| Yarikh | |
|---|---|
| Member of Gaṯarāma/Gaṯarūma[1] | |
| Other names | Arakh, Erakh |
| Major cult center | Larugadu,Ugarit,Jericho,Beth Yerach |
| Planet | Moon |
| Genealogy | |
| Spouse | Nikkal (in Ugarit) |
| Equivalents | |
| Mesopotamian | Sin |
| Hurrian | Kušuḫ |
Yarikh (Ugaritic:𐎊𐎗𐎃,YRḪ, "moon"[2]), orYaraḫum,[3]: 118–119 was amoon god worshiped in theAncient Near East. He is best attested in sources from theAmorite[4] city ofUgarit in the north of modernSyria, where he was one of the principal deities. His primary cult center was most likely Larugadu, located further east in the proximity ofEbla. His mythic cult center is Abiluma.[5] He is also attested in other areas inhabited by Amorites, for example inMari, but also inMesopotamia as far east asEshnunna. In the Ugaritic texts, Yarikh appears both in strictly religious context, in rituals and offering lists, and in narrative compositions. He is the main character inThe Marriage ofNikkal and Yarikh, a myth possibly based on an earlierHurrian composition. The eponymous goddess was regarded as his wife in Ugarit, but she is not attested in documents from most other Syrian cities, and most likely only entered theUgaritic pantheon due to the influence of Hurrian religion.
Ugarit ceased to exist during theBronze Age collapse, and while Yarikh continued to be worshiped in theLevant andTransjordan, attestations from the first millennium BCE are relatively rare. He played a small role inPhoenician,Punic,Ammonite andMoabite religions, and appears only in a small number oftheophoric names from these areas. It is also presumed that he was worshiped by theIsraelites and that the cities ofJericho andBeth Yerach were named after him. While theHebrew Bible contains multiple polemics against the worship of the moon, it is not certain if they necessarily refer to Yarikh.
The name Yarikh (Yariḫ;𐎊𐎗𐎃YRḪ[2]) is an ordinary Ugaritic word which can refer not only to thelunar god, but also to the moon as acelestial body.[2] A further meaning attested for it is "month."[2] Earlier forms of the name, (Y)arakh and (Y)erakh, are attested as elements ofAmoritetheophoric names.[6]
The name isgrammatically masculine,[7] which is the norm for lunar deities across theAncient Near East, in contrast with Greece, where the moon corresponded to a female deity,Selene.[8]
Cognates of Yarikh's name are present in manySemitic languages.[9] As a name for the celestial body and the ordinary word "month" they are attested inHebrew:ירחYRḤ,Phoenician:𐤉𐤓𐤇YRḤ,Old Aramaic:𐡉𐡓𐡇YRḤ (however, the name of the Aramaic moon god, Śahr, is not a cognate[6]);Palmyrene Aramaic:𐡩𐡴𐡧YRḤ; andNabataean Aramaic:𐢍𐢛𐢊YRḤ).[2] TheAkkadian wordwarḫum orwarḫu,[10] "month" or rarely "moon," is a cognate as well,[6] as areOld South Arabianwrḫ, "month," and the wordwarḫ, "moon" or "month," present inEthiopian Semitic languages.[2]
It is presumed that the moon god was one of the major deities of the early Amorite pantheon.[11] Daniel Schwemer outright states that next toHadad he was the main deity of the entire area inhabited by the Amorites.[12] He was commonly worshiped as a family deity.[13] His presumed main cult center, attested in theUgaritic texts,[14] but located further inland in central Syria,[15] presumably in the proximity of Ebla, was Larugadu (lrgt), identified with Arugadu from the earlierEblaite sources.[16] No references to this location from outside the Ugarit and Ebla corpora of texts are known.[14] Since Yarikh himself is not attested in the sources from the latter city, it is presumed that he was only introduced to northern Syria by the Amorites.[17] The Eblaites instead referred to their moon god as Suinu, similar as their contemporaries inKish, and in addition to phonetic writingZu-i-nu adopted the Mesopotamian convention of usingdEN.ZU to represent the name of the moon deity in cuneiform.[18] While Suinu's name is a cognate of AkkadianSin, it is presumed that his cult developed locally and was not introduced from Mesopotamia.[17] His cult center was apparently NI-ra-arki, a city located close to Ebla.[19] A second possible lunar deity worshiped in Ebla wasŠanugaru.[18] Due to Yarikh's association with Larugardu, it has additionally been argued that the godHadabal (dNI.DA.KUL), who was worshiped there in the third millennium BCE, had lunar character,[9] but this conclusion is not universally accepted.[17] Alfonso Archi assumes that the diffusion of Hadabal's cult, whose territorial extent is well documented in Eblaite texts, does not appear to match his presumed astral character.[17]
