Punny names of Phoenician gods
The names of practically all Phoenician gods seem to be puns. Almost all Phoenician art & scripture has been censured away, but with only the name left, these pun-meanings are often more apparent than what would have been the official meaning.
This is just an inexhaustive list for note-taking. Most of the god names warrant further examination.
- Baal, written bˁl , means “lord” & “owner”, but puns with blˁ for “confusion” & “mingling”. blˁ also means “disappearing”, and b-lˀ means “non-existence”. The unsubstantiated propaganda horror stories of Carthaginian Baal statues swallowing children as tribute are likely a pun with bhl / blh for “frighten”, blˁ for “swallowing”, blw for “tribute”. The actual rites probably originated from a pun with ˀbl “mourning”, i.e. already dead children were cremated, as excavations have shown. Baal was depicted as a bull, perhaps a pun with ywbl for “ram” which generally meant “leader animal”.
- Melqart, written ml-qrt , is officially interpreted as mlk-qrt for “king of the town”, which may be a homonym pun with mlk-qrd for “(fur) covered governor”, or a synonym pun with dbr-kpr for “hidden ruler”.
- Dagon, written dgn , depicted with a fish cloak, means “fish” & “grain”, but puns with Egyptian dg for “cloaking” & “concealing”, and possibly with Semitic dgl for “spying”.
- Baal-Tsaphon, written bˁl-ṣpn , means “lord of the North”, but also “hidden lord”, and puns with bˁl-zpn for “lord of deception”.
- Baal-Malage, written bˁl-mlg , means “lord of the interior”, but puns with bˁl-m-lˁg for “lord of mockery”.
- Baal-Hadad, written bˁl-hdd and depicted with a lightning spear, puns with bˁl-ḥdd as “lord of sharpness” or “lord of deception”.
- Baal-Hamon, written bˁl-ḥmn , is a variant of Noah’s son Ham, and can mean “lord of show” & “lord of appearances”.
- Tanit, written tnt , is an Aramaic spelling of Semitic šnt & Semitic snt , and means “disguise”.
- Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtarot, written ˁštr and depicted in the nude, puns with str for “concealment” & “privy”.
- Baal-Shamen means “lord of the heavens”, but when written bˁl-šmm puns with bˁl-šˁmm for “lord of confounding”, and as bˁl-šmn puns with bˁl-ṭmn for “lord of hiding”.
- Eshmun, written ˁšmn , is identified with Asklepios for his pun with smn for “medicine”, but he also puns with ˁšm for “oppression”, šˁmm for “confounding”, ṭmn for “hiding”.