Mount Aqraa
Encyclopedia
Mount Aqraʻ; also known as Zaphon in the Bible
, and Mount Casius to the Greeks) is a mountain located near the mouth of the Orontes River on the Syria
n-Turkish
border around 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Ugarit
.
Rising directly from a narrow coastal plain
, Jebel Aqra is a mariners' landmark with a long history as a sacred mountain
.
According to Ugaritic texts it was the sacred mountain of the storm god Baal
(Baal-Hadad in ancient Canaanite mythology), where his palace was erected of blue lapis
and silver and where his lightning overcame the nearby sea (Yam
) and Death (Mot) himself. The thunderstorm-gathering mountain was an object of cult itself, and on it dwelt also the goddess Anat
. On its bare limestone peak the cult-site is represented by a huge mound of ashes and debris, 180 feet wide and 26 feet deep, of which only the first 6 feet have been excavated, in which the excavators reached only as far as Hellenistic strata before closing down.
The mountain, Robin Lane Fox observes, had an earlier sacred history among the Hurrians
, who had known the mountain as Hazzi
and placed their own storm god Teshub
on its summit. Hittite
rulers took up the name of its storm king and his victory over the sea by which he established his "kingship in heaven", according to texts found at the Hittite capital Hattusa
.
14:13 the mountain Zaphon is the location where the gods assembled. The old Semitic name was used by the conquering Assyria
ns in the 8th century BCE and by the Phoenicians. As a prominent peak in the northern part of the Canaan
ite world, its name was used, for example in Psalm 48, as a synonym for the direction north.
The "Lord of the north", confusingly, could be attested far to the south. Through individuals travelling on errands of diplomacy and trade, the "Lord of Zephon", Ba`al Zephon protected his adherents far and wide: the temple of Baal at Ugarit had a sandstone relief, dedicated by a royal scribe to Ba`al Ṣapān, that had been sent from Egypt. The king of Tyre in 677 called to witness Baal Saphon in his treaty with the king of Assyria is also mentioned as the abode of Ba`al in the Ugaritic
Ba`al cycle.
The earliest Hellenic foothold in the Levant
, at Al Mina
, lies at the beach on its northern flank. Here Euboea
ns and Cypriotes
experienced some of their earliest on-site experience of northwest Semitic cultures, from the early eighth century BCE onwards. "The Hittite name persisted in neo-Hittite
culture into the ninth century BC and so when Greeks settled on the north side of Mount Hazzi they continued to call its main peak 'Mount Kasios'", Robin Lane Fox points out, observing that it was the Mount Olympus
of the Near East.
The cult of the god of the mountain was transferred, by interpretatio graeca
, to Zeus Kasios, the "Zeus of Mount Kasios". Tiles from the Greco-Roman sanctuary at the site, stamped with the god's name, were reused in the Christian monastery that came to occupy the eastern, landward slopes of Kazios.
When kings and emperors climbed Mount Kasios to sacrifice at its peak sanctuary, it was a notable cultural occasion. Seleucus
sought there the advice of Zeus
in locating his foundation, a Seleuceia (one of many) on the coast. Coins struck there as late as the first century BCE still show the city's emblem, the thunderbolt
, sometimes placed upon the cushion of a throne. In the winter of 114/15 CE Trajan
was spared in a major earthquake that struck Antioch
; commemorative coins were struck featuring the shrine
of Zeus Kasios, with its pointed roof on pillars, and a representation of its rounded sacred stone, or betyl. Trajan's adoptive son Hadrian
accompanied him; he returned in 130 CE to scale the mountain at night, no doubt, Fox remarks, to witness the rising of the sun, visible for several minutes from the peak, while the land below lay still in darkness; it was said later that a thunderbolt at the peak struck the animal he was about to sacrifice. In spring 363 the last pagan emperor, Julian
, scaled the mountain, where he had an epiphanic vision
of Zeus Kasios, according to his friend and correspondent Libanius
.
