The Obituary
Baal, meaning “lord,” was the Canaanite storm and fertility god, widely identified with the Semitic Hadad and worshipped from the third millennium BCE across Syria and the Levant. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle recounts his combat with Yam, the sea, his palace built on Mount Zaphon, and his descent into the jaws of Mot, the death-god, followed by his return. Denounced repeatedly in the Hebrew Bible, his cult dwindled as Aramean, Israelite, and ultimately Christian worship displaced it across the Roman-era Near East.
Worth remembering
- In the Ugaritic Baal Cycle he defeats Yam, the sea, with two clubs forged by the craftsman-god Kothar-wa-Khasis.
- He dies into the maw of Mot and is mourned, then returns to life, mirroring the dying-and-rising of the seasons.
Sources
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.