#bronzegods

[bronzegods]

Baal of Ugarit ⛈️

Commissioned from Kiwibon

[bronzegods]

Telipinu, storm god of Hatti 🌩️

Telipinu was well known for his ferocious temper. Frequently mortals had to engage in a mugawar to draw him back after he’d departed in a rage. Frankly, Telipinu just wanted to take a sullen nap; wouldn’t anyone be angry if awoken with a bee sting?

Commissioned from Kiwibon

[bronzegods]

Djehuty, god of scribes 📜

One of Djehuty’s most important tasks was protecting mortal scribes. He inspired them to learn and grow in their literacy and was often depicted sitting over them in his baboon form.

Commissioned from Kiwibon

[bronzegods]

Hor the Elder and Setesh the Elder

Pre-Dynastic deity brothers who fuckin’ hate each other but live together in a Libyan oasis temple anyway, because obviously that’s how you solve your familial problems. Exposure. Or whatever.

In the timeline of Pantheon, their story begins in the pre-dynastic period prior to the unification of Kemet. Hor and Setesh, both royal princes who rule in Nekhen and Naqada respectively, got along fine with each other (aside from general sibling rivalry) until the abrupt death of their father, Andjety, the god of kingship, who drowned in the Nile. His body was not recovered.

Shit hit the fan.

See, there were two problems: first, the brothers encountered their first experience with true death. Not the kind where you go take a visit to the underworld and reunite your ba with your ka, but True Oblivion that comes from dying and leaving behind an unrecoverable body. Without the body preserved, there can be no resurrection.

The second issue? Andjety also didn’t leave a will for his kingdom. Lack of writing systems and all back in those days. So Hor and Setesh, shattered by the loss of their father, both sank into their grief, and both felt obligated to step into their father’s sandals and become the new king.

This resulted in constant warfare between the two Upper Egyptian city-states as their patron gods struggled to handle their loss. In the process, they crushed the kingdom of Abdju between them, sending its gods—Khenti-Amentiu, Anpu, Wepwawet, and Wepiu—fleeing north, where they allied with the Delta gods: Ptah, Sokar, Kherty, and Neith.

Hor and Setesh set aside their differences and united against the common threat. The two, reconciled, steamrolled the Delta resistance. Khenti-Amentiu and sons fled to the underworld through Saqqara, displacing Sokar and Kherty’s family in an attempt to avoid getting killed by the enraged brothers.

But after their victory, Hor turned against Setesh and banished him to a Libyan oasis. He wanted to be the one and only king, and even the mortal kings loved and took on his name. Sure, Peribsen tried recalling Setesh, but Hor chased him away again.

Which worked great, until a new threat arrived. He called himself Ra, and Hor was no match for him. He begged Setesh to help. Setesh told him to go fuck himself. Ra took over the lands by the 3rd Dynasty and banished Hor to Libya as well, laying the foundation for his ironclad rule.

The age of the sun had arrived.

Commissioned work, illustrated by Eaglidots

[bronzegods]

Marduk and Assur - Babylon and Assyria

Marduk and Assur are two Mesopotamian deities tied closely to their respective cities - Marduk with the city of Babylon and Assur with the city of Assur. In Pantheon, their destinies have been linked from early on, with their origins beginning in the Sumerian period…

The two deities are brothers, born at roughly the same time and sired by Enki, the famous god of the subterranean waters. Marduk, then named Asalluhe, was his child by Damkina, his wife, and therefore was more legitimate than Assur. Assur’s mother was an Amorite goddess that Enki was fooling around with, and given that Amorites were poorly looked upon by the Sumerians in this time period, Enki tried his damned hardest to conceal knowledge of said fooling around. Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to hide a godling baby that looks like you and has your family’s distinctive winged deity appearance, so he was left with a child that was for all intents and purposes unwanted.

Asalluhe and Assur grew up with disparate lives. Enki, not exactly known for his parenting skills, shoved his young sons off on other deities to raise them. In Asalluhe’s case, Utu the sun god was given the responsibility to raise one child. Dumuzi was given the responsibility to raise Assur.

