Syria
Syria the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon to the southwest, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, Israel to the southwest. A country of fertile plains, high mountains, deserts, Syria is home to diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Syrian Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Circassians and Turks. Religious groups include Sunnis, Alawites, Isma'ilis, Shiites, Salafis and Jews. Sunni make up the largest religious group in Syria. Syria is a unitary republic consisting of 14 governorates and is the only country that politically espouses Ba'athism, it is a member of one international organization other than the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement. In English, the name "Syria" was synonymous with the Levant, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the 3rd millennium BC. Aleppo and the capital city Damascus are among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
In the Islamic era, Damascus was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt. The modern Syrian state was established in mid-20th century after centuries of Ottoman and a brief period French mandate, represented the largest Arab state to emerge from the Ottoman-ruled Syrian provinces, it gained de-jure independence as a parliamentary republic on 24 October 1945, when Republic of Syria became a founding member of the United Nations, an act which ended the former French Mandate – although French troops did not leave the country until April 1946. The post-independence period was tumultuous, a large number of military coups and coup attempts shook the country in the period 1949–71. In 1958, Syria entered a brief union with Egypt called the United Arab Republic, terminated by the 1961 Syrian coup d'état; the republic was renamed into the Arab Republic of Syria in late 1961 after December 1 constitutional referendum, was unstable until the 1963 Ba'athist coup d'état, since which the Ba'ath Party has maintained its power.
Syria was under Emergency Law from 1963 to 2011 suspending most constitutional protections for citizens. Bashar al-Assad has been president since 2000 and was preceded by his father Hafez al-Assad, in office from 1971 to 2000. Since March 2011, Syria has been embroiled in an armed conflict, with a number of countries in the region and beyond involved militarily or otherwise; as a result, a number of self-proclaimed political entities have emerged on Syrian territory, including the Syrian opposition, Tahrir al-Sham and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Syria is ranked last on the Global Peace Index, making it the most violent country in the world due to the war, although life continues for most of its citizens as of December 2017; the war caused more than 470,000 deaths, 7.6 million internally displaced people and over 5 million refugees, making population assessment difficult in recent years. Several sources indicate that the name Syria is derived from the 8th century BC Luwian term "Sura/i", the derivative ancient Greek name: Σύριοι, Sýrioi, or Σύροι, Sýroi, both of which derived from Aššūrāyu in northern Mesopotamia.
However, from the Seleucid Empire, this term was applied to The Levant, from this point the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant. Mainstream modern academic opinion favours the argument that the Greek word is related to the cognate Ἀσσυρία, Assyria derived from the Akkadian Aššur; the Greek name appears to correspond to Phoenician ʾšr "Assur", ʾšrym "Assyrians", recorded in the 8th century BC Çineköy inscription. The area designated by the word has changed over time. Classically, Syria lies at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, between Arabia to the south and Asia Minor to the north, stretching inland to include parts of Iraq, having an uncertain border to the northeast that Pliny the Elder describes as including, from west to east, Commagene and Adiabene. By Pliny's time, this larger Syria had been divided into a number of provinces under the Roman Empire: Judaea renamed Palaestina in AD 135 in the extreme southwest.
Since 10,000 BC, Syria was one of the centers of Neolithic culture where agriculture and cattle breeding appeared for the first time in the world. The following Neolithic period is represented by rectangular houses of Mureybet culture. At the time of the pre-pottery Neolithic, people used vessels made of stone and burnt lime. Finds of obsidian tools from Anatolia are evidences of early trade relations. Cities of Hamoukar and Emar played an important role during Bronze Age. Archaeologists have demonstrated that civilization in Syria was one of the most ancient on earth preceded by only those of Mesopotamia; the earliest recorded in
Moloch
Moloch is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice. The name of this deity is sometimes spelled Molech, Milcom, or Malcam; the name Moloch results from a dysphemic vocalisation in the Second Temple period of a theonym based on the root mlk, "king". There are a number of Canaanite gods with names based on this root, which became summarily associated with Moloch, including biblical מַלְכָּם Malkam "Great King", which appears to refer to a god of the Ammonites, as well as Tyrian Melqart and others. Rabbinical tradition depicted Moloch as a bronze statue heated with fire into which the victims were thrown; this has been associated with reports by Greco-Roman authors on the child sacrifices in Carthage to Baal Hammon since archaeological excavations since the 1920s have produced evidence for child sacrifice in Carthage as well as inscriptions including the term MLK, either a theonym or a technical term associated with sacrifice. In interpretatio graeca, the Phoenician god was identified with Cronus, due to the parallel mytheme of Cronus devouring his children.
