Phoenician Religion Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Si mostra la stretta correlazione fra la Teogonia di Esiodo e I Ching - Il Libro dei Mutamenti. La lettura presuppone la conoscenza della Sfera dei Mutamenti descritta nel paper I Ching - La disposizione sferica degli esagrammi.... more

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- I Ching, OMERO, Teogonia, Esiodo

The conference challenges and advances on-going discussions by specifically focusing on the material aspects of religious and cultural developments across the Mediterranean basin during the Imperial period. Against the focus on gods, religious symbols, and religious tenets that are seen as competing for new adherents or as instruments for intra-and inter-group competition, the conference will focus instead on the role of objects and object-related practices in the formation of groups as well as a hindrance to or blurring of boundaries implicit in group formation. In the context of urbanization, we will look at processes of change. Urban conditions of life, division of labor and, above all, urbanity accelerate the production of objects that stimulates the formation of groups while also thriving beyond urban space.

Historical research on Philippine’s past, in relation to the maritime Phoenician traders, based on four main areas: Iconography of the Phoenician Religion, Ancient Glass and Gold technologies and motifs, Proto-Canaanite Alphabet on tribal... more

- by J.G. Cheock
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- Phoenicians, Ancient Glass, Phoenician Religion, Proto-Canaanite alphabet

Religion and cult beliefs in the Maltese islands had been established for millennia from the Neolithic Age. The great number of the megalithic temples all over the country testified of a strong and shared religious feeling up to the Bronze Age. At the beginning of the Iron Age and especially with the arrival of the Phoenicians, the echo of this feeling was still strong, as evidenced by the reuse of the Bronze Age megalithic temples of Tas-Silġ in southern Malta, Ras ir-Raħeb on the northwestern coast of Malta and Ras il-Wardija on Gozo. The three sacred areas, notwithstanding their particularities and specific features, seem to share some other common issues, as the connection with the sea and the navigation and the relations to their agricultural hinterland.

- by Giuliana Bonanno
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- Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Maltese Archaeology, Astarte, Phoenician Religion

This paper aims to examine the plant iconographies on Phoenician and Punic funerary and votive stelae. Trees, fruit and flowers are widely attested in the repertoire examined both with symbolic functions and as decorative elements... more

- by Bruno D'Andrea
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- Phoenician, Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Fenicios, Phoenician and Punic Studies
- by Martin Almagro Gorbea
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- Archaeology, Art, Sculpture, Iron Age

-La découverte récente d'une sculpture romaine dans les environs de Zebdani est importante, d'une part pour l'histoire des cultes régionaux, d'autre part pour l'étude de l'art provincial.

- by Pierre-Louis GATIER
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- Cultural Studies, Art, Syria

Se estudian en este artículo siete nuevos ejemplares de quemaperfumes de doble cazoleta cerámicos procedentes de los fondos subacuáticos del entorno de La Caleta, en el reborde marítimo al noroeste de la actual ciudad de Cádiz. Las piezas, que fueron donadas al Museo Histórico Municipal de San Fernando en los años noventa del siglo pasado, permiten actualizar el debate sobre la cronología y función de estos pebeteros abundantemente hallados en los bajos cercanos al canal de La Caleta. Asi-mismo, se reflexiona brevemente sobre la historiografía relativa a estas piezas y al hecho de que la mayor parte de ellas carece de contextos arqueológicos definidos, debido a su recuperación furtiva durante décadas antes del inicio de las actuaciones científicas en la zona.The paper focus on seven unpublished ceramic incense-burners found off the coastal area of La Caleta, close to the northwestern part of the present-day city of Cadiz. The items were granted to the Museo Historico Municipal of Sa...

- by Aurora Higueras Milena Castellano
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- Phoenicians, Underwater Archaeology, Fenicios, Gadir

The study of Phoenician religion, and to be more specific the study of Phoenician
iconography and art generally, forces us to face the very difficult question of Phoenician
identity in the Iron Age Mediterranean, a query that does not admit simple answers.
Rather than abandoning the pursue to understand Phoenician iconography or insisting on
firm standards for Phoenician identity, we must remain content to observe recognisable
trends and incorporate new material into a broad framework as it becomes available.

- by May Haider
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- Phoenicians, Greek Pottery, Phoenician Religion, First Millennium BC

The rituals performed in the Phoenician cult places have traditionally been reconstructed primarily on the basis of architectural remains and sculptural finds. However, even if the exact role ceramics or other objects played in the rituals is unknown, it was certainly not secondary. New work carried out at the cult place of Kharayeb by an Italian-Lebanese mission has produced unusually detailed documentation of such finds, and provides a richer context for the consideration the little data about pottery already published by M. Chéhab and I. Kaoukabani. In particular attention has focused on the use of small and miniaturized pottery (from figurines to miniature vessels) in rituals at the site. With reference to recent research on these issues and comparison with similar practices in the Near East, Greek, and western Phoenician worlds this article proposes new hypotheses on the meaning of ritual practices involving small objects.

