religion 157
the treaties from sefire list the deities of Kittika as follows: ashur and
Mulliš, Marduk and Ṣarpanītu, nabu and tašmetu, ir and nusku, nergal
and laṣ, Šamaš and nur, sin and nikkal, and nikkar and Kadiah (Kai 222:
7–10). thus, there are six divine couples from the assyrian-Babylonian
pantheon and two aramaized deities, nikkar and Kadiah.133 thus, it fol-
lows that the pantheon of Bet Ṣullul / Kitikka was largely assyrian.
the distinction between the oath deities of Kittika and arpad is visible
in the sefire treaties where the gods of the desert and the fertile land (Kai
222: 10) are a blanket term summarizing the preceding list of assyrian-
aramaean oath deities. hadad of aleppo, the supreme god of the ara-
maeans of syria, heads the list of oath deities of arpad in analogy to the
god ashur.134
in samʾal, the capital of Bit gabbari,135 the phoenician inscription (Kai
24)136 of King Kulamuwa (ca. 840–820 B.c.), dated to 830–820 B.c., men-
tions in its final part the personal gods of the first two aramaean kings of
samʾal. in addition, the dynastic god of King Kulamuwa appears.
Baʿal Ṣemed appears as the personal god of the first aramaean king of
samʾal, gabbar (Kai 24: 15). the meaning of this god’s name is contro-
versial, as it is not attested outside of samʾal. the classic interpretation
of this name can be found in Benno landsberger’s publication of 1948.
he defined the god Baʿal Ṣemed as “lord of the chariot,” and therefore
a mounted god of war. Benno landsberger, however, saw a problem of a
doublet with the god rakkabʾel and tried to evade it by assigning an ox
team to Baʿal Ṣemed, so he would be seen as a weather-god.137
the common occurrence of the elements baʿal and ṣemed in northwest
semitic cultures can be explained better if one takes a look at the inter-
pretation of the god’s name. in Ugaritic mythology the weapon Kotharu
crafts for Baʿal for his fight against the sea-god is known as ṣmd (KtU 1.2
iV 11–26). What type of weapon it was, such as a mace or a double axe, is
still controversial.138 But even without a closer definition of this weapon
133 cf. Fales 1990: 162f.
134 see above, footnote 105.
135 on the kingdom of Bit gabbari and on samʾal, cf. the references in Dion 1997: 99–112;
lipiński 2000a: 233–247; Wartke 2005; id. 2008; hawkins 2008; niehr 2010a: 267–270; id.
2013: 185–189; casana – herrmann 2010; Fales 2011b: 560–563.
136 cf. on the inscription especially tropper 1993: 27–46, 153f; hamilton 1998: 222–225;
green 2010: 136–156.
137 cf. landsberger 1948: 46f n. 116.
138 cf. smith 1994: 338–341; del olmo lete – sanmartín 22004: 784f s.v. ṣmd.; Dietrich –
loretz 2009: 173–177; schmitz 2009: 138f.