The Aramaeans in Ancient Syria

religion 197

accompanied by a ritual of its own.356 this may also have been the case
in 9th-century Damascus.
a reference found in more recent sources, which reveal the deification
of the deceased kings of Damascus, favors such an assumption. evidence
of this is found in a later reminiscence from the Antiquitates Judaicae of
Flavius Josephus. he reports on the common cult of adados and azaelos
in Damascus:

then he (azaelos) took over the royal power himself, being a man of action

and in great favour with the syrians and the people of Damascus, by whom

adados and azaelos who ruled after him are to this day honoured as gods

because of their benefactions and the building of temples with which they

adorned the city of Damascus. and they have processions every day in hon-

our of these kings and glory in their antiquity, not knowing that these kings

are rather recent and lived less than eleven hundred years ago.357

Josephus tried to euhemerize the genesis of the gods of Damascus and
their cults. the god hadad is easily recognized in the name adados, while
azaelos is none other than King hazael. this mention of a common cult
of the pantheon’s chief deity and a deceased king is reminiscent of the
royal funerary cult of samʾal in the aramaean religion of syria during the
second half of the 8th century B.c.358
Josephus’ source is the historian nicholas of Damascus. he was born 64
B.c. in Damascus and penned a history of the ancient near east and greece.
he was also well-versed in the religious traditions of his hometown.359
thus, there is evidence of rituals from the 1st century B.c. this means
that in Damascus the cult of the deified King hazael persisted into the
1st century B.c. and perhaps even up to the christianization of the city.

4.3 Temples and Cults

the area of the great temple of Baʿalbek has only been excavated on a
very small scale, the results of which have not been published. there are
only a few scattered notes. recent investigations in 2004 and 2005 have
brought to light finds from the neolithic to the Middle and late Bronze

356 cf. niehr 2008: 248–253 and id. 2012b.
357 Josephus, ant. ix § 93–94; text and translation in Marcus 1966: 48–51; cf. Dussaud
1922: 220; Millar 21994: 314–316; Dion 1997: 203f; schwemer 2001: 624 n. 5037; niehr 2011:
352.
358 see above, section 3.6.
359 on nicholas of Damascus, cf. the references in niehr 2011: 352, since then also
parmentier – Barone 2011.