Page 61 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

48 EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS
perhaps of wine. At Dura Europos by the Euphrates, not far from its
junction with the Khabur, are painted representations of the rites of Palmyra
probably of the first century A.D. A figure in priestly dress dips, with his
right hand, a branch or plant into a high vase, with three bulbous protuber-
ances near the top and a fluted base, resting upon a tripod; the vase is filled
with a transparent liquid, possibly holy water. In the priest's left hand are a
ewer, a bowl and two knives. Another priest, a bowl and two knives in his
right hand, appears to throw incense, with his left hand, into a burning
censer. The act of plunging a branch, presumably for lustration, into a vase
is repeated in other tableaux at Dura, but the officiant may, evidently, be a
layman for in one painting he is depicted not in priestly garments. At Harran
worshippers prayed towards the north (less probably, according to some
writers, to the south) at sunrise, noon, and sunset; they performed ablution
before prayer. There, too, they wore a special costume appropriate to the
planet to whom their supplications were addressed, and made offerings
appropriate to the deity. A late account, from the ninth century A.D., des-
cribes the procession of a sacrificial black bull festooned with garlands and
bells and escorted by singers and musicians. At Hierapolis sacrifice was made
twice daily, to Hadad in silence, but to Atargatis with violent musical
accompaniment. Sometimes the animal victims were thrown to their death;
the same fate befell children sacrificed by their parents.
A significant role is played at all these shrines, as at others in the ancient
Near East, by running water. At Palmyra the great temple of Bel stood
beside a brook flowing from the sacred spring of Ephca;1 each year gifts were
thrown into the sulphurous waters of the spring as an offering to its numen,
and perhaps oracles were sought and given. A temple of the moon near
Harran was at the 'Sabian' shrine of the 'idol of the water' who had returned
to the well outside the city after a flight to India,2 and there ceremonies were
carried out on the twentieth day of each month, and especially on the twen-
tieth of Nisan.3 At Hierapolis, too, were hydrophone rites; water was brought
there twice yearly from the 'sea', and poured into a chasm outside the temple
with complex and obscure ritual.4 In the temple were statues of mermaids.
The water flowed into a lake in close proximity to the temple in which were
1 An early Syriac text recounts the myth, reputed founder of the temple of Hierapolis;
widespread in different forms throughout the D. Chwolson, Ssabier und der Ssabismus, 1856,
Near East, of Balthi (cf. Beltis at Palmyra), the ii, 40, 300.
queen of Cyprus who loved Tammuz, prince 3 The calendar of the 'Sabians' is said to
of Phoenicia; when her lover was killed in the have included also solemn rites of bathing at
Lebanon by her jealous husband, Hephaestus, Serug.
she remained at Gebal and died in the city 4 Cf. the Oration of 'Melito': '. . . The
Aphaca (cf. Ephca at Palmyra) where Tammuz Magi charged Simi, the daughter of Hadad,
was buried. that she should draw water from the sea and
2 The text reads at this point, 'in the days of cast it into the well [in a wood at Mabbog], in
Asta' followed by a variant 'Troinicos', perhaps order that the [unclean] spirit should not come
reflecting a form of the name Stratonice, a up [and] commit injury'.

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