Greek theophoric names Kassiodora and Kassiodorus, equally a "gift of Kasios", recall a vow of one or both parents made to ensure fertile conception.
Christian hermits were drawn to the mountain; Barlaam challenged its demon
s by founding a monastery near the treeline on its eastern slopes, and Simeon Stylites the Younger
stood for forty years on a pillar near its northern flanks until his death in 592.
, who considered it to mark the boundary between Egypt and Syria, has been identified with the modern Ras Kouroun near the marshy Lake Bardawil
, the "Serbonian Bog
" of Herodotus, where Zeus' ancient opponent Typhon
was "said to be hidden". Here, Greeks knew, Baal Sephon was worshipped. The sandy mount stands out about the flat landscape, though it is a mere 100 metres above the sea.
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, and Mount Casius to the Greeks) is a mountain located near the mouth of the Orontes River on the Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
n-Turkish
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
border around 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) north of Ugarit
Ugarit
Ugarit was an ancient port city in the eastern Mediterranean at the Ras Shamra headland near Latakia, Syria. It is located near Minet el-Beida in northern Syria. It is some seven miles north of Laodicea ad Mare and approximately fifty miles east of Cyprus...
.
Rising directly from a narrow coastal plain
Coastal plain
A coastal plain is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a seacoast and separated from the interior by other features. One of the world's longest coastal plains is located in eastern South America. The southwestern coastal plain of North America is notable for its species diversity...
, Jebel Aqra is a mariners' landmark with a long history as a sacred mountain
Sacred mountains
Sacred mountains are central to certain religions and are the subjects of many legends. For many, the most symbolic aspect of a mountain is the peak because it is believed that it is closest to heaven or other celestial bodies...
.
According to Ugaritic texts it was the sacred mountain of the storm god Baal
Baal
Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...
(Baal-Hadad in ancient Canaanite mythology), where his palace was erected of blue lapis
Lapis lazuli
Lapis lazuli is a relatively rare semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense blue color....
and silver and where his lightning overcame the nearby sea (Yam
Yam (god)
Yam, from the Canaanite word Yam, meaning "Sea", also written "Yaw", is one name of the Ugaritic god of Rivers and Sea. Also titled Judge Nahar , he is also one of the 'ilhm or sons of El, the name given to the Levantine pantheon...
) and Death (Mot) himself. The thunderstorm-gathering mountain was an object of cult itself, and on it dwelt also the goddess Anat
Anat
Anat, also ‘Anat is a major northwest Semitic goddess.-‘Anat in Ugarit:In the Ugaritic Ba‘al/Hadad cycle ‘Anat is a violent war-goddess, a virgin in Ugarit though the sister and lover of the great Ba‘al known as Hadad elsewhere. Ba‘al is usually called the son of Dagon and sometimes the son of El....
. On its bare limestone peak the cult-site is represented by a huge mound of ashes and debris, 180 feet wide and 26 feet deep, of which only the first 6 feet have been excavated, in which the excavators reached only as far as Hellenistic strata before closing down.
The mountain, Robin Lane Fox observes, had an earlier sacred history among the Hurrians
Hurrians
The Hurrians were a people of the Ancient Near East who lived in Northern Mesopotamia and adjacent regions during the Bronze Age.The largest and most influential Hurrian nation was the kingdom of Mitanni. The population of the Hittite Empire in Anatolia to a large part consisted of Hurrians, and...
, who had known the mountain as Hazzi
Hazzi
In Hittite and Hurrian mythology, Hazzi is a mountain god who belongs to the retinue of Teshub. In state treaties from ancient Anatolia and Mitanni Hazzi also appears as the god of oaths....
and placed their own storm god Teshub
Teshub
Teshub was the Hurrian god of sky and storm. He was derived from the Hattian Taru. His Hittite and Luwian name was Tarhun , although this name is from the Hittite root *tarh- to defeat, conquer.- Depiction and myths :He is depicted holding a triple...
on its summit. Hittite
History of the Hittites
Hittites were an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa in northern Anatolia from the 18th century BC. In the 14th century BC, the Hittite Kingdom was at its height, encompassing central Anatolia, south-western Syria as far as Ugarit, and...
rulers took up the name of its storm king and his victory over the sea by which he established his "kingship in heaven", according to texts found at the Hittite capital Hattusa
Hattusa
Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite Empire in the late Bronze Age. It was located near modern Boğazkale, Turkey, within the great loop of the Kızıl River ....
