DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.809#0216
IBERIC, BRITANNIC, AND MALTESE CONNEXIONS 191
by the triple columnar groups such as the above with the recurring trinities Pillar
of pillars—often above altar-bases—thousands of which are scattered over the trmities-
Liby- Phoenician world; are too striking to be merely fortuitous. Such groups
are associated with the names and symbols of Baal Hainan and of his consort
Tanit,1 the former of whom, sometimes personified with ram's horns, is iden-
tical with the old Libyan God of the Oasis, otherwise confounded with the
Egyptian Amon.2 This divinity, the classical Zeus Amnion, had absorbed, Oracular
as the Deus Fatidicus, the soothsaying powers attributed by the Libyans
to their dead, and it is clear that such a cult fits in well with the oracular
rites and funereal associations of the Megalithic sanctuaries.
The connexion, already suggested in this work, of the Cretan Mother Con-
Goddess—on one side, at least of her spiritual being—with Neith, the Delta of Early
Goddess, would brine: Minoan cult into relation with other aspects of the M,inoan
rclisfion
Libyan religion. The substantial identity of Neith with the Ausean with
Goddess of the Lake Tritonis (otherwise assimilated to the Sai'tic ' Athena' Goddess,
of Herodotus) has been demonstrated by Oric Bates,3 who, with good
reason, has expressed a strong suspicion that the latter divinity is to be iden-
tified with the Dea Caelestis of Carthaginian Africa, the Consort of the The
Libyan Sky God.4 It seems possible that, owing to some deep-lying affinities /^Ja"
of the kind indicated, the Minoan merchants who ex hypothesi found a market Caelestis.
in the Maltese Islands had recognized a certain religious community
in the local cult, while the islanders themselves may have readily accepted at
their hands some of the externals of a parallel form of worship more civilized
than their own.
1 Sometimes the two baetylic trinities of * For the African Sky God, the ' Saturnus '
Baal Haman and Tanit are placed side by of Roman monuments, see especially J. Tou-
side on the same stela above a common tain, De Saturni dei in Africa Romana cultu.
altar, cf. R. Pietschmann, Gesch. derPhoenizier, ' Saturnus' was associated with 'one of these
p. 105. vague nature Goddesses of whom Rhea Cybele
2 See Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans, and Ops Regina were examples' (Bates, op.
p. 190 seqq. ' cit, p. 201).
3 lb., p. 203 seqq.
by the triple columnar groups such as the above with the recurring trinities Pillar
of pillars—often above altar-bases—thousands of which are scattered over the trmities-
Liby- Phoenician world; are too striking to be merely fortuitous. Such groups
are associated with the names and symbols of Baal Hainan and of his consort
Tanit,1 the former of whom, sometimes personified with ram's horns, is iden-
tical with the old Libyan God of the Oasis, otherwise confounded with the
Egyptian Amon.2 This divinity, the classical Zeus Amnion, had absorbed, Oracular
as the Deus Fatidicus, the soothsaying powers attributed by the Libyans
to their dead, and it is clear that such a cult fits in well with the oracular
rites and funereal associations of the Megalithic sanctuaries.
The connexion, already suggested in this work, of the Cretan Mother Con-
Goddess—on one side, at least of her spiritual being—with Neith, the Delta of Early
Goddess, would brine: Minoan cult into relation with other aspects of the M,inoan
rclisfion
Libyan religion. The substantial identity of Neith with the Ausean with
Goddess of the Lake Tritonis (otherwise assimilated to the Sai'tic ' Athena' Goddess,
of Herodotus) has been demonstrated by Oric Bates,3 who, with good
reason, has expressed a strong suspicion that the latter divinity is to be iden-
tified with the Dea Caelestis of Carthaginian Africa, the Consort of the The
Libyan Sky God.4 It seems possible that, owing to some deep-lying affinities /^Ja"
of the kind indicated, the Minoan merchants who ex hypothesi found a market Caelestis.
in the Maltese Islands had recognized a certain religious community
in the local cult, while the islanders themselves may have readily accepted at
their hands some of the externals of a parallel form of worship more civilized
than their own.
1 Sometimes the two baetylic trinities of * For the African Sky God, the ' Saturnus '
Baal Haman and Tanit are placed side by of Roman monuments, see especially J. Tou-
side on the same stela above a common tain, De Saturni dei in Africa Romana cultu.
altar, cf. R. Pietschmann, Gesch. derPhoenizier, ' Saturnus' was associated with 'one of these
p. 105. vague nature Goddesses of whom Rhea Cybele
2 See Oric Bates, The Eastern Libyans, and Ops Regina were examples' (Bates, op.
p. 190 seqq. ' cit, p. 201).
3 lb., p. 203 seqq.