Phoenician goddess, protector of Byblos
Baaltis (Baalat Gebal)
Baaltis, or Baalat Gebal (“Lady of Byblos”), was the protective goddess of the Phoenician city of Byblos, identified by Greeks and Egyptians with Aphrodite and Hathor.
The myth
Her relationships vary between sources: in Phoenician and Syrian tradition she was a companion, sister or wife of Baal. The historian Philo of Byblos calls her Dione, makes her a sister of Astarte, and says she was the wife of El and mother of his daughters, and that El gave her the city of Byblos. She is shown wearing two tall upright plumes on her headdress, as Astarte is.
In Egypt she was linked with Hathor from an early period, and the Greeks equated her with Aphrodite.
Worship and religion
She was the главная deity of Byblos's local pantheon and was associated with commerce. Her temple, the largest sanctuary in the city, was in use from the third millennium BCE until the Roman period. Her kings honored her, and Egyptian devotees did too.
Ancient sources: The Amarna letters, Philo of Byblos’s Phoenician History, Lucian’s De Dea Syria, and Egyptian texts linking her with Hathor.