El/Kronos of Byblos

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by Jochen1, Jan 10, 2019.

  1. Jochen1

    Jochen1 Well-Known Member

    Dear Friends!

    Each new coin is always a new adventure. Every time a new universe opens up. You can see this here. If you think my articles are to long comment please with TL NR!

    The Coin:
    Phoenicia, Byblos, 1st century BC
    AE 22, 8.44g, 22.16mm, 315°
    obv. Bust of City Goddess (Tyche), draped and veiled, wearing mural crown, r.
    rev. El/Kronos, nude, stg. frontal, head (with feathern?) l., with 3 pairs of wings, 2 of them spread, the last one lowered, holding sceptre in extended r. hand
    ref. BMC 97, 13; SNG Copenhagen 135
    rare, F, nearly black patina
    pedigree:
    ex M&M, Basel, 14.2.1972

    byblos_SNGcop135.JPG
    Note:
    This rev. is known too from coins of Antiochos IV Epiphanes (Houghton 696), of Alexander I Balas (Lindgren 1811) and Augustus (RPC 4526). On these coins the rev. legend consists of the ethnicon BYBΛIΩN and the issue year, e.g. on an Augustus coin LΛ (year 30 of the Pompeian city era). I think on my coin a similar rev. legend was present.


    El_Kronos_Fig.82.JPG
    (1) Fig. 82. Depiction of the coin of Antiochos IV Epiphanes. Sanchuniathon describes the deity so: "He has 4 eyes, 2 in front and 2 behind, from which 2 are closed during
    sleep. On his shoulders are 4 wings, 2 flying and 2 resting. This symbol shows that he is awake during sleep and resting when he flies
    . "(Langdon)

    Byblos:
    Byblos, today Jabal in Lebanon, somewhat north of Beirut, is one of the competitors for the title "oldest continuously inhabited city of the world" (another is Jericho). Referring to Phoenician tradition it was founded by El/Kronos, who surrounded it with walls. Even the ancient Phoenicians regarded Byblos as age-old city. Its origins are unknown, but scientists date it back to 5000 BC. The name Byblos, as Phoenicia too, would have been not understood by the ancient people. Since the city was called Gubla and later Gebal and the region at the coast was called Canaan. The recent names Byblos and Phoenicia are Greek from the time from about 1200 BC. Phoenicia because of the purple, Byblos because of the trade with papyrus. Today we understand under Canaan the land in the south-western Syrian region, identical with the recent Palestine. Phoenicia is situated north of it and is the name of a narrow strip of land at the eastern Mediterranean coast. Today Byblos belongs to the World Cultural Heritage.

    In inscriptions from Byblos we habve found texts in an old scripture, which is undeciphered until today, the Byblian (not Biblical!) or Proto-Byblian, sometimes called Archaeo-Aegean too. It has some similarity with the scripture on the Diskos of Phaistos. Relations between Byblos and Crete are known.
    The figure depicted on the reverse of my coin is often called Kronos. But we see that this deity has 3 pairs of wings. With that ist is surely not a Greek deity. The correct denomination is Phoenician Kronos, and that is El! And El belongs to the Phoenician pantheon. This coin leads us to an interesting intersection of Greek mythology with oriental religion and we will discover a significant cultural-religious turning point. As usually we start with mythology. It is based upon Philon of Byblos, who cites the pre-Trojan Phoenician historian Sanchuniathon. All has passed on to us by Eusebios of Caesarea.

    Mythology:
    In Byblos were ruling Eliun or Hypsistos and his wife Beruth. Their children were Epigeios or Autochthonos, who was later called Uranos, and Ge, after whom heaven and earth were named. When Eliun died Uranos took the rulership, and with his sister Ge he begot Elos (El), Baitylos, Dagon and Atlas. But Elos was nobody else than Kronos. When he grow up he revolted against his father Uranos and with the help of Hermes Trismegistos (Thot) he defeated him and made himself king. The secondary wife of Uranos, being pregnant, he gave Dagon as wife, and she gave birth to Demaros. Kronos founded Byblos, the first city in Phoenicia. His brother Atlas he eliminated by sinking him in the deepest earth on the advice of Hermes Trismegistos.

