Divine Constellations at Palmyra. Reconsidering the Palmyrene Pantheon

2 Divine Constellations at Palmyra. Reconsidering the Palmyrene ‘Pantheon’ Ted Kaizer THE SC I.D A N .H . Over thirty years ago, Edouard Lipinski, in a highly but also on the implications of a deliberate decision ROYAL critical review of Javier Teixidor’s The Pantheon of Pal against its application. DANISH myra, stated the following: “When speaking about the In the world of the Near where 4 Roman East, reli • Ü pantheon and the religious syncretisms of Palmyra, it gious life was above all characterised by a concurring • A THE CA should be born in mind that we do not deal with a multitude of local varieties, the unique culture and DEM WORLD deliberately syncretistic system, but with a network of civilization of Palmyra may count as particularly idio Y OF SCIENCES religious syncretisms with only a vague relation be syncratic. Gods and goddesses attested at the oasis OF tween the divinities worshipped in the city and its sur (or in Palmyrene contexts elsewhere in the Roman PALMYRA AND roundings or figured prominently on the Palmyrene empire) came from different cultural spheres of influ LETTERS reliefs. It is true that the ancient Semites had a rather ence.2 With regard to the religious world of the Near definite idea of a pantheon, as is evident from the nu East as a whole, Maurice Sartre has proposed a tradi ■ lists gods that in the tional multiple “qui recou merous of have been discovered division in pantheons se 2 0 1 Near East, but nothing similar has been found in Pal pent sans étre identiques”,3 although to what degree 6 myra, the composite civilization of which allowed the local divine world of Palmyra should therefore be even the worship of different supreme gods at the discussed in terms of a conglomeration of various same time. Thus, when a present day scholar writes larger and ‘ethnic’ pantheons is a different matter. In about the Pantheon of Palmyra, he imposes a modern any case, as I hope this paper will demonstrate, the frame of reference upon complex and syncretistic ex Palmyrene phenomenon cannot be explained through pressions of various cults and beliefs.”1 one single model. As Lipinski noted, all other scholars focusing on Outside the Near East, research into local varia the subject prior to Teixidor were careful to steer clear tions of religious life is at least facilitated by the pres of such terminology - and the same is true for subse ence of an overarching mythical framework recording quent scholars. So what good would it do to now re the endeavours of the Olympians, against which the consider the ‘pantheon’ of Palmyra? It should be em civic cults of the Graeco-Roman world can be contex phasised that what follows is in no way meant as a tualised. The cultic and poetic layers may not have denunciation of Lipinski, nor as a late vindication of been transmitting on the same wavelengths, though Teixidor. But it is important to reflect not only on that does not mean that any apparent inconsistency what it means to use the label in a Palmyrene context, between cult and poetry should be considered as problematic. As Henk Versnel has recently put it, i. Lipinski 1981, 392. According to Lipinski, Teixidor “does not even seem to see the problem the title of his book raises”, and 2. See especially Gawlikowski 1990. he judged that ‘the Pantheon of Palmyra’ is above all “a 3. Sartre 1991, 490, adding “il faut distinguer entre les pan- pantheon imagined by the author”. théons phéniciens, araméens et arabes.” T7 TED KAIZER SCI.DAN.H. 4 • 6 these “two systems, local and national, may clash, but various divine constellations (as they will be referred rarely do, since listening to or reading Homer or at to for present purposes) and aim to analyse the diver tending a tragedy takes the participants into another gent ways in which they could be constructed - with world, a world far more distant, sublime and awesome out any intention to provide a comprehensive over than everyday reality where sacrifices are made and view. prayers are addressed to the local gods who are ‘right Any order of discussion would of course be arbi here’. Many pantheons, many horizons.”4 Needless to trary, but the most obvious place to commence a dis say, the paradigm from the Greco-Roman world can cussion of the divine constellations at Palmyra is the not be imposed uncritically unto the Levantine evi so-called ‘triad of Bel’. Though it is sensible to avoid dence, and categorising any grouping of deities in the pitfalls of the modern scholarly phenomenon of terms of a pantheon may only be sanctioned follow what Kevin Butcher has called ‘triadomania’,5 and fair ing a proper qualification of the phraseology. It can to appreciate that the only undisputable triad in the therefore be expected that the application of the label