Yarikh (Erakh) is well attested in Amoritetheophoric names.[6] InOld BabylonianMari, he appears in thirty nine individual types of names.[20] Examples include Abdu-Erakh, "servant of Yarikh," Uri-Erakh, "light of Yarikh," Yantin-Erakh, "Yarikh has given" and Zimri-Erakh, "protection of Yarikh."[11] Individuals bearing them came from various areas in the kingdom and near it, including the city of Mari itself,Terqa, Saggartum, theKhabur Triangle (where particularly many are attested), the area around theBalikh,Suhum and Zalmaqum.[21] A certain Yantin-Erakh served as a troop commander underZimri-Lim.[22] Similar theophoric names are also known fromEshnunna.[23] A document excavated there indicates that at one point in the Old Babylonian period a certain Abdi-Erakh was a king of an unspecified city in Mesopotamia.[24] After its initial discovery,Thorkild Jacobsen proposed that he ruled Eshnunna itself, but this view has since been disproved.[24] Another Abdi-Erakh, a contemporary ofIpiq-Adad of Eshnunna, apparently ruled over Ilip and Kish.[25]
It is sometimes argued that in Mesopotamia Erakh/Yarikh and Sin might have been understood as, respectively, Amorite and Akkadian names of the same deity, rather than two separate moon gods.[11][13] However, Ichiro Nakata lists them separately from each other in his overview of deities attested in Mari, unlike the various variants of the names of the weather or solar gods.[20] The deity Sin-Amurrum, attested in theincantation seriesMaqlû (tablet VI, verse 4)[13] according toKarel van der Toorn might be the Mesopotamian name of the Amorite moon god.[13]
Yarikh was regarded as one of the primary deities of theUgaritic pantheon.[26][27] His role as a lunar deity was qualified by the epithetnyr šmm, "luminary of the heavens" or "lamp of the heavens," which has been compared to a similarAkkadian title of the Mesopotamian moon god Sin,munawwir šamê u ersetim, "illuminator of the heavens and earth."[28] He could also be referred to as a "prince" (zbl), which is also attested in the case of multiple other deities, including theweather godBaal and theunderworld godResheph,[29] and is meant to signify high status.[30] Furthermore, a single passage refers to him as "the most pleasant of the gods" (n’mn ‘ilm), which was apparently meant to highlight his physical attractiveness.[31] According to Dennis Pardee, it is possible he was believed to spend the day in the underworld.[32] It has also been suggested that he could function as its gatekeeper, a role which is otherwise well attested for the god Resheph.[30] These two gods are paired in an incantation against snakebite.[33]
In the standard Ugaritic deity lists, Yarikh follows theKotharat and precedesMount Saphon.[34] In another similar text, he follows the sea godYam and Baal, whose names are written in a single line, and precedes the craftsman godKothar.[35] He is also attested in ritual texts. During celebrations which took place during thefull moon in an unknown month, two bulls had to be sacrificed for him.[36] Subsequently in an offering list included in the same prescriptive text it is stated he also receives a ram after Baal of Ugarit and Baal ofAleppo, and before a ram and a bull were offered toAnat of Saphon.[37] Another offering list places him between the Kotharat andAttar as a recipient of a ram.[38] He could also receive offerings alongsideNikkal.[39] Additionally, the terms Gaṯarāma and Gatarūma, designations of a group of god which are etymologically, respectively,dual andplural forms of the nameGaṯaru,[40] might in some cases refer to Yarikh, grouped with Gaṯaru, the sun goddessShapash or both of these deities.[1]
Thirty individuals bearingtheophoric names invoking Yarikh have been identified with certainty in the Ugaritic texts.[41] A particularly commonly occurring name, Abdi-Yarikh, written as‘bdyrḫ in theUgaritic alphabetic script meant "servant of Yarikh."[42] Additionally, a single name known from a text written in the standardcuneiform script uses the logogramd30 as the theophoric element, but it is not certain if it refers to Yarikh or another lunar deity.[41]Kušuḫ is also attested in Ugaritic names, appearing in a total of six, one of them belonging to a person from outside the city, while the Mesopotamian Sin - in a single one, belonging to aBabylonian rather than a local resident.[43] While the total number of the names invoking Yarikh and adjacent deities is smaller than that of these invoking Baal, Resheph or Shapash, he is nonetheless better attested in this capacity than multiple deities who appear frequently in myths, such asAthirat, Attar, Yam orAshtart.[41]
