outlook: aramaeans outside of syria 361
documented in dan and et-tell, is mentioned at Jerusalem. it is branded
as an illegitimate worship of false gods, and within the polemical bibli-
cal discourse it is not possible to determine to what deity it might have
been addressed in the Judean capital. it is also impossible to determine
whether it was an earlier native local cult or the result of an aramaean
influence and prototype (as e.g., 2 kgs 16: 10).
in iron age ii the aramaean Baʿal/hadad, the northern israelite yhWh
of the Omrides,109 and the state gods of the transjordanian states, milkom
and kemosh, were conceived with solar and celestial connotations. the
iconographically documented symbolism of the sun and the heavens,
which had come from egypt through phoenician mediation, became
native in israel and syria. But the progressing symbolism of the moon-
god and Venus, leading to a lunarization and astralization of the religious
symbol system (also of the local gods) in palestine is attributed to the
aramaean (crescent moon) and later assyrian influences. the diverse
religious symbol systems could be combined with each other (egyptian
ankh-symbols with the aramaean crescent moon). in palestinian glyp-
tic, the moon-god appears in the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. in the form
of the cult standard of the moon-god from harran, who ranked for the
assyrians as the highest god of the west; they integrated him into their
religious system and also venerated him (see the top of a standard that
was found in the assyrian fortress in tell eš-Šerīʿa). Crescents on poles are
likewise documented on seals, scarabs, and other image-bearing objects.
especially in the specifically inner-palestinian local traditions around
Jerusalem (though also in the former northern kingdom and in northern
transjordan), one finds representations of the mood-god in anthropomor-
phic form as a bearded, enthroned figure sitting in a boat and conferring
blessings (sometimes with the name of the Judean owner of the seal).
this find has been interpreted110 as an indication that the local supreme
gods in palestine had assumed lunar characteristics, i.e., that in Judah of
the 7th century B.C. yhWh of Jerusalem was worshipped as a moon-god
(according to O. keel – C. uehlinger as the uranic-lunar el)111 or that the
characteristics of a local palestinian god (in Judah therefore of yhWh)
were transferred to the aramaean(-assyrian) moon-god of harran. in
the Neo-Babylonian period lunar symbolism still persisted in syria and
109 keel – uehlinger 52001: § 164 and Niehr 1994a.
110 dalman 1906: 49.
111 keel – uehlinger 52001: § 180.