Semitic Gods at Alasia in the 12th and 11th Centuries before the Common EraClaude Frédéric-Armand Schaeffer

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Then an Egyptian god, depicted in the guise of a pharaoh wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, fig. .... whose Cypriot activity we still do not know, which he was supposed to protect. Finally, seated on a throne, fig. .... a god making a gesture of blessing, and holding a goblet in his other hand. According to the religious and mythological texts of Ras Shamra-Ugarit, it is the father-god, named Il or El, a venerable old man who reigned with kindness and wisdom over all the deities of the Canaanite pantheon of Syria, numbering eighty, designated as his sons and daughters, and whom he sometimes invited to his palace for joyful banquets, during which he offered them two kinds of wine, which they drank until intoxicated, and dishes of game. According to these same texts, El had extended his kingdom over the divine world of Cyprus, and even beyond, as far as Minoan Crete. On fig. .... is reproduced one of the gold-plated bronze statuettes depicting this father-god, found at Ras Shamra- Ugarit. According to the Old Testament, he was also known to the Hebrews who, after the religious reform of Moses, named him Jehovah.

We thus see that most of the gods venerated by the Cypriots of the time of the Peoples of the Sea and the North, whose bronze statuettes have been found at Enkomi-Alasia, are of Semitic origin, with the exception of Apollo Kerkeas, who seems to have been a specifically Cypriot god, and of the Egyptian god represented in the features of a pharaoh, whom sailors of the Island must have adopted during their voyages to Egypt and during their stops in the ports of Syria and Palestine. The great popularity enjoyed by the deities of Egypt outside the Nile valley has been proved by the xxxx discoveries archaeological throughout the Mediterranean Near East.

The fact that the populations of the eastern regions of Cyprus had adopted in the 12th and 11th c. B.C.E. the cult of Semitic deities does it oblige us to admit that they themselves were of Semitic origin? Certainly not. Nowadays, for example, Christians of Europe and America believe in a god of Palestinian origin and locate in that country, distant for them, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We must, however, suppose that before occupying Cyprus - a little before the eighth year of the reign of Ramesses III (thus a little before 1181 B.C.E.) - the Peoples of the Sea and the North must have lived in a country not too distant from the