SINAI A CENTRE OF MOON-CULT
THE name Sinai is first mentioned in the Song of Deborah (Judges v.
5), which is dated to about B.C. 1000, and in the story of Exodus.
It perpetuates the early form of belief of the inhabitants of the
peninsula. For the word Sinai together with Sin (Exod. xvi. 1) and
Zin (Num. xiii. 21), all date back to Sin, a name of the moon-god in
ancient Babylonia.
The word Sin appears as part of the name of Naram-Sin, king of Accad
in Babylonia (_c._ B.C. 3700), whose great stele of victory, now
in the Louvre, represents his conquest of Elam (Persia). The acts
of Naram-Sin were considered in the light of lunar influence, for
his Annals state that “the moon was favourable for Naram-Sin who at
this season marched into Maganna.”[8] Maganna, otherwise Magan, was
frequently named in early annals and inscriptions, notably on the great
statues of King Gudea (B.C. 2500). It was the place where the diorite
came from out of which the statues were made. The same inscriptions
mention Milukhkha.[9] An ancient fragment of Assyrian geography which
was engraved about the year B.C. 680, but the original of which is
considered much older, names side by side: “The country of Milukhkha as
the country of blue stone, and the country of Maganna as the country
of copper.”[10] Of these names Maganna may refer to Sinai while the
word Milukhkha recalls the Amalekites who dwelt in the peninsula. In
any case the name Sin goes back to Babylonian influence, probably to
the Semites who were powerful in the land of Arabia in the days of
Khamurabbi.
[Illustration:
MAP OF THE VALLEY SYSTEM
OF MAGHAREH AND SERABIT
Fig. 1.—Situation of Sanctuaries. (Petrie: _Researches in Sinai_.)]
The constant recurring changes of the moon caused this to be accepted
as the ruler of times and seasons by the huntsman and the herdsman
generally. The Hebrews came from a stock of moon-worshippers. It was
from Ur of the Chaldees, a centre of moon-cult, that Terah and Abraham
migrated to Haran on the way to Canaan about B.C. 2100.[11] The Arab
writer Al Biruni (_c._ A.D. 1000) in his _Chronology of the Ancient
Nations_, noted the connection of Haran with the moon-cult, and stated
that near it was another place called Selem-sin, its ancient name being
Saram-sîn, _i.e._ _Imago lunæ_, and another village called Tera-uz,
_i.e._ _Porta Veneris_.[12]
The acceptance of moon-worship among the ancient Hebrews is confirmed
by Artapanus, some of whose statements were preserved by Alexander
Polyhistor (B.C. 140). Artapanus described the Syrians who came to
Egypt with Abraham as “Hermiouthian” (_i.e._ worshippers of Hermes),
and stated that Joseph’s brethren built Hermiouthian sanctuaries at
Athos and Heliopolis.[13] Heliopolis, the city On of the Bible (Gen.
xli. 45), was near the present Cairo; followers of Abraham were held to
have settled there. Athos has been identified as Pithom. More probably
it was Pa-kesem, the chief city of Goshen. The word Hermiouthian
indicates moon-worshippers, as Hermes, the Greek god, was reckoned by
the classic writers the equivalent of the Egyptian moon-god Thoth, as
is shown by the place-name Hermopolis, (_i.e._ the city of Thoth), in
Lower Egypt.
Another name for the moon-god was Ea or Yah, who was accounted the
oldest Semitic god in Babylonia, to which his devotees were held to
have brought the cultivation of the date-palm, an event that marked a
notable step in civilisation.[14] The emblem of Sin was the crescent
moon, the emblem of Ea was the full moon, who, in the Assyrian Creation
story is described as “Ea the god of the illustrious (_i.e._ lustrous)
face.”[15] On Babylonian seal cylinders Ea is shown standing up as a
bull, seen front face, with his devotee Eabani (_i.e._ sprung from
Ea), a man seen, front face also, who wears the horns and hide of a
bull.[16] This representation perpetuates the conception of the horned
beast as a sacrosanct animal that was periodically slain. We shall come
across this conception later in the emblem worn by the Pharaoh, and in
the story of the Israelites and the Golden Calf.
[Illustration: Sandstone Baboon from Serabit
Glazed Baboon from Hierakonpolis
Glazed Baboon from Abydos]
Fig. 2.—Figures of Baboons. (_Ancient Egypt_, a periodical, 1914, Part
i.)
