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A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE*

By EYTHAN LEVY

This article discusses the Baal-Zaphon stele, a New Kingdom funerary stele from Ugarit, depicting a
certain Mamy worshipping the Levantine god Baal-Zaphon. The object, though well known since the
early twentieth century, lacks a recent detailed study. A new edition of the text is proposed here, based
on parallel inscriptions and on a personal inspection of the stele at the Louvre. It also incorporates a
fragment mentioned in 1938 by Montet but absent from subsequent editions of the text. Finally, the
article discusses the iconography of the stele, its parallels, and the ambiguous relationship between
Baal and Seth.
‫إيثان ليفى‬
‫ ذافون‬- ‫دراسة حديثة للوحة بعل‬

‫ تصور شخص يدعى مامى يتعبد أمام إله من المشرق‬،‫تناقش المقالة لوحة جنائزية ترجع لفترة الدولة الحديثة من منطقة أوجاريت‬
‫ تقترح المقالة‬.‫ ورغم ان اللوحة معروفة جيدا منذ بداية القرن العشرين إال أنها لم تحظى بدراسة مفصلة حديثة‬، ”‫“بعل – ذافون‬
‫ تضم هذة النسخة أيضا قطعة ذكرها‬،‫ وعلى فحص شخصى للوحة بمتحف اللوفر‬،‫نسخة جديدة للنص استناداً إلى نقوش مماثلة‬
‫ والعالقة الملتبسة‬،‫ ومثيالتها‬،‫ و ختاما تناقش المقالة رموز اللوحة‬.‫ ولكنها غير موجودة فى الطبعات الالحقة للنص‬1938 ‫مونتيه عام‬
‫بين المعبودين بعل وست‬

Introduction

The Baal-Zaphon stele (PM VII, 393–4, also known as the Mamy stele) is a New
Kingdom Egyptian funerary stele found in Ugarit, depicting an Egyptian official
named Mamy worshipping the Levantine god Baal-Zaphon.1 It is made of reddish
sandstone and measures 42 cm (height) by 25 cm (maximum width) by 7.3 cm (depth).2
It is currently on display at the Louvre Museum (AO 13176). The object is heavily
damaged and consists of two disjoined sets of fragments (see fig. 1 for the reconstitution
as visible today at the Louvre). The upper register depicts the god on the left and the
deceased on the right, with their respective names written in hieroglyphs above them.
Between them stand an Egyptian altar and a lotus flower. The lower register contains a
classical Htp(t)-di-nswt offering formula. The stele is part of the small corpus of private
Egyptian steles from the Levant depicting an Egyptian worshipping a local Levantine

*
The author would like to thank David Nunn, Arnaud Delhove, Aline Distexhe and two anonymous referees
for their helpful comments, as well as his father Jacques Levy for his help in obtaining quality photographs of the
stele. He also thanks the staff of the Department of Oriental Antiquities at the Louvre for their kind invitation to
examine the stele outside of visiting hours.
1
Baal is a well-known Levantine god from the Bronze and Iron Ages, made famous by the biblical
condemnations of his worship; he is also known through the mythological cuneiform tablets from Ugarit, in
which he plays a prominent role. Under his avatar of Baal-Zaphon he also appears in texts from Ugarit, where
Zaphon is the mountain of Baal’s abode. Baal-Zaphon is further mentioned in Egyptian sources in Papyrus
Sallier IV (LGG II, 778), in Phoenician in a papyrus from Saqqara (KAI 50:1–2) and in Akkadian sources (see
K. van der Toorn, B. Becking, and P. van der Horst (eds), Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (2nd edn;
Leiden, 1999), 152–3).
2
M. Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI: Arts et industries de la pierre (Paris, 1991), 280.

The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 100 (2014), 293–310


ISSN 0307-5133
294 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

Fig. 1. The Baal-Zaphon stele (courtesy of the Agence Photographique des Musées Nationaux).
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 295
god. Furthermore, its uniqueness lies in the fact that it constitutes, to the best of our
knowledge, the only existing named iconographic depiction of Baal, a god otherwise
well-known through aniconic inscriptions and anepigraphic iconography. However,
despite its importance, the stele still lacks a recent detailed study. Translations of
the complete inscription have been published by Montet,3 Stadelmann,4 and Gasse.5
Facsimiles of the text have been provided by Schaeffer6 (upper register only), Montet,7
Müller-Karpe,8 Gasse,9 and Eggler.10 The only recent study of the stele known to this
author is by Yon and Gasse,11 who, however, did not enter much into philological and
epigraphic details. This article proposes to fill this gap by presenting a new edition
of the text, based on a reconstitution of the lower register as a six-line inscription,
opposed to the seven-line reconstitution (published as early as 1939) visible today
at the Louvre. This six-line reconstitution, already proposed by Gasse12—though
without detailed arguments—is put forward here in the light of parallel inscriptions
and an additional fragment of the stele, mentioned in 1938 by Montet but absent from
subsequent editions. We end the article with a discussion of the iconography of the
stele and the relationship between Seth and Baal.