Otto Eissfeldt in 1935 argued that mlk was not to be taken as a theonym at all but as a term for a type of fire sacrifice, that *lĕmōlek "as a molk-sacrifice" had been reinterpreted as the name of a Canaanite idol following the Deuteronomic reform under Josiah. According to Eissfeldt, this 7th-century reform abolished the child sacrifice, happening. Moloch has been used figuratively in English literature from John Milton's Paradise Lost to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", to refer to a person or thing demanding or requiring a costly sacrifice. Biblical Hebrew מלך stands for מֶלֶךְ melek "king", but when vocalized as מֹלֶךְ mōlek in the Masoretic Text, it has been traditionally understood as a proper name. While the received Masoretic text dates to the Middle Ages, the existence of the form Ancient Greek: Μολοχ in the Septuagint establishes that the distinction dates to the Second Temple period. Moloch has been traditionally interpreted as the name of a god a god surnamed "the king", but pejoratively mispronounced as Molek instead of Melek, using the vocalisation of Hebrew בּשֶׁת bosheth "shame", distinguishing it from the title of melek "king", written identically in the consonantal text, frequently given to Yahweh.
Thus, in Psalm 5:3, the מלכי mlk-y of the Hebrew text is vocalized מַלְכִּי malk-ī and translated ὁ βασιλεύς μου in the Septuagint. The name of the god of the Ammonites is given as מַלְכָּם malkam,) rendered as Milcom in KJV. In 1 Kings 11:7, לְמֹלֶךְ שִׁקֻּץ בְּנֵי עַמֹּֽון, the Septuagint has τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν εἰδώλῳ υἱῶν Αμμων, while in 1 Kings 11:33 לְמִלְכֹּם אֱלֹהֵי בְנֵֽי־עַמֹּון is translated τῷ βασιλεῖ αὐτῶν προσοχθίσματι υἱῶν Αμμων; the vocalization Molek occurs eight times in the Masoretic Text, predominantly in Leviticus: Leviticus 18:21 "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD." Leviticus 20:2: "Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech. Leviticus 20:3: "And I will set my face against that man, will cut him off from among his people. Leviticus 20:4: "And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, kill him not" Leviticus 20:5: "Then I will set my face against that man, against his family, will cut him off, all that go a whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people."Two further occurrences connect the practice with Tophet, a place of sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom: 2 Kings 23:10: "And he defiled Topheth, in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech."
Jeremiah 32:35: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin."The practice of "passing through fire" associated with the name Moloch in the citations above occurs without reference to Moloch in Deuteronomy 18:10–13, 2 Kings 16:3 and 21:6 and Ezekiel 20:26,31 and 23:37. Isaiah 30:33 has the vocalization melek, but this is accepted as an omission of the Masoretic correctors: "For Tophet is ordained of old. On the other hand, while 1 Kings 11:7 has the vocalization Molek, in "Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon", this is accepted as an error for Malkam, the Ammonite idol; the Septuagint uses Μολοχ three times, rendere
El (deity)
’Ēl is a Northwest Semitic word meaning "god" or "deity", or referring to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ` ila, represents the predicate form in Amorite; the word is derived from the Proto-Semitic archaic biliteral ʾ‑l, meaning "god". Specific deities known as ʾEl or ʾIl include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. Cognate forms are found throughout the Semitic languages, they include Ugaritic ʾilu, pl. ʾlm. In northwest Semitic use, El was both a generic word for any god and the special name or title of a particular god, distinguished from other gods as being "the god". El is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, El played a role of creation. However, because the word sometimes refers to a god other than the great god Ēl, it is ambiguous as to whether Ēl followed by another name means the great god Ēl with a particular epithet applied or refers to another god entirely.
