170 herbert niehr
to samaria (2 Kgs 17: 30). a god ašimaʾ is also mentioned in the 4th
century B.c. aramaic inscriptions from the north arabian oasis tayma.213
a combination of this divine name with the god Bethel from the aleppo
region appears in the Jewish-aramaean papyri from elephantine in the
5th century B.c. where this god appears as ašim-Bethel.214 another occur-
rence is in a greek inscription from the aleppo region dating to the 3rd
century B.c., which contains a god Συμβετυλος.215
small finds give further evidence of deities worshipped in hamath, even
though these representations of deities evade identification by name. Well
known is the 9.5-cm-tall statuette of an enthroned god wearing a horned
headdress. the gold-plated bronze figure shows a bearded man who holds
what may be a scepter in his right hand and a cup in his left.216 as this
figure belongs to the type of enthroned high god one may consider it a
representation of the god hadad.
then there are a number of clay plaquettes or clay models of god-
desses.217 as they are naked and holding their breasts they are referred
to as goddesses of the astarte type, without meaning to say that a god-
dess of that name was worshipped in hamath. perhaps they represent the
goddess pahalatis/Baʿalat the chief goddess of the kingdom known from
hieroglyphic luwian inscriptions of hamath and its region.
Furthermore, there are fragments of several statues whose condition
do not permit any attribution to deities or kings, as well as fragments of
thrones, altars, and stelae.218
the connection of the god iluwer with tell afis, located 45 km south-
west of aleppo, can be made through a broken piece of pottery found
there in 1997 on which the letters lwr are written, which expand to read
the divine name iluwer.219
3.2 Kingshipit is above all the royal inscriptions and royal iconography that provide a
glimpse of the royal ideology of the aramaean dynasties of samʾal.220
213 see below h. niehr’s contribution on tayma.
214 cf. porten – Yardeni 1993: taD c 3.15: 127.
215 cf. lidzbarski 1908: 323f.
216 cf. the illustrations and descriptions in riis 1948: 138 fig. 186 and orthmann 1975:
xlViii, 482.
217 cf. riis – Buhl 1990: 192–203.
218 cf. riis – Buhl 1990: 54–64.
219 cf. Mazzoni 1998a: 196; ead. 2012: 35; soldi 2009: 104f with figs. 5f.
220 cf. especially euler 1938; landsberger 1948; czichon 1995; Dion 1997: 242–270;
Brown 2008; green 2010: 136–156,307–315; gilibert 2011: 55–135; niehr 2013: 200–203.