Text

This section presents a new edition of the stele, together with epigraphic notes and a
justification of our assemblage of the fragments in six lines. The edition is based on
the author’s inspection of the stele at the Louvre, and readings of difficult or badly
preserved signs are backed by detailed photographs (see fig. 2).
Upper register

3
P. Montet, ‘Recensions: Schaeffer, Virolleaud, Thureau-Dangin, La deuxième campagne de fouilles à
Ras- Schamra, extraits de Syria, 1931; La troisième campagne de fouilles à Ras-Schamra, extraits de Syria, 1932,
compte rendus des 4e, 5e, 6e et 7e campagnes dans les volumes XIV-XVII de Syria’, Kêmi 7 (1938), 183.
4
R. Stadelmann, Syrisch-palästinensische Gottheiten in Ägypten (PdE 5; Leiden, 1967), 38.
5
A. Gasse, ‘La stèle de Mamy: Les inscriptions’, in Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 287.
6
F.-A. C. Schaeffer, ‘Les fouilles de Minet-el-Beida et de Ras-shamra: Troisième campagne (printemps
1931): Rapport sommaire’, Syria 13 (1932), 25 (fig. 16).
7
Montet, Kêmi 7, 182.
8
H. Müller-Karpe, Handbuch der Vorgeschichte IV (München, 1980), pl. 148.4.
9
Gasse, in Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 328 (fig. 8.a).
10
J. Eggler, ‘Baal’, in ‘Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East’ (2007),
<http://www.religionswissenschaft.uzh.ch/idd/index.php> accessed 10.05.2013.
11
Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 284–8.
12
Gasse, in Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 287.
296 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100
Fig. 2. Digitally filtered close-ups of difficult signs (images by the author).

(a) ob (b) Seth lying (c) pr nswt

(d) nTr o# (e) rSwt (f) Xpr

(g) mnX (h) nDm (i) b|#t


2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 297
Above the god
bAr D#pwn# Baal-Zaphona.
Above the deceased
sS nswt |mj-r# pr n pr nswt m#mj m#o-Xrw The royal scribe, overseer of the
royal domainb, Mamyc, justified.
Lower register

(1) [Htp(t)-d|-nswt (n) bor] D#pwn# nTr o# d|.f (2) [n.k onX wD3 snb mrwt] &Hswt\ nDm-ib r[S]wt
[ro] nb (r) (3) Xpr(.k) &|m3X m\ [Htp n k# n Hsj n] nTr nfr mrwt n nb t#wj (4) Hr &b|#t.f \ […] [mH]
&|b\ mnX n nb.f (5) &sS\ nswt &|mj-r# pr\ […] m#mj m#o-Xrw (6) s# s#b sS wr n [|…]

(1) [Royal offering for Baal]-Zaphond, the greate god, that He may give (2) [you life,
power, health, lovef], ⌜honourg⌝, joyh and h[ap]pinnessi every ⌜day⌝, (3) (in order that
you may) reachj ⌜in⌝ [peace] ⌜the state of venerablek⌝. [For the ka of the honouredl
of the] Good God, the belovedm of the Lord of the Two Lands (4) thanks to ⌜his
qualitiesn⌝, [...] the efficiento,p [who rejoices] ⌜the heartq⌝ of his Master, (5) the royal
⌜scribe⌝, ⌜overseerr⌝ [...] Mamy, justified, (6) son of the dignitary, great scribe of
[I...]s.
Epigraphic notes
(a) The spelling of Baal-Zaphon in the upper register has been incorrectly rendered
in the facsimiles of Schaeffer (Seth sitting instead of lying), Gasse (wrong reading of the
first sign) and Eggler (wrong reading of the first and the last sign). The spelling given
here is that of Montet, confirmed by our examination of the stele at the Louvre and the
close-up photographs given in figs 2a and 2b. This spelling finds an exact parallel in the
theophoric name of one Maty-Baal (m#t|-bor) depicted in a private Ramesside-Period
funerary stele from Nubia.13

13
I. Cornelius, The Iconography of the Canaanite Gods Reshef and Baal (OBO 140; Fribourg, 1994), 66–7.
298 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