.
Baal-zephon
According to IsaiahIsaiah
Isaiah ; Greek: ', Ēsaïās ; "Yahu is salvation") was a prophet in the 8th-century BC Kingdom of Judah.Jews and Christians consider the Book of Isaiah a part of their Biblical canon; he is the first listed of the neviim akharonim, the later prophets. Many of the New Testament teachings of Jesus...
14:13 the mountain Zaphon is the location where the gods assembled. The old Semitic name was used by the conquering Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
ns in the 8th century BCE and by the Phoenicians. As a prominent peak in the northern part of the Canaan
Canaan
Canaan is a historical region roughly corresponding to modern-day Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and the western parts of Jordan...
ite world, its name was used, for example in Psalm 48, as a synonym for the direction north.
The "Lord of the north", confusingly, could be attested far to the south. Through individuals travelling on errands of diplomacy and trade, the "Lord of Zephon", Ba`al Zephon protected his adherents far and wide: the temple of Baal at Ugarit had a sandstone relief, dedicated by a royal scribe to Ba`al Ṣapān, that had been sent from Egypt. The king of Tyre in 677 called to witness Baal Saphon in his treaty with the king of Assyria is also mentioned as the abode of Ba`al in the Ugaritic
Ugaritic language
The following table shows Proto-Semitic phonemes and their correspondences among Ugaritic, Arabic and Tiberian Hebrew:-Grammar:Ugaritic is an inflected language, and as a Semitic language its grammatical features are highly similar to those found in Classical Arabic and Akkadian...
Ba`al cycle.
The earliest Hellenic foothold in the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
, at Al Mina
Al Mina
Al-Mina is the modern name given by Leonard Woolley to an ancient trading post on the Mediterranean coast of northern Syria, in the estuary of the Orontes, near present-day Samandag in Turkey's province of Hatay....
, lies at the beach on its northern flank. Here Euboea
Euboea
Euboea is the second largest Greek island in area and population, after Crete. The narrow Euripus Strait separates it from Boeotia in mainland Greece. In general outline it is a long and narrow, seahorse-shaped island; it is about long, and varies in breadth from to...
ns and Cypriotes
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
experienced some of their earliest on-site experience of northwest Semitic cultures, from the early eighth century BCE onwards. "The Hittite name persisted in neo-Hittite
Neo-Hittite
The states that are called Neo-Hittite, or more recently Syro-Hittite, were Luwian, Aramaic and Phoenician-speaking political entities of the Iron Age northern Syria and southern Anatolia that arose following the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1180 BC and lasted until roughly 700 BC...
culture into the ninth century BC and so when Greeks settled on the north side of Mount Hazzi they continued to call its main peak 'Mount Kasios'", Robin Lane Fox points out, observing that it was the Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
of the Near East.
The cult of the god of the mountain was transferred, by interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca
Interpretatio graeca is a Latin term for the common tendency of ancient Greek writers to equate foreign divinities to members of their own pantheon. Herodotus, for example, refers to the ancient Egyptian gods Amon, Osiris and Ptah as "Zeus", "Dionysus" and "Hephaestus", respectively.-Roman...
, to Zeus Kasios, the "Zeus of Mount Kasios". Tiles from the Greco-Roman sanctuary at the site, stamped with the god's name, were reused in the Christian monastery that came to occupy the eastern, landward slopes of Kazios.
