Melqart

Tutelary 'King of the City' of Tyre; dying-and-rising god revived at the annual egersis, equated with Herakles, patron of colonies.

Domains

• kingship
• sea trade

Powers

• Die and be awakened annually at the spring egersis
• Found and protect Tyrian colonies overseas

Epithets

• mlk qrt phoenician · milk qart · cultKing of the City; the very name, the tutelary lord of TyreTyrian dedications; cf. Hdt. 2.44 (Heracles of Tyre); Joseph. AJ 8.5.3 (primary)
• bʿl ṣr phoenician · baʿal Ṣur · epigraphicLord of Tyre; the city-god in his civic titlethe Bar-Hadad / Melqart Stele (KAI 201); Tyrian inscriptions (primary)

Relations

• spouse: AstartePaired chief god and goddess of Tyre; Astarte's part in Melqart's annual egersis is the standard scholarly reading.Bonnet, Melqart: Cultes et mythes de l'Heracles tyrien (1988) (secondary)
• interpretatio: HeraclesReciprocal of greek_apollod_heracles.interpretatio — Hdt visits Tyre to compare 'Heracles' cults and concludes the Tyrian god is older. Preserves the mortal-divine civic hero with apotheosis (Melqart's egersis ~ Heracles' pyre); breaks on the Labors.Herodotus, Histories 2.44 (the Tyrian Heracles) (primary)
• equated with: HeraclesHdt. 2.43-44 (Herodotus visits both the Tyrian Heracles temple and the Egyptian Heracles to investigate the equation; concludes the Phoenician Melqart cult is the older); Diod. 5.20; Sil. Italicus 3.21 (primary)

Sources

• existence: Tyrian inscriptions; Josephus, Antiquities (egersis of Herakles) (primary); E. Lipiński, on the etymology milk-qart (secondary)