ALLĀT AND THE DESERT “KULTLANDSCHAFT” OF ALLĀT IN THE EAST.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14795/j.v10i4.932Keywords:
Desert, geography, religion, Near East, Allat, SyriaAbstract
This paper offers an approach to the worship of Allāt through the concept of the geography of religions and ritual landscape. It combines the epigraphic, archaeological and geographical evidence to present the goddess as the protectress of the borderland with a focus on the rocky deserts and drylands. For the first time it offers a study not through the “Arabic”, ethnic, approach, but through the topography of the sacred places dedicated to the goddess. The paper focuses on the emplacement of the temples of Allāt in Palmyra, Salkhad, Wadi Ramm and Hatra as well as on the location of the Northern Arabian inscriptions (Safaitic and Dadanitic) on the rocks. The paper emphasizes the role of the desert in the perception of the divine.
Downloads
References
AGGOULA 1991
Aggoula, B., Inventaire des inscriptions hatréennes (Paris: Geuthner).
AL-JALLAD 2022
Al-Jallad, A., The Religion and Rituals of the Nomads of Pre-Islamic Arabia. A Reconstruction Based on the Safaitic Inscriptions (Leiden-Boston: Brill).
ALPASS 2013
Alpass, P., The Religious Life of Nabataea, Religions of the Graeco-Roman World 175 (Leiden-Boston: Brill).
ANDRADE 2022
Andrade, N., Syrian Goddess, Arabian God: Addressing Gods through Ethnics, Mythos 16, 1–22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/mythos.5243
ANSCHUETZ/WILSHUSEN/SCHEICK 2001
Anschuetz, K.F./Wilshusen, R.H./Scheick, C.L., An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions, Journal of Archaeological Research 9, 157–211.
BEYER 1998
Beyer, K., Die aramäischen Inschriften aus Assur, Hatra und dem übrigen Ostmesopotamien (datiert 44 v.Chr. bis 238 n.Chr) (Götingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht).
CIS
Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum
DIRVEN 1998.
Dirven, L., The Arrival of the Goddess Allāt in Palmyra, Mesopotamia 33, 297–307.
DIRVEN 2022
Dirven, L., Representing and Naming the Gods. Iconography and Nomenclature of the Goddess Allāt in Palmyra and Hatra, Mythos 16, 1–22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/mythos.5538
DUCHATEAU 2013
Duchateau, M-E., Les divinités d'Europos-Doura: personnalité et identité (301 av. N.È.–256 de N.È.) (Paris: Geuthner).
FISHER 2015
Fischer, G., Arabs and Empires before Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
FOIETTA 2018
Foietta, E., Hatra. Il territorio e l’urbanistica (Oxford: Archeopress).
GAWLIKOWSKI 2017
Gawlikowski, M., Le sanctuaire d’Allāt à Palmyre, PAM Monograph Series 8 (Warsaw: Warsaw University Press).
GRASSI 2012
Grassi, G.-F., Semitic Onomastics from Dura Europos. The Names in Greek Script and from Latin Epigraphs (Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N).
HAUSSLER/CHIAI 2020
Haussler, R./Chiai, G.F., Sacred Landscapes in Antiquity. Creation, Manipulation, Transformation (Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow).
HEALEY 2001
Healey, J. F., Religion of the Nabateans. A Conspectus, Religions of the Graeco-Roman World 136 (Leiden-Brill).
HORSTER 2010
Horster, M., Religious Landscape and Sacred Ground: Relationships between Space and Cult in the Greek World, Revue de l’histoire des religions 4, 435–458.
IGLS
Inscriptions Grecques et Latines de la Syrie
JAKUBIAK 2014
Jakubiak, K., Sacral Landscape of Hatra, Światowit Supplement Series A 13 (Warsaw: Warsaw University Press).
KAIZER 2002
Kaizer, T., The Religious Life of Palmyra. A Study of the Social Patterns of Worship in the Roman Period, Oriens et Occidens 4 (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag).