For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean "Ēl the King" but ʾil hd as "the god Hadad". The Semitic root ʾlh may be ʾl with a parasitic h, ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning "gods" is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm "powers". In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for "god" by biblical commentators; however the documentary hypothesis developed in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors - Jahwist, Elohist and the Priestly source - were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis; the stem ʾl is found prominently in the earliest strata of east Semitic, northwest Semitic, south Semitic groups. Personal names including the stem ʾl are found with similar patterns in both Amorite and Sabaic—which indicates that already in Proto-Semitic ʾl was both a generic term for "god" and the common name or title of a single particular god.
The Egyptian god Ptah is given the title ḏū gitti'Lord of Gath' in a prism from Tel Lachish which has on its opposite face the name of Amenhotep II. The title ḏū gitti is found in Serābitṭ text 353. Cross points out that Ptah is called the Lord of eternity and thinks it may be this identification of ʼĒl with Ptah that lead to the epithet ’olam'eternal' being applied to ʼĒl so early and so consistently. A Phoenician inscribed amulet of the seventh century BCE from Arslan Tash may refer to ʼĒl; the text was translated by Rosenthal as follows: However, Cross translated the text as follows: In some inscriptions, the name ’Ēl qōne ’arṣ meaning "ʼĒl creator of Earth" appears including a late inscription at Leptis Magna in Tripolitania dating to the second century. In Hittite texts, the expression becomes the single name Ilkunirsa, this Ilkunirsa appearing as the husband of Asherdu and father of 77 or 88 sons. In a Hurrian hymn to ʼĒl, he is called ’il brt and ’il dn, which Cross takes as'ʼĒl of the covenant' and'ʼĒl the judge' respectively.
Amorite inscriptions from Sam'al refer to numerous gods, sometimes by name, sometimes by title by such titles as Ilabrat'God of the people', ʾil abīka "God of your father", ʾil abīni "God of our father" and so forth. Various family gods are recorded, divine names listed as belonging to a particular family or clan, sometimes by title and sometimes by name, including the name ʾil "God". In Amorite personal names, the most common divine elements are ʾil "God", Hadad/Adad, Dagan, it is that ʾil is very the god called in Akkadian texts Amurru or ʾil ʾamurru. For the Canaanites and the ancient Levantine region as a whole, Ēl or Il was the supreme god, the father of mankind and all creatures, he fathered many gods, most Hadad and Mot, each sharing similar attributes to the Greco-Roman gods: Zeus and Hades respectively. As recorded on the clay tablets of Ugarit, El is the husband of the goddess Asherah. Three pantheon lists found at Ugarit begin with the four gods ’il-’ib, Ēl, Ba’l Ṣapān. Though Ugarit had a large temple dedicated to Dagon and another to Hadad, there was no temple dedicated to Ēl.
Ēl is called again Tôru ` Ēl. He is bātnyu binwāti, ’abū banī ’ili, ‘abū ‘adami, he is qāniyunu ‘ôlam, the epithet ‘ôlam appearing in Hebrew form in the Hebrew name of God ’ēl ‘ôlam "God Eternal" in Genesis 21.33. He is ḥātikuka. Ēl is the grey-bearded ancient one, full of wisdom, malku, ’abū šamīma, ’El gibbōr. He is named lṭpn of unknown meaning, variously rendered as Latpan, Latipan, or Lutpani. "El" and his major son: "Hadad"
Weather god
A weather god frequently known as a storm god, is a deity in mythology associated with weather phenomena such as thunder, rain, wind and hurricanes. Should they only be in charge of one feature of a storm, they will be called a god/goddess, such as a rain god or a lightning/thunder god; this singular attribute might be emphasized more than the generic, all-encompassing term "storm god", though with thunder/lightning gods, the two terms seem interchangeable. They feature in polytheistic religions. In the Indo-European, Near Eastern, Mesopotamian traditions, the storm/thunder god is made into the head of the pantheon after eclipsing the sky god, the original king of the gods, in popularity; this is detectable in Indo-European since the sky/chief god has a name that means "Sky Father", Dyeus Phter. If the chief god has a name unrelated to the "Dyeus" etymon, like Perkwunos, he's an example of the thunder god replacing the sky god as the head of the pantheon; the sky god, has more than faded from the memory of the tribe and has functionally ceased to exist.
