Talk:Baalat Gebal

Section

Same as Baltis? --Tydaj 16:59, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Recent page move

Sir blue recently moved this page from Baalat Gebal to this location. While moving the page may be legitimate, I don't think "Ba'alat, Lady of Byblos" meets the WP:Common name criterion. Sources don't seem to treat "Lady of Byblos" as an integral part of the goddess' name. They often simply use "Baalat" or "Ba'alat", and when they don't, they use "Baalat (or Ba'alat) Gebal". For instance, the two common reference works on Egyptian deities (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt and The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses) both say "Baalat". The relevant entry in Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible also does so, though it is discussing all uses of that generic term and not simply the goddess of Byblos (but it says "The majority of attestations of bʾlt as a divine name are associated with the goddess of Byblos").

I think it will be difficult to determine which permutation of the goddess's name is most common in the sources—I don't know how to use Google Ngrams to filter for a shorter version of a term (i.e., finding when "Baalat" is mentioned but "Gebal" is not), and the variable use of the glottal-stop symbol complicates things further. But I feel fairly certain that the current title isn't the right one. A. Parrot (talk) 01:00, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Ba(')alat or Ba(')alat Gebal is indeed the norm. The move is basically vandalism and the user who performed it as far as I can tell did not add any substantial information to the article (or to any other articles about ANE deities, for that matter). They also seem to operate under the assumption it's impossible for a city to share a name with a deity which is nonsensical: there is also Ashur and Assur, Belet Nagar, Belet Terraban, probably half a dozen if not more other well attested local "Belets" and "Baalats," Ilhalab ("the god of Halab"), Urkitum ("the Urukean"), Halabatu ("the Halabean")... It was actually reasonably common all over the Ancient Near East.

I'd say that judging from titles of pages of other deities with etymologically related names (Baal Hammon, Baal) it would be perfectly fine to go back to Baalat Gebal over Ba'alat Gebal (currently facing a similar dilemma regarding the Ugaritic Shatiqatu/Sha'tiqatu), but either is fine as long as the title is restored. I think the article needs a rework though, the information right now is not very rigorously presented, which is an additional problem, but I guess that's beside the point.

As a side note: even if the deity of a city was sometimes just referred to with the title Baal/Baalat/Bel/any cognate thereof, I'm pretty sure it's best to stick to the full names to avoid confusion. The Ugaritic Baal and Marduk's "Bel" epithet are the only exception from this rule I can think of and look where that lead the former guy - pratically no own article (even though Ugaritic culture is difficult to mix together with a bunch of disjointed sources from a completely different period like the Baal article does at the moment)... HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 21:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Resurrecting this topic after a few months. I can find virtually no evidence in favor of the baffling new title. Meanwhile, the following sources firmly refer to the tutelary goddess of Byblos as "Baalat Gebal" or variants of this name, without ever making the assertion she did not share the name of her city:

• The Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos: A Commentary by Albert I. Baumgartner; the form used is "Baalat Gebal". Search through the site of the publisher reveals around 20 results for this query, with the spelling varying between Baalat Gebal and Ba'alat Gebal.
• Studies in the Ebla Pantheon II by Alfonso Archi (the epigrapher of the Ebla excavations); the form used is "Baalat-Gebal" (p. 420). Jstor additionally brings up 110 other results for the query Baalat Gebal. Both here and on the Brill site, the newest results are from the 2020s, so you can't even make an argument that this name has been since proved to be incorrect.

Last but not least: even wikipedia uses the correct form elsewhere, see Temple of Baalat Gebal or Yehawmilk Stele. The only exception anywhere online seems to be a single user, User:Sir blue, who never edited the page otherwise. and went radio silent shortly after the change, around a year ago. This is long overdue for a fix. I know the number of people on wikipedia who pay any attention whatsoever to articles of deities from this region is in the single digits, but this is getting grotesque and I'm puzzled why nobody intervened right away. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

Baalat Gebal has a history longer than a single edit, so only administrators have the technical ability to move this article to that title. If we agree on that title (it seems fine to me), I can put in a request at WP:Requested moves. It doesn't look like Sir blue is going to argue, and given how little attention this page receives, I very much doubt anyone else would. A. Parrot (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I am aware, that's the only reason why I didn't do it myself. I'm sorry if the message came across as too emotional, this sort of stuff is widespread and it's just hard to keep up with it. Fixing one article means you discover 5 more which require work.

On a more constructive note, I am aware of the lack of attention to this page, which is unusually short for one focused on the main deity of a reasonably well researched city. I have a bibliography prepared for the article and plan to work on it in in the foreseeable future, I really think we can do better than defining her as "Qudšu, who is Asherah" like the article currently does (note the most recent articles advise against the everlasting quest for "true" name of Baalat Gebal, which is a much needed breath of fresh air). Jo Ann Hackett's criticism of the puzzling dogma of interchangeability of goddesses sadly still applies. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 22:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I've made the request. A. Parrot (talk) 22:23, 19 January 2023 (UTC)