KNAPP/ASHMORE 1999
Knapp, B.L./Ashmore, W., Archaeological landscapes: constructed, conceptionalised, ideationalised. In: Ashmore, W., Knapp, B.L. (eds), Archaeologies of Landscapes. Contemporary Perspectives (London: Blackwell), 1–30.
KOOTSTRA 2023
Kootstra, F., The Writing Culture of Ancient Dadan. A Description and Quantitative Analysis of Linguistic Variation, Studies in Semitic Languages and Linguistics 110 (Leiden-Boston: Brill).
KRONE 1992
Krone, S., Die altarabische Gottheit al-Lat, Heidelberger Orientalische Studien 23 (Frankfurt a.M., Berlin, Bern, N.Y., Paris, Wien: Peter Lang).
KUBIAK-SCHNEIDER 2019
Kubiak-Schneider, A., Review of Michał Gawlikowski, Le sanctuaire d’Allāt à Palmyre, Syria (online). DOI:
https://doi.org/10.4000/syria.8914
KUBIAK-SCHNEIDER/LICHTENBERGER 2022
Kubiak-Schneider, A./Lichtenberger, A., The God Pakeidas in Jerash – His Worship through the Archaeological and Epigraphical Sources, Electrum 29, 219–236.
MACDONALD 1993
MacDonald, M.C.A., Nomads and the Ḥawrān in the Late Hellenistic and Roman Periods: A Reassessment of the Epigraphic Evidence, Syria 70, 303–403, 405–415.
MACDONALD 2010
MacDonald, M.C.A., Ancient Arabia and the Written Word. In: MacDonald, M.C.A. (ed.), The development of Arabic as a written language. Supplement to the Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 40 (Oxford: Archaeopress), 5–28.
MACDONALD 2015
MacDonald, M.C.A., Arabs and Empires before the Sixth Century. In: Fisher, G. (ed.), Arabs and Empires before Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 11–89.
MACDONALD 2022
MacDonald, M.C.A., The Oral and the Written in the Religions of Ancient North Arabia. In: Donner, F.M., Hasselbach-Andee, R. (eds.), Scripts and Scripture. Writing and Religion in Arabia circa 500–700 CE (Chicago: The Oriental Institute Press).
MAZZILLI 2019
Mazzilli, F., Rural Cult Centres in the Hauran. Part of the broader network of the Near East (100 BC–AD 300), Roman Archaeology 51 (Oxford: Archaeopress).
MAZZILLI 2023
Mazzilli, F., A Decade of Network Studies on Religion in the Pre-Roman and Roman Periods. In: Da Vela, R./ Franceschini, M./ Mazzilli, F. (eds.), Networks as Resources for Ancient Communities (Tübingen: University Press), 165–184.
MEYER 2017
Meyer, J.C., Palmyrena. Palmyra and the surrounding territory from the Roman to the Early Islamic period (Oxford: Archaeopress).
MEYER 2020
Meyer, J.C., The desert and the sown: Safaitic outsiders in Palmyrene territory. In: Akkermans, P.M.M.G. (ed.), Landscape of Survival. The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan’s North-Eastern Desert and Beyond (Leiden: Sidestone Press), 255–264.
MOSER/FELDMAN 2014
Moser, C./Feldman, C., Locating the Sacred: Theoretical Approaches to the Emplacement of Religion (Oxford: Oxbow).
MuB
Inscriptions reserved in the Bayhan Museum
NORRIS/AL-MANASER 2020
Norris, J./Al-Manaser, A., Epigraphica Dusaria I. Some Nabataean, Hismaic and Hismaic/Nabataean inscriptions with rock drawings from the Ḥismā desert, north-west of Tabūk (Saudi Arabia), Arabian Aracheology and Epigraphy 31/2, 436–472.
PARK 2004
Park, C., Religion and Geography. In: Hinnells, J. (ed.), Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion (London: Routledge), 439–455.
