#interpretatio graeca

Since this topic came up in asks multiple times, I figured it might be of interest to my readers to compile a list of the relatively few instances of interpretatio graeca (and in one case romana) of Mesopotamian deities. I’m only listing those which actually occur in primary sources (ideally bilingual ones); not purely modern speculation. That’s actually surprisingly rare (Lucinda Dirven, Religious Continuity and Change in Parthian Mesopotamia: A Note on the Survival of Babylonian Traditions, p. 20).

Bel (ie. Marduk): “Zeus Belos” (Herodotus; Robert Parker, Greek Gods Abroad: Names, Natures, and Transformations, p. 43), or just Zeus (Diodorus Siculus; ibidem, p. 47; also inconsequently in dedications from Palmyra; ibidem, p. 92).

Nabu: Apollo (Strabo in a description of Borsippa; misc. sources from Palmyra and Dura Europos); likely an association going back to Seleucid dynastic policy, though most if not all (the case of the Antiochus cylinder is up for debate) of the direct evidence postdates the Seleucids (Paul-Alain Beaulieu, Nabû and Apollo: the Two Faces of Seleucid Religious Policy, p. 18-19). Note the Seleucids apparently had no real interest in seeking equivalents for anyone but their dynastic triad of Zeus, Apollo and Artemis (Julia Krul, The Revival of the Anu Cult and the Nocturnal Fire Ceremony at Late Babylonian Uruk, p. 39). Still, the association with Apollo had a lasting impact of Nabu, who came to be viewed as an oracular god thanks to it (Religious Continuity…, p. 21).

Nanaya: Artemis (Strabo); a case where interpretatio doesn’t seem to have much to do with the character of either deity (Stephanie Budin, Artemis, p. 4-5). Furthermore, Nanaya appears under her own name in Greek texts ex. from Susa regularly (Greek Gods…, p. 228). On the other hand, the iconography borrowed from Artemis - especially the crescent - remained with her for centuries to come (Michael Shenkar, Intangible Spirits and Graven Images: The Iconography of Deities in the Pre-Islamic Iranian World, p. 117-120).

Mulittu (ie. Ninlil): Aphrodite (Herodotus; Albert de Jong, Traditions of the Magi: Zoroastrianism in Greek and Latin Literature, p. 91). I’m not aware of this appearing anywhere else and the two passages in which Herodotus mentions this are of dubious value overall.

Sin (specifically Sin of Harran; nothing is available for Ur): Selene (Herodias), Luna (Ammianus Marcellinus); however this is most likely not interpretatio proper, but rather lack of familiarity with Harran beyond some awareness that its main deity was lunar. Historia Augusta refers to the god of Harran as Lunus - as far as I can tell a name coined for the sake of this passage -  and states the locals recognize the moon as a masculine figure (Tamara M. Green, City of the Moon God: Religions Traditions of Harran, p. 27-28).

Nergal: Heracles/Hercules, at Hatra; there’s no textual source confirming this directly, though, only iconographic evidence (the same buildings yielding statues of Heracles and inscriptions referring to Nergal), which is sometimes contested (Lucinda Dirven, My Lord With His Dogs. Continuity and Change in the Cult of Nergal in Parthian Mesopotamia, p. 57-58).

Ereshkigal: Hecate and Persephone (magical papyri), but the evident lack of familiarity with her and other references to Mesopotamian tradition cast into doubt if she’s anything more than an abstract unusual magical name in this context (Daniel Schwemer, Beyond Ereškigal? Mesopotamian Magic Traditions in the Papyri Graecae Magicae, p. 66-67).

Herta: Hera, in a single bilingual dedication from Palmyra, but it might boil down to the phonetic similarity of their names (Greek Gods…, p. 46). As far as I’m aware she is only attested in Palmyra, too - but her name appears to be derived from Akkadian ḫertū, “wife” (Javier Teixidor, The Pantheon of Palmyra, p. 111); She might be Bel’s spouse (ibidem, p. 8), ie. Zarpanitu.

identifying foreign deities with one's own gods was a common practice in the ancient world. Sometimes the gods identified with each other had much in common but even the vaguest of similarities were enough for this to occur.

There is why there's no such thing as good monotheism*. And why Judaism's long history of monolatry, before descending in into monotheist fanaticism, makes it the only Abrahamic faith compatible with modern, civilized, society.

To meaningfully support barbarism and tyranny, most Jews must first move all the way to Israel. Then enable their nation's atrocities by supporting Netanyahu's regime, West Bank settlements, and the IDF. For Christianity and Islam, their mere existence is more than corrosive enough.

as per Diodorus Siculus' Bibliotheca Historica

Book 1 - Chapter 25

Via: ToposText

[1] In general, there is great disagreement over these gods. For the same goddess is called by some Isis, by others Demeter, by others Thesmophorus, by others Selene, by others Hera, while still others apply to her all these names.

[2] Osiris has been given the name Sarapis by some, Dionysus by others, Pluto by others, by others, Zeus by some, and many have considered Pan to be the same god; and some say that Sarapis is the god whom the Greeks call Pluto. As for Isis, the Egyptians say that she was the discoverer of many health-giving drugs and was greatly versed in the science of healing;

[3] consequently, now that she has attained immortality, she finds her greatest delight in the healing of mankind and gives aid in their slee to those who call upon her, plainly manifesting both her very presence and her beneficence towards men who ask her help.

[4] In proof of this, as they say, they advance not legends, as the Greeks do, but manifest facts; for practically the entire inhabited world is their witness, in that it eagerly contributes to the honours of Isis because she manifests herself in healings.

[5] For standing above the sick in their sleep she gives them aid for their diseases and works remarkable cures upon such as submit themselves to her; and many who have been despaired of by their physicians because of the difficult nature of their malady are restored to health by her, while numbers who have altogether lost the use of their eyes or of some other part of their body, whenever they turn for help to this goddess, are restored to their previous condition.

[6] Furthermore, she discovered also the drug which gives immortality, by means of which she not only raised from the dead her son Horus, who had been the object of plots on the part of Titans and had been found dead under the water, giving him his soul again, but also made him immortal.

"Votive relief with a depiction of Isis, from the facade of the main temple of the Sanctuary of Isis in Dion (Greece). Second half of 3rd–early 2nd century BCE. Isis was an Egyptian goddess who became popular around the Mediterranean in the Ptolemaic period. Here she is depicted as Demeter. She holds a sheaf of wheat and a sceptre with a solar disk. The Greek inscription dedicates this relief to the triad Serapis-Isis-Anubis."

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