(b) The original facsimile by Schaeffer read |mj-r# pr n pr HD, a reading found in
most subsequent references. We rather follow the reading |mj-r# pr n pr nswt of the
facsimiles of Gasse and Eggler, which better fits the sign visible on the stele. Indeed, an
inspection of the stele with the naked eye clearly reveals two small leaves at the base of
the sign, and a slightly faded—but still visible—left curve at its top. These features are
confirmed by our detailed photograph (fig. 2c) and clearly correspond to the nswt sign.
Strangely, I have not been able to find other attestations of this title in the many lists
of administrative titles I consulted,14 although |mj-r# pr n pr + royal name is attested in
the New Kingdom.15 Other comparable titles are |mj-r# pr nswt, attested in the Old and
Middle Kingdom,16 and |mj-r# pr n nswt, attested in the New Kingdom.17
(c) Ranke’s Personennamen mentions several anthroponymic parallels to our Mamy.
Thus, the name (m#mj) is attested in the Old Kingdom,18 while the names
(mm|), and (mmj) are attested in the Old and Middle
19
Kingdom. Surprisingly, Ranke mentions no occurrences of these names in the New
Kingdom.
(d) The spelling of Baal-Zaphon restituted here matches the one of the upper
register, except for the determinative of the Sethian animal, which is depicted here
seated, instead of the recumbent position of the upper register.
(e) An inspection of the stele at the Louvre shows that the sign after nTr looks more like
nfr than o# (fig. 2d). Although o# is the typical sign expected here, the classical pharaonic
title nTr nfr is also attested for gods (Wb. II, 360, 1). Nevertheless, the presence of the
determinative of the papyrus scroll imposes a reading of the classical divine epithet nTr
o#.
(f) The restitution mrwt is conjectural, but finds many parallels in similar texts,
especially when associated with the following Hswt.20
(g) The reading Hswt is proposed by all authors and is certain, due to traces of
the upper part of the Hs sign, clearly visible in situ and in the picture of the Musées
Nationaux (fig. 1).
(h) My inspection of the stele at the Louvre shows that the sign before m looks
more like a H than a nDm (see also fig. 2h). Nevertheless, no lexeme Hm with this
spelling is known from the Wörterbuch, from Faulkner’s dictionary or Hannig’s Großes
Handwörterbuch. Furthermore, the reading nDm |b fits well with the next expression,
rSwt r# nb, as attested by parallels given by Barta.21 The reading nDm is thus certain,
with a probable scribal confusion between H and nDm.

14
The consulted titles include: LÄ; W. A. Ward, Index of Egyptian Administrative and Religious Titles
of the Middle Kingdom (Beirut, 1982); H. G. Fischer, Egyptian Titles of the Middle Kingdom (New York, 1985);
D. Doxey, Egyptian Non-Royal Epithets in the Middle Kingdom: A Social and Historical Analysis (PdE 12;
Leiden, 1998); D. Jones, An Index of Ancient Egyptian Titles, Epithets and Phrases of the Old Kingdom (Oxford,
2000); S. Quirke, Titles and Bureaux of Egypt 1850-1700 BC (London, 2004); A. R. al Ayedi, Index of Egyptian
Administrative, Religious and Military Titles of the New Kingdom (Ismailia, 2006).
15
E.g. imj-r# pr n pr #x-n-itn in the el-Amarna tomb of Ahmes (see al-Ayedi, Index, no. 162).
16
See Jones, Index, no. 482 and Ward, Index, no. 153.
17
See al-Ayedi, Index, no. 172.
18
H. Ranke, Die ägyptischen Personennamen I (Glückstadt, 1935), 145.
19
Ranke, Personennamen, 149.
20
See W. Barta, Aufbau und Bedeutung der altägyptischen Opferformel (Glückstadt, 1968), Bitte 122
(Stichwort: Hswt, mrwt, usw.).
21
See nDm |b rSwt ro nb (Barta, Aufbau, 97 n.8) and nDm |b ro nb (Barta, Aufbau, 150 n. 7).
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 299
(i) The word rSwt is heavily damaged (see fig. 2e). The S sign is completely erased by
a break in the stone, while only traces of the lower part of the w sign remain (see fig.
1). The final determinative is not entirely clear, though the typical small head of rSwt is
recognizable. This reconstitution seems secure, from the context as well as the available
parallels featuring the expression rSwt ro nb.22
(j) The first sign of line 3 is problematic. Its lower part looks like an #w sign, but
its upper part has three additional spots. On the other hand, its overall shape more
resembles the Xpr sign. Gasse renders it as a pH with two legs (see Wb. I, 535, 7).
Although pH is indeed the usual verb found in this position, a close examination of the
sign in situ (see also fig. 2f) shows that although its upper part does resemble pH, its
lower part looks exactly like #w, and not like legs. Furthermore, a pH followed by #w
does not seem to make sense. I prefer to follow here Eggler, who reads it as a Xpr sign.
Although less common than pH, Xpr is indeed attested in similar position.23
(k) Although the signs are slightly damaged, the reading of the classical expression
|m#X m [Htp] is virtually certain.
(l) The restitution Hs| is conjectural, but the expression Hs| n nTr nfr is attested in
countless parallels (a.o. Urk. IV, 404, 13 and KRI I, 314, 12). Furthermore, on at least
one occasion it is followed, as here, with a form of mr + n nb t#wj.24
(m) mrwt is to be understood here as ‘beloved’, rather than ‘love’ (see Wb. II, 102,
8–9).
(n) The reading b|#t.f here is certain (with even the thin horns of the f viper still
visible), although the left part of the determinative and possessive are not preserved.
The reading of the t sign is also certain (see fig. 2i). Eggler incorrectly here read an
N21 sign (tongue of land), yielding a spelling of b|#t, which is indeed attested in the
Wörterbuch, but only for the Greco-Roman period (Wb. I, 439, 9, 13; 442, 4–6).
(o) The reading mnX is certain and followed by all translations of the stele. Its
spelling—with two small signs below the n sign—is nevertheless less clear, as none of
the (non-exhaustive) spellings of mnX mentioned in the Wörterbuch seem to feature
two small signs before the determinative. Authors have hesitated between several
renderings: Montet omits the second small sign altogether, Eggler has X followed
by a thin long sign (probably a tongue of land), and Gasse has nw followed by X. A
careful inspection of the stele shows a perfectly round first sign (perfectly fitting a X for
example), followed by a hard-to-identify small, irregular, roundish sign, slightly larger
than the first sign (see fig. 2g). We have opted for Gasse’s reading nw + X, for lack of a
better option.
(p) A confusion seems to exist concerning the determinative of mnX used here:
authors have hesitated to choose between a short chisel U22 followed by a vertical
stroke Z1 (Eggler), or a long sign such as the cow skin F28 or the long chisel U23
(Montet, Gasse). My close inspection of the sign in situ led me to opt for the long chisel
U23, which also better fits both the picture of the Musées Nationaux, and my own
close-up (fig. 2g).

