Blane W. Conklin, «Arslan Tash I and other Vestiges of a Particular Syrian Incantatory Thread», Vol. 84 (2003) 89-101

The first part of this article is a new translation and interpretation of the first incantational plaque from Arslan Tash in northern Syria. Each of the three succeeding sections identifies and discusses elements of this incantation that find resonance in texts from Ugarit, Egypt, and the Hebrew Bible, respectively. At Ugarit we find texts predating Arslan Tash which describe incantational activity involving Horon and the Sun-deity, both of whom are present in the Arslan Tash text, and who have similar roles in the two traditions. Horon is also present in Egypt during the last centuries of the city of Ugarit, and is there also associated with the Sun-deity and performs similar functions as at Arslan Tash. In the Passover account of Exod 12 there are several elements in common with Arslan Tash, albeit in the distinctive form that might be expected in the theological and literary tradition of the Hebrew Bible.

biter/devourer". The fog is a metaphor for snake venom, and hence the Sun is seen to be effective in dissipating the fog/venom²⁹. Then all the gods, in pairs, are asked to help in gathering the venom, with H9o=ra4nu sharing a place in the first pair with ’Ilu. But the last intelligible portions of the text return to S0aps\u as the primary gatherer of venom, repeating the lines from above when she was first entreated.

        From these two texts that portray the divine side of incantatory practice at Ugarit, we have several cultural precedents that are reflected in the AT1 plaque at least five centuries later.

1. The cooperation of a large number of gods in an incantatory context.
2. The prominent presence, specifically, of Horon and the Sun-deity in an incantatory context³⁰.
3. The basic concern with the doorway of a house in incantations.
4. An interest in Horon’s wives³¹.
5. Protection sought from beasts which bite and/or eat humans.

        It is important to reiterate once more that these commonalities exist despite the fact that the genre of the Ugaritic texts differs from that of AT1, the former being a story about an incantatory situation, the latter being an actual incantation on a plaque that would have been used in the house of the owner.

        I should also state clearly that I am not positing literary dependence between the texts at Ugarit and Arslan Tash. On the contrary, I am trying to show that these were things that were "in the air", so to speak, in ancient Syrian incantatory practice. Sperling discusses how incantations especially reflect older, received traditions; he applies this specifically to the aspect of gods making treaties with humans³². Another relevant example of this common incantational tradition comes from the second Arslan Tash plaque (AT2) and the Ugaritic incantation RS 22.225, both of which are concerned with a menacing "eye", ‘n. Another example is the prominence of snakes and serpents as objects of incantations, both at Ugarit and Ebla, another Syrian site, but at least a millennium older than the Ugaritic incantations³³.

III. Egypt

        It has long been known that Horon, along with many other native Canaanite deities, were assimilated into the Egyptian pantheon during the