ANAMELECH (Heb. 'Anammelekh). — A deity (with Adramelech, q.v.) of the inhabitants of Sepharvaim transplanted by Sargon into Samaria, who offered children to it in holocaust (4 Kgs 17:31). It is probably the well-known Syrian-Canaanite goddess 'Anat, prominent in the texts of Elephantine and Ras Shamrah (q.v.), united with Moloch (q.v.) or Melek. Others see in it a Babylonian deity: either the goddess Ananitu of Sippar (Sepharvaim?) or the sky-god Anu (Anumalik).
BIBL.: E. Pannier, s.V. in DB, I, cols. 536 ff. — On 'Anat: A. Vincent, La religion des Judéo-Araméens d'Élephantine, Paris 1937, pp. 624-531; H. L. Ginsberg, Ba‘al und 'Anat, in Orientalia, 7 (1938), pp. 1-11; J. Aistleitner, Die Anat-Texte aus Ras-Schamra, in Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 16 (1939), pp. 193-211. Francesco Spadafora