22
See Barta, Aufbau, 97 n.8, 122 n.8, 167 n.5.
23
See Barta, Aufbau, 148 n.3, which shows a funerary inscription with (di.sn) nmtt r st.s r Xpr im#X.
24
See Hs| n nTr nfr mrrt n nb t#wj in the tomb of Aperia (A.-P. Zivie, Découverte à Saqqarah: le vizir oublié
[Paris, 1990]).
300 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

(q) The reading |b seems certain, although the sign is slightly erased. The reading
mH is a restitution, attested by countless parallels in similar position, such as mH |b mnX
n nb t#wj (Urk. IV, 448, 7–8), mH |b mnX n nb.f (KRI I, 321, 14) and mH |b mnX n |tj (KRI
III, 2, 5). Furthermore, mH |b mnX is often accompanied by Hs| n nTr nfr (e.g. Urk. IV,
448, 7–8 and KRI I, 321, 14), which reinforces the restitution Hs| in the preceding line.
(r) We do not restitute n pr nswt after |mj-r# pr as in the upper register, because of
a clear trace, visible in situ, of a concave horizontal sign at this point, most probably
belonging to an r, yielding a possible reading |mj-r# pr wr (with a wr bird followed by r).
(s) The | sign is followed by traces of three horizontal signs. It is tempting to identify
the first two as the end of |mn, as did Montet and Gasse. The third horizontal sign
could then be an n, as in the title sS wr n |mn n pr-|mn.25
Assembling the fragments
The first reconstitution of the stele by Montet consisted of five lines of text26 (fig.
3a). Montet later announced the discovery of two additional fragments and proposed
a new five-line facsimile27 (fig. 3b). The current seven-line reconstitution of the stele
(fig. 1) was published the following year by Schaeffer,28 but lacked one of Montet’s
two new fragments. This fragment, bearing the words m#mj m#o Xrw, is also absent
from subsequent editions of the stele. Its very existence has been questioned at times,
with Gasse wondering whether the words m#mj m#o Xrw should not rather be seen as a
restitution by Montet lacking the traditional hashed lines.29 We believe, nevertheless,
that the fragment is original, for the following reasons: (1) Montet explicitly mentions
two new fragments in his article while a comparison of figs. 1 and 3 clearly shows
that only one new fragment is visible today, (2) the second fragment is not shown by
Montet with the hashed lines he typically puts in his own restitutions, as in line 1
of his facsimile, (3) in his translation, Montet does not include the required square
brackets around the words Mamy, Justifié, while he does use them elsewhere in his
translation for restituted elements. All these arguments lead us to conclude that the
second fragment did indeed exist, but was probably lost some time before 1939, hence
its omission in subsequent publications.
We now argue in favour of a six-line reconstitution of the stele, instead of the
seven-line reconstitution visible at the Louvre. Such a reconstitution has already been
proposed by Gasse,30 though she did not fully develop her arguments. As we shall show,
Montet’s second fragment is necessary in order to decide between a six-line and a longer
reconstitution. To illustrate this, we will first show that the inscription must have had
at least six lines. We then show that, although the present state of the stele also permits
longer reconstitutions, Montet’s lost fragment imposes a six-line reconstitution.
Any reconstitution of the inscription should start by fixing the place of the missing
n k# n separating the offering list from the list of the deceased’s epithets. Clearly, the
nDm |b rSwt ro nb at the end of line 2 belongs to the offering list (see parallels in our

