Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

588 The Bull and the Sun in Syria

doubtless always been current among the native Syrians, reasserted
itself in post-classical days1, and the place is still called Mumbij2.
Its ruins were discovered in 1699 by the Rev. H. Maundrell, who
writes as follows of ' Bambych3':

' This place has no remnants of its ancient greatness but its walls, which
may be traced all round, and cannot be less than three miles in compass.
Several fragments of them remain on the east side, especially at the east gate ;
and another piece of eighty yards long, with towers of large square stone
extremely well built. On the north side I found a stone with the busts of a man
and woman, large as the life ; and, under, two eagles carved on it. Not far
from it, on the side of a large well, was fixed a stone with three figures carved
on it, in basso relievo. They were two syrens, which, twining their fishy tails
together, made a seat, on which was placed, sitting, a naked woman, her arms
and the syrens' on each side mutually entwined. On the west side is a deep pit
of about one hundred yards diameter. It was low, and had no water in it, and
seemed to have had great buildings all round it, with the pillars and ruins of
which it is now in part filled up, but not so much but that there was still water in it.
Here are a multitude of subterraneous aqueducts brought to this city, the people
attested no fewer than fifty. You can ride nowhere about the city without
seeing them.'

R. Pococke in 1745 gives a more detailed account of his visit
to 'Bambouch4.' . After describing the walls, gates, water-channel,
etc. he continues :

'At the west part of the town there is a dry bason, which seemed to
have been triangular ; it is close to the town wall : At one corner of it there is
a ruined building, which seems to have extended into the bason, and probably
was designed in order to behold with greater conveniency some religious cere-
monies or public sports. This may be the lake where they had sacred fishes
that were tame. About two hundred paces within the east gate there is a raised
ground, on which probably stood the temple of the Syrian goddess Atargatis....
I conjectured it to be about two hundred feet in front. It is probable that this
is the high ground from which they threw people headlong in their religious
ceremonies, and sometimes even their own children, though they must inevitably
perish. I observed a low wall running from it to the gate, so that probably it
had such a grand avenue as the temple at Gerrhas ; and the enclosure of the
city is irregular in this part, as if some ground had been taken in after the build-
ing of the walls to make that grand entrance ; it is probable that all the space
north of the temple belonged to it. A court is mentioned to the north of the
temple, and a tower likewise before the temple, which was built on a terrace
twelve feet high. If this tower was on the high ground I mentioned, the temple
must have been west of it, of which I could see no remains ; it possibly might

1 The mediaeval variants are collected by E. B. James in Smith Diet. Geogr. i. 106$.

2 D. G. Hogarth loc. cit. p. 183 ff.

3 Early Travels in Palestine ed. by T. Wright London 1848 p. 507.

4 R. Pococke A Description of the East, and Some other Countries London 1745 ii- 1.
166 f. He notes 'that Hierapolis in Asia minor has much the same name, being called
Pambouk Calasi [The cotton castle].' See further D. G. Hogarth loc. cit. p. 196.