He is clearly identified as one of the Phoenician deities covered under the name of Baal. However, the meaning of his second name is unclear. Frank Moore Cross argued for a connection to Hamōn, the Ugaritic name for Mount Amanus, a peak in the Nur Mountains which separate Syria from Cilicia. In the 19th century, when Ernest Renan excavated the ruins of Hammon, the modern Umm al-‘Awamid between Tyre and Acre, he found two Phoenician inscriptions dedicated to El-Hammon. Others have proposed Hammon as a syncretic association with Libyan-Egyptian god Amun, while a last current has called instead for a connection with the Northwest Semitic word ḥammān, suggesting the sense "Lord of the Brazier".
Cult and attributes
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.. Baal Hammon was known as the Chief of the pantheon of Carthage and the deity that made vegetation grow; as with most deities of Carthage, his powers relied on child sacrifice. He has been identified with a solar deity, although Yigael Yadin thought him to be a moon god. Edward Lipinski identifies him with the god Dagon. In Carthage and North Africa Baʿal Hammon was especially associated with the ram and was worshiped also as Baʿal Qarnaim in an open-air sanctuary at Jebel Boukornine across the bay from Carthage, in Tunisia. 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. Greco-Roman sources report that the Carthaginians burned their children as offerings to Baʿal Hammon. Attributes of his Romanized form as an African Saturn indicate that Hammon was a fertility god. burner depicting Ba'al-Hamon, 2nd century BC
Location
Ba'al Hamon was a place mentioned in the Song of Solomon. It was the location of a productive vineyard owned by Solomon, who let out the vineyard to tenants, each of whom was to bring him a thousand silver shekels. The locale has been supposed to be identical with Baal-gad, and also with Hammon in the tribe of Asher.