25
See al-Ayedi, Index, no. 156.
26
F. Schaeffer, ‘Les fouilles de Minet el-Beida et de Ras-Shamra: Deuxième campagne (printemps 1930):
Rapport sommaire’, Syria 12 (1931), pl. vi.
27
Montet, Kêmi 7, 182.
28
C. F. A. Schaeffer, Ugaritica I (Paris, 1939), 40 (fig. 30).
29
Gasse, in Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 287.
30
Gasse, in Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 287.
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 301
epigraphic notes above), hence the n k# n cannot occur before line 3. On the other hand,
the [...] nTr nfr mrwt n nb t#wj at the end of line 3 is typical of epithets of the dead (see
epigraphic notes) and seems untypical for offering lists (no mrwt n nb t#wj appears in
the offering lists collected by Barta). We may thus conclude that the n k# n occurred
somewhere on line 3. The next question is where to align the Xpr im#X m Htp of the
right-hand part of the stele. Putting it on line 2 would result in placing the subsequent
Hr b|#t.f, a classical part of the epithet list, at the beginning of line 3, hence before the
n k# n, which is impossible. The right-side fragment thus begins at line 3 or lower, and
the inscription thus comprised at least 6 lines.

Fig. 3a. Early reconstitutions of the Baal-Zaphon stele: five-line reconstitution


(Schaeffer, Syria 12, pl. vi; courtesy of the Institut Français du Proche-Orient).
302 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

Fig. 3b. Early reconstructions of the Ball-Zephon stele: Montet’s 1938 facsimile (Montet, Kêmi 7, 182;
courtesy of Geuthner).
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 303
We complete the proof by showing that the inscription had exactly six lines. The
expression Xpr im#X m Htp would fit perfectly on line 3, at the end of the offering list,
just prior to n k# n, as shown by the parallels mentioned in the preceding section. This
would immediately imply a six-line reconstitution of the text in a natural and elegant
way. Alternatively, the Xpr im#X m Htp could be placed lower than line 3, as part of the
list of epithets, hence implying more than six lines of text (this possibility—with pH
instead of Xpr—is shown by the statue of the royal scribe Amenhotep (BM EA 632),
which has n k# n s#b |mj wrt nb qrs pH |m#xj |mj-r# pr wr n nswt). It thus seems that the
inner data of the stele as visible today does not enable us to fix the number of lines.
Nevertheless, Montet’s lost fragment shows that the second option above would result
in the epithet sS nswt |mj-r# pr [...] (penultimate line of the right fragment) occurring
after Montet’s m#mj m#o Xrw (line 5), a very awkward position since the name of the
deceased, followed by m#o Xrw, usually closes the list of epithets. We thus conclude that
Xpr im#X m Htp occurred at the beginning of line 3, directly followed by n k# n, which
induces a reconstitution in six lines. This reconstitution of the text has the advantage
of integrating Montet’s lost fragment, and makes the restitutions fit perfectly in the
available empty space. Furthermore, its feasibility is confirmed by the many parallels
quoted above in our epigraphic notes.

Iconography

This section discusses the iconography of the stele, and in particular the iconography
of the god, which finds several parallels in other New Kingdom steles. We discuss
these parallels and propose some tentative reconstructions of damaged iconographical
features.
Description
The iconographical programme of the stele consists of three parts: the god to the left,
the altar and lotus flower at the centre, and the deceased to the right. While the central
unit and the deceased are almost complete, the body of the god is largely missing:
only his head, shoulders, feet and left arm are preserved. The headdress and pleated
garb of the deceased are typically Egyptian, as well as his posture of adoration, with
both hands raised towards the god. Nothing in his representation seems to indicate
a possible non-Egyptian origin. Between the god and the deceased stands a classical
Egyptian altar with a lotus flower above it. A second lotus flower, almost completely
erased, appears to the right of the first one, raising near the right knee of the deceased
and partly overlapping the first one. This flower might have belonged to a first phase
of the iconographic project that was later (incompletely) erased.
In contrast to the conventional depiction of the deceased, the features of the god are
not typical of Egyptian deities. In fact, as we shall see in the following section, they are
those of a particular New Kingdom depiction of Seth, known to us through several
reliefs. The god appears barefooted, and holds a w#s sceptre in his left hand. The details
of his face are clearly visible on the photograph from the Musées Nationaux (fig. 1):
the eyes, nose, lips, ears and beard are clearly visible and neatly executed, and a band
can be seen around the forehead. The most peculiar feature of the god is his headdress,
made of a conical tiara with a long ribbon descending to the heels and ending in a
lotus-like flower shape. The god also wears chest bands, traces of which are still visible
304 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

on his right shoulder. He possibly has horns, though this is debated, as horns are not
unequivocally visible on the stele. Finally, a half-round feature protrudes from the
body of the god, at the right side of the lacuna, roughly below waist level. This feature
will be discussed below, as well as the possible presence of horns.
Fig. 4. Four representations of the Asiatic Seth.

