Milku

Milku is 'king' used as a name, which makes him hard to see in the texts — the word is everywhere and the god is only sometimes. What the Ugaritic ritual material gives is a god of the underworld seated at Ashtaroth, a real town in the Bashan that this literature treats as a capital of the dead. The same consonants stand behind the biblical Molech, and the argument over whether that is a god, a kind of sacrifice, or both is older than the Ugaritic tablets and was not settled by them.

Domains

• underworld

Relations

• counterpart of: RapiuBoth are described as ruling at Ashtaroth, and some treatments identify them outright. The record links them and does not merge them, because the texts give each a separate name and the identification is an inference.Reference treatments of Milku, described as ruling in Ashtaroth, and of Rapiu, described as the god enthroned at Ashtaroth who rules in Edrei. (secondary)

Sources

• Milku is a Canaanite god of the underworld ruling at Ashtaroth, worshipped in Ugarit and Amurru, whose name is the word for king.: Reference treatments of Milku, of his seat at Ashtaroth and of the underworld associations of his name. (secondary)