Dagon
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For other uses, see Dagon
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Dagon (Phoenician: 𐤃𐤂𐤍, translit. Dāgūn; Hebrew: דָּגוֹן, Tib. /dɔːgon/) or Dagan(Sumerian: 𒀭𒁕𒃶, translit. dda-gan[1]) is an ancient
Mesopotamian and ancient
Canaanite deity. He appears to have been worshipped as a fertility god in Ebla, Assyria, Ugarit and among the Amorites.
The Hebrew Bible mentions him as the national
god of the Philistines with
temples at Ashdod and elsewhere in Gaza.[2]
A long-standing association
with a Canaanite word
for "fish" (as in Hebrew: דג, Tib./dɔːg/), perhaps going back to
the Iron Age,
has led to an interpretation as a "fish-god", and the association of
"merman" motifs in Assyrian art (such as
the "Dagon" relief found by Austen Henry Layard in
the 1840s). The god's name was, however, more likely derived from a word for
"grain", suggesting that he was in origin associated with fertility
and agriculture.
Contents
·
1Name
·
4Marnas
·
8Notes
The name is recorded
as Ugaritic Dgn (Dagnu or Daganu), Akkadian Dagana.
In Ugaritic, the
root dgn also means "grain": in Hebrew, דגן, dɔːgɔːn (Samaritan Hebrew dīgan), is
an archaic word for grain.
According to Philo of Byblos, the Phoenician author Sanchuniathon explained Dagonas
a word for "grain" (siton). Sanchuniathon further explains:
"And Dagon, after he discovered grain and the plough, was called Zeus Arotrios."
The word arotrios means "ploughman" or
"pertaining to agriculture"
(from ἄροτρον, 'plow').
The theory relating the
name to the Hebrew word "fish", based solely upon a reading of
1 Samuel 5:2–7, is discussed in § Fish-god tradition below.
The god Dagon first
appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the Mesopotamian gods Ilu (Ēl), Dagan, and Adad are
especially common.
At Ebla (Tell
Mardikh), from at least 2300 BC, Dagan was the head of the city pantheon comprising some 200 deities and
bore the titles BE-DINGIR-DINGIR, "Lord of the gods"
and Bekalam, "Lord of the land". His consort was known
only as Belatu, "Lady". Both were worshipped in a large temple
complex called E-Mul, "House of the Star". One entire quarter of Ebla
and one of its gates were named after Dagan. Dagan is called ti-lu
ma-tim, "dew of the land" and Be-ka-na-na, possibly
"Lord of Canaan". He was called lord of many
cities: of Tuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and
Sipishu.
Dagan is mentioned
occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes prominent only
in later Assyro-Babylonian inscriptions
as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enki.
Dagan's wife was in some sources the goddess Shala (also
named as wife of Adad and sometimes identified with Ninmah). In other texts, his wife is Ishara. In the preface to his famous law code, King Hammurabi calls himself "the subduer
of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his
creator". An inscription about an expion of Naram-Sin to the Cedar
Mountain relates (ANET, p. 268): "Naram-Sin slew
Arman and Ibla with the 'weapon' of the god Dagan who aggrandizes his
kingdom."
An interesting early
reference to Dagan occurs in a letter to King Zimri-Lim of Mari, 18th century BC, written by Itur-Asduu
an official in the court of Mari and governor of Nahur (the Biblical city of
Nahor) (ANET, p. 623). It relates a dream of a "man from
Shaka" in which Dagan appeared. In the dream, Dagan blamed Zimri-Lim's
failure to subdue the King of the Yaminites upon Zimri-Lim's failure to bring a
report of his deeds to Dagan in Terqa.
Dagan promises that when Zimri-Lim has done so: "I will have the kings of
the Yaminites [coo]ked on a fisherman's spit,
and I will lay them before you."