In addition to his presence in theophoric names, the Hurrian moon god Kušuḫ is also well attested in other documents from Ugarit.[42] It has been argued that he was identified with Yarikh due to his analogous role.[44][45] However, in one ritual text,KTU3 1.111, Kušuḫ and Yarikh, accompanied by Nikkal, who is placed between them, receive offerings together as separate deities.[46] Since accompanying instructions are a combination of Ugaritic (when referring to Yarikh) andHurrian (when referring to Kušuḫ and Nikkal), it is possible that thescribe responsible for the preparation of the tablet wasbilingual.[46] Both this text and other sources from Ugarit indicate that Ugaritic and Hurrian deities could be worshiped side by side.[46] Further lunar deities known from Ugarit includeSaggar, a god presumed to be analogous to Eblaite Šanugaru, who was worshiped in association withIšḫara,[47]hll (reading uncertain, sometimes assumed to be analogous to the godHulelu fromEmar), the father of the Kotharat, whose name might be a cognate of theArabic wordhilālun, which lead to the proposal that he was the god of the lunarcrescent,[48] and Kas’a, only attested in association of Yarikh and based on presumed cognates in other Semitic languages, for exampleHabrew, presumed to represent a presently unidentifiedlunar phase.[49] Dennis Pardee additionally suggests thatyrḫ kṯy, ahypostasis of Yarikh, might be a lunar deity ofKassite origin.[14] The presence of the "Kassite Yarikh" in Ugaritic texts is also accepted by Mark Smith.[50] He is attested in a prayer for well-being[51] and in an offering list.[52]
Yarikh appears in a number of Ugaritic myths, but his role in them does not necessarily reflect his nature as a lunar deity.[53]
Marriage ofNikkal and Yarikh (KTU 1.24) is the Ugaritic narrative composition which is focused on the moon god to the greatest degree.[54] It is agreed that it describes the circumstances which lead to the marriage of the eponymous deities, though its genre continues to be a topic of ongoing scholarly debate.[55] Steve A. Wiggins suggests that it is possible individual sections of the text do not necessarily belong to the same genre, making it possible to classify both as amyth and as ahymn.[55]
After aproemium, which mentions some of the deities involved in the plot, and a number of verses dealing with theKotharat, Yarikh is introduced bargaining with the godḪiriḫibi (who is not attested in any other sources[56]) to be granted the permission to marry Nikkal.[57] This most likely indicates that the latter is either her father or at least mediates on behalf of her family.[56] Yarikh offers to pay a highbride price, including large amounts ofgold,silver andlapis lazuli, and additionally states that he will "make her [Nikkal's] fields orchards," which is most likely aneuphemistic way to refer to his ability to sire an heir.[58] Ḫiriḫibi is reluctant at first, and suggests alternate brides to him:Pidray andybrdmy.[59] The former is known to be a daughter ofBaal, while the latter is variously interpreted as a daughter ofAttar,[56] his sister,[60] another daughter of Baal[61][62] or an epithet of Pidray.[63] Ḫiriḫibi in his speech refers to Yarikh as "son-in-law of Baal" (ḫtnm b’l), which might either refer to his prospective future after choosing Pidray, indicate that he was already married to another of the weather god's daughters, or simply serve as a courtesy title.[64] Yarikh ultimately rejects both proposals, and states that he is only interested in Nikkal.[65] He finally succeeds, and subsequently marries her.[65]
It is sometimes assumed that in addition to the scenes described above, Yarikh also appears in the heavily damaged section of the myth occupying lines 5-15 of the tablet, which according to this theory describe a sexual encounter between him and Nikkal, but this is far from certain.[66] Steve A. Wiggins points out that even if it is accepted that sex is described, neither deity is mentioned by name, which makes it difficult to evaluate this proposal.[66]
