پانثيون تيماء
مقدمة
تيماء كانت مركزًا تجاريًا و دينيًا مهمًا في شمال الجزيرة العربية و حظيت بأهمية بعدما نقل نبونيد، آخر أباطرة الإمبراطورية البابلية الحديثة، عاصمته إليها في القرن السادس قبل الميلاد. عاش نبونيد فيها عشر سنوات وحكم مساحة شاسعة من الصحراء تمتد من تيماء إلى واحات يثرب. استقر البابليون في هذه الواحات بعد قتالهم و من ثم إبرامهم الصلح مع بعض القبائل العربية. خلال ذلك جلب البابليون الآلهة الآرامية إلى الواحة، كما يشهد نص اللوح الآرامي التالي:
النقش يدون كيف إله جديد، صلم هجم، أتى به الكاهن صلم-شزب إلى تيماء، الذي قدم وقفًا للمعبد الجديد، وأسس كهنوتًا وراثيًا.
Deities
The chief God of Tayma was Ṣalm of Mahram. The word salm is cognate with the Arabic صنم which today means idol/image but it could also mean "the strong one." Another explanation is that it is connected to the Arabic ẓalām ظلام (dark) and the Assyrian kakkabu dhalmu, the planet Saturn. Mahram is a place name apparently preserved in the Arabic Mahramah محرمة near Jebel Selma, close to Tayma. The word means holy place/sacred area. C. J. Gadd has compared the Tayma cube with steles found in Harran with astronomical symbols (the star of Ishtar-Venus, the winged disc of the sun God Shamash and the crescent of the moon God Sin). It is in Harran that we find many theophoric names with Salmu. A deity named Salmu is attested in many Aramaic inscriptions elsewhere and in Assyrian deity lists. This Salmu might be the same one in Tayma where we also find the emblem of the sun God, the winged disk. It appears at the top left of the Tayma cube hovering above a humanoid figure. According to Gadd, the figure on the Tayma cube would be Salm of Hajam being received by the Gods of Tayma, while the disk would be Salm of Mahram.
Its more likely that Salm is represented by the bull-head altar since bullheads are frequently found with inscriptions mentioning Salm, suggesting that Salm was a lunar deity. This might be why Nabonidus was so interested in Tayma, he was a devotee of the moon God Sin and relocated to a city that was the center of moon God worship. The issue is that the inscriptions with bull-heads don't mention which Salm they are referring to and the bull-heads themselves have solar disks between the horns anyway. Regardless, the fact that we have terms such as Salm of Mahram and Salm of Hajam indicate that Salm was believed to be a tutelary deity of a given locality like the gny' (jinn) in Palmyra. In Palmyra there were many jinn who acted as tutelary deities of villages, settlements, encampments, orchards and tribes. Deities being "of" places is not unheard of in North Arabian, South Arabian and Aramaic, the most famous example being the Nabatean Dushara (of Shara). Salm of Hajam, who was being introduced to Tayma in the inscription, might have come from Al-Hajam الهجم in Yemen. Another deity, Salm of rb, also had a temple in Tayma. Inscriptions found in Najran and Jordan also record the deity Salm. When Tayma waged war against Dedan or the Nabateans it was Salm who lead these wars. Inscriptions mention nsr lslm (supported/aided Ṣalm) similar to the Quranic nasara نصر. Salm is found in many theophoric names such as *slmd' "*Ṣalm has known," slm'l "Ṣalm is God," and slmškr "Salm has been thanked."
The second deity mentioned is Šingala. Like Ṣalm, Šingala is found in many Aramaic theophoric names like Saggildaa "Saggil is judge" or Tab-Sagal "Saggil is good." Over the years there have been many explanation for the name Shingala. One suggestion is that it might be connected with the Goddess Shigal mentioned in Late Syriac sources like the lexicon of Bar Bahlul which claims She is the Chaldean equivalent of Aphrodite. Another is that it might be a compound of the Akkadian moon God Sin and some other word. Perhaps the Sumerian word gal which means "great," "the great Sin," or maybe it is Sin-egalla’ "Sin of the palace," or Sin-gly "Sin uncovers." Many more suggestions have been offered by various scholars, none truly satisfactory. Shingala or variants of it don't appear in any Akkadian deity lists. The best explanation we have is that Shingala is a compound of Shinga and El meaning "the great God" or "El is great." Such divine names are often found in Semitic deities such as the Amorite Yakrubel and the Hebrew El Shaddai. Sadly this doesn't tell us much about the nature or personality of this deity but Shingala is most likely a lunar deity.
