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| Background | |||||
| Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god, reportedly of grain and agriculture. He was worshipped by the early Amorites and by the inhabitants of the cities of Ebla and Ugarit (which was an ancient city near the Mediterranean containing a large variety of ancient writings and pagan shrines). He was also a major member, or perhaps head, of the pantheon of the Biblical Philistines. | |||||
| His name appears in Hebrew as דגון (in modern transcription Dagon, Tiberian Hebrew Dāgôn), in Ugaritic as dgn (probably vocalized as Dagnu), and in Akkadian as Dagana, Daguna usually rendered in English translations as Dagan. | |||||
In Ugaritic, the root dgn also means grain: in Hebrew dāgān, Sarmatian dīgan, is an archaic word for grain, perhaps related to the Middle Hebrew and Jewish Aramaic word dgnʾ 'be cut open' or to Arabic dagn 'rain-(cloud). In addition, the name to Hebrew dāg/dâg, means f ish. |
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| The god Dagon first appears in extant records about 2500 BC in the Mari texts and in personal Amorite names in which the gods Ilu (Ēl), Dagan, and Adad are especially common. | |||||
At Ebla (Tell Mardikh), from at least 2300 BC, Dagan was the head of the city pantheon comprising some 200 deities and bore the titles BE-DINGIR-DINGIR, "Lord of the gods" and Bekalam, "Lord of the land". His consort was known only as Belatu, "Lady". Both were worshipped in a large temple complex called E-Mul, "House of the Star". One entire quarter of Ebla and one of its gates were named after Dagan. Dagan is called ti-lu ma-tim, "dew of the land" and Be-ka-na-na, possibly "Lord of Canaan". He was called lord of many cities: of Tuttul, Irim, Ma-Ne, Zarad, Uguash, Siwad, and Sipishu. |
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| In Ugarit around 1300 BC, Dagon had a large temple and was listed third in the pantheon following a father-god and Ēl, and preceding Baīl Sapān (that is the god Haddu or Hadad/Adad). | |||||
| The Byzantine Etymologicon Magnum says that Dagon was Kronus in Phoenicia. | |||||
| Dagan is mentioned occasionally in early Sumerian texts but becomes prominent only in later Akkadian inscriptions as a powerful and warlike protector, sometimes equated with Enlil. Dagan's wife was in some sources the goddess Shala (also named as wife of Adad and sometimes identified with Ninlil). In other texts, his wife is Ishara. In the preface to his famous law code, King Hammurabi calls himself "the subduer of the settlements along the Euphrates with the help of Dagan, his creator". | |||||
| In an Assyrian poem, Dagan appears beside Nergal and Misharu as a judge of the dead. A late Babylonian text makes him the underworld prison warder of the seven children of the god Emmesharra. | |||||
| The Phoenician inscription on the sarcophagus of King Eshmunʿazar of Sidon (5th century BC) relates (ANET, p. 662): "Furthermore, the Lord of Kings gave us Dor and Joppa, the mighty lands of Dagon, which are in the Plain of Sharon, in accordance with the important deeds which I did." | |||||
| The vita of Porphyry of Gaza, mentions the great god of Gaza, known as Marnas (Aramaic Marnā the "Lord"), who was regarded as the god of rain and grain and invoked against famine. Marna of Gaza appears on coinage of the time of Hadrian.[4] He was identified at Gaza with Cretan Zeus, Zeus Krētagenēs. It is likely that Marnas was the Hellenistic expression of Dagon. His temple, the Marneion — the last surviving great cult center of paganism — was burned by order of the Roman emperor in 402. Treading upon the sanctuary's paving-stones had been forbidden. | |||||
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