in honour of Ashtoreth. Women acted as
prostitutes, and men who called themselves "dogs" foreswore their
manhood. It was these sensualities practised in the name of religion
which caused the iniquity of the Canaanites to become full.

It is pleasanter to turn to such fragments of Canaanitish mythology and
cosmological speculation as have come down to us. Unfortunately most of
it belongs in its present form to the late days of Greek and Roman
domination, when an attempt was made to fuse the disjointed legends of
the various Phoenician states into a connected whole, and to present
them to Greek readers under a philosophical guise. How much, therefore,
of the strange cosmogony and history of the gods recorded by Philon of
Gebal really goes back to the patriarchal epoch of Palestine, and how
much of it is of later growth, it is now impossible to say. In the main,
however, it is of ancient date.

This is shown by the fact that a good deal of it has been borrowed
directly or indirectly from Babylonia. How this could have happened has
been explained by the Tel el-Amarna tablets. It was while Canaan was
under the influence of Babylonian culture and Babylonian government that
the myths and traditions of Babylonia made their way to the West. Among
the tablets are portions of Babylonian legends, one of which has been
carefully annotated by the Egyptian or Canaanite scribe. It is the story
of the queen of Hades, who had been asked by the gods to a feast they
had made in the heavens. Unable or unwilling to ascend to it, the
goddess sent her servant the plague-demon, but with the result that
Nergal was commissioned to descend to Hades and destroy its mistress.
The fourteen gates of the infernal world, each with its attendant
warder, were opened before him, and at last he seized the queen by the
hair, dragging her to the ground, and threatening to cut off her head.
But Eris-kigal, the queen of Hades, made a successful appeal for mercy;
she became the wife of Nergal, and he the lord of the tomb.

Another legend was an endeavour to account for the origin of death.
Adapa or Adama, the first man, who had been created by Ea, was fishing
one day in the deep sea, when he broke the wings of the south wind. The
south wind flew to complain to Anu in heaven, and Anu ordered the
culprit to appear before him. But Adapa was instructed by Ea how to act.
Clad in a garment of mourning, he won the hearts of the two guardians of
the gate of heaven, th