In an interesting twist, the Sky Father and thunder god appear to have been merged into a single deity in the Greek and Roman pantheons, thus while Jupiter and Zeus continue *Dyeus, they wield the thunder/lightning bolt and are associated with oak trees and eagles. Storm gods are most conceived of as wielding thunder and/or lightning; the ancients didn't seem to differentiate between the two, why both the words "lightning bolt" and "thunderbolt" exist despite being synonyms. Storm gods are male and irascible. Rain and wind deities tend to not be portrayed as wrathful as thunder/lightning deities. Horus, the Egyptian beneficial storm and war god. Personified in the pharaoh. Set, the Egyptian storm god, lord of the desert Oya, the Yoruba orisha of winds and cyclones Ehecatl, Aztec god of wind Tezcatlipoca, Aztec god of hurricanes and night winds Tlaloc, Aztec rain and earthquake god. Mayan equivalent is Chaac. Tupã, the Guaraní god of thunder and light. Creator of the universe. Chaac, Maya rain god.
Aztec equivalent is Tlaloc. K'awiil, classic Maya god of lightning Yopaat, a Classic-period Maya storm god Huracán, K'iche Maya god of wind and fire Q'uq'umatz, K'iche Maya god of wind and rain known as Kukulkan, Aztec equivalent is Quetzalcoatl Tohil, K'iche Maya god of rain and fire Coatrisquie, Taíno rain goddess, servant of Guabancex, sidekick of thunder god Guatauva Guabancex, top Taíno storm goddess. Identified as Baʿal's true name at Ugarit. Fuujin, Japanese wind god Indra, Hindu thunder/lightning god Küdryrchö Jumo, the Mari storm god Mariamman, Hindu rain goddess Raijin, Japanese god of thunder/lightning Susano'o, tempestuous Japanese god of storms and the sea Tamar Tarḫunna, Hittite storm god. There had to be many deities for a single storm: Yunzhongzi, the Master of Clouds Yu Shi, the God of Rain Wen Zhong, Lei Gong, Dian Mu, the Thunder Deities Feng Bo, Feng Po Po, Han Zixian, the Deities of Wind Sometimes the Dragon Kings were included instead of Yu Shi Aeolus, keeper of the winds in the Odyssey Anemoi, collective name for the gods of the winds in Greek mythology, their number varies from 4 to more Audros, Lithuanian god of storms Bangpūtys, Lithuanian god of storms and the sea Freyr, Norse god of rain and sunshine Jupiter, the Roman thunder/lightning and sky god and king of the gods Perkūnas, Baltic god of thunder, rain and oak trees.
Servant of the creator god Dievas. Perun, Slavic god of thunder and lightning and king of the gods Tempestas, Roman goddess of storms or sudden weather. Referred to in the plural, Tempestates. Thor, Norse god of thunder/lightning, oak trees, protection and hallowing. Thunor and Donar, the Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic versions of him. All descend from Common Germanic *Thunraz, the reflex of the PIE thunder god for this language branch of the Indo-Europeans. Taranis, Celtic god of thunder depicted with a wheel as well as a thunderbolt Ukko, Finnish thunder and harvest god and king of the gods Zeus, Greek thunder/lightning and sky god and king of the gods Rain god Sea god responsible for weather at sea Sky god Thunder god Wind god
Solomon
Solomon called Jedidiah, according to the Hebrew Bible, Old Testament and Hadiths, a fabulously wealthy and wise king of Israel who succeeded his father, King David. The conventional dates of Solomon's reign are circa 970 to 931 BCE given in alignment with the dates of David's reign, he is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, which would break apart into the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah shortly after his death. Following the split, his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone. According to the Talmud, Solomon is one of the 48 prophets. In the Quran, he is considered a major prophet, Muslims refer to him by the Arabic variant Sulayman, son of David; the Hebrew Bible credits him as the builder of the First Temple in Jerusalem, beginning in the fourth year of his reign, using the vast wealth he and his father had accumulated. He dedicated the temple to the God of Israel, he is portrayed as great in wisdom and power beyond either of the previous kings of the country, but as a king who sinned.