    Uranos who has fled, sent out his daughters Astarte, Rhea and Dione, to kill Kronos. But Kronos could capture them and made them his wifes. Astarte bore him the 7 Titanides and the sons Pothos and Eros, Rhea bore him 7 sons and Dione daughters. Sydyk with one of the Titanides begot Asklepios. Pontos, another son of Kronos, became father of Sidon, the father of Poseidon and inventor of the hymnody. When Kronos has ruled already 32 years, he succeeded in capturing his father Uranos. With a sickle, made by Thot, he emasculated him. Whereupon his soul vanished and his blood poured out into the neighbouring wells and rivers which turned red. The location of this deed is shown still today.

    After that Kronos gave his rulership to Astarte, Zeus Demaros and Adodos. From a visiting tour over her countries Astarte brought a stone which was fallen from heaven and whose whorship she introduced on the holy island of Tyros. After ships were invented by the Cabirs Kronos visited the entire inhabited world and gave his daughter Athena the rulership over Attica.

    When once a dangerous plague threatened the land Kronos sacrificed his favourite son to Uranos. He introduced the circumcision. Another son, Muth (Pluto), whom he had by Rhea, he deified after his death. Dione he gave Byblos, Poseidon and the Cabirs received Berytos where the Cabirs brought the body of the devinely whorshipped Pontos, and Taautos (Thot), a son of Misor and inventor of writing, received the rulership over Egypt.

    Background:
    the source of our knowledge of the Canaanite religion previous was only the Old Testament where its faith appears but in a very unfavourable light as manifestation of highest degeneracy and immorality. The worst sort of all gods was the storm god Ba'al Hadad. He was fighted by the Israelites at its most fierce, because he threatened their national god Jahwe most badly.

    But when in 1929 and in the years hereafter in Ras Shamra, the ancient Ugarit in Northern Syria, the famous tablets with mythological texts were found and the Ugaritic script was deciphered, our knowledge has changed decisively. The found texts have shown, that El was the name of the highest god of the Ugaritic pantheon, father of a big family of gods. This raises the question of wether the Ugaritic El can be identical with the El of the Israelites.

    Yahweh was called El too, and that was not only an apellative with the meaning "god", but a name too, in particular the name of the highest god. El has revealed himself to Abraham who originally came from Ur in Mesopotamia, and he has led Abraham to Canaan, where he was whorshipped not only by Abraham and his family but from the Canaanites too.

    But in the Ugaritic pantheon not only the family of El appears, but the family of the young and vigorous storm god Ba'al Hadad too, and his father Dagan and his sister 'Anat. The Ugaritic mythology describes in detail the hardest conflicts between these two families of gods. The wife of the Ugaritic El was Asherat. In the Old Testament she is found strange enough in connection with the cult of Ba'al.

    The texts found in Ras Shamra can be dated to the 1st half of the 14th century BC.
    But the described myths naturally can be much older, eventually they are from the transition from the 3rd to the 2nd millenium (W.F.Albright).

    The revolutionary discoveries from Ugarit now have eliminated all doubts about the belief that the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon is actually of age-old Canaanitic origin. This was long denied by scientists and Sanchuniathon was hold for a figure of pure phantasy.

    The genealogy of gods which we have learned by Sanchuniathon shows great similarity with the theogony of Hesiod. It was said that Sanchuniathon has copied from Hesiod. Now we see that the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon is much more similar to the Ugaritic texts than to the Greek mythology. That is true for the names of the gods and their characteristics. It is proved too by the findings by the excavations of the kingly archive of Hattusa, the ancient metropolis of the Hittites (E.O.Forrer), which according to Güterbock go back to Hurrian originals. Here we find the corresponding fightings of gods too with the castration of the older gods by the young storm god.

    The origin of this mythology seems to be Sumer where the Hurrian have taken them over and distributed everywhere on their way. On their way to India even the Indo-Arians have taken along the castration myth. The Greek may have heard from it by the mediation of the Phoenicians.

    (1) Etymology
    The name of El, or 'ilu, meaning "god", occurs in all Semitic languages. The root is probably 'wl with the meaning "strength, power". Arabic it is developed to ilah and with article to allah, Hebrew eloh. At the Hebrews el appears often in personal names, e.g. Gabri-el, Micha-el, Samu-el, Isra-el or Isma-el and so on. In the Old Testament happens the fusion with the national god Yahweh, who is called often El too. Later very often named Elohim, pluralis majestatis of El, or as abstractum.