- by Ida Oggiano
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- Phoenicians, Levantine Archaeology, Material Religion, Figurines

Cet article a été écrit en collaboration avec Monsieur Maurice DUNAND

Nous avons, il y a quelques années, présenté une étude sur les noms de divinités, considérés comme une classe sémantique cohérente, et exploré les possibilités offertes par le Web pour l'enrichissement de cette classe 1. L'analyse s'appuyait sur un dictionnaire inédit élaboré à partir d'une sélection d'ouvrages spécialisés. Le dictionnaire s'est depuis notablement enrichi : il comporte d'ores et déjà plus de 5 400 entrées (soit près de 12 000 formes, compte tenu des variantes) et est disponible en ligne 2. A partir du noyau initial issu de sources écrites, nous avons élargi le champ d'exploration en recourant au Web, après un examen minutieux des sites considérés et un recoupement des données (ont été consultés, en particulier, de nombreux livres ou articles de revues scientifiques directement accessibles). Si les procédures d'enrichissement automatique dont nous rendions compte précédemment demeuraient limitées, l'interrogation directe à partir de moteurs de recherche s'est révélée très productive. Cependant, la richesse des données ne diminue en rien les difficultés inhérentes à une telle entreprise. Les noms de divinités sont particulièrement complexes et leur description exige beaucoup de soin, comme l'illustrent les exemples suivants. L'Encyclopédie de la Pléiade nous apprend que le dieu arabe pré-islamique 'Athtar ('Astar en Éthiopie) porte le même nom qu'un dieu ougaritique dont la forme féminine 'Athtart correspond à la divinité phénicienne 'Ashtart, elle-même assimilable à la variante grecque Astarté ou à l'Ishtar mésopotamienne (Caquot 1970 : 349 et 354). Mais selon d'autres sources-et en faisant abstraction de l'esprit rude-Ashtart provient d'Ashtar (ou en est le corrélat féminin), cependant

- by Michel Mathieu-Colas
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- History

This book approaches the Phoenician History of Herennius Philo of Byblos (2nd cent.) from a multicultural angle, focusing on the author's objectives and cultural environment. It starts with a detailed historiography positioning this study within the different strands of the critical tradition, before putting the emphasis on Eusebius of Caesarea's filter. Eusebius follows his own agenda and reorganizes Philo's text to show polytheisms' inconsistencies. Thus, he takes over Philo's legitimization strategies, that is the authority chain Philo created to anchor his work in both historical and mythical times, while subtly playing the role of a second Sanchuniathon. But rather than translating the latter's work, Philo uses it to state his rational reinterpretation of the myths, which is not to be confused with a negation of the double nature of the gods, both mortal and divine. This euhemeristic message is brought by a set of narrative strategies aiming to synthesize Phoenician legends. Through a varied interpretatio graeca, Philo's goal is also to include the widest public, while founding a large etiological repertoire. Those operations are solidly linked one to another by an alethurgical approach revealing the author's concern for truth. Philo is a pepaideumenos and a firm supporter of the theory of the "borrowing by the Greeks". However, his ethnocentrism is not to be interpretated as "mishellenism", but as a useful tool in the reconstruction of a Phoenician cultural identity, which wasn't such a clear concept at his time. Philo crafts a new Phoenician label charged with cultural prestige. In doing so, he produces self-identification tools allowing the Phoenicians of his time, himself included, to stand out in the multicultural Graeco-Roman Empire so as to aim for political, social and cultural privileges.

- by Sergio Ribichini
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- History of Religions, Philo of Byblos, Phoenician Religion
- by Aounallah Samir
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During the Late Iron age, the Phoenician coast was under the hegemony of the Achaemenid Empire and the local material culture seems mostly dominated by esthetical and iconographical “borrowings” from several other near eastern neighbors and civilizations in the Mediterranean. Egyptian and Greek influences on the Phoenician artistic remains is flagrant yet also so peculiar. The local civilizations of the Levant seem quite selective in what they borrow and how they borrow it. The recent archaeological data and studies allow us to say that while looking at the Phoenician civilizations of the Late Iron Age we seem to be facing a sophisticated uprising society in the shadow of a prosperous Mediterranean world, conscious of its own culture but also of the cultures of its neighboring societies.

