
Vol 2 Ep 10 - The Religion of Canaan and Phoenicia
History of the World podcast
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The Deity of Melcart
In the fifth century, greek historian herodotus travelled to tyre during his own lifetime to look for clues about the deity of tyre. But throughout his writings, he referred to the deity as heracles. Heracles is actually a character of greek mythology who is a son of zeus and a god or a hero of athleticism. Subsequently, the romans adopted heracles into their own stories of mythology, and as such, they renamed him hercules. Could it therefore be pure coinc dance that the place where the phoenicians dared to cross is possibly named after their own deity, melcart because of this link?
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