The background of the entire myth is most likelyHurrian.[65][67] It might be either a direct Ugaritic translation of a Hurrian original,[68] or a less direct adaptation only relying on motifs from Hurrian mythology.[69] It is agreed that Ḫiriḫibi is a god of Hurrian origin.[56][70] Nikkal, presented as Yarikh's spouse in this context, but absent from other Ugaritic narratives, was a derivative of the Mesopotamian goddessNingal, who was the wife of Sin/Nanna, the Mesopotamian moon god,[71] and was also worshiped by Hurrians as the wife ofKušuḫ.[72] Most likely the marital relationship between the corresponding Mesopotamian deities is also the reason behind portraying her as Yarikh's wife.[73] It is not certain if Nikkal entered the Ugaritic pantheon directly from one of theUpper Mesopotamian cities or through a Hurrian cultural intermediary.[74] The fact that most Ugaritic attestations of her are entries in Hurrian offering lists most likely supports the latter theory.[74] She is otherwise almost entirely absent from western Syrian sources from the second and first millennia BCE.[75]
In addition toMarriage of Nikkal and Yarikh, the moon god also appears in the text KTU 1.114.[76] While relatively well preserved, it is considered difficult to translate, and many details remain unclear.[77] Apparently during a banquet organized byEl, Yarikh for unknown reasons acts as adog and crawls under the tables.[77] Deities stated to be familiar with him, includingAshtart andAnat, offer him choice cuts of meat, while those who do not know him poke him with a stick.[78] The actions of the two goddesses are rebuked by a nameless "porter of the house of El," who complains that they are giving a dog food.[79] The rest of the composition focuses on El getting drunk and subsequently struggling with the effects of alcohol, and Yarikh is not referenced again.[77] However, the final lines apparently relay how to prepare a remedy forhangover using dog hair, which might be a reference to his role.[77][80] It is not certain why Yarikh acts in a dog-like manner in this text.[81] His behavior might simply be tied to the theme ofalcohol consumption.[77]
While Yarikh himself makes no appearance in KTU2 1.12, a minor goddess appearing in this text, Talish (tlš[82]) is described as his handmaiden (‘amt).[83] The origin of her name is not known, though it has been proposed it was derived from aroot meaning "tardy" or "delay," or from the verb "to knead."[84] Alternatively, it might be related to the ordinary nameTu-li-ša attested both in Ugarit and inNuzi.[83] Talish occurs in parallel with Dimgay, another minor goddess, the handmaiden of Athirat, which is sometimes used to argue in favor of them being a single deity with a binomial name, Dimgay-wa-Talish (dmg w tlš).[82] In the surviving passage, both of them suffer fromlabor pain.[83] Since a well known Mesopotamian composition castsSin in the role of a god helping in such situations, Yarikh's absence from the surviving sections of the text, coupled with Talish being explicitly associated with him, is considered difficult to explain by researchers.[85]
The myth KTU 1.92 mentions Yarikh in passing as one of the gods who receivegame from Ashtart after her return from a hunt.[86]
InEmar, the name of the moon god was represented by thelogogramd30.[87] It is not certain if he can be identified as Yarikh.[87] According to Brian B. Schmidt the moon god worshiped in Emar was Sin.[11] However, it is not impossible that more than one deity of such character was present in the local pantheon,[87] andGary Beckman lists theWest Semitic reading as one of the four possibilities, next to Mesopotamian, Hurrian andAnatolian (Arma).[88] It has also been proven that in at least some cases the logogram refers toSaggar, already worshiped in the proximity of Emar, inMa-NEki, in the third millennium BCE.[47] Other writings of his name are also attested, including multiple syllabic and a second logographic one,dḪAR.[89] Priests of the deity designated byd30 are attested in documents from Emar, but there is no indication that one of the few temples identified during excavations belonged to him.[90]
While Ugarit ceased to exist during theLate Bronze Age collapse, possibly due to the activity of theSea Peoples,[91] the worship of Yarikh continued elsewhere in the first millennium BCE.[11]
No explicit references to Yarikh occur in anyPhoenician sources,[92] such as inscriptions fromByblos,Tyre andSidon.[93] The research ofPhoenician religion is considered difficult due to the scarcity of written materials and the small number of direct references to deities other than the principal patron of each city, such asBaalat Gebal in Byblos,Eshmun in Sidon orMelqart in Tyre.[94] The role ofastral deities such as Yarikh was small, possibly due to their lack of a connection tomaritime trade, shared by many of the major deities of this culture.[95] The Phoenician version of theKaratepe bilingual mentions the sun and the moon in a context which might indicate that deities corresponding to them are meant, but they are not singled out in such a way as the weather god Baal is in the same document.[96]
