Unlike
Shamash or
Utu in Mesopotamia, but like
Shams in Arabia, Shapshu was a female solar deity. In addition to attestations in Ugaritic texts,
Amarna letter EA 323 uses the
Sumerogram for the sun deity, dUTU, as a feminine noun (
ša ti-ra-am dUTU, line 19); Old Akkadian names such as Tulid-Šamši (
Šamaš-gave-(me-)birth) and Umma-Šamaš (
Šamaš-is-my-mother) might indicate a female sun goddess tradition in 3rd millennium BCE Mesopotamia, derived from a
Northwest Semitic solar goddess.
In Bronze Age Levant and Mesopotamia A pair of solar deities were worshipped at
Ebla, whose names were written using Sumerograms: dUTU and his consort dUTU.SAL. The native Eblaite names for these deities remain unknown, though the Iron Age
Aramaic Sefire steles refer to the consort of Samaš as
Nur(u) ("luminary"), possibly corresponding to
nrt ỉlm špš, the most common epithet of Shapshu. No theophoric names referring to Shapshu are known from Ebla; the individual whose name was translated by Pettinato as
Ibbi-Sipish is now considered to be translated more accurately as
Ibbi-Zikir, with Zikir being a deity unknown outside of theophoric names. While at least one deity is known under the Sumerogram dUTU at
Emar, their native name, gender, and affiliations to other Syrian deities remain unclear.
In Ugarit Shapshu was a major deity in
Ugaritic religion. In a letter to the king of Ugarit (KTU 2.42), Shapshu (as
špš ʿlm) is named second in a formulaic list of deities, behind only
Baal. Evidence from offering lists suggests that Shapshu was one of the principal gods receiving sacrifices at Ugarit. She is given the divine epithet
pgr, relating to her role during the 'night of
Šapšu pgr wṯrmnm' (Shapshu, the 'funerary offering', and the 'sovereigns'), She is also known from divinatory-oracular (KTU 1.78) and magical texts (e.g. KTU 1.100). Shapshu is not known to have a consort in the Ugaritic corpus, but the figure of
ủm.pḥl.pḥlt in the incantation text KTU 1.100 addresses her as
ủmh, ("mother"). Several incantation texts are known to invoke Shapshu. In the incantation KTU 1.100, a character referred to as 'the mother of the stallion and the mare' (
ủm.pḥl.pḥlt) calls to Shapshu (her 'mother', though this may be meant in an honorific sense) for assistance in a matter relating to snakebite, as her children are apparently in danger. Shapshu acts as an arbitrator between the mother and the gods, visiting ten different deities in their dwellings until arriving at the fortress of the god Ḥoranu, who is the first to take any action in response. Ḥoranu then gathers various plants and is able to defeat the serpents and prevent the death of the mother's offspring; the incantation ends with a marriage between Ḥoranu and the mother, apparently on the condition that he share this magical knowledge with her. Azize favours an identification of the figure as Shapshu due to the absence of the Sun Goddess of Arinna's characteristic headgear and the presence of two mountain peaks he interprets as the twin peaks of
Mount Sapan. both depict a female sun deity, though the sun cult at
Baalbek centred on a male deity. Azize suggests that cultural influence from Mesopotamia or the Greek cult of
Helios may have led to identification of the deity as male. 300 BCE
Kition, and 3rd century BCE
Larnakas tis Lapithou in
Cyprus. In one of the Phoenician
texts at Pyrgi, line 4-5 reads '[Thebarie Velanus, king of Kisry] in the month of the sacrifice of the Sun, as a gift to her temple...'. ==In Myth==