Kothar-wa-Khasis