In knownPunic sources, Yarikh is similarly absent from inscriptions, though he does appear intheophoric names.[97] One attested example is‘bdyrḥ, "servant of Yarikh."[97] Similar evidence exists for another moon god, Saggar, who might have functioned as a personification of thenew moon in Punic religion.[98] Lunar symbols are present on Punic stelae, though since the accompanying inscriptions usually only mention the heads of the pantheon,Baal Hammon andTanit, it has been argued that they represent the former of these two deities, rather than Yarikh.[99] However, no textual sources support the theory that Baal Hammon was a lunar deity, and the fact that inPalmyra he was treated as entirely separate from the local lunar godAglibol might be evidence on the contrary.[100] Additionally, it is possible that said symbols, as well as other similar astral ones, do not represent any specific god, but are meant to illustrate the celestial nature of the main deities.[101]
As of 2000, only a single certain attestation of Yarikh from the kingdoms of the ancientTransjordan has been identified.[102] One of theAmmonite kings bore the nameyrḥ'zr (Jeraheazar), "Yarikh is my helper," as attested in an inscription on the plinth of a royal statue dated to around 700 BCE.[103] Ammoniteseals depicting the crescent moon are known from the seventh century BCE, but they might be related to the worship ofSin ofHarran, who was known in many areas to the west and south of his cult center in theNeo-Assyrian period.[104]
The evidence from theMoabite kingdom, which developed in parallel with the Ammon in the early first millennium BCE,[104] is limited to artistic depictions of the lunar crescent.[105] It has been argued that they might indicate thenational god of the Moabites,Chemosh, at some point developed lunar characteristics.[102] Known textual sources from Moab mention neither Yarikh nor Sin.[105]
The worship of the moon was most likely practiced in thekingdoms of Israel and Judah both before theBabylonian captivity and afterwards.[106] Evidence includes toponyms and, according to Gabriele Theuer, theophoric names invoking Yarikh,[107] though according to Brian B. Schmidt certain examples of the latter are presently lacking.[108] Best known presumed examples of the former includeJericho andBeth Yerach.[109][110] It is also probable that the moon god of Harran, Sin, was also worshiped by theIsraelites.[111]
It has been suggested that the numerous references to the moon being a celestial body subordinate toYahweh in theHebrew Bible might reflect a religious polemic against the worship of lunar deities,[112][113] though researchers note that caution is required in using this information to reconstruct the culture of the kingdoms prior to the period of Babylonian captivity.[114] Direct prohibitions or condemnation of the worship of the moon are mentioned in a number of passages too, for example inBook of Job 31:26–68.[108]Second Book of Kings 23:5 states that kingJosiah of Judah banished priests making offerings to the moon alongside those devoted to other astral bodies andBaal.[115] It is difficult to know how many of these references can be considered sources of information about Yarikh, as it is possible that they do not necessarily reflect a struggle against the preexisting cult of a local lunar deity, but rather against the mesopotamian traditions centered in Harran, which in the period of captivity and later might have been perceived as a competing creed.[116] Placing the polemics in the distant past might therefore have been only arhetorical device.[116]
In sources fromPalmyra, whose pantheon known from between the late first millennium BCE and early first millennium CE included both strictly local deities and Phoenician,Mesopotamian andArabian ones,[117] names with the elementyrḥ refer to the local godYarhibol, rather than Yarikh.[118] He was regarded as asolar deity.[119] However, it is possible that he was originally a moon god, and only developed his solar traits attested in historical sources secondarily.[119] Alternatively, his name might have instead been derived fromArabicyarḫu, "spring," which is argued to fit his association with the Palmyrene spring Efca.[119]