the average scribe should be familiar with the city. Baalat Gebal is also mentioned twice in a collection of Egyptian incantations, most of them directed against snakes, from the reign of Ramesses XI (BM EA 9997 + 1030). In the sixth of the preserved texts , which describes Isis healing her son Horus, who is portrayed as a child and has been bitten by a snake, she is invoked to heal the poison alongside other goddesses, such as Nephthys and Serket. Based on a restored damaged passage she is most likely identified with Hathor in this context. For unknown reasons, Baalat Gebal is entirely absent from the Story of Wenamun, even though it describes a journey to Byblos. An implicit reference to her might only be present in the description of a sacrifice to the local deities. In the Phoenician History of Philo of Byblos, which he presents as a Greek a translation of the works of a Phoenician author, Sanchuniathon, but which modern researchers consider to be a combination of both Phoenician and Greco-Roman elements, Baalat Gebal is referred to as Dione. Ouranos sends her and her two sisters, Astarte and Rhea, to trick and defeat their brother Kronos, but the latter instead marries them, and they subsequently give birth to his children. Ouranos most likely stands for a Phoenician deity representing heaven. Rhea is not explicitly identified with any Phoenician deity, and might be the Greek goddess. Kronos is also referred to as El elsewhere in the Phoenician History, but there is no other evidence for a consort relation between Baalat Gebal and El, and the pairing of Dione and Kronos is also unusual from Greek perspective, as the goddess bearing this name was typically associated with Zeus instead. The number and names of Dione’s children are not preserved. Later on, when Kronos assigns cities to various deities, she receives Byblos as her domain. The temple of Baalat Gebal is mentioned in Lucian’s De Dea Syria. She is referred to as the “Byblian Aphrodite” (). Lucian states that in Roman times rites focused on Adonis took place in her temple, which might be an echo of the worship of a possible unidentified male deity related to her, who according to Marwan Kilani was associated with the Obelisk Temple in earlier periods. References Bibliography External links Roman statue of Ba‘alat Gebal - Silk Road Seattle, University of Washington A