Baetylus

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Baetylus

Baetylus or Bethel is a Semitic

Semitic

In linguistics and ethnology, Semitic was first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages....
word denoting a sacred stone, which was supposedly endowed with life. These objects of worship were meteorites, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves The best known such object is the Black Stone

Black Stone

The Black Stone is a Muslim object of reverence, which according to Islamic tradition dates back to the time of Adam and Eve. It is the eastern cornerstone of the Kaaba, the ancient sacred stone building towards which Muslims pray, in the center of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia....
in Mecca

Mecca

Mecca , also spelled Makkah , Makka is a city in Saudi Arabia. Home to the Masjid al-Haram, it is the holy city in Islam and plays an important role in the faith....
, and another one is mentioned as Bethel

Bethel

Bethel was a border city described in the Old Testament as being located between Benjamin and Ephraim. Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome describe it in their time as a small village that lay 12 Roman miles north of Old City , to the right or east of the road leading to Nablus....
in Genesis 28:11-19

Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder is a "ladder to heaven", described by biblical Jacob in the Book of GenesisJacob's Ladder may also refer to:* Ladder of Jacob, a pseudepigraphic text of the Old Testament...
.

In the Phoenician mythology related by Sanchuniathon

Sanchuniathon

Sanchuniathon is the purported Phoenician author of three lost works originally in the Phoenician language, surviving only in partial paraphrase and summary of a Greek language translation by Philo of Byblos, according to the Christian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea....
, one of the sons of Uranus

Uranus (mythology)

Uranus is the Latinized form of Ouranos , the Greek language word for sky. In Greek mythology Uranus , or Father Sky, is personified as the son and husband of Gaia , Mother Earth ....
was named Baetylus
Bethel (god)

Bethel meaning in Hebrew language and Phoenician language and Aramaic language 'House of El ' or 'House of God' is seemingly the name of a god or an aspect of a god in some ancient middle-eastern texts dating to the Assyrian, Persian Empire and Hellenistic periods....
.

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Encyclopedia

Baetylus or Bethel is a Semitic

Semitic

Black Stone

Mecca

Bethel

Jacob's Ladder

Sanchuniathon

Uranus (mythology)

Carthage

Carthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian....
, even after the adoption of Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
, and was denounced by St. Augustine of Hippo.

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, the term was specially applied to Omphalos

Omphalos

An omphalos is an ancient religious stone Artifact , or baetylus. In Greek language, the word omphalos means "navel" . According to the ancient Greeks, Zeus sent out two eagles to fly across the world to meet at its center, the "navel" of the world....
, the stone supposed to have been swallowed by Cronus

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
(who feared misfortune from his own children) in mistake for his infant son Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
, for whom it had been substituted by Uranus and Gaea

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
, his wife's parents (Etymologicum Magnum
Etymologicum Magnum

Etymologicum Magnum is the traditional title of a Greek lexical encyclopedia compiled at Constantinople by an unknown lexicographer around 1150 AD....
, s.v.). This stone was carefully preserved at Delphi

Delphi

Delphi is an archaeology site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. Delphi was the site of the Pythia, the most important oracle in the classical Greek world, when it was a major site for the worship of the god Apollo after he slew the Python , a deity who lived there and protecte...
, anointed with oil every day and on festal occasions covered with raw wool

In Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
, there was the stone effigy of Rhea Cybele, or Mater Idaea Deum, that had been ceremoniously brought from Pessinus

Pessinus

Pessinus was the city in Anatolia, the Asian part of Turkey on the upper course of the river Sakarya River , from which the mythological King Midas is said to have ruled a greater Phrygian realm....
in Asia Minor in 204 BCE and placed in the mouth of the statue of the chthonic goddess. Another conical meteorite was enshrined in the Elagabalium to personify Elagabalus Sol Invictus

Elagabalus Sol Invictus

Elagabalus was a Syria-Roman mythology sun god....
.

In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
Agyieus

Agyieus

Agyieus was an epithet of the Greek mythology Apollo de?scribing him as the protector of the streets, public places, and the entrances to homes....
was represented by a conical

Cone (geometry)

A cone is a dimension geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat, round base to a point called the apex or vertex. More precisely, it is the solid figure bounded by a plane base and the surface formed by the locus of all straight line segments joining the apex to the perimeter of the base....
pillar

Column

File:National Capitol Columns - Washington, D.C..jpgA column in structural engineering is a vertical structural element that transmits, through physical compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below....
with pointed end, Zeus Meilicirius in the form of a pyramid

Pyramid

A pyramid is a building where the outer surfaces are triangular and converge at a point. The base of pyramids are usually quadrilateral or trilateral , meaning that a pyramid usually has four or five faces....
. Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at Seleucia Pieria, and of Zeus Teleios at Tegea

Tegea

Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a municipality in modern Arcadia, Greece, with its seat in the village Stadio.Ancient Tegea was an important religious center of ancient Greece, containing the Temple of Athena Alea....
. Even in the declining years of paganism

Paganism

Paganism is the blanket term given to describe religions and spiritual practices of pre-Christian Europe, and by extension a term for polytheistic?traditions or folk religion?worldwide seen from a Western or Christian viewpoint....
, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers.