Despite being far away from his population on a cultural and socio-economic level, the king regained his central role and connection to his subjects in his religious role and his participation in cults and rituals. The latter was aimed at obtaining a favourable response from the gods, the ultimate guarantors of the kingdom’s well being. Alongside sources from Ugarit, we also have texts from Emar, which include long and detailed descriptions of rituals. These reveal strong Hittite and Mesopotamian influences, since the city was located on the eastern Syrian border.
The king’s religious role was twofold: to defend the kingdom from external dangers, and to promote the fertility and reproductive cycle of the land. In order to face the first aspect, the king was involved in rituals against enemies, or to defend the city walls. He thus ideologically embodied his practical role in leading the army and in the defence of his kingdom. In order to deal with the second aspect, the king was the main actor in a series of festivals (such as the hieros gamos) aimed at stimulating and enforcing natural forces. This was again a conceptualisation of his economic role in the land, even though the latter was quite neglected at the time.
The kings of Syria and the Levant were not deified while alive, and actually seem to have preferred a more secular and practical ideology of kingship. However, they were deified to some extent after their death. They became part of a category of beings (the refa’im) that were part of a dynastic cult and were believed to be contributors to the well-being and security of the land they once ruled. The practice of burying the dead under the living’s homes led to the development of a series of funerary rituals (such as funerary offerings), which were also applied in the palace and royal tombs. The dynastic lists written for ritual purposes are the only record of this continuity with the past, which cannot be attested in the legal and administrative sources. This is due to the absence of dates (texts used the phrase ‘from today and forever’) and the use of dynastic seals inherited from father to son, marking one’s legitimacy of rule and the eternal nature of royal decisions.
The king could count on a sort of identification with the principal deity of his pantheon, normally called Baal, namely, ‘lord’. In some cities, this god was equalled to Hadad, Dagan, or other deities. The identification was twofold, since the king ritually embodied the god, but the god in turn acquired a kingly role in myths. In other words, the god was king in front of the other gods, acted like a king, and held royal epithets, weapons and attributes. Just like the human king, Baal was fundamental for two reasons. First, he had to keep external dangers at bay, such as malefic and chaotic forces. Second, he had to ensure the fertility of plants and animals by becoming a god of rain, the core element stimulating agriculture in the region, and a dying and resurging god, imitating the seasons. The god’s female counterpart was the ‘lady’, Baalat, often identified with Astarte or Anat. If official religion emphasised the male deity, popular religion focused on his female counterpart, a typical preference in cults linked to agriculture. Figurines of this goddess are common in Syria, and were frequently reproduced in smaller sizes. This indicates their importance in popular religion. On the contrary, the official religion preferred to represent the god in bronze or stone depictions placed in palaces and temples.
Alongside the ‘lord’ and the ‘lady’, there was a third deity completing this divine triad, usually an old and relatively absent deity simply called the ‘god’ (El). He was the creator of the world, who fathered gods and humans. This third deity was as central in the theology of the time, as absent in iconographic and mythological attestations. However, he was the clearest expression of the religious beliefs of pastoral and nomadic groups. Regarding the religious beliefs of these groups, there is little evidence. Moreover, it is often difficult to interpret, due to the obvious lack of direct attestations. Nonetheless, it is clear that pastoral religion was different from agrarian religion. Despite being both concerned with fertility, farmers focused more on the dualistic unity of land and water, symbolised by the reproduction of humans and animals. On the contrary, shepherds focused on the reproductive cycles of herds and the ideology of kinship, a core concept in their social organisation.
Alongside the father god El, there were probably other father gods of Amorite origins and centred on kinship. These deities embodied a legacy of those divine and kinship elements (the ‘father’, ‘brother’, ‘paternal uncle’, ‘maternal uncle’, and so on) typical of Middle Bronze Age names attested in pastoral communities. This type of religion was much more abstract, less concerned with rituals, myths and depictions, but far more interested in sacred locations, such as tombs of ancestors, sacred areas for seasonal meetings, temples located outside cities. This preference was a clear consequence of the transhumant nature of these communities, providing sacred meetings points for the various tribal groups living in the area.
World History