Roman Near East was formed by Maren, Marten and ‘pantheon’ to the divine world of Palmyra (and in Bar-Maren at Hatra,6 the fact remains that the major deed of other places in the Near East in the Roman temple dominating the religious topography of Pal period) will remain contentious. myra was dedicated in AD 32 not only to Bel, but This paper will not be an attempt at a sophisticat jointly ‘to Bel and Yarhibol and Aglibol’, as the fa ed definition of the term. Instead, the argument is mous inscription from thirteen years later records.7 built upon the simple observation that in a majority The association between the three gods has often been of cases (though clearly not always) Palmyrene deities explained as the ‘theological’ creation of a triad around were grouped together, in inscriptions and on sculp this time by the priesthood of Bel,8 but the joint nature tures alike. One should not claim to be able to say of the dedication could also be understood, more ad much about the precise nature of the associations be vantageously as far as I am concerned, as following on tween these deities, since there are no literary sources the initiative of the benefactor who paid for the north on ‘Palmyrene mythology’ preserved nor, as noted by adyton.9 10When this hykl’ was, following the convincing Lipinski, equivalent ‘god-lists’ to those known from hypothesis of Michal Pictrzykowski,'" extended about the Ancient Near East. The evidence from Palmyra is a generation later with the south adyton and turned hardly sufficient to warrant the recognition of clearly into the cella as it now stands, the goddess Astarte may structured relations between different divinities and it have joined the main cultic line-up of the sanctuary.11 would be absurd to think that a proper religious ‘sys tem’ can be reconstructed. But it seems nonetheless 5. Butcher 2003, 342. clear that if worshippers chose to list or depict various 6. Kaizer 2000, 233 and 236-7. gods and goddesses jointly, they were in any case not 7. PAT no.1347. See Kaizer 2002, 69. Seyrig 1932 was the first to thinking of them in isolated fashion. As not all Pal emphasise that the constellation always follows the same myrene groupings of deities were built up in an iden ‘hierarchical’ order. 8. Seyrig 1971, 94. See also Drijvers 1976,11: “It may be assumed tical manner, this paper will propose to classify the that the formation of this cosmic triad is a product of that kind of theological thinking which at the beginning of our era liked 4. Versnel 2011,143, who added the following: “Local gods, as to combine its gods into abstract concepts of a cosmic order.” most exemplarily represented by the gods worshipped by each g. As argued in Kaizer 2006. polis (and its chord), together formed a local pantheon, thus 10. Pietrzykowski 1997,119-135 (French résumé of Polish text). generating many local, relatively isolated, pantheons, one 11. As argued by Dirven 1999, 70-71. It ought to be emphasised differing from the other not only in their composition, but though that there is no hard evidence that the south adyton, also in that gods with the same name belonging to different to be credited to a different benefactor than the north adyton, cities were not (necessarily) perceived as being the same was separately dedicated to Astarte. On the relationship at gods.” Palmyra between Astarte and Bel, see also Seyrig 1960. SCI.DAN.H. 4 • 6 DIVINE CONSTELLATIONS AT PALMYRA. RECONSIDERING THE PALMYRENE PANTHEON An inscription dated to AD 137 indicates how, ten years Bel (regardless of the reasons behind its arrangement earlier, this ‘new’ group of Bel, Yarhibol, Aglibol and in AD 32) had grown into a true civic symbol for Pal Astarte had come to be established as a divine constel myra by the time the city started to mint its own coins, lation in its own right.12 most likely at some point in the first half of the second Naturally, the three gods, without the goddess, century - an argument which is strengthened by the could also continue to appear in their earlier composi fact that this particular coin concerns one of the very tion. A Palmyrene coin shows three deities who can be few giving the name of the city: IIAAMYPA on the ob interpreted on convincing iconographic grounds as verse, depicting a victory goddess holding scales and Bel, Yarhibol and Aglibol: the central god is wearing a palm, and perhaps [tjdfmr], the indigenous name in a kalathos while his ‘acolytes’, the two figures that flank Aramaic, below the three divine busts/4 him, are wearing a solar crown and a crescent respec Even if (as the coinage suggests) the dedicatory tively/3 *It could therefore be argued that the ‘triad’ of group of Bel, Yarhibol and Aglibol over time grew into a civic constellation, the great temple of whose 12.

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