a. Stele Ashmolean E. 714 (A. H. Gardiner and T. E. b. 400-year stele (W. Wettengel, Die Erzählung von
Peet, Inscriptions of Sinai, I (London, 1917), pl. lxxix; den beiden Brüdern (OBO 195; Fribourg, 2003),
courtesy of the Egypt Exploration Society). frontispiece; courtesy of the BIBLE+ORIENT
Foundation).

c. Stele Berlin 8440 (L. H. Vincent, ‘Le Ba‘al d. Stela Berlin 7265 (Cornelius, Iconography, pl. 38;
cananéen de Beisan et sa parèdre’, Revue biblique 37 courtesy of the BIBLE+ORIENT Foundation).
(1928), pl. xxiv.10; courtesy of the École Biblique et
Archéologique Française de Jérusalem).
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 305
The Sethian parallel
This section describes the closest iconographic parallel to Baal-Zaphon, namely the
Egyptian god Seth as he appears in a particular New Kingdom set of depictions, in an
attire usually described as ‘Asiatic’.
The ‘Asiatic Seth’. We call ‘Asiatic Seth’ a god appearing under the name of Seth
in several New Kingdom Egyptian reliefs, but having iconographic characteristics very
different from those of the traditional deity, and generally qualified as ‘Asiatic’. His
attributes are : (1) a conical tiara, (2) a long ribbon attached to the top of the tiara
and usually ending in a lotus-like flower, (3) horns, (4) an onX cross in one hand, (5) a
w#s sceptre in the other, (6) a beard. Cornelius31 counts six Egyptian reliefs where the
Asiatic Seth is explicitly named, and about ten parallel anepigraphic or deteriorated
reliefs. In five of the six named cases, Seth is named with the sole ideogram of the
Sethian animal, and only one case features phonetic elements as well (stele Berlin 7265,
fig. 4d). None of these reliefs is prior to the Nineteenth Dynasty.32 Fig. 4a shows the
most typical representation of the Asiatic Seth, in a stele from Serabit el-Khadim.
This representation features all six above-mentioned iconographic traits. Fig. 4 shows
three further examples of the Asiatic Seth. We see that, with few exceptions, the
above-mentioned characteristics appear in all examples. The Asiatic Seth is the closest
iconographic parallel to Baal-Zaphon. Four of the six characteristics of the Asiatic
Seth are directly mirrored in Baal-Zaphon (tiara, ribbon, w#s sceptre and beard), while
the presence of the remaining two (onX cross and horns) is possible but not certain (see
discussion below).
To be or not to be . . . Seth. Some confusion seems to exist concerning the
identification of the Asiatic Seth. In early research, this god was often considered as an
Asiatic god named ‘Sutekh, son of Nut’, a homonym of the Egyptian Seth but clearly
distinct from him. Vincent quotes several early authorities supporting this view, such
as Budge, Müller, Petrie, Maspero, Breasted and Lagrange.33 This view has since then
been abandoned in favour of the view that these steles indeed represent the Egyptian
god Seth, but appearing in an Asiatic Baalic shape, thus te Velde in the ‘Seth’ entry of
the Lexicon der Ägyptologie: ‘Seth [was] not just lord of Upper Egypt but lord of foreign
countries and the desert. As such he may easily be represented as a foreigner in exotic
costume, as a Baal, wearing not an Egyptian crown, but a conical tiara with horns and
sun.’ (LÄ V, 910). The links between Seth and Baal are, in fact, numerous: all Egyptian
spellings of Baal mentioned in Leitz’s Lexikon (with the exception of some compound
names as Baal-Schamem) contain the determinative of the Sethian animal (LGG II,
778, under ‘bar’). Furthermore, as the god of foreign lands, Seth sometimes translates
as the Egyptian name of foreign deities, as in the Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty signed
under Ramesses II, where the foreign gods are named ‘Seth of Hatti’ and ‘Seth of
Aleppo’, among others.34 This seems to indicate that, from an Egyptian point of view,
these foreign divinities were Seth, just as Jupiter was Zeus. Furthermore, some royal
Ramesside inscriptions explicitly link the two gods, such as the ‘poem’ of the battle of
Kadesh, (KRI II, 53), where Ramesses II’s enemies shout at his sight:

31
Cornelius, Iconography, 135–54.
32
Cornelius, Iconography, 242.
33
L. H. Vincent, ‘Le Ba‘al cananéen de Beisan et sa parèdre’, Revue biblique 37 (1928), 515.
34
J. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1969), 201
306 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

