Durham E-Theses Water and Religious Life in the Roman Near East. Gods, Spaces and Patterns of Worship. WILLIAMS-REED, ERIS,KATHLYN,LAURA How to cite: WILLIAMS-REED, ERIS,KATHLYN,LAURA (2018) Water and Religious Life in the Roman Near East. Gods, Spaces and Patterns of Worship., Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13052/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Water and Religious Life in the Roman Near East. Gods, Spaces and Patterns of Worship Eris Kathlyn Laura Williams-Reed A thesis submitted for the qualification of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Classics and Ancient History Durham University 2018 Acknowledgments It is a joy to recall the many people who, each in their own way, made this thesis possible. Firstly, I owe a great deal of thanks to my supervisor, Ted Kaizer, for his support and encouragement throughout my doctorate, as well as my undergraduate and postgraduate studies. I thank him wholeheartedly for sharing with me his knowledge of and enthusiasm for both the Roman Near East and The Roman Near East. I also extend my thanks to my secondary supervisors, Andrej Petrovic and James Corke-Webster, for engaging with my work and asking me challenging questions that rightfully stayed with me throughout this process. I would also like to thank here Jennifer Ingleheart for her support and tenacity as Director of Postgraduate Research. Finally, with fondness, I thank Anna Leone for introducing me to the region as an undergraduate and continuing to be a source of encouragement long after. I would also like to thank several people for engaging so readily with my work and sharing their own research with me: Lucinda Dirven, Rubina Raja, Kevin Butcher, Dominic Dalglish, Esther Eidinow, Jaś Elsner, Margherita Facella, Ben Isaac, Robin Lane Fox, Stefanie Lenk, Michael Macdonald, Nicholas Purcell, Josephine Quinn, Veronica Strang and Olivia Webster. Many students of the Roman Near East are also, in one way or another, indebted to Fergus Millar and I am no exception: I warmly thank him for the discussions we have shared. It is also a pleasure to thank Arthur Segal for inviting me into his home during a visit to Israel and sharing his passion for the region’s architecture with me. Here too I would like to remember Tony Wilkinson, who introduced me to the importance of landscape as an undergraduate and reminded me of it during the early phases of my doctorate. Likewise, it is a pleasure to thank several people connected to the Department of Classics and Ancient History for their encouragement and interest in my research: above all, Justine T. Wolfenden and Mark Woolmer, as well as Thorsten Fögen, Ivana Petrovic, Kathryn Stevens and Edmund Thomas. Additionally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Department’s administrative staff, especially Viv Arbia, for their support and assistance throughout my time at Durham. I would also like to thank here the staff of Durham University Library, particularly James Bisset for ensuring that the Postgraduate Research 1 Room continues to exist; Richard Holmes for purchasing countless books over the years; Judith Walton for sourcing obscure literature via the Document Delivery Service; and Gary Cheek for good company. I also extend my thanks to Durham University’s Counselling Service and Disability Support Office. I also acknowledge the Arts and Humanities Research Council, whose provision of a doctoral scholarship made this thesis possible, and it is a pleasure to express my gratitude to the departmental Research Committee who nominated me for it. I have also been very fortunate to receive financial assistance from several funding bodies, whose support gave me the opportunity to present my work at various conferences and to conduct research visits to Oxford, Jordan and Israel. I wholeheartedly extend my thanks to the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Durham University; the John Simpson Greenwell Memorial Foundation and the Caedmon-Ceolfrid Trust, College of St. Hild and St. Bede; the Stokes Fund, Department of Classics and Ancient History; the Hugh Last Fund, the Roman Society; and the British Association of Near Eastern Archaeology. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the generosity of several funding bodies that enabled myself and Stephen Humphreys to organise a conference on water and religious life in March 2016 including, the Institute of Advanced Study and the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University; the Ritual, Religion, Belief and Place Research Group, Department of Archaeology; and the Classical Association. Finally, it is delight to thank the friends and family who have been at my side during the course of this thesis. In particular, I thank Julia Tomas, Alison Ewins and Paula Rondon- Burgos for good company, support and kindness; and Barney Chesterton and Abi Molenaar for laughter, thoughtfulness and enduring friendship. I thank my parents – all three of them – for their love and instilling within me a passion and curiosity for the environment, each in their own way. Above all, I thank Donald MacLennan, my favourite person, and our wonderful pride of cats – one of whom is characteristically sat purring in my lap as I write this – for their love and joy, and everything in between. 2 Table of Contents Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... 7 Conventions ....................................................................................................................... 11 List of Maps ....................................................................................................................... 13 List of Figures .................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter One: Introduction ................................................................................................. 27 1.1 The Roman Near East: Environments and Communities......................................... 30 The Tetrapolis and Northern Syria ............................................................................. 32 The Phoenician Coast and its hinterland .................................................................... 34 Eastern Syria Phoenice: mountain, oasis and steppe .................................................. 36 From Judaea to Syria Palaestina ................................................................................. 37 Arabia ......................................................................................................................... 39 1.2 Religious Life in the Roman Near East: Sources and Scholarship .......................... 42 Sources........................................................................................................................ 42 Scholarship ................................................................................................................. 57 1.3 Water and Religious Life: Approaching and Elevating the Environment ............... 65 Environmental approaches to religious life ................................................................ 65 Elevating the environment: data and evidence ........................................................... 71 1.4 Structure ................................................................................................................... 75 Chapter Two: Gods ............................................................................................................ 77 2.1 Characterising the Divine ......................................................................................... 77 Divine identity and the environment: tychai in the Roman Near East ....................... 77 Approaching the gods: Atargatis and Mithras ............................................................ 88 2.2 Rivers and Gods ....................................................................................................... 95 Orontes and Asklepios ................................................................................................ 95 The Nahr Ibrahim and Byblian Adonis ...................................................................... 98 2.3 Storm-gods ............................................................................................................. 109 The gods at Khirbet Tannur ...................................................................................... 110 Baalshamin throughout the Jebel Arab massif ......................................................... 115 Zeus Keraunios in the Syrian Tetrapolis .................................................................. 119 2.4 Sea Deities and the Deified Sea ............................................................................. 124 The maritime environment