MELQART. — Phoenician divinity (Gr. Μελκάθρος). The Phoenician melqart, from melek-Qart, means, according to the view still most probable today, “the king of the city (= Tyre).” W. F. Albright, on the other hand, inclines to interpret it as “the king of the city (= Hell),” but on the basis of texts that are too tenuous. This divinity, so far not encountered in the texts of Ugarit or in the letters of el-'Amârnah, accompanied the entire rise, development, and flourishing of the maritime and colonizing powers of Qart (= Tyre) and Qart-badaît (“New Tyre,” that is, Carthage), serving as the ἀρχηγέτης of their people and Empire: the chief god, founder and guardian of their State, and their divine representative. Hence one also understands his other name, Ba'al Şôr, “Baal of Tyre.”
It is not easy to determine the nature of M. According to Albright, he would be a solar and infernal god, resembling Nergal, Horon, and others. But more well-founded, although only probable, seems to be the opinion of R. Dussaud in his most recent careful study: M. arose from the syncretistic speculation of the theologians of Tyre, who, following the extension of the city’s maritime power, succeeded in merging into a single divinity the two enemies, exceedingly fierce toward one another, of the myths of Ugarit—namely Ba'al, the agrarian god of winter vegetation, dispenser of fertility and god of the storm and lightning (like Hadad), and Yam, the powerful and atrocious god of the Sea, and therefore of all maritime activities. M. would have assumed the characteristics and attributes of both, as indeed appears from the oldest coins of Tyre, where he is depicted riding upon the winged hippocampus, but with a bow in his hand (symbol of lightning). His festival is the 'Εγερσος, the awakening or resurrection, celebrated in the month of peritos, at the end of the winter rains; its rite would signify a true immolation of the divinity in fire, from which he would rise again each year rejuvenated.
M. was introduced into Samaria and the Kingdom of Israel, under the name hal-Ba'al, in the time of Ahab and Jezebel; but he was opposed by the prophet Elijah at the majestic assembly on Mount Carmel (I Reg. 18, 20-38). This account, ironically, alludes to some of his properties as god of lightning, god of the “awakening,” and god of water.
M. must not be identified with Milkom, Molk, Moloch, and similar divinities; nor (against O. Eissfeldt) is he Ba'al Şâmem in the scene on Mount Carmel. As for the pantheon of Tyre, M. would be the great male god of the Triad; his consort is the famous Astarte and his son Êmun. To this triad, in the form of the Βάημων Καρχηδωνών, Hannibal swore an oath in 215.
The first mention of M. is found in a stele recently published by M. Dunand, which according to Albright dates from ca. 850 B.C. It was erected by a Ben-hadad (v.), an Aramaean king of Damascus, who has not yet been fully identified. Later, numerous temples, stelae, and inscriptions (even bilingual ones) are found throughout the sphere of Phoenician influence, from Syria, Phoenicia, and Cyprus, through Libya, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia, as far as Spain. Even the famous “Pillars of Hercules” would go back to the two stelae erected before his temple at Gades (Cádiz). Indeed M.,
interpreted by the Greeks as Hercules, survived the fall of Phoenician and Punic power.