Dagon

Dagon ( he, דָּגוֹן, ''Dāgōn'') or Dagan ( sux, 2= ^dda-gan, ; phn, 𐤃𐤂𐤍, Dāgān) was a god worshipped in ancient Syria across the middle of the Euphrates, with primary temples located in Tuttul and Terqa, though many attestations of his cult come from cities such as Mari and Emar as well. In settlements situated in the upper Euphrates area he was regarded as the "father of gods" similar to Mesopotamian Enlil or Hurrian Kumarbi, as well as a lord of the land, a god of prosperity, and a source of royal legitimacy. A large number of theophoric names, both masculine and feminine, attests that he was a popular deity. He was also worshiped further east, in Mesopotamia, where many rulers regarded him as the god capable of granting them kingship over the western areas.

Attestations of Dagan from coastal areas are much less frequent and come mostly from the northern city of Ugarit, where Dagan's cult had a limited scope. According to the Hebrew Bible, Dagan was also the national god of the Philistines, with temples at Ashdod and Gaza, but there is no extrabiblical evidence confirming this. The extrasolar object designated Fomalhaut b is named after Dagon.

Etymology

Multiple origins have been proposed for Dagan's name.

According to Philo of Byblos, the Phoenician author Sanchuniathon explained ''Dagon'' as a word for "grain " (). Historian Manfred Hutter considers it possible that the god's name derives from the root *''dgn'' (to be cloudy), which he interprets as a sign that he was originally a weather god. However, the notion of Dagan being a weather god is rejected by most researchers of this deity (see the ''Dagan and weather gods'' section below).

Lluís Feliu in his monograph ''The God Dagan in Bronze Age Syria'' rejects both of these theories and concludes that Dagan's name originated in a pre-Semitic language spoken in inland Syria. This theory is supported by Alfonso Archi as well. Multiple other ancient Syrian deities are regarded as originating in such a substratum, including Aštabi, Ishara and Kubaba.

The association with a Hebrew word for "fish" (as in he, דג, Tib. ) in medieval exegesis has led to an incorrect interpretation of Dagan as a fish god.

Divine genealogy and syncretism

No known text deals with the parentage or creation of Dagan. His wife was Shalash, though while well attested in Tuttul and elsewhere, she is seemingly absent in sources pertaining to Dagan's cult in Terqa. Their children were Hadad (analogous to Ugaritic Baal) and possibly Hebat, who is attested alongside Dagan and Shalash in a mourning ritual from ancient Aleppo. Daniel Schwemer considers it possible that Dagan, while always viewed as a "father of gods," only became the father of the weather god under Hurrian influence.

While Wilfred G. Lambert proposed in 1980 that Ishara was sometimes regarded as the wife of Dagan, and this theory is repeated as fact in older reference works such as Jeremy Black's and Anthony Green's ''Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia'', it is no longer considered the consensus. Lluís Feliu in his study of Dagan concludes that the association between these two deities was limited to sharing temples in Mesopotamia, and was most likely based on their origin in the western region and shared status as foreign deities in the eyes of Mesopotamian theologians. He also points out that there is no indication that they were closely connected outside of Babylonia, especially in parts of Syria where they were most commonly worshiped. He additionally remarks that Lambert mistakenly assumed Ishara is one and the same as Haburitum, goddess of the river Habur, who also appears in Mesopotamian texts in association with Dagan. Both Feliu and Alfonso Archi point out that Haburitum and Ishara could appear side by side in the same documents, and therefore cannot be two names of the same deity. Archi considers it more likely that Haburitum was analogous to Belet Nagar. Like Feliu, he considers it implausible that Dagan was ever regarded as Ishara's husband. He points out that the latter's character was similar to Ishtar's.

Dagan, Enlil and Kumarbi

In Mesopotamia, Dagan was equated with Enlil due to their shared role as "fathers of gods." This equation was eventually codified by the god list ''An = Anum'', which additionally equated their spouses with each other. However, which of the two parts of this equation was viewed as the primary god varied. In Mari, it was Dagan who received Enlil's epithets, and in Emar the logographic writing ^dKUR, a shortened version of Enlil's epithet ^dKur-gal (Great Mountain), stood for Dagan's name in the late Bronze Age. It is unclear if this equation was responsible for the logographic writing of the name of Emar's city god as ^dNIN.URTA, as the god of Emar is unlikely to be Dagan's primary son Hadad (whose name was written logographically as ^dIŠKUR), and in Hurrian sources from Syria ^dNIN.URTA is the war god Aštabi rather than a weather god.

In Hurrian tradition, Dagan was equated with Kumarbi, though only because of shared senior position in the respective pantheons. Kumarbi was nonetheless called "the Dagan of the Hurrians," and Shalash was viewed as his spouse due to this syncretic process. However, she is absent from Hurrian myths about Kumarbi.

Dagan and weather gods

Due to the similarity between the names of Dagan's wife Shalash and Shala, wife of Adad in Mesopotamia, some researches conclude that the two goddesses were the same and that Dagan was possibly a weather god himself. However, there is no clear proof that Dagan fulfilled such a function or that he was conflated with any weather gods.

Dagan and Nisaba

In some documents from Syrian cities, for example Halab and Ugarit, the logogram ^dNISABA designates Dagan. As noted by Alphonso Archi, in Western Semitic

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases