Baal Hammon

Baʿal Hammon
Weather & Vegetative Fertility King of the Gods
Statue of Baʿal Hammon on his throne with a crown and flanked by sphinxes, 1st century.
Consort	Tanit
Greek equivalent	Cronus
Roman equivalent	Saturn

Baal Hammon, properly Baʿal Hammon or Hamon (Punic: lbʻl ḥmn), was the chief god of Carthage. He was a weather god considered responsible for the fertility of vegetation and esteemed as King of the Gods. He was depicted as a bearded older man with curling ram's horns. Baʿal Hammon's female cult partner was Tanit.

The worship of Baʿal Hammon flourished in the Phoenician colony of Carthage. His supremacy among the Carthaginian gods is believed to date to the fifth century BC, after relations between Carthage and Tyre were broken off at the time of the Battle of Himera (480 BC). Modern scholars identify him variously with the Northwest Semitic god El or with Dagon.

In Carthage and North Africa Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baʿal Qarnaim ("Lord of Two Horns") in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Boukornine ("the two-horned hill") across the bay from Carthage, in Tunisia. He was probably never identified with Baʿal Melqart, although one finds this equation in older scholarship.

The interpretatio graeca identified him with the Titan Cronus. In ancient Rome, he was identified with Saturn, and the cultural exchange between Rome and Carthage as a result of the Second Punic War may have influenced the development of the festival of Saturnalia.