‘He is no mere man, he that is among us!—(it’s) Seth great of power, (very) Baal in
person!’35 This proximity between Seth and Baal has led some authors to minimize
the Sethian aspect of the Asiatic Seth—for example Cornelius, who explicitly says
concerning the 400-year stele: ‘This is not Seth, but Baal.’36 This extreme view seems
not to have been shared by most authors, who still refer to the god as ‘Seth’37 or ‘Seth-
Baal’.38 In my opinion, the only positive argument that could be put forward for a
reading of ‘Baal’ on depictions of the Asiatic Seth is the purely ideographic writing of
Seth often found on reliefs. Indeed, as mentioned above, Seth is spelled with the sole
ideogram of the Sethian animal in five out of his six named depictions. Furthermore,
the possibility of a reading of ‘Baal’ of the sole Sethian determinative seems to appear
in the ‘bulletin’ of the battle of Kadesh (KRI II, 120), as noted by Tazawa.39 Indeed,
some recensions of this text (pylon and court of Ramesses II in Luxor) have ‘he was
like Seth in his moment of power’, with a purely ideographic spelling of Seth, while
others (Ramesseum and Abu Simbel) have the same text with Baal written phonetically.
There is, however, one named depiction of the Asiatic Seth that explicitly spells swtX
by adding uniliterals to the Sethian determinative (stele Berlin 7265, fig. 4d), hence
the reading Seth remains totally justified. All these observations show that, from an
Egyptian point of view, the two divinities were closely associated, even identified.40 I
believe, however, that there is little need denying the Sethian character of the Asiatic
Seth, especially from an Egyptian viewpoint, as shown by the phonetic spelling of stele
Berlin 7265, and the well-known identification of local and foreign gods in polytheistic
religions. The refusal to see Seth in these depictions seems to stem from a typically
modern binary classification of data, which is fundamentally alien to ancient thought.
Caution thus seems to counsel keeping the reading of ‘Seth’ for any god written with
the sole Sethian determinative. Hence, against Cornelius’ bold assertion, ‘This is not
Seth, but Baal’, we might oppose: ‘This is Baal, thus Seth’.
Reconstructions
This section discusses the original execution of the right hand of the god, as well as the
possible presence of horns.
The right hand of the god. Since most depictions of the ‘Asiatic Seth’—our
closest iconographic parallel to Baal-Zaphon—depict the god holding an onX cross in
one of his hands, many authors41 assume that Baal-Zaphon, too, held such an object in
his right hand. We suggest here an alternative restoration of the iconographic lacuna,
with Baal-Zaphon instead carrying a weapon (fig. 5). We have noted above a half-round
feature protruding from the body of the god, to the right of the lacuna, roughly below

35
K. Tazawa, Syro-Palestinian Deities in New Kingdom Egypt (Oxford, 2009), 29.
36
Cornelius, Iconography, 148.
37
H. te Velde, Seth, God of Confusion (Leiden, 1977), 118–35.
38
Tazawa, Deities, 115; T. Schneider, ‘A Theophany of Seth-Baal in the Tempest Stele’, Egypt and the
Levant 20 (2010), 405-409.
39
Tazawa, Deities, 29 n.137.
40
According to Allon, who published a detailed diachronic study of the use of the Seth determinative,
the identification of Seth with Baal was bidirectional: ‘But it wasn’t just Baal who was identified with Seth, but
also Seth was identified with Baal, in a clear case of cultural appropriation.’ (N. Allon, ‘Seth is Baal: Evidence
from the Egyptian Script’, Egypt and the Levant 17 [2007], 20). This modern view seems more balanced than a
mere denial of the sethian character of the god, as it takes into account both the sethian and baalic aspects of the
divinity.
41
E.g. Yon (ed.), Ras Shamra-Ougarit VI, 286.
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 307
waist level. This feature might well be the remains of an axe-like weapon, as shown
in our reconstitution. Although the Asiatic Seth is usually depicted with an onX cross
accompanying the w#s sceptre, an example where the god holds both a w#s sceptre and
a XpS scimitar is known (stele Cairo JE 8887942)43, thus indicating the possibility of
combining sceptre and weapon.

Fig. 5. A reconstitution of Baal-Zaphon’s right arm (drawing by the author).

