Baal Hammon
Punic · deity · primordial · Recorded classification
Supreme god of Carthage and lord of the tophet, invoked with Tanit on the votive stelae; equated by the Greeks with Kronos and by the Romans with Saturn (the popular Saturnus Africanus of Roman North Africa). Shares theonym and origin with the eastern Phoenician Baʿal Ḥammon (corpus id phoenician_baal_hammon); authored here in his distinctive Carthaginian cult role. The meaning of 'Ḥammon', the precise domains, and the reality of child sacrifice are flagged as unresolved/reconstructed. The Kronos/Saturn interpretatio is recorded here (the counterparts are not figures in this batch, so no equated-with relation is wired).
Domains
- supreme god
- fertility
- sky and sun
Powers
- Receives the molk offering vowed at the tophet
- Hears the vow of the dedicant and grants blessing
- Quickens the grain and ripens the harvest
Epithets
- ʾdn (Adon, 'Lord')His standing title in the dedicatory formula.Carthaginian tophet stelae (l-ʾdn l-bʿl ḥmn) (primary)
- Baʿal Qarnaim ('Lord of the Two Horns')A North-African epithet/cult-form tied to the ram's-horn imagery; use with care, as Baʿal Qarnaim is sometimes treated as a distinct local manifestation.Punic North-African epigraphy/iconography (the horned headdress); cf. Lancel, Carthage (1995) (secondary)
Relations
- spouse: TanitThe consort pair of Carthage. The pairing is cultic/epigraphic (joint invocation; Tanit as 'Face of Baal'); no marriage narrative, parentage or offspring is attested for either.Carthaginian tophet stelae — joint invocation l-rbt l-tnt pn bʿl w-l-ʾdn l-bʿl ḥmn (CIS I) (primary); Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History (1995) (secondary)
Sources
- existence: Carthaginian tophet votive stelae, CIS I (the l-ʾdn l-bʿl ḥmn formula); KAI 78 = CIS I 3778 (primary); Paolo Xella, Baal Hammon. Recherches sur l'identité et l'histoire d'un dieu phénico-punique (CNR, 1991) (secondary); Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History (Blackwell, 1995) (secondary)