Unfortunately, with Dumuzi’s proximity to Inanna, that didn’t bode well for Assur. While Asalluhe adored his “Uncle Utu” and changed his name to Marduk (calf of the sun) in appreciation, Assur moved away from the south as quickly as possible and returned to the outcrop of rock he’d been born at. The city of Assur formed around him, and as far as he was concerned, he was more than happy to stay far away from the south and all the bad memories it held.

As the climate changed, the southern Sumerian city-states dried up and Babylon came into power. With it, Marduk raised to power, finding himself beloved by the Amorite conquerors who took over Babylon. Marduk enjoyed kingship and power… until the gods of Hatti sacked Babylon and left him shattered. Damn Hittites didn’t even bother sticking around; the Kassite gods soon moved in and subjugated Marduk under their feet.

Assur fared hardly better. He built an impressive trade network, but his city fell into the control of the Akkadian Empire, the Kingdom of Upper Mesopotamia (Shamshi-Adad’s empire), and the Mitanni Empire. Only at the tail end of the Bronze Age did Assur start to regain his independence, enough to start challenging Hatti, Mitanni, and (Kassite) Babylon.

The Iron Age, though, is when the two really start to clash…

Illustrations commissioned from Eaglidots

[bronzegods]

Mekal (or Mekar), the lord of Beth-Shean

I strongly hold that the Baal Cycle is not "Canaanite mythology." The Ugarites themselves identified Canaanites as "foreign people," and Mot, in particular, is strongly suspected to be a literary invention of Ilumilku, the scribe who wrote the Baal Cycle. To subsume the myths under the vague title of 'Canaanite mythology' is a disservice to Ugarit and its creativity, in my opinion.

So that naturally brought a question to mind: are there any Bronze Age deities who are distinctly Canaanite?

Enter Mekal/Mekar. A Fresh Look at the Mekal Stele (Levy 2018) introduces us to a deity who was attested in northern Palestine during the Bronze Age.

(Levy 2018: 361)

That "r" at the end of his name can be either an "r" or a Semitic "l", hence the Mekal/Mekar options for his name. And he's attested as the lord of Beth-Shean (or Bit-Shani, if you fancy the syllabic Akkadian transcription). How cool is that?

Some thoughts about this deity: his iconography is closely aligned with Baal's known iconography from the time period (which should make one wonder if there isn't some possible synchronization afoot, as if Seth-Baal wasn't strong enough evidence, lol), with one caveat: he has Resheph's headband. So some differences!

What I draw from that is Mekal/Mekar is a Baal-like deity but with some differences. In the Pantheon universe, thus, Mekal is primarily a vegetation god with some rain-bringing abilities, not a storm god proper. He doesn't have the weather manipulation capability that Baal does, but he's good at making flowers and helping agriculture grow!

Given the strong Egyptian influence here, Mekal strikes me as the type who really likes lotuses, too. Maybe he really looks forward to the few visits that Nefertem makes in the foreign northern lands? Well, assuming Sekhmet's willing to let him out...

Anyway, Beth-Shean is a major Egyptian administrative center in the Late Bronze Age, so Sutekh likely stops in Beth-Shean often before continuing onward to Gubla (Byblos), another Egyptian holding. Mekal, with his minimal attestation, seems like a very young god (and it's suspicious that he's not attested afterward). Perhaps he was educated in Kemet as a godling and then brought back to Beth-Shean to rule it, as the Egyptians were known for doing with foreign princes. Couldn't get him to get rid of the beard, though. Some cultural influences refuse to die.

Artwork commissioned from Eaglidots

[bronzegods]

Sutekh, god of Naqada ☀️

The ancient city of Naqada (Nubt, Nabayat, choose your vocalization) has always been his home. A place he could go where his most demonized actions would never follow. They know who their protector is and who it always has been.

Commissioned from Kiwibon

[bronzegods]

Aššur, god of the city of Aššur ⛰️

Aššur iconography can be a little elusive. Some depictions alongside Neo-Assyrian kings show what looks like to me like a winged mountain god with a bow and arrow.

I chose osprey details out of pure vibes. Ospreys are native to the area and it makes sense that, if he’s a bird, he’s probably a bird that enjoys high places (large cliff I mean mountain!) and enjoys a good fish out of the river beside his cliff. Osprey markings look nice, too.

Commissioned from Kiwibon