.24) speaks of the tombs of various gods, including "that of Heracles at Tyre, where he was burnt with fire." The Hellenic Heracles also died on a pyre, but the event was located onMount Oeta inTrachis. A similar tradition is recorded byDio Chrysostom (Or. 33.47) who mentions the beautiful pyre which theTarsians used to build for their Heracles, referring here to theCilician godSandon.
InNonnus'Dionysiaca (40.366–580) the Tyrian Heracles is very much aSun-god. However, there is a tendency in the laterHellenistic and Roman periods for almost all gods to develop solar attributes, and for almost all eastern gods to be identified with the Sun. Nonnus gives the titleAstrochiton 'Starclad' to Tyrian Heracles and has hisDionysus recite a hymn to this Heracles, saluting him as "the son of Time, he who causes the threefold image of the Moon, the all-shining Eye of the heavens". Rain is ascribed to the shaking from his head of the waters of his bath in the easternOcean. His Sun-disk is praised as the cause of growth in plants. Then, in a climactic burst ofsyncretism, Dionysus identifies the Tyrian Heracles withBelus on the Euphrates,Ammon in Libya,Apis by theNile,Arabian Cronus,Assyrian Zeus,Serapis, Zeus ofEgypt,Cronus,Phaethon,Mithras,DelphicApollo,Gamos 'Marriage', andPaeon 'Healer'.
The Tyrian Heracles answers by appearing to Dionysus. There is red light in the fiery eyes of this shining god who clothed in a robe embroidered like the sky (presumably with various constellations). He has yellow, sparkling cheeks and a starry beard. The god reveals how he taught the primeval, earthborn inhabitants of Phoenicia how to build the first boat and instructed them to sail out to a pair of floating, rocky islands. On one of the islands there grew an olive tree with a serpent at its foot, an eagle at its summit, and which glowed in the middle with fire that burned but did not consume. Following the god's instructions, these primeval humans sacrificed the eagle toPoseidon, Zeus, and the other gods. Thereupon the islands rooted themselves to the bottom of the sea. On these islands the city of Tyre was founded.
Gregory of Nazianzus[19] andCassiodorus[20] relate[clarification needed] how Tyrian Heracles and thenymph Tyrus were walking along the beach when Heracles' dog, who was accompanying them, devoured a murex snail and gained a beautiful purple color around its mouth. Tyrus told Heracles she would never accept him as her lover until he gave her a robe of that same colour. So Heracles gathered many murex shells, extracted the dye from them, and dyed the first garment of the colour later calledTyrian purple. The murex shell appears on the very earliest Tyrian coins and then reappears again on coins in Imperial Roman times.
From the sixth century BCE. onward inCyprus, where there was strong Phoenician cultural influence on the western side of the island, Melqart was often depicted with Heracles' traditional symbols of a lion skin and club, although it is unclear how strongly this connection between the figures was throughout the rest of Phoenician culture.[21]
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The paucity of evidence on Melqart has led to debate as to the nature of his cult and his place in the Phoenician pantheon.William F. Albright suggested he was a god of the underworld partly because the godMilku, who may be Melqart, is sometimes equated with the Mesopotamian godNergal, a god of the underworld, whose name also means 'King of the City'.[22] Others take this to be coincidental, since what is known about Melqart from other sources does not suggest an underworld god, and the city in question could conceivably be Tyre. It has been suggested[by whom?] that Melqart began as asea god who was later given solar attributes, or alternatively that he began as a solar god who later received the attributes of a sea god.
Herodotus said that the Temple of Melqart at Tyre had atomb in its sanctuary, supporting the theory that involved as he was in the founding mythology of Tyre, perhaps Melqart was based on a real historical person.[23] Other classical authors say that this supposed Tomb of Melqart was moved to southernSpain, possiblyCádiz.[1]
In late 2021, archeologists fromSeville University claimed to have located the historicalTemple of Melqart of Spain, which classical authors believed to have contained the supposed Tomb of Melqart, at modern-daySancti Petri,Cádiz.[24]
Corinth is associated in Greek legend with a god of Phoenician origin, Melikertes (Melkarth), later identified with Herakles. The contests of the Phoenician god with the twelve hostile beasts of the zodiac are the origin of the twelve labours of the Greek hero.
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