Page:The Hittites - the Story of a Forgotten Empire.djvu/108

106 legend saw an Assyrian queen; but Semiramis was really the goddess Istar, called Ashtoreth in Canaan, and Atthar or Athar by the Arameans, among whom Carchemish was built. Derketo was, therefore, but another form of Semiramis, or rather but another name under which the great Asiatic goddess was known. The dove was sacred to her, and this explains why an image of the dove was placed above the head of the third image in the divine triad of Mabog.

The temple was served by a multitude of priests. More than 300 took part in the sacrifices on the day when Lucian saw it. The priests were dressed in white, and wore the skull-cap which we find depicted on the Hittite monuments. The high-priest alone carried on his head the lofty tiara, which the sculptures indicate was a prerogative of gods and kings. Prominent among the priests were the Galli or eunuchs, who on the days of festival cut their arms and scourged themselves in honour of their deities. Such actions remind us of those priests of Baal who 'cut themselves after their manner with knives and lancets, till the blood gushed out upon them.'

Twice a year a solemn procession took place to a small chasm in the rock under the temple, where, it was alleged, the waters of the deluge had been swallowed up, and water from the sea was poured into it. It is to this pit that Melito, a Christian writer of Syria, alludes when he says that the goddess Simi, the daughter of the supreme god Hadad, put an end to the attacks of a demon by filling with sea water the pit in which he lived. But in Lucian's time the demon was regarded as the deluge, and the account of the deluge given to the Greek writer agrees so closely with that which we read