RAJA 2022
Raja, R., Urban Transformations Seen Through the Lens of Urban Religion: The Case of the Sanctuary of Bel in Palmyra. In: Cortese, A./ Fioratto, G. (eds.), Urban Space between the Roman Age and Late Antiquity. Continuity, Discontinuity and Changes (Regensburg: Schnell&Steiner), 132–147.
RIEGER 2017
Rieger, A.-K., Loose Bonds and Porous Boundaries among Mobile People as Religious Agents in the Greco-Roman Arabian Desert, Religion in the Roman Empire 3/1, 11–49.
RIEGER 2020
Rieger, A.-K., Spatialising sacralised places: landscape as analytical category for understanding social relations and spatial interaction of Graeco-Roman sanctuaries in the Hauran. In: Haussler, R./Chiai, G.F., Sacred Landscapes in Antiquity. Creation, Manipulation, Transformation (Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow), 311–332.
ROBIN 2012
Robin, Ch., Matériaux pour une typologie des divinités arabiques et de leurs représentations. In: Sachet, I. (ed.), Dieux et déesses d’Arabie. Images et représentations, Orient et Méditerranée 7 (Lyon-Paris: De Boccard), 7–118.
ROCHE 2009
Roche, M.-J., Introduction aux religions préislamiques d’Arabie du Nord. Recherches sur les divinités du paganisme arabe, à travers l’épigraphie et l’iconographie, Annuaire de l’École Pratique des Hautes-Études 116, 117–120.
RÜPKE 2020
Rüpke, J., Urban Religion. A Historical Approach to Urban Growth and Religious Change (Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter).
SARTRE 2019
Sartre, M., Dieux grecs à Palmyre : L’ambigüité d’un concept. In: Raja, R. (ed.), Revisiting the Religious Life of Palmyra (Turnhout: Brepols), 25–36.
SEG
Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (online resource)
SOURDEL 1952
Sourdel, D., Les cultes du Hauran à l’époque romaine (Paris: Geuthner).
SZABÓ 2020
Szabó, C., Nature as sacred landscape in Roman Dacia. In: Haussler, R./Chiai, G.F. (eds.), Sacred Landscapes in Antiquity. Creation, Manipulation, Transformation (Oxford/Philadelphia: Oxbow), 77–86.
TEBES 2020
Tebes, J.-M., Beyond Petra: Nabatean Cultic and Mortuary Practices and the Cultural Heritage of the Negev and Edom, Jordan Journal for History and Archaeology 14/4, 333–347.
THOLBECQ 1998
Tholbecq, L., The Nabateo-Roman Site of Wadi Ramm (Iram). New Appraisal, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 42, 241–254.
ULANOWSKI 2015
Ulanowski, K., The Metaphor of the Lion in Mesopotamian and Greek Civilization. In: Rollinger, R./van Dongen, E. (eds.), Mesopotamia and the Ancient World. Impact, Continuities, Parallels. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium of the Melammu Project Held in Obergurgl, Austria, November 4–8, 2013, Melammu Symposia 7 (Münster: Ugarit), 255–284.
UZZEL 1991
Uzzel, D.L., Environmental psychological perspectives on landscape, Landscape Research 16/1, 3–10.
WENNING 2013
Wenning, R., North Arabian deities and the deities of Petra: an approach to the origins of the Nabataeans? In: Mouton, M./Schmid, S.G. (eds.), Man on the Rocks. The Formation of the Nabatean Petra (Berlin: Logos), 335–342.
WENNING/PERRY 2021
Wenning, R., Perry, M.A., Cybele, Atargatis, or Allāt? A Surprising Tomb Artifact from Petra’s North Ridge, Bulletin of the American Society of Overseas Research 386, 113–132.
YON 2002
Yon, J.-B., Les notables de Palmyre (Beirut: IFPO Press).
ZAYADINE/FARÈS-DRAPEAU 1998
Zayadine, F./Farès-Drapeau, S., Two North Arabian Inscriptions from the Temple of Lat of Wadi Iram, Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 42, 255–257.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, we use CC BY-NC-ND license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs) wich only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
