National godA national god is a guardian deity whose special concern is the safety and well-being of an ethnic group (nation), and of that group's leaders. This is contrasted with other guardian figures such as family gods responsible for the well-being of individual clans or professions, or personal gods who are responsible for the well-being of individuals. In antiquity (and to some extent continuing today), religion was a characteristic of regional culture, together with language, customs, traditions, etc.
ArsayArsay (Ugaritic: ‘arṣy) was a goddess worshiped in the city of Ugarit in the late Bronze Age. Her standing in the Ugaritic pantheon and her role in Ugaritic religion remain uncertain. It has been proposed that she was associated with the underworld or with groundwater, though neither theory found universal support. She was most likely regarded as a daughter of the weather god Baal, though neither of the goddesses most often associated with him, Anat and Ashtart, was ever described as her mother.
DanelDanel (ˈdeɪnəl, Ugaritic: 𐎄𐎐𐎛𐎍 DN'IL, "El is judge"), father of Aqhat, was a culture hero who appears in an incomplete Ugaritic text of the fourteenth century BCE at Ugarit (now Ras Shamra), Syria. The text in Corpus Tablettes Alphabétiques [CTA] 17–19 is often referred to as the Tale of Aqhat. Danel was depicted as "judging the cause of the widow, adjudicating the case of the fatherless" in the city gate.
King of the godsAs polytheistic systems evolve, there is a tendency for two deities to achieve preeminence as king and queen of the gods. This tendency can parallel the growth of hierarchical systems of political power in which a monarch eventually comes to assume ultimate authority for human affairs. Other deities come to serve in a Divine Council or pantheon; such subsidiary courtier-deities are usually linked by family ties from the union of a single husband or wife, or else from an androgynous divinity who is responsible for the creation.
HourounHauron, Haurun or Hawran (Egyptian: ḥwrwnꜣ) was an ancient Egyptian god worshiped in Giza. He was closely associated with Harmachis, with the names in some cases used interchangeably, and his name as a result could be used as a designation of the Great Sphinx of Giza. While Egyptologists were familiar with Hauron since the nineteenth century, his origin was initially unknown, and only in the 1930s it was established that he originated outside Egypt.
