The mysterious deity was referred to as “one whose name is blessed forever.”
Scientists from the University of Wroclaw in Poland stated that , that they managed to identify a mysterious god mentioned in inscriptions from the ancient city of Palmyra, located in modern Syria. This deity is mentioned in numerous Aramaic inscriptions as “one whose name is blessed forever,” “lord of the universe” and “merciful,” according to Science Alert.
Palmyra has existed for thousands of years. Two thousand years ago, it played an important role as a trading city that connected the Roman Empire with Asian routes such as the Silk Road.
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In order to find out who this ancient deity was, researchers compared the inscriptions from Palmyra with those that were discovered throughout Mesopotamia and dated to the first millennium BC. It turned out that the gods worshiped in Mesopotamia were called by the same names as the unknown deity from Palmyra.
For example, Bel-Marduk – the supreme god of Babylon – was also called “merciful”. The phrase “lord of the world” – a title similar to “lord of the universe” – was sometimes used to refer to Baalshamin, the god of the sky.
Also, when people wrote appeals for divine intervention, they did not always address a specific god, but rather to any deity who could hear their prayers.
“There was no anonymous god, every god who listened to requests and showed favor to requests deserved eternal praise,” declared the author research by Alexander Kubiak-Schneider.
Scientists who did not participate in the study were cautious about Kubiak-Schneider's conclusions. They emphasized that the scientific community will consider the proposed hypothesis and each researcher will decide for himself whether to support it. Other scholars have argued that the impersonal appeal may indeed be addressed to several deities. At the same time, they drew attention to the fact that the texts from Mesopotamia studied by Kubiak-Schneider were written a thousand years before the texts from Palmyra.
