Details of Phoenician mythology, gods, and religious practices are scarce due to the lack of surviving written records. These are mainly from inscriptions excavated in various Phoenician cities, as no religious works such as a Phoenician equivalent of the Bible, if it ever existed, have survived.
Image gallery of Phoenician gods
Phoenician Gods
Phoenicia was an ancient culture located east of the Mediterranean Sea. If Phoenicia existed today, it would be located near Lebanon. The Phoenicians were most famous for inventing the Phoenician language, which formed the basis of Greek and Latin writing. Below are the Phoenician gods according to mythology.
1.- Anat (Anath)
Anat was the goddess of war and also a maiden. In the 13th-century BC text, The Epic of Baal, she is said to have killed Yamm and Zabib, among others.
2.- Aretsaya
Aretsaya (also known as Arsai, Arsay, or Arsy) was the goddess of the earth and the underworld. She was sometimes considered the goddess of the marshes.
3.- Ashtart
Ashtart was the goddess of love and war, and the deity of the planet Venus. She is sometimes associated with the Greek goddesses Artemis and Aphrodite. In fact, her birth from an egg was transposed into a less common myth of the “birth of Aphrodite.” She is depicted as an archer alongside a lion.
4.- Atargatis
Atargatis was the mother goddess of the earth and water. Her favorite animals were the dove and the fish. She is sometimes depicted as a mermaid, and is sometimes considered the source of the goddess Aphrodite.
5.- Athirat
Athirat was the mother goddess, and she was very wise. Her other names include Airat, Ashirat, Asherah, and Sherah. She was the wife and sister of El, and the mother of more than 70 gods, including Baal.
6.- Baal
Baal was the god of war, storms, and harvest. He carried a lightning bolt, like Zeus. However, he was also commonly associated with Cronus, as he took control of the world by destroying his parents, Heaven and Earth (like Ouranos and Gaia). He was also transposed into Christianity as Beelzebub, a very evil character.
7.- Baau and Kolpia
These two are written as a pair, as they are the goddess of creation and god, respectively. They were the parents of Genea and Genos.
8.- El
El seems to be very similar to Baal, as both names have been used to describe gods, and both do exactly the same things. Presumably, then, Baal and El are the same god.
Sometimes, however, both names are used within the same myth. I’m not sure what the difference is between the two, although El is written as Baal’s father in the myths involving them both.
9.- Meni
Meni was the god of luck, good or bad.
10.- Misor and Sydyk
These two discovered salt and are credited with being the first to use it. They are said to have been born from the “Vagabonds” who identified with the Titans.
11.- Mot
Mot was the god of the dead.
12.- Resheph
Resheph was the god of plagues and the underworld. He was a companion of Anath and was also a god of war.
13.- Taautos
Taautos was a descendant of Misor who created written language. He is also better known as the Egyptian Thoth.
14.- Yamm
Yamm was the god of the seas and rivers. He had an underwater palace.
15.- Zabib
Zabib was the goddess of fire. According to a text entitled The Epic of Baal, she was killed by Anat. Her name is sometimes read (and no one is sure which is the correct interpretation, because the Phoenician language had no vowels) as Zebub, or “fly.”
Conclusion
Although historical sources present some difficulties of interpretation, the Phoenician religion was remarkably consistent, almost certainly due to the geography of the region where the Phoenicians were contained on the narrow coast of the Levant and backed by mountains creating a border with their Aramaean and Hebrew neighbors.
This is not to say that it was uniform throughout the region, as ancient Phoenicia was more a collection of individual city-states than a single homogeneous state. Each city had its own main god and pantheon, for example, although some, such as Astarte, were worshipped throughout Phoenicia.