In Ugarit around 1300 BC, Dagon had a large
temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and Ēl,
and preceding Baīl Ṣapān (that is the
god Haddu or Hadad/Adad). Joseph Fontenrose first demonstrated
that, whatever their deep origins, at Ugarit Dagon was sometime identified with
El,[3] explaining why
Dagan, who had an important temple at Ugarit is so neglected in the Ras Shamra mythological texts, where
Dagon is mentioned solely in passing as the father of the god Hadad(Ba'al),
but Anat, El's daughter, is Ba'al's sister, and
why no temple of El has appeared at Ugarit. It is suspected that Dagon was one
of the "seventy sons of El and Athirat" that later sired Hadad (Ba'al)
who would eventually attempt to forcefully insert himself in the second-tier of
the council of El (although he would ultimately fail in this attempt)
Dagan was sometimes used
in Mesopotamian royal names. Two kings of the pre-Babylonian Dynasty of Isin were Iddin-Dagan (c. 1974–1954 BC) and Ishme-Dagan (c. 1953–1935 BC). The latter name was
later used by two Assyrian kings: Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1782–1742 BC) and Ishme-Dagan II (c. 1610–1594 BC).
The stele of
the 9th century BC Assyrian emperor Ashurnasirpal II (ANET,
p. 558) refers to Ashurnasirpal as the favorite of Anu and of Dagan. In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as
a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder of the seven
children of the god Emmesharra.
The Phoenician
inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmunʿazar of Sidon (5th
century BC) relates (ANET, p. 662): "Furthermore, the Lord of
Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty
lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds
which I did."
Sanchuniathon reportedly made Dagon the
brother of Cronus, both sons of the Sky (Uranus) and Earth, but not truly Hadad's
father. Hadad (Demarus) was begotten by "Sky" on a concubine before
Sky was castrated by his son Ēl, whereupon the pregnant concubine was
given to Dagon. Accordingly, Dagon in this version is Hadad's half-brother and
stepfather.
The Byzantine Etymologicon Magnum lists
Dagon as the Phoenician Cronus.[4]
Depiction
of the destruction of Dagon by Philip James
de Loutherbourg, 1793.
In the Hebrew Bible, Dagon is particularly the god of
the Philistines with temples at Beth-dagon in
the tribe of Asher (Joshua 19.27), in Gaza (Judges 16.23, which tells soon after how
the temple is destroyed by Samson as his last
act). Another temple, located in Ashdod, was mentioned in 1 Samuel 5:2–7 and again as late as 1 Maccabees 10.83;11.4. King
Saul's head was displayed in a temple of Dagon.[5] There was also a
second place known as Beth-Dagon in Judah (Joshua 15.41). The first-century
Jewish historian Josephus[6] mentions a place
named Dagon above Jericho. Jerome mentions Caferdago between Diospolis and
Jamnia. There is also a modern Beit Dejan south-east of Nablus. Some of these toponyms may have to do
with grain rather than the god.[citation needed]
The account in
1 Samuel 5.2–7 relates how the Ark of the Covenant was captured by
the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod. The
following morning the Ashdodites found the image of Dagon lying prostrate
before the ark. They set the image upright, but again on the morning of the
following day they found it prostrate before the ark, but this time with head
and hands severed, lying on the miptān translated as
"threshold" or "podium". The account continues with the
puzzling words raq dāgôn nišʾar ʿālāyw,
which means literally "only Dagon was left to him." (The Septuagint, Peshitta, and Targums render "Dagon" here as
"trunk of Dagon" or "body of Dagon", presumably referring
to the lower part of his image.)
Thereafter we are told
that neither the priests nor anyone ever steps on the miptān of
Dagon in Ashdod "unto this day". "We have remarkable evidence of
the permanence of the custom in Zephaniah 1:9, where the Philistines are
described as 'those that leap on, or more correctly over, 'the threshold'".[7] This story is
depicted on the frescoes of the Dura-Europos
synagogue as the opposite to a depiction of the High
Priest Aaron and the Temple of Solomon.
The vita of Porphyry of Gaza, mentions the great god of
Gaza, known as Marnas (Aramaic Marnā the
"Lord"), who was regarded as the god of rain and grain and invoked
against famine. Marna of Gaza appears on coinage of the time of Hadrian.[8] He was identified
at Gaza with Cretan Zeus, Zeus Krētagenēs.