Horns. Most depictions of the Asiatic Seth feature horns, hence the question arises
as to whether Baal-Zaphon is depicted with horns on our stele. Leibovitch provides
a facsimile of the god featuring two small horns attached to the god’s forehead, and
mentions ‘traces de ce qui semble être deux cornes’,44 but no horns appear on the
facsimiles of Montet, Müller-Karpe, Gasse, and Eggler. Unfortunately, this issue is
hard to decide, as the details of the stele are not easily visible to the naked eye, but
my inspection of the stele at the Louvre led me to suspect the presence of a feature
42
Cornelius, Iconography, 145–6.
43
The name of the god has not been preserved on this stele, but its iconography fits perfectly an
identification with the Asiatic Seth, and this identification is favoured by Cornelius, who, however, also notes a
possibility, though less likely, that the stele represents Reshef, another Levantine deity often represented in New
Kingdom reliefs, with iconogaphic features very close to those of the Asiatic Seth (Cornelius, Iconography, 146).
44
J. Leibovitch, ‘Recension de B. Grdseloff, Les débuts du culte de Reshef en Egypte, Le Caire, 1942’,
ASAE 40 (1942), 440.
308 EYTHAN LEVY JEA 100

between the forehead of the god and the vertical line of the last column of hieroglyphs,
though of a different shape than Leibovitch’s two small horns. My detailed photographs
are shown in fig. 6, highlighting a rectangular zone situated slightly above the god’s
eyebrows. This zone seems to feature two oblique and slightly curved parallel lines that
might have been part of horns or some horn-like feature. Their presence at this spot
could help explain why the engraver did not prolong the leftmost vertical column all the
way down until the last hieroglyph. Although these two curved lines do not resemble
the usual horns present on depictions of the Asiatic Seth, they do find a parallel in the
gazelle horns visible on some depictions of Reshef (see fig. 6), a Levantine god often
depicted in New Kingdom steles and of an iconography quite similar to the Asiatic

Fig. 6. Possible traces of horns on the Baal-Zaphon stele.

A. Head of Baal-Zaphon (photograph by the B. Possible traces of


author). horns (photograph by the author).

C. Tentative highlighting D. Reshef’s horns on stele OIC 10569


of visible lines (drawing by the author). (Cornelius, Iconography, pl. 5; courtesy of the
BIBLE+ORIENT Foundation).
2014 A FRESH LOOK AT THE BAAL-ZAPHON STELE 309
Seth’s.45 Unfortunately though, the bad state of preservation of the stele does not
allow us to provide a more detailed description of this feature, nor to decide if it really
represents horns or rather some other element such as a uraeus or a head of the Seth
animal.46

Conclusion

The Baal-Zaphon stele is a unique document in the history of ancient Near Eastern
religion, as it constitutes the only named depiction of a Baal and, as such, the most
secure starting point for the identification of Baal in other reliefs, statues and seals.
As we have seen above, Egyptological iconographic parallels to the stele are known
from the New Kingdom, in reliefs identifying the god as Seth. This points towards
the particular situation of the New Kingdom, when foreign gods were becoming
extremely popular in Egypt, even appearing as protectors of the pharaoh in Ramesside
iconography and texts. Other Levantine divinities were similarly popular among New
Kingdom royalty as well as private individuals. Among male deities, the best known
counterpart to Baal-Zaphon is Reshef, a god whose iconography is very similar to that
of Baal-Zaphon, and who is explicitly named and depicted on several New Kingdom
reliefs.47 Among female deities, Anat and Astarte are the best known popular Levantine
goddesses in this period, and are often quoted in royal inscriptions, especially in the
Ramesside Period.48
The Baal-Zaphon stele belongs to the very small corpus of private Egyptian steles
found in the Levant and featuring local Levantine gods. If we exclude the mining
regions of Sinai and southern Negev, only three other such steles are known, all from
Beth Shean in northern Palestine: (1) the Mekal stele, featuring a certain Imenemipet
adoring an otherwise unknown deity called ‘Mekal, god of Beth Shean’ (PM VII, p.
377), (2) a stele depicting a certain Hesi-Nakht adoring the goddess Anat (PM VII,
379), and (3) an unfinished stele depicting an individual adoring a horned goddess,
most probably Astarte (PM VII, 377). The last of these steles features engraved
columns and traces of painted hieroglyphs, but the engraving of its text has never been
completed. The genre of the Baal-Zaphon stele thus consists of only a very limited
set of objects, from only two different provenances. They are usually understood as
the works of genuine Egyptians, either locally stationed in the Levant, or Egyptian
residents who had steles sent to the original Levantine temples of these popular foreign
deities. Nevertheless, the question as to whether the individuals depicted on these steles
might rather be local Levantines, belonging to an Egyptianized elite and appearing in
Egyptian garb, cannot be avoided, but seems to remain an open problem in the current
state of research.

45
See Cornelius, Iconography, ch. 4, for a summary of Reshef’s iconographic features.
46
According to Cornelius, Reshef’s crown sometimes features a uraeus, while Baal’s crown is sometimes
adorned with the head of the Seth animal (Cornelius, Iconography, 247).
47
Cornelius, Iconography, 25–87.
48
I. Cornelius, The Many Faces of the Goddess (OBO 204; Fribourg, 2004), 85.

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