His sins included idolatry, marrying foreign women and turning away from Yahweh, they led to the kingdom's being torn in two during the reign of his son Rehoboam. Solomon is the subject of many other references and legends, most notably in the 1st-century apocryphal work known as the Testament of Solomon. In the New Testament, he is portrayed as a teacher of wisdom excelled by Jesus, as arrayed in glory, but excelled by "the lilies of the field". In years, in non-biblical circles, Solomon came to be known as a magician and an exorcist, with numerous amulets and medallion seals dating from the Hellenistic period invoking his name; the life of Solomon is described in the second Book of Samuel, by 1 Chronicles and 1 Kings. His two names mean "peaceful" and "friend of God", both appropriate to the story of his rule; the conventional dates of Solomon's reign are derived from biblical chronology and are set from c. 970 to 931 BCE. Regarding the Davidic dynasty, to which King Solomon belongs, its chronology can be checked against datable Babylonian and Assyrian records at a few points, these correspondences have allowed archaeologists to date its kings in a modern framework.
According to the most used chronology, based on that by Old Testament professor Edwin R. Thiele, the death of Solomon and the division of his kingdom would have occurred in the spring of 931 BCE. Solomon was born in Jerusalem, the second born child of David and his wife Bathsheba, widow of Uriah the Hittite; the first child, a son conceived adulterously during Uriah's lifetime, had died as a punishment on account of the death of Uriah by David's order. Solomon had three named full brothers born to Bathsheba: Nathan and Shobab, besides six known older half-brothers born of as many mothers; the biblical narrative shows that Solomon served as a peace offering between God and David, due to his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. In an effort to hide this sin, for example, he sent the woman's husband to battle, hoping that he would be killed there. After he died, David was able to marry his wife; as punishment, the first child, conceived during the adulterous relationship, died. Solomon was born.
It is this reason. Some historians cited that Nathan the Prophet brought up Solomon as his father was busy governing the realm; this could be attributed to the notion that the prophet held great influence over David because he knew of his adultery, considered a grievous offense under the Mosaic Law. It was only during Absalom's rebellion. According to the First Book of Kings, when David was old, "he could not get warm". "So they sought a beautiful young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, found Abishag the Shunamite, brought her to the king. The young woman was beautiful, she was of service to the king and attended to him, but the king knew her not."While David was in this state, court factions were maneuvering for power. David's heir apparent, acted to have himself declared king, but was outmaneuvered by Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, who convinced David to proclaim Solomon king according to his earlier promise, despite Solomon being younger than his brothers. Solomon, as instructed by David, began his reign with an extensive purge, including his father's chief general, among others, further consolidated his position by appointing friends throughout the administration, including in religious positions as well as in civic and military posts.
It is said. Solomon expanded his military strength the cavalry and chariot arms, he founded numerous colonies, some of which doubled as military outposts. Trade relationships were a focus of his administration. In particular he continued his father's profitable relationship with the Phoenician king Hiram I of Tyre. Solomon is considered the most wealthy of the Israelite kings named in the Bible. Solomon was the biblical king most famous for his wisdom. In 1 Kings he sacrificed to God, God appeared to him in a dream asking what Solomon wanted from God. Solomon asked for wisdom. Pleased, God answered Solomon's prayer, promising him great wisdom because he did
King of the Gods
As polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for one deity male, to achieve preeminence as king of the gods. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other gods come to serve in a Divine Council or pantheon - such subsidiary courtier-deities are linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity, responsible for the creation. Subsequent social events, such as invasions or shifts in power structures, can cause the previous king of the gods to be displaced by a new divinity, who assumes the displaced god's attributes and functions; the king of the gods has at least one wife, the queen of the gods. Examples of this displacement of kings of the gods include: In the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, Enlil displaces Anu and is in turn replaced by Marduk; the Ancient Egyptian Ennead and Ogdoad, where the deity Osiris assumes pre-eminence, to be displaced by Seth or Sutekh, in turn replaced by Horus, son to Osiris and Isis In the Canaanite pantheon, Baʿal displaces El In the Hurrian/Hittite pantheon, Teshub or Tarhunt or Arinna displaces Kumarbi.