Resumo: Enquanto um dos cultos mais prestigiados na Antiguidade, a veneração grega e romana ao deus Héracles se estabeleceu sobre uma antiga liturgia fenícia dedicada ao deus Melqart. Com o suporte da epigrafia, da documentação textual e da cultura material arqueológica é possível estabelecer as diferenças e as proximidades dessas duas divindades. Nesse artigo apresentaremos algumas das principais teorias sobre a origem do culto desse ancestral divinizado até a sua identificação com o herói grego via interpretatio graeca, essa que culminou na identificação do Extremo Ocidente do Mediterrâneo enquanto as Colunas de Héracles/Melqart.

- by Revista Hélade
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- Historia Antiga, Fenicios, Historia Antigua Clásica, Historia Antigua

During the Iron Age, the newly formed ethnicities of the southern Levant developed religions that centered around a unique deity, or deities, as part of the formation of their national identities. While all of these ‘new’ religions have Bronze Age Canaanite origins, it seems that the official stance of their worshippers was to distance themselves from their shared Canaanite heritage. On the Phoenician coast, a similar process occurred as each individual city-state rallied around a deity or deities with unique civic aspects such as Melqart at Tyre. However, unlike the rest of the southern Levant, Phoenician religion and cult is marked by almost rigid continuity of certain Bronze Age traditions. One of the best examples for such continuity is manifested in temple architecture. Phoenician temples shared many characteristics that allow us to define these cultic structures as adhering to a certain type. This temple type appeared in the southern Levant as early as the Early Bronze Age, and can be found throughout the region during the second millennium BCE. However, during the Iron Age, the distribution of these temples is confined almost exclusively to the coast and its immediate hinterland. And while Phoenician temples underwent changes during the late Persian period, some of their unique architectural features endured well into the Roman period suggesting to the persistence of at least some cultic traditions and to the endurance of the Phoenico-Canaanite religion.

- by Iva Chirpanlieva and +1
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- Phoenicians, Greek Pottery, Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Pottery consumption

This study addresses the forms of aniconism occurring in Phoenicia and its overseas colonies, while noting analogues, influences and parallels elsewhere. Phoenician (‘Canaanite’) culture belongs to the cities of the Levantine littoral, especially in the first millennium BCE, and its colonial outposts ranging from Cyprus and Carthage to Sicily, Sardinia and Cadiz. In the culture’s floruit in the Iron Age, Phoenician craftsmen produced exquisitely-worked iconographic products, betraying other influences, notably Egyptian, but putting their own distinctive imprint on them. At the same time, some of these artifacts have been interpreted by scholars as in some degree aniconic, within one or other of the categories which scholars have identified...Doak threads his way through the complexities of the Old Testament witness, and the greater complexities of scholarly disagreement, with great sensitivity and skill. While the issues under discussion will probably always remain open, this volume will remain a useful and integral point of reference for further work.

- by Brian R. Doak
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- Phoenicians, Aniconism, Phoenician Punic Archaeology, Phoenician Religion
- by Nicola Chiarenza
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- Phoenicians, Mediterranean Studies, Ancient Mediterranean Religions, Phoenician

During the XXV season of excavations carried out by Rome «La Sapienza» University Expedition to Motya, a terracotta mould was found in the Sacred Area of the Kothon. The mould shows a quarter of a silenus bringing the handle of a vase. The iconographic analysis and the stylistic parallels allow to date the mould and to set it in the cultural context of Motya. The iconological analysis suggests the possible relations between the subject of the mould and the deities worshipped in the Sacred Area of the Kothon.

- by Nicola Chiarenza
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- Iconography, Phoenicians, Mediterranean Studies, Ancient Mediterranean Religions

Im vorliegenden Aufsatz wird der phönizisch-punische kultische Ausdruck, mqm ʾlm mtrḥ ʿštrny, gemeinhin als Andeutung eines hohen priesterlichen Amtes verstanden, behandelt. Im Besonderen erhält das dritte Wort mtrḥ eine neue Deutung, wobei dann der gesamte Ausdruck als der priesterliche Agent verantwortlich sowohl für das rituelle Beweinen wie auch die vorgestellte Vergöttlichung eines Liebhabers der Aschtarte verstanden wird, also als ein Hinweis der „Adonis“-Legende in phönizisch-punischer Überlieferung.

- by Robert Martin Kerr
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- Religion, Comparative Religion, Semitic languages, History of Religion

Starting from the archeological and epigraphic evidences collected by the Author in a monograph recently
published (The Tophets of North Africa from the Archaic Period to the Roman Age. Archaeological studies,
Pisa-Rome 2014), this paper proposes a synthesis of data relating to the Phoenician and Punic sanctuaries
called Tophet and some reflections on the development of the ritual practices of these sanctuaries in the period
following the conquest of North Africa by Rome.

