Wednesday, October 30, 2024

The Goddess of Reqem

Davila has posted a 2017 report on the winged-lion temple at Reqem, called Petra. Which report we can now ignore - because Davila also links the finds. This is the smallest temple of four.

Of course the first chapter I scrolled-at was chapter 17 on the inscriptions. Here is presented a fine lapidary on how to do the temple sacrifice, assuredly the most important inscription for them and - had it survived in full - for us. This may well be the template for such inscriptions as featured once in the Jerusalem Temple, the "Temple Scroll" being a blueprint for what to incise on that Temple once the Essenes ever got back(?) in there. Unfortunately - for Nabatists - Reqem's marble is light on specifics to Reqem.

Nah. Here the best chapter is seventh chapter, R. Wenning's on Sculpture. This is where is pondered, which god(dess). But again: Manôt laughs at us mortals. We've had a lot of speculation on "al-'Uzza!!" but this is based on something called a "baetyl", which might be associated with Her elsewhere. An inscription refers to a "Goddess of Hayyân" - but Who? Those baetyls are early - and shared with a clear Isis from Egypt. So this temple hosts that sort of goddess, a royal rather than Fortuna. It turns out, in polytheism, a temple is supposed to be the home of one goddess in particular. A foreign deity can approach Her as a guest - a foreigner like Isis. We do not know Reqem's Hostess.

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