In the Armenian Ar – Aramazd. In the Historical Vedic religion, the King of the Gods was Dyaus subsumed by Indra. Though Indra still retains the title of the King of the Gods and the Ruler of Heaven, the trinity of Brahma and Vishnu assume his protective functions as the Vedic religion evolved into Brahmanical Hinduism. Hindus regard Indra as inferior to the Trinity. In the Ancient Greek system of Olympian Gods, Cronus displaces Uranus, Zeus in turn displaces CronusAccording to feminist theories of the replacement of original matriarchies by patriarchies, male sky-gods tend to supplant female earth-godesses and achieve omnipotence. There is a tendency for kings of the gods to assume more and more importance, syncretistically assuming the attributes and functions of lesser divinities, who come to be seen as aspects of the single supreme deity. Examples of this include: Ancient Iranian Ahura Mazda of the Zoroastrians Hinduism where Brahma and Vishnu are seen as comprising the essence of all other divinities, are considered aspects of the same monist reality, an impersonal force called Brahman.
The leaders of the various pantheons include: Australian Aboriginal pantheon: Baiame Algonquin pantheon: Gitche Manitou Ashanti pantheon: Nyame Aztec pantheon: Huitzilopochtli or Ometeotl or Quetzalcoatl Canaanite pantheon: Baʿal Carthaginian pantheon: Baʿal Hammon Celtic pantheon: Dagda Berber pantheon: old: Amun. New Kingdom: Amun Finnic pantheon: Ukko Germanic pantheon: Wōden Georgian pantheon: Armazi, Ghmerti Greek pantheon: Zeus Guarani pantheon: Tupa Haida pantheon: Raven Hindu pantheon: Shiva, Vishnu, Indra or Brahman Hittite pantheon: Arinna or Teshub Hopi pantheon: Angwusnasomtaka Inca pantheon: Viracocha Inuit pantheon: Anguta or Anigut but only among the Greenlandic Inuit Japanese pantheon: Amenominakanushi, Izanagi-no-Mikoto Amaterasu-Ōmikami Korean pantheon: Dangun Lakota pantheon: Wakan Tanka or Inyan Lusitanian pantheon: Endovelicus Mari pantheon: Kugu Jumo Māori pantheon: Tāne Mayan pantheon: Hunab Ku Mbuti pantheon: Khonvoum Mesopotamian pantheon: Sumerian: An Enlil. Ex: Ra, Odin.
Dominion over the sky: Many such deities hold control over all aspects of the sky, such as weather, thunderstorms, air and celestial objects like stars. They control some aspects of earth like harvest, plants or mountains. Ex: Zeus, Perun. Lightning bolts as personal weapons: Commonly seen with sky gods. Divine Wisdom: Some Kings of Gods possess superior wisdom and clairvoyance, compared to most beings. Ex: Ra, Odin. God of the Sun, Daylight or Celestial Fire: Some kings of gods are associated with the Sun, as it is life giving and is a powerful symbol of order, they are said to be in charge of celestial fire. Daylight is an important phenomenon as most events take place under its presence. Ex: Ra, Dyeus Pitr. Conquest, Justice, Order and Fate: Most kings of gods have the ability to control the events of battle and grant victory to those who deserve it, they are promote order. They are seen as powerful manifestations of their respective civilizations; some gods either possess great skill in tremendous physical strength.
Some of them regulate it with seasons. Others have limited control over the fate of a human. Ex: Zeus, Odin, Ra, Indra. Divine authority over other gods: This may be because the concerned head of the pantheon is the father or creator of many gods and goddesses who swear allegiance to him; as a result, the king of the gods makes sure that all deities function properly, punish them for misdeed
Shekel
Shekel or Sheqel is any of several ancient units of weight or of currency used throughout the United kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Israel, Kingdom of Judah, Babylonian province of Yehud, Hasmonean dynasty, Herodian kingdom, Herodian Tetrarchy, Roman province of Judea and in the modern State of Israel. The modern currency unit used in the State of Israel today is known as the Israeli new shekel, which replaced the Old Israeli shekel in 1985; the Hebrew word shekel is based on the Semitic verbal root for "weighing", cognate to the Akkadian šiqlu or siqlu, a unit of weight equivalent to the Sumerian gin2. Use of the word was first attested in c. 2150 BC during the Akkadian Empire under the reign of Naram-Sin, in c. 1700 BC in the Code of Hammurabi. The Š-Q-L root is found in the Hebrew words for "to weigh", "weight" and "consideration", is related to the T-Q-L root in Aramaic and the Θ-Q-L root in Arabic, such as the words thiqal or Mithqal; the famous writing on the wall in the Biblical Book of Daniel includes a cryptic use of the word in Aramaic: "Mene, teqel, u-farsin".