The monuments found in Sinai contain information which points to the
existence of moon-worship there at a remote period of history. These
monuments consist in rock-tablets which were engraved by the Pharaohs
from the First Dynasty onwards over the mines which they worked at
Maghara, and of remains of various kinds discovered in the temple
ruins of the neighbouring Sarbut-el-Khadem or Serabit. Maghara more
especially was associated with the moon-god and was presumably the site
of a shrine during the period of Babylonian or Arabic influence which
preceded the invasion of the peninsula by the Egyptians (Fig. 1).
Among the Egyptians, Thoth, the moon-god, had shrines at Hierakonpolis
and at Abydos in Upper Egypt, and in both these places he was
worshipped under the semblance of a baboon. He was worshipped also at
Hermopolis in Lower Egypt, but here he was represented as ibis-headed.
In Sinai we find him represented sometimes as a baboon and sometimes as
ibis-headed.
Thus the excavations of the temple-ruins at Serabit in 1906 led to
the discovery of several figures of baboons. One was the rude figure
some three inches high which is here represented; it was found in
the cave that was the treasure-house of the sanctuary. This little
figure is similar in appearance and in workmanship to figures found
at Hierakonpolis and at Abydos, the centres of moon-worship in Upper
Egypt. Several of these figures were found at Hierakonpolis.[17] At
Abydos more than sixty were discovered in the winter of 1902 in a
chamber at the lowest temple level, where they were apparently placed
when the later cult of Osiris superseded the earlier cult of Thoth.
This took place in pre-dynastic times.[18] The figure of the baboon
who stood for the lunar divinity in Egypt, was doubtless deemed a
suitable offering to the sacred shrine at Serabit in Sinai, because
of the nearness of this shrine to the centre of moon-worship of the
country. If the figure was carried to Sinai at the time when similar
figures were offered in Egypt, the establishment of the moon-cult in
the peninsula dates back to the pre-dynastic days of Egypt.[19]
[Illustration: Fig. 3.—Sneferu ravaging the land. (_Ancient Egypt_, a
periodical, 1914, Part i.)]
Another baboon, carved life-size in limestone with an inscription
around its base, came out of one of the chambers of the adytum to the
sacred cave at Serabit, the work and inscription of which dated it to
the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. The presence of this figure suggests that
the Egyptians associated their moon-god with the moon-worship of the
peninsula.
[Illustration: Fig. 4.—Khufu smiting the Anu before Thoth.]
The chief shrine or sanctuary of the moon god in the peninsula probably
lay in Wadi Maghara where mining on the part of the Arabs preceded that
of the Egyptians, for the Egyptians here fought for the possession of
the mines. This is shown by the tablets carved in the living rock,
which commemorate the Pharaohs from King Semerkhet (I 7) of the First
Dynasty onwards. They are represented as smiters of the enemy above the
mines which they worked. One of these tablets represents Sneferu, the
ninth king of the Third Dynasty, who wears a head-dress that consists
of a double plume which rises from a pair of horns as is seen in the
illustration. The double plume is well known, but the horns are foreign
to Egypt, and recall the lunar horns that are worn by Eabani, the
devotee of the moon-god Ea or ancient Babylonian seal cylinders. The
adoption of horns by the Pharaoh of Egypt seems to indicate that he has
usurped the authority of the earlier ruler of the place (Fig. 3).
[Illustration: Fig. 5.—Amen-em-hat III, Thoth and Hathor. Maghara.
(Petrie: _Researches in Sinai_.)]
Other monuments found at Maghara point to the same conclusion. Thus one
rock-tablet represents King Khufu (IV 2), the great pyramid builder,
smiting the Anu in front of the ibis-headed figure of Thoth who stands
holding out his sceptre facing him (Fig. 4). Other Pharaohs are
represented as smiters. But after the Fifth Dynasty the opposition
which the Pharaohs encountered in Sinai must have come to an end, for
later Pharaohs were no longer represented as smiters, but are seen in
the double capacity of lord of Upper and of Lower Egypt standing and
facing the ibis-headed figure of the moon-god Thoth, who now holds out
to them his sceptre supporting an _ankh_ and a _dad_, the Egyptian
emblems of life and stability. Among the Pharaohs so represented was
Amen-em-hat III, sixth king of the Twelfth Dynasty, who is shown facing
the god Thoth behind whom the goddess Hathor is seen (Fig. 5). The
interpretation is that the Pharaoh is now acting in complete agreement
with the divinities of the place. Of these Thoth stands for the
moon-god who originally had his shrine at Maghara, and Hathor stands
for the presiding goddess who had her shrine at Serabit. This shrine
or sanctuary at Serabit is of special importance in the religious
associations of the peninsula.