Stele of Baal with Thunderbolt
Unknown · Middle to Late Bronze Age, circa 2000 to 1150 BC; often dated to the fifteenth or fourteenth century BC
The storm god of Ugarit strides towards you across a slab of limestone nearly a metre and a half high. Baal wears a short kilt, a dagger at his belt and a tall pointed crown with horns at its base. His right arm is raised to strike with a mace; his left plants a spear whose shaft sprouts into a branch, the lightning that brings rain and makes plants grow. Under his feet run two bands of wavy lines, the mountains and the sea. In front of him, on a small pedestal, stands a tiny figure in a long mantle, probably the king of Ugarit under the protection of his god.
The stele was found in nineteen thirty-two on the acropolis of Ras Shamra, ancient Ugarit, just west of the temple of Baal, during the French excavations led by Claude Schaeffer, and came to the Louvre in the division of finds with Syria. Baal is the hero of the poems on the tablets in this room, the god who defeats the sea and dies and rises with the seasons, and this has become the standard image of the Canaanite storm god whose name echoes through the Hebrew Bible.
Did You Know? The spear in Baal's hand ends in a sprouting branch, turning a weapon into a picture of lightning that brings the rain.
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