Kothar-wa-Khasis is an Ugaritic god whose name means "Skillful-and-Wise" or "Adroit-and-Perceptive" or "Deft-and-Clever". Another of his names, Hayyan hrs yd means "Deft-with-both-hands" or "of skillful hands. Kothar is smith, craftsman, engineer, architect, and inventor. He is also a soothsayer and magician, creating sacred words and incantations, in part because there is an association in many cultures of metalworking deities with magic. The divine name Ka-sha-lu in texts from Ebla suggests that he was known in Syria as early as the late third millennium BCE. Kothar aids Baʻal in his battles, as recounted in the Baal Cycle, by creating and naming two magic clubs, Yagrush and Ayamur, with which Baʻal defeatsYam. Kothar also creates beautiful furniture adorned with silver and gold as gifts for Athirat. And he builds Baʻal's palace of silver, gold, lapis lazuli, and fragrant cedar wood. One of his significant actions is as the opener of the window through which Baʻal's rains can come and go to fertilize the earth and provide for the continuance of life. Kothar's abode is Egypt, written in Ugaritic as and derived from the Egyptian , "House of the kꜣ of Ptah", used in reference to Memphis and paralleled in a poem with, representing Caphtor. Memphis is the site of the Temple of Ptah, the Egyptian god responsible for crafts, whose name means "the Opener". In his book on the Baʻal Cycle, Mark S. Smith notes that there is a possible pun involved in Kothar's epithet "The Opener". According to Phoenician religion related by Mochus of Sidon, as cited in Damascius's De principiis, Chusor, Kothar's name in Phoenician Greek, was the first "opener." Assuming the West Semitic root *pth, "to open," Albright argues that this title represents word-play on the name of the Egyptian god Ptah. Smith further explains Kothar's double abodes as reflexes of metal or craft trade both from Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to Ugarit, as Kothar is imputed to be the divine patron of these skills. Kothar had a minor role in ancient Egyptian religion, as the mythological builder of chapels for Egypt's more important deities, and has Hephaestus as his Ancient Greekcounterpart.
