Information AboutDagon |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT DAGON | |
| aramaeans | |
| levantine mythology | |
| deities in the hebrew bible | |
| west semitic gods | |
| agricultural gods | |
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Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain and agriculture. He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla and Ugarit . He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the Pantheon of the Biblical Philistines . This position as major god of the enemies of the Ancient Israelites led to Dagon's Demon ization in the Hebrew Bible . His name appears in Hebrew as דגון (in Modern Transcription '''Dagon''', Tiberian Hebrew '''Dāḡôn'''), in Ugaritic as '''dgn''' (probably vocalized as ''Dagnu''), and in Akkadian as '''Dagana''', '''Daguna''' usually rendered in English translations as '''Dagan'''. ETYMOLOGY In Ugaritic, the root ''dgn'' also means ''grain'': in Hebrew ''dāgān'', Samaritan ''dīgan'', is an archaic word for ''grain'', perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and Jewish Arotrios." The word ''arotrios'' means "ploughman", "pertaining to agriculture". The theory relating the name to Hebrew ''dāg''/''dâg'', ''fish'', based solely upon a reading of 1 Samuel 5:2–7 is discussed in ''Fish-god tradition'' below. NON-BIBLICAL SOURCES The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the gods Ilu ( Ēl ), Dagan, and Adad are especially common. At 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. 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 {Link without Title} 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 identified with El,Joseph Fontenrose, "Dagon and El" ''Oriens'' 10.2 (December 1957), pp. 277-279. 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 , but Anat , El's daughter, is Baal's sister, and why no temple of El has appeared at Ugarit. There are differences between the Ugaritic pantheon and that of Phoenicia centuries later: according to the third-hand Greek and Christian reports of Sanchuniathon, the Phoenician mythographer would have Dagon the brother of Ēl/ Cronus and like him son of Sky/ Uranus and Earth, but not truly Hadad's father. HadadCalled Demarus in the report. 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 '' says that Dagon ''was'' Cronus in Phoenicia.Fontenrose 1957:277. Otherwise, with the disappearance of Phoenician literary texts, Dagon has practically no surviving mythology. Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early of 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 , the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon , in accordance with the important deeds which I did." ''Dagan'' was sometimes used in royal names. Two kings of the 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 Assyria n kings: Ishme-Dagan I (c. 1782–1742 BC) and Ishme-Dagan II (c. 1610–1594 BC). IN BIBLICAL TEXTS AND COMMENTARIES In the Tanakh , Dagon is particularly the god of the Philistine s 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, in Ashdod was mentioned in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 and again as late as 1 Maccabees 10.83;11.4). There was also a second place known as Beth-Dagon in the Judah (Joshua 15.41). Josephus (''Antiquities'' 12.8.1; ''War'' 1.2.3) 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. The account in 1 Samuel 5.2–7 relates how the Ark of Yahweh was captured by the Philistines and taken to Dagon's temple in Ashdod. The following morning they 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 Targum s 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 or anyone ever steps on the ''miptān'' of Dagon in Ashdod "unto this day". 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 . MARNAS 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 . R.A. Stewart Macalister, ''The Philistines'' (London) 1914, p. 112 (illus.). He was identified at Gaza with Cretan Zeus, ''Zeus Krêtagenês'' . It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion, was Burned By Order Of The Roman Emperor in 402, the last surviving great cult center of paganism. Treading upon the sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. Christians later used these same to pave the public marketplace. FISH-GOD TRADITION text of 1 Samuel 5.2–7 says that both the arms ''and the legs'' of the image of Dagon were broken off.Noticed by Schmökel 1928, noted in Fontenrose 1957:278. H. Schmökel asserted in 1928H. Schmökel, ''Der Gott Dagan'' (Borna-Leipzig) 1928. that Dagon was never originally a fish-god, but once he became an important god of those maritime Canaanites, the Phoenicians, the folk-etymological connection with ''dâg'' would have ineluctably affected his ' ''Odakon'', part man and part fish, who rose from the Erythraean Sea , was possibly a garbled version of Dagon. Dagon is sometimes identified with Matsya , the fish avatar of Vishnu , who jumped into the ocean to fight a demon. A statue in Keshava Temple in Somnathpur , India depicts Matsya as a fish from the waist down. The fish form may be considered as a phallic symbol as seen in the story of the Egyptian grain god Osiris , whose penis was eaten by (conflated with) fish in the Nile after he was attacked by the ''Typhonic beast'' Set . Likewise, in the tale depicting the origin of the constellation Capricornus , the Greek god of nature Pan became a fish from the waist down when he jumped into the same river after being attacked by Typhon . Various 19th century scholars, such as Julius Wellhausen and William Robertson Smith , believed the tradition to have been validated from the occasional occurrence of a Merman motif found in Assyrian and Phoenician art, including coins from Ashdod and Arvad . John Milton uses the tradition in his '' Paradise Lost '' Book 1: ... Next came one IN FICTION For cultural references in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and its subsequent derivatives in popular culture, see Dagon (short Story) .
REFERENCES
Some parts of the above derive from the 1911 ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. SEE ALSO
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