- by Baruch Brandl
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- Phoenicians, Glass (Archaeology), Ancient Seals and Sealings, Stamp Seals
- by May Haider
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- Phoenician, Trade in the Ancient Mediterranean, Symposium, Attic pottery
- by Bilal Annan
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- Near Eastern Archaeology, Phoenicians, Hellenistic History, Levantine Archaeology

La consideración por parte de Posidonio como “mentira” o “invención” fenicia (ψεῦσμα Φοινικικόν) de ciertos elementos del relato sobre la fundación de Gadir recogido por Estrabón (3.5.5.) genera dudas sobre si el oráculo de Melqart pertenece a la tradición fenicia original o es un préstamo griego posterior. En la presente contribución se revisa el papel del oráculo de Melqart en las tradiciones sobre los orígenes de Tiro y Gadir, constatando su antigüedad y arraigo en ambas comunidades, que debían compartir una narrativa fundacional muy similar. Una nueva lectura del pasaje de Justino (44.5), habitualmente asociado a la fundación de Gadir, pero que interpretamos como el reflejo de la creación de una subcolonia gaditana con la participación, a través de su oráculo, del Melqart de Tiro, lleva a confirmar la importancia de este elemento en las leyendas sobre los orígenes de las comunidades que asumían un origen tirio. Ese componente oracular y fundacional es el que podría explicar, por otra parte, la caracterización como "archegetes" del Melqart de Tiro.

Following destruction and economic collapse of the Bronze Age, Crete reemerged as an international center of trade in the Iron Age as it reestablished wider-based continuous exchange patterns and took advantage of the Phoenician expansion of commerce into the Mediterranean. The 9th century B.C. Tripillar Shrine in Temple B at Kommos and its associated Near Eastern Egyptian faience figurines, along with Phoenician storage jar fragments found at the site demonstrated a strong association with the industrial quarter at Sarepta, which included the Shrine of Tanit-Ashtart and a large pottery workshop.

- by María Cruz Marín Ceballos
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- Phoenician Religion

A well-known statue of enthroned goddess from Soluntum might be seen as an example of the persistence of ancient oriental iconography in Hellenistic Sicily. Although in 1831 the finding spot of the statue was clearly indicated by its discoverer, in the 20th century this datum was forgotten. Scholars suggested that the statue could come from a different place, where the archaic town of Soluntum originally rose. Nowadays the discovery of the statue in a shrine of Hellenistic Soluntum is generally accepted. For reconciling the dating with the finding spot, scholars argue that the simulacrum had been moved to the new Hellenistic city after the destruction of archaic Soluntum.
This paper a) suggests a new hypothesis about the statue; b) underlines some new aspects of the finding spot; c) proposes a new dating of the enthroned goddess from Soluntum, by introducing it in the Punic context of the Hellenistic age.

- by Nicola Chiarenza
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- Religion, Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Phoenicians
- by Bruno D'Andrea
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- History of Religion, North Africa Studies, Phoenicians, Roman Religion

Did the Phoenicians avoid representing their deities in anthropomorphic form for ideological or religious reasons? The question of whether Phoenicians employed aniconic (as opposed to iconic) representational techniques has significance not only for the many under-explored aspects of Phoenician religion generally, but also for the question of whether aniconism can be considered a broader trend among the Semitic populations of the ancient Near East. Indeed, past research on aniconic phenomena is often motivated by a desire to understand the larger context of the Hebrew Bible’s proscription of divine images. Does this most famous of image-prohibitions represent a kind of religious or intellectual parthenogenesis, or is it one vigorous form of a broader West Semitic trend toward aniconic cultic expressions? In this book, which focuses on Iron Age and Achaemenid period materials from mainland Phoenicia and the Mediterranean colonies, I argue that that the Phoenicians did participate in an iconographic program that moved toward divine symbols, abstract forms, and even purely aniconic expressions. However, I argue that previous treatments of Phoenician iconography have inappropriately downplayed many examples of native Phoenician anthropomorphic depiction, and a careful examination of the material record shows hitherto unappreciated nuances of Phoenician divine imagery. As pioneering colonizers and traders, the Phoenicians exerted influence in a wide range of contexts, beginning in Egypt and the Near East and extending to Greece, Italy, and the far Western Mediterranean worlds of Spain and Northwest Africa. This monograph is the first of its kind to explore the important question of Phoenician aniconism as a significant topic in its own right, and elevates the complexity of Phoenician divine representation to its proper place alongside other iconographic movements in the ancient world.

- by Brian R. Doak
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- Iconography, Phoenicians, Aniconism, Ancient Near Eastern Art
- by Eric Gubel
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- Phoenician Religion, Phoenician Art
- by Bruno D'Andrea and +1
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- Phoenicians, Archaeology of Religion, Human sacrifice (Anthropology Of Religion), Ancient Religion