MELQART. — A Phoenician deity (Gr. Μελχάδρος). The Phoenician melgart, from melek-Qart, according to the still most probable opinion, means “the king of the city” (= Tyre). W. F. Albright, however, prefers to interpret it as “the king of the city” (= Hell), but on the basis of texts that are too weak. This deity, hitherto not found in Ugaritic texts or in the el-'Amarnah letters, accompanied the entire rise, development, and flourishing of the maritime and colonizing powers of Qart (= Tyre) and Qart-hadašt (“New Tyre,” i.e., Carthage), serving as the ἀρχηγέτης of their people and empire: the chief god, founder and preserver of their state, and their divine representative. Hence also his other name, Ba‘al Ṣūr, “Baal of Tyre.”
It is not easy to determine the nature of M. According to Albright, he would be a solar and infernal god, similar to Nergal, Horon, and others. But more solid, even if only probable, seems the opinion of R. Dussaud in his latest careful study: M. arose from the syncretistic speculation of the theologians of Tyre, who, following the expansion of the city’s maritime power, succeeded in merging into one deity the two fiercest enemies of the Ugaritic myths, namely Ba‘al, the agricultural god of winter vegetation, dispenser of fertility and god of storm and lightning (like Hadad), and Yam, the powerful and terrible god of the Sea, and thus of all maritime activities. M. would have taken on the characteristics and attributes of both, as indeed appears from the oldest coins of Tyre, where he is depicted riding the winged hippocampus, but holding a bow (symbol of lightning). His festival is the ‘Εγερσιάς, the awakening or resurrection, celebrated in the month of peritos, at the end of the winter rains, whose rite was meant to signify a true holocaust of the deity in fire, from which he would rise again each year rejuvenated.
M. was introduced into Samaria and the Kingdom of Israel under the name Ba‘al, during the reigns of Ahab and Jezebel; but he was opposed by the prophet Elijah in the majestic assembly on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:20–38). This account, ironically, alludes to some of his properties, such as being a god of lightning, a god of “awakening,” and a god of water.
M. should not be identified with Milkom, Molk, Moloch, or similar deities; nor (against O. Eissfeldt) is he to be equated with Ba‘al Šamem in the scene on Mount Carmel. As for the pantheon of Tyre, M. would be the great male god of Tyre; his consort is the famous Astarte, and their son is Ešmun. To this triad, under the form of the ἅλμων Καρχηδονίων, Hannibal in 215 swore his oath.
The first mention of M. is found in a stele recently published by M. Dunand, which Albright dates to ca. 850 B.C. It was erected by a Ben-hadad (v.), an Aramean king of Damascus, not yet fully identified. Later, numerous temples, stelae, and inscriptions (even bilingual ones) are found throughout the Phoenician sphere of influence, from Syria, Phoenicia, and Cyprus, across Libya, Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia, to Spain. Even the famous “Pillars of Hercules” are said to derive from the two stelae erected before his temple in Gades (Cadiz). Indeed, M., interpreted by the Greeks as Heracles, survived the fall of Phoenician and Punic power.