    (2) Depiction of El
    Winged gods we find already at the Sumerians. Whereas El from the late Bronze Age in Ugarit is without wings, he is depicted in the later Phoenician art and in Hellenistic times with wings. The coins of the Seleucids beginning with Antiochos IV Epiphanes have the winged El. Sanchuniathon describes El as follows: " He has 4 eyes, 2 in front and 2 behind, from which 2 are closed during sleep. On his shoulders are 4 wings, 2 flying and 2 resting. This symbol shows that he is awake during sleep and resting when he flies."

    But his virility is mentioned too. In a poem is reported that 2 women once spotted the nude El walking along the beach. They were charmed by the size of his member and the end was that they bore him a son. This attribute of El you can see well on the attached scetch.

    From this source the wings of the Seraphim can be originated. They are described having 6 wings: Each of them has six wings. With two of them they cover their face, with two they cover their feet, and with two they were flying. (Jes. 6, 2-39) I don't want to claim the descent of the Seraphim from El/Kronos. But the Seraphim prove, that winged deities were not unknown to the ancient Hebrews. Even Yahweh himself is sometimes described as winged in the Old Testament and we know pictures where Yahweh with wings is riding on a Cherub (look at the attached pic of a stamp seal. Wether this is meant only metaphorical, can well be doubted. Actually these are reminiscents of the archaic image of the El from the time of 1200-600 BC.

    (3) Importance of El
    In the Canaanite pantheon El was the most powerful god. He seems to have had such great and comprehensive powers, that only rarely one risked to look at him closer or to anthromorphize him. Only in some texts of Ugarit he is like Zeus characterized as untrue husband (Wikipedia).

    El/Il always is a divine being, or the divine itself, but not a personal name. In a concrete sense as the lord of a special location, it is the north-Semitic Ba'al. But El/Il is always abstract, the devine as such. He stands above all gods, he is well-recognized, but scarcely worshipped. We don't know a cult for El/Il nor any temple. A similar role played Allah for Mohammed (Roscher).

    El, in contrast to Ba'al, is not attached to a locality, e.g. a mountain or tribe features. Thus he is especially qualified for the assimilation of universalistic perceptions of a High God. We don't know of a Proto-Semitic monotheism in the Old Testament, but we have indications of a Pre-Mosaic henotheistic El religion of the Israelitic Patriarchs (Pauly).

    In the mythology of Ugarit he is the father of gods building a family, the head of a polytheistic pantheon. He has features of a benevolent, wise, sometimes unpredictabel too, deus senex. The fusion of Yahweh with the Canaanite main deity has taken some of the asperity from the Israelitic Yahweh and in contrast added the features of El as king of gods and creative demiurgos(Pauly).

    In Hellenism El is interpreted as Kronos (interpretatio graeca), because of his depiiction as old wise man with gray hairs and oldest god of all, father of all other gods. This was the role of El too.

    (4) The Conflict between El and Ba'al
    A central role in the Ugaritic mythology plays the struggle between the family of El and the family of Ba'al, where at the end El is defeated and has to retire as elder statesman. The end of this fight happens on Mount Saphon (= mons Kasios), the seat of the gods. About this fight we hear nothing in Sanchuniathon's "Phoenician History". Here El is to the end the highest god of the pantheon. The explanation is easy: The fight between El and Ba'al reflects a historical-cultural conflict which happens after Sanchuniathon. El was the old god of the Canaanites. Ba'al Hadad was brought to Canaan by the Amorites, first to the north with its fertile plains, at last to the mountainous south. And hence we come to the Israelites.

    (5) El = Yahweh
    The Israelites settling farther south were worshipping further the Canaanite El. In fact El was defeated and Ba'al took over his reign, but El has not disappeared, but as god of Abraham and his family he became the god of the Israelites. The hostility between the Israelites and the Canaanites is reflected by the conflict of the Israelitic god Yahweh with Ba'al and his priests. Or: Such as Ba'al previous has fight for the hegemony against El so now the fight of Ba'al rages against the Israelitic god. Reasonable because the Israelites penetrated the fertile Canaan and settled there. That couldn't not be peaceful. The Old Testament is full of the most bloody battles. El was taken by the Isrelites and was then changed by Moses and his legislation into Yahweh. That can explain too such strange phenomena like the replacements in names like El-jakim to Jejo-jakim.