The word shekel came into the English language via the Hebrew Bible, where it is first used in the Book of Genesis. The earliest shekels were a unit of weight, used as other units such as grams and troy ounces for trading before the advent of coins; the shekel was common among western Semitic peoples. Moabites and Phoenicians used the shekel, although proper coinage developed late. Carthaginian coinage was based on the shekel and may have preceded its home town of Tyre in issuing proper coins. Coins were used and may have been invented by the early Anatolian traders who stamped their marks to avoid weighing each time used. Herodotus states that the first coinage was issued by Croesus, King of Lydia, spreading to the golden Daric, issued by the Persian Empire and the silver Athenian obol and drachma. Early coins were money stamped with an official seal to certify their weight. Silver ingots, some with markings were issued. Authorities decided who designed coins; as with many ancient units, the shekel had a variety of values depending on era and region.
When used to pay laborers, recorded wages in the ancient world range widely. The Code of Hammurabi sets the value of unskilled labor at ten shekels per year of work. Records within the Persian Empire give ranges from a minimum of two shekels per month for unskilled labor, to as high as seven to ten shekels per month in some records. A survival wage for an urban household during the Persian period would require at least 22 shekels of income per year. Exodus 30:24 notes that the measures of the ingredients for the holy anointing oil were to be calculated using the Shekel of the Sanctuary, suggesting that there were other common measures of shekel in use, or at least that the Temple authorities defined a standard for the shekel to be used for Temple purposes. According to Jewish law, whenever a census of the Jewish people was to be conducted, every person, counted was required to pay the half-Shekel for his atonement; the Aramaic tekel, similar to the Hebrew shekel, used in the writing on the wall during the feast of Belshazzar according to the Book of Daniel and defined as weighed, shares a common root with the word shekel and may additionally attest to its original usage as a weight.
During the Second Temple period, it was customary among Jews to annually offer the half-Shekel into the Temple treasury, for the upkeep and maintenance of the Temple precincts, as used in purchasing public animal-offerings. This practice not only applied to Jews living in the Land of Israel, but to Jews living outside the Land of Israel. Archaeological excavations conducted at Horvat'Ethry in Israel from 1999 to 2001 by Boaz Zissu and Amir Ganor of the Israeli Antiquities Authority have yielded important finds, the most-prized of which being a half-Shekel coin minted in the 2nd century CE, upon which are embossed the words "Half-Shekel" in paleo-Hebrew, which same coin possesses a silver content of 6.87 grams. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, the annual monetary tribute of the half-Shekel to the Temple at Jerusalem was equivalent to two Athenian drachmæ, each Athenian or Attic drachma weighing a little over 4.3 grams. The Jerusalem shekel was issued from AD 66 to 70 amid the First Jewish Revolt as a means of emphasizing the independence of Judaea from Roman rule.
The Bar Kochba shekel was issued from AD 132 to 135 amid the Bar Kokhba Revolt for similar reasons. The Carthaginian or Punic shekel was around 7.2 grams in silver and 7.5 grams in gold. They were first developed on Sicily during the mid-4th century BC, they were associated with the payment of Carthage's mercenary armies and were debased over the course of each of the Punic Wars, although the Carthaginian Empire's expansion into Spain under the Barcids before the Second and recovery under Hannibal before the Third permitted improving the amount and quality of the currency. Throughout, it was more common for Carthage's holdings in North Africa to employ bronze or no coinage except when paying mercenary armies and for most of the specie to circulate in Spain and Sicily; the Tyrian shekel began t
