Page 71 - Edessa, 'The Blessed City'-01, by J. B. Segal (Oxford, 1970). Chapters 1-3

58 EDESSA UNDER THE KINGS

important)1 of the sacred mount for the budar, who succeeded Tirdat and was
fed by him in a ceremonial meal. For this action Tirdat would be rewarded
by Marilaha. If, on the other hand, he did not give his successor access to the
stool, the sacred pillar would fall and, we conclude, Marilaha would be
angry. Tirdat, in token of his consent, set up on the same day an altar and a
pillar on the western side of the mount.
The motif of a pillar surmounted by horns or a crescent is a not uncom-
mon lunar symbol in this region. We find it, beside the shape of a serpent,
carved on the wall of a cave outside Urfa.2 It occurs also on reliefs in a cave
cut from the rock at Sumatar Harabesi, together with male figures and
dedicatory inscriptions in Syriac; these include one to an Arabarchos and
his son the nuhadra, and to two other Arabarchoi. The same motif is found
on coins of Harran of the reign of Septimius Severus, and on stelae from
Harran of the time of the Babylonian king Nabonidus centuries earlier. The
moon god Sin, the peculiar deity of Harran, was, we observe, worshipped
also at Sumatar.
Of different significance are the stool and pillar as the cult emblems
of Marilaha. They appear in miniature on an Edessan coin of the reign
of Eiagabalus (2i8-22).3 They are also inscribed on coins of that Wa'el of
Edessa in whose reign the Sumatar inscriptions were dedicated. On these
coins is shown a temple with a pediment and steps leading up to it; inside is a
'cubic cult object, on a base supported by two curved legs'.4 This is evidently
religious furniture. A star may be seen in the pediment of the shrine, no
doubt an indication of planet worship.5
The objects in the temple on the Wa'el coins are a pillar and stool; the
pillar does not have horns or a crescent. The stool is evidently the symbol of
office of the budar. The term budar is found already in the Syriac inscription,
dated A.D. 73, on the tomb-tower of Serrin on the Osrhoenian side of the
Euphrates. This tower was erected for a budar of the deity Nahai; the budar
had also the religious title of qashshisha, elder.6 A form of the title budar
seems to have been in use among the pagans of Harran (who also used Syriac
in their liturgy). In the course of induction into their mysteries—the account
is unfortunately transmitted only in garbled form in the Moslem period and
by someone who knew Syriac but little Arabic—the novice was called 'son of
the bughdariyyun' J In the incantation at these mysteries were also allusions to

1 Cf. p. 47. 2 See below p. 106. Syriac qashshisha denotes 'priest'; see my
3 The coin may, however, be assigned to the article in Iraq xxix, 1967, 6. Under the form
reign of Caracalla. gsys" it appears as the title of a personage,
4 G. F. Hill, Catalogue of Greek Coins of possibly a religious dignitary, on an Elymaean
Arabia....; cf. the catalogues of G. Macdonald inscription of Khuzistan of the first or second
and J. Babelon. century A.D., Bivar and Shaked, op. cit. 272.
5 The legend on the coins may be read as 7 BDR is possibly to be read in an inscription
'LH 'NHY, 'the go d Nahai'; PI. 280. found at Sa'adiya near Hatra and dated April
6 The text is given on p. 23 n. 4. In Christian 125, Fuad Safar, Sumer xvii, 1961, gf[., and

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