When kings and emperors climbed Mount Kasios to sacrifice at its peak sanctuary, it was a notable cultural occasion. Seleucus
Seleucus
-Monarchs and relations of the Seleucid Empire:* Seleucus I Nicator , son of Antiochus and founder of the Seleucid Empire* Seleucus II Callinicus * Seleucus III Ceraunus...
sought there the advice of Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
in locating his foundation, a Seleuceia (one of many) on the coast. Coins struck there as late as the first century BCE still show the city's emblem, the thunderbolt
Thunderbolt
A thunderbolt is a discharge of lightning accompanied by a loud thunderclap or its symbolic representation. In its original usage the word may also have been a description of meteors, or, as Plato suggested in Timaeus, of the consequences of a close approach between two planetary cosmic bodies,...
, sometimes placed upon the cushion of a throne. In the winter of 114/15 CE Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
was spared in a major earthquake that struck Antioch
Antioch
Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side of the Orontes River. It is near the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.Founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals, Antioch eventually rivaled Alexandria as the chief city of the...
; commemorative coins were struck featuring the shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
of Zeus Kasios, with its pointed roof on pillars, and a representation of its rounded sacred stone, or betyl. Trajan's adoptive son Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
accompanied him; he returned in 130 CE to scale the mountain at night, no doubt, Fox remarks, to witness the rising of the sun, visible for several minutes from the peak, while the land below lay still in darkness; it was said later that a thunderbolt at the peak struck the animal he was about to sacrifice. In spring 363 the last pagan emperor, Julian
Julian the Apostate
Julian "the Apostate" , commonly known as Julian, or also Julian the Philosopher, was Roman Emperor from 361 to 363 and a noted philosopher and Greek writer....
, scaled the mountain, where he had an epiphanic vision
Theophany
Theophany, from the Ancient Greek , meaning "appearance of God"), refers to the appearance of a deity to a human or other being, or to a divine disclosure....
of Zeus Kasios, according to his friend and correspondent Libanius
Libanius
Libanius was a Greek-speaking teacher of rhetoric of the Sophist school. During the rise of Christian hegemony in the later Roman Empire, he remained unconverted and regarded himself as a Hellene in religious matters.-Life:...
.
Greek theophoric names Kassiodora and Kassiodorus, equally a "gift of Kasios", recall a vow of one or both parents made to ensure fertile conception.
Christian hermits were drawn to the mountain; Barlaam challenged its demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
s by founding a monastery near the treeline on its eastern slopes, and Simeon Stylites the Younger
Simeon Stylites the Younger
Saint Simeon Stylites the Younger [also known as 'St. Simeon of the Admirable Mountain'] is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Catholic Churches of Eastern and Latin Rites...
stood for forty years on a pillar near its northern flanks until his death in 592.
"Mount Kasion" in Egypt
A second coastal mountain, also known as "Mount Kasion" to Greek geographers such as HerodotusHerodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, who considered it to mark the boundary between Egypt and Syria, has been identified with the modern Ras Kouroun near the marshy Lake Bardawil
Lake Bardawil
Lake Bardawil is a large, very saline lake in Egypt on the north coast of the Sinai Peninsula. The lagoon is shallow and is separated from the Mediterranean Sea by a narrow sandbar. It has Ramsar Convention protected wetlands.Lake Bardawil is about long, and wide...
, the "Serbonian Bog
Serbonian Bog
Serbonian Bog relates to the lake of Serbonis in Egypt. Because sand blew onto it, the Serbonian Bog had a deceptive appearance of being solid land, but was a bog...
" of Herodotus, where Zeus' ancient opponent Typhon
Typhon
Typhon , also Typhoeus , Typhaon or Typhos was the last son of Gaia, fathered by Tartarus, and the most deadly monster of Greek mythology. He was known as the "Father of all monsters"; his wife Echidna was likewise the "Mother of All Monsters."Typhon was described in pseudo-Apollodorus,...
was "said to be hidden". Here, Greeks knew, Baal Sephon was worshipped. The sandy mount stands out about the flat landscape, though it is a mere 100 metres above the sea.