It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple,
the Marneion—the
last surviving great cult center of paganism—was burned by order of the Roman emperor during
the Persecution
of pagans in the late Roman Empire in 402. Treading upon the
sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. Christians later used these same
to pave the public marketplace.
"Oannes"
relief from Khorsabad
The "fish"
etymology was accepted in 19th and early 20th century scholarship. This led to
the association with the "merman" motif in Assyrian and Phoenician art (e.g. Julius Wellhausen, William Robertson
Smith),[citation needed] and with the figure
of the Babylonian Oannes (Ὡάννης)
mentioned by Berossus (3rd
century BC).
The first to cast doubt
on the "fish" etymology was Schmökel (1928), who suggested that while
Dagon was not in origin a "fish god", the association with dâg "fish"
among the maritime Canaanites (Phoenicians) would have affected the god's
iconography.[9]Fontenrose (1957:278)
still suggests that Berossos's Odakon, part man and part fish, was
possibly a garbled version of Dagon. Dagon was also equated with Oannes.
The association
with dāg/dâg 'fish' is made by 11th-century Jewish
Bible commentator Rashi.[10] In the 13th century, David Kimhi interpreted the odd sentence
in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 that "only Dagon was left to him" to mean
"only the form of a fish was left", adding: "It is said that
Dagon, from his navel down, had the form of a fish (whence his name, Dagon),
and from his navel up, the form of a man, as it is said, his two hands were cut
off." The Septuagint text of
1 Samuel 5.2–7 says that both the hands and the head of
the image of Dagon were broken off.[11]
Main article: Dagon in popular
culture
The Semitic god Dagon has
appeared in many works of popular culture.
Notable examples
include John Milton's epic
poems Samson Agonistes and Paradise Lost, Dagon and The Shadow Over
Innsmouth by H. P. Lovecraft, Dagon by Fred Chappell, Middlemarch by George Eliot, and King of Kings: a
Novel of the Life of David by Malachi Martin.
·
Marid
1. ^ The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
2. ^ Cambridge Bible for Schools and
Colleges on Judges 16:23.
3. ^ Joseph Fontenrose, "Dagon and
El" Oriens 10.2 (December 1957), pp. 277-279.
4. ^ Fontenrose 1957:277.
5. ^ (1 Chronicles 10:8-10)
6. ^ Antiquities 12.8.1; War 1.2.3
7. ^ Pulpit Commentary on 1 Samuel 5, accessed 24
April 2017.
8. ^ R.A. Stewart Macalister, The
Philistines (London) 1914, p. 112 (illus.).
9. ^ H. Schmökel, Der Gott Dagan (Borna-Leipzig)
1928.
10. ^ Rashi's commentary on 1 Samuel 5:2
11. ^ Noticed by Schmökel 1928, noted in
Fontenrose 1957:278.
·
ANET = Ancient
Near Eastern Texts, 3rd ed. with Supplement (1969). Princeton: Princeton
University Press. ISBN 0-691-03503-2.
·
Souvay, C., Dagon, The
Catholic Encyclopedia (1908)
·
"Dagon" in Etana: Encyclopædia Biblica Volume I
A–D: Dabarah–David (PDF).
·
Feliu, Lluis (2003). The God Dagan
in Bronze Age Syria, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson. Leiden: Brill Academic
Publishers. ISBN 90-04-13158-2.
·
Fleming, D. (1993). "Baal and Dagan in
Ancient Syria", Zeitschrift für Assyriologie und Vorderasiatische
Archäologie 83, pp. 88–98.
·
Matthiae, Paolo (1977). Ebla: An
Empire Rediscovered. London: Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 0-340-22974-8.
·
Pettinato, Giovanni (1981). The
Archives of Ebla. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13152-6.
·
Singer, I. (1992). "Towards an Image
of Dagan, the God of the Philistines." Syria 69: 431-450.
·
This article incorporates text
from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed.
(1911). "Dagon" . Encyclopædia
Britannica. 7 (11th ed.). Cambridge University
Press.
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