Belus (Latin) or Belos (Ancient Greek: Βῆλος, Bē̂los) was the indifferent classical rendering of the Semitic words bēlu and baʿal ("lord") as a theonym, personal name, and royal title.
Belus may refer to:
Etemenanki was a ziggurat dedicated to the Mesopotamian god Marduk in the ancient city of Babylon. It now exists only in ruins, located about 90 kilometres (56 mi) south of Baghdad, Iraq. Many scholars have identified Etemenanki as a likely inspiration for the biblical story of the Tower of Babel.
Baal, or Baʻal, was a title and honorific meaning 'owner' or 'lord' in the Northwest Semitic languages spoken in the Levant during antiquity. From its use among people, it came to be applied to gods. Scholars previously associated the theonym with solar cults and with a variety of unrelated patron deities, but inscriptions have shown that the name Ba'al was particularly associated with the storm and fertility god Hadad and his local manifestations.
In Greek mythology, Aegyptus or Ægyptus was a legendary king of ancient Egypt. He was a descendant of the princess Io through his father Belus, and of the river-god Nilus as both the father of Achiroe, his mother and as a great, great-grandfather on his father's side.
Ninus, according to Greek historians writing in the Hellenistic period and later, was the founder of Nineveh, ancient capital of Assyria. The figure or figures with which he corresponds in Assyrian records is uncertain; an association or identification with Ninurta has been proposed. An identification with Shamshi-Adad I, Shamshi-Adad V, and/or a conflation of the two have also been suggested.
Bêl is a title signifying 'lord' or 'master' applied to various gods in the Mesopotamian religion of Akkad, Assyria, and Babylonia. The feminine form is Bêlit in Akkadian. Bel is represented in Greek as Belos and in Latin as Belus. Belit appears in Greek form as Beltis (Βελτις). Linguistically, Bel is an East Semitic form cognate with the Northwest Semitic Baal with the same meaning.
Hadad, Haddad, Adad, or Iškur (Sumerian) was the storm and rain god in the Canaanite and ancient Mesopotamian religions. He was attested in Ebla as "Hadda" in c. 2500 BCE. From the Levant, Hadad was introduced to Mesopotamia by the Amorites, where he became known as the Akkadian (Assyrian-Babylonian) god Adad. Adad and Iškur are usually written with the logogram 𒀭𒅎dIM—the same symbol used for the Hurrian god Teshub. Hadad was also called Rimon/Rimmon, Pidar, Rapiu, Baal-Zephon, or often simply Baʿal (Lord), but this title was also used for other gods. The bull was the symbolic animal of Hadad. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt and wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, as well as the Babylonian Bel.
Enūma Eliš, meaning "When on High", is a Babylonian creation myth from the late 2nd millennium BCE and the only complete surviving account of ancient near eastern cosmology. It was recovered by English archaeologist Austen Henry Layard in 1849 in the ruined Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh. A form of the myth was first published by English Assyriologist George Smith in 1876; active research and further excavations led to near completion of the texts and improved translation.
Nabu is the Babylonian patron god of literacy, the rational arts, scribes, and wisdom. He is associated with the classical planet Mercury in Babylonian astronomy.
In Greek mythology, Belus was a king of Egypt and father of Aegyptus and Danaus and (usually) brother to Agenor. The wife of Belus has been named as Achiroe or Side.
Belus or Belos in classical Greek or classical Latin texts in a Babylonian context refers to the Babylonian god Bel Marduk. Though often identified with Greek Zeus and Latin Jupiter as Zeus Belos or Jupiter Belus, in other cases Belus is euhemerized as an ancient king who founded Babylon and built the ziggurat. He is recognized and worshipped as the god of war.
Belus or Belos in classical Greek or classical Latin texts in an Assyrian context refers to one or another purportedly ancient and historically mythical Assyrian king, such king in part at least a euhemerization of the Babylonian god Bel Marduk. It is likely that this Assyrian Belus should mostly not be distinguished from the euhemerized Babylonian Belus, but some chronographers make a distinction between them.
Ancient Semitic religion encompasses the polytheistic religions of the Semitic peoples from the ancient Near East and Northeast Africa. Since the term Semitic represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Baʽal Zephon, also transliterated as Baal-zephon, was an epithet of the Canaanite storm god Baʿal in his role as lord of Jebel Aqra, called "Mount Zaphon" in antiquity. He is identified in Ugaritic texts as Hadad.
Canaanite religion was a group of ancient Semitic religions practiced by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age to the first centuries CE. Canaanite religion was polytheistic and in some cases monolatristic. It was influenced by neighboring cultures, particularly ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian religious practices. The pantheon was headed by the god El and his consort Asherah, with other significant deities including Baal, Anat, Astarte, and Mot.
Baal is a Semitic term for "Lord" or "owner".
The Baal Cycle is an Ugaritic text about the Canaanite god Baʿal, a storm god associated with fertility.
Baalshamin, also called Baal Shamem and Baal Shamaim, was a Northwest Semitic god and a title applied to different gods at different places or times in ancient Middle Eastern inscriptions, especially in Canaan/Phoenicia and Syria. The title was most often applied to Hadad, who is also often titled just Ba‘al. Baalshamin was one of the two supreme gods and the sky god of pre-Islamic Palmyra in ancient Syria. There his attributes were the eagle and the lightning bolt, and he perhaps formed a triad with the lunar god Aglibol and the sun god Malakbel. The title was also applied to Zeus.
Belus was a legendary king of Tyre in Virgil's Aeneid and other Latin works. He was said to have been the father of Dido of Carthage, Pygmalion of Tyre, and Anna. The historical father of these figures was the king Mattan I, also known as MTN-BʿL, which classicist T. T. Duke suggests was made into the name Belus as a hypocorism.
Mattan, Matan, or Mittin ruled Tyre from 840 to 832 BC, succeeding his father Baal-Eser II.
Beelzebub or Baʿal Zebub, also spelled Beelzebul or Belzebuth, and occasionally known as the Lord of the Flies, is a name derived from a Philistine god, formerly worshipped in Ekron. In some Abrahamic religions he is described as a major demon. The name Beelzebub is associated with the Canaanite god Baal.