Ašima doesn't show up in any cuneiform texts unless we accept the identification with Ishum, an Akkadian God who acts as a divine night watchman, tasked with protecting houses at night, and also associated with various underworld deities, especially Nergal and Shubula. Ašima was first incorrectly read as Ashira, a mother Goddess who appears in a number of ancient sources including South Arabian inscriptions. Ašima is found in Aramaic texts in Egypt in the compound name ’šmbyt’l "Ashima's baetyl." In the Hebrew Bible we find a mention of Ashima being worshipped by the people of Hamat 2 Kings 17:30 The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima. Like the previous deities, Ashima shows up in Aramaic personal names such as 'šmzbd "Ashima has given." Ashima comes from the root word 'šm or اسم in Arabic, meaning "name." As far as we know, Ashima is a Goddess, thus completing the Sun, Moon and Venus triad with Ashima as Venus, Ṣalm as the Sun and Shingala as the Moon. A similar triad is found in Dumat, another caravan city in Arabia. All the Taymanitic deities mentioned so far seem to be Aramean in origin and were first attested in North Syria before they show up in Tayma.
When Nabonidus made Tayma his home, he introduced the worship of many Akkadian deities including Nabu, patron God of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom, His consort Tashmetu, Marduk, patron deity of the city of Babylon, Nanaya, a Goddess of love, closely associated with Inanna/Ishtar. These deities may have influenced or been transformed into Nabatean deities mentioned in the Greco-Roman period such as Al-Kutbay, a God of scribes like Nabu and Allat and Al-'Uzza may have been influenced by Nanaya. Ishtar, goddess of love, war, and fertility, is also mentioned in cuneiform fragments found in Tayma and Her cult has long been connected to those of Allāt and Alʿuzza, all three are considered Venusian deities. The Mesopotamian empires eventually succumbed to the Achaemenid Empire and its during this period that we start hearing about what are usually considered Arabian deities proper, though invoked in Imperial Aramaic, the lingua franca of the region. Salm continues to be worshipped but we start hearing about deities such as Manafu, known as Manaf in Islamic sources, attested in the Hauran as Zeus Manaphos and even mentioned in Palmyra with Tammuz. The Goddess Manawatu, commonly known as Manāt, also shows up in this period. The Nabateans and Lihyanites fought over Tayma though this doesn't seem to have affected it's pantheon.
Neo-Babylonian Period
- Ṣalm/Ṣalam: A tutelary solar deity associated with the sun disk and bull
- Šingala/Šangila: Likely a lunar deity
- Ašima: A Venusian Goddess
- Nabu: God of writing and wisdom. His name means "to prophesize"
- Tašmetu/Tašmetum: Consort of Nabu. Her name means “the lady who listens”
- Marduk: God of Babylon astrologically associated with the planet Jupiter
- Nanaya: Goddess of love associated with eroticism and sensuality
- Ištar: Goddess of war and love associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power
Persian Period
- Ṣalm/Ṣalam: This tutelary solar deity continues to be worshipped in this period
- Manafu/Manaf: A God equated with Zeus in the Hauran
- Manawatu/Manawat/Manat: Goddess of time, fate, fortune, destiny and death
See also
Sources
- Archaeology and epigraphy at Tayma
- The Aramaic pantheon of Tayma’
- The pagan god : popular religion in the Greco-Roman Near East
- Tayma II. Catalogue of the inscriptions discovered in the Saudi-German excavations at Taymāʾ
- Nabonidus the Mad King: A Reconsideration of His Stelas from Harran and Babylon
- A Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions: Moabite, Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic, Nabataean ...