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 / bll for “confusion” & “mingling”. blˁ also means “hiding” & “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 Greek boubalos for “buffalo”, loaned into Semitic as bwbl bubla. Baal as a storm god and bearer of thunderbolts was likely a pun with Greek belos meaning “dart”, “missile”, “bolt”, or perhaps with Semitic blˁ in the sense of “striking” & “destroying”.
- 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 perhaps a sun god (from ḥmn “sun-pillar” and ḥmh “heat” & “sun”) as his statue has a crown with rays. He is also a god of the underworld mentioned on gravestones (Aramaic hmn means “underworld”, perhaps from hmm “swept away”). But the name is also a variant of Noah’s son Ham, and can mean “lord of show” & “lord of appearances”.
- Tanit, written tnt, is a goddess of death found on gravestones (perhaps from šnt “sleep” or Greek thanatos “death”). But her name is also an Aramaic spelling of Semitic šnt snt / tnt, and means “change” & “disguise”. A possible secondary pun for the gravestones may be with ṭˁntˀ for “burden”, which can also mean “grief”, “crop”, “cargo”, linking to aspects like fertility or Carthaginian trade. Tanit is sometimes depicted with the head of a carnivore, which is likely a pun with ydntˀ “hyena”. She is associated with figs, because tˀntˀ means “fig”.
- 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”.