    Originally the Israelites were desert nomads. When they came to Canaan they brought along their god Yahweh = El. But at this time in Canaan the cult of Ba'al-Hadad has already widespread. As god of fertility, rain and weather he does meet much besser the needs of the agriculture practizing Canaanites than Yahweh which the Israelites have met in the desert. So it happened that the Israelites often assimilated the local cults of Ba'al and his bulls. Thereby they were in great danger to loose their national identity which depends on the belief in Yahweh. Therefore severe conflicts arose especially during the time of the Judges against the proliferation of these cults. They began to isolate their belief increasingly from the Canaanitic. In this time Yahweh became a jealous god. On the Mount Carmel a competition was hold between Elijah and Ba'al priests who of their gods was the actual rain god, and Yahweh was the winner. In this time the Israelitic monotheism may have been developed too..

    The rivalry between these two beliefs existed until the reign of king David, who remitted rigid laws for the cult of Yahweh. Nevertheless he took Phoenician craftsmen sent by king Hiram of Tyros to erect the famous temple in Jerusalem. May be because they venerated with El a god close to Yahweh? After the death of Salomon the empire desintegrated into the two small states of Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

    By the economical expansion of the Phoenician trade the cult of Ba'al Hadad, who in Tyros was named Melqart, spread widely. The northern Israel came in close neighborhood to Tyros and when the Phoenician princess Jezebel married Ahab, king of Israel, the cult of Ba'al and Asherah was taken over. And despite the revolt of Jehu aginst the royal house of Ahab the cult of Ba'al and Asherah stayed relevant deities in Israel until the Babylonian captivity.

    In the southern empire of Judah the Phoenician cult of Ba'al was introduced by the political marriage of Atalja with the Jewish vasal king. When Atalja entered the throne of David a temple for Ba'al was erected even in Jerusalem. Despite the reaction of the highpriest Jojada, who let put Atalja to death, the cult of Ba'al survived in Judah, and we hear of king Manasseh that he erected altars for Ba'al even in the courts of the Yahweh temples! Although king Josiah, probably under the influence of the prophet Jeremiah, purified the temples of Yahweh and destroyed the Ba'al cults in his kingdom, after his death they flourished again and this remains until the Babylonian captivity.

    The further story belongs lesser to mythology but rather to history of religion.

    Our authors:
    Eusebios of Caesarea:

    born in Caesarea c.260-265, died. c.339-340, was episcopos of Caesarea since 313. He worked on the literary remains of Origines and leant towards Areios (Arianismus). He was a close counselor of Constantine I, but voted on the Council of Nikaia AD 325 for the homo-usian confession of faith, because it was the wish of Constantine. Later he defended Areios and demanded the expulsion of Athanasios. He wrote a number of important religious works. For this article I name only the Praeparatio Evangelica where he cited Philon of Byblos. He wrote an apology of Origines, some works against Marcellus of Ankyra or against Porphyrios, the Neoplatonist. He was highly estimated by Constantine, is regarded as father of the church historiography and is counted to the Church Fathers.

    Philon of Byblos (= Herennios Philon):
    born c.64 BC in Byblos, died c.141 AD, was a Phoenician historian at the time of Hadrian, known particularly from the Suda. About his life we know very few. His most important work is a history of Phoenicia, where he claims that he has translated the "Phoenician History" of Sanchuniathon from the Phoenician to the Greek. His decription is euhemeristic, i.e. he explains the gods as ancient, important humans. He tried to reduce the Greek culture to the ancient Phoenician culture. Roscher called this "ridicolous". He wrote a big work about Hadrian of which only the title is known and 30 volumes "On Cities and their Citizens" of which only fragments are known.

    Sanchuniathon:
    was a pre-Trojan Phoenician historian from Berytos and lived probably in the 9th century BC. It is said that he has received his knowledge about the Phoenician religion from a priest named Hierombolos and has it written down in a 8 or 9 volume work named "Phoenician History", which is cited by Philon von Byblos.But known are only remains at Eusebios of Caesarea. His work, which partially shall copied from columns in Byblos, contains a cosmogony, a zoogony and reports about replacing generations of gods (Pauly). Formerly he was hold for a mythological figure, invented by Philon von Byblos himself and named after the Phoenician god Sanchon. But today the scientists think that he is a historical figure. Prof. Forbes from Edinburgh could prove that the texts of Sanchuniathon doubtless are related to the texts of Ugarit which were found since 1929 in Ras Shamra (Ugarit), of which the most ancient are written in Akkadian.

