Shapshu
Canaanite · deity · mythic · Recorded classification
Sun-goddess 'Torch of the Gods' and El's messenger; psychopomp who judges the dead and aids Anat in recovering Baal's corpse.
Parentage
- paternal: El
Domains
- sun
- judgment dead
Powers
- Travel daily through the land of the dead and back
- Lift Baal's dead body onto a mourner's shoulders
- Search out the vanished Baal across the cosmos
- Behold all that passes on earth by daylight
Epithets
- 𐎐𐎗𐎚 𐎛𐎍𐎎 'Luminary / Torch of the Gods' — standing epithet of the sun-goddessKTU 1.6 i 8-9 (Baal Cycle) (primary)
- nrt ʾilm Torch / Luminary of the GodsUgaritic Baal Cycle (KTU 1.3-1.6) (primary)
Relations
- sibling: AnatFull sibling — shares the same attested parentage (El) per the figures' cited genealogy.
- sibling: KirtaFull sibling — shares the same attested parentage (El) per the figures' cited genealogy.
- sibling: MotFull sibling — shares the same attested parentage (El) per the figures' cited genealogy.
- sibling: YamFull sibling — shares the same attested parentage (El) per the figures' cited genealogy.
- equated with: UtuŠpš and Šamaš are the same Semitic sun-word; the deities are cognate with flipped gender — Ugarit's sun is a goddess. Preserves all-seeing justice and psychopomp links; gender and consorts diverge.DDD (2nd ed. 1999), s.v. 'Shemesh' (secondary)
- equated with: ShamsUgaritic Shapshu and South Arabian Shams are cognate feminine sun-deities of the same root — the western and southern branches that keep the sun a goddess, against Akkadian masculine Shamash.DDD (2nd ed. 1999), s.v. 'Shemesh' (secondary)
Sources
- existence: Ugaritic Baal Cycle (KTU 1.4–1.6) (primary); Shapshu liturgy, KTU 1.161 (royal funerary rite invoking the Rephaim) (primary)