    Sources:
    (1) The Old Testament
    (especially 'Genesis' und 'Exodus')

    Secondary Literature:
    (1) Der Kleine Pauly
    (2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon, (online too)
    (3) Heinrich Wilhelm Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen
    Mythologie (online too), Leipzig 1884-1937
    (4) Otto Eissfeldt, El im ugaritischen Pantheon, Berlin, 1951
    (5) W.F.Albright, Specimens of Late Ugaritic Prose, 1958
    (6) Ulf Oldenburg, The Conflict between El and Ba'al in Canaanite Religion, Leiden 1969
    (7) Finkelstein/Silberman, Keine Posaunen vor Jericho, Beck München 2003
    (8) E.O.Forrer, Eine Geschichte des Götterkönigtums aus dem Hatti-Reiche, 1936
    (9) Stephen Herbert Langdon. Mythology of All the Races, Semitic. Vol. 5. Boston.
    Archaeological Institute of America, 1931
    (10) Forbes, Peter Barr Reid, "Philon of Byblos", New York, Oxford University Press,
    1991
    (11) H.G.Güterbock, 'Kumarbi, Mythen vom churritischen Kronos aus den hethitischen
    Fragmenten zusammengestellt, übersetzt und erklärt, 1946
    (12) Wolfgang Röllig, Die Religion Altsyriens, Darmstadt 1973 (auch online)
    (13) Martin Klingbeil, Yahweh Fghting From Heaven: God as Warrior and as God of Heaven in
    the Hebrew Psalter and Ancient Near Eastern Iconography, Göttingen 1999
    (14) Hans-Joachim Hoeft, Münzen und antike Mythologie, Verlag für intelligente Freizeitgestaltung 2011

    Online Sources:
    (1) Wikipedia
    (2) www.WiBiLex.de
    (Stefan Lauber)
    (3) www.bibelwissenschaft.de
    (4) www.bibleorigins.net
    (Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M. A. Ed.)
    (5) www.livius.org


    Attached Pics:

    (2) MCV-118S. A stamp seal with a depiction which is identified by scientists as winged
    Yahweh on a Cherub, acompanied by a winged goddess, Asherah, flying over a Holy tree (Martin Klingbeil, 1999)
    MVC-118S.jpg

    (3) As written above there was no temple for El. Not even in Byblos. Therefore I have attached a pic of the temple of Ba'alat Gebul from Byblos, whose last version is from 4 century BC.
    Tempel der Ba'alat Gebul.jpg

    (4) A pic of Mt. Saphon seen from Ugarit. This mountain was hold as seat of the gods, first of El. after his defeat as seat of Ba'al, who here was named after this mountain Ba'al Sapan
    (www.livius.org).
    ugarit_mount_saphon.jpg

    Best regards
     
    eparch, ancientone, Ryro and 14 others like this.
  2. Avatar

    Guest User Guest



    to hide this ad.
  3. Andres2

    Andres2 Well-Known Member

    Great write-up Jochen, thanks. I like your Multi winged El-Kronos too , congrats.

    Here's an earlier Byblos AR coin:

    P11504645.jpg
     
  4. TIF

    TIF Always learning.

    Jochen, you have so many coins I want!! What an interesting coin and fantastic story! My Domitian Kronos of Flaviopolis was so inspired that he sprouted wings :D.

    DomitianKronosWithWings.jpg
     
  5. Jochen1

    Jochen1 Well-Known Member

    Hi TIF!

    What a beautiful and interesting Kronos. Never seen before.

    Jochen
     
    David@PCC likes this.
  6. David@PCC

    David@PCC allcoinage.com

    I look forward to reading your post. I had a similar post Gebal the holy I made where I used some of the same images!
    g283.jpg
    Antiochus IV
    Mint: Byblus
    168 to 164 BC
    Obvs: Antiochus radiate and diademed right, dotted border.
    Revs: BAΣIΛEΩΣ ANTIOXOY, Phoenician script "of Gebal" on left, "the holy" in exergue. Six-winged Kronos-El standing left holding was-sceptre, dotted border.
    AE 21mm, 6.01g
    Ref: SC 1444.1

    Edit: Very informative write up. I should add that this reverse also exist for Antiochus V, VII, and Tryphon.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2019
  7. Jochen1

    Jochen1 Well-Known Member

    Yes, that's the coin to my depiction above! Nice to see it!

    Jochen
     
  8. Helloghettokitty

    Helloghettokitty New Member

    I came across one of them, it’s very hard to find information on it, this was helpful...
     
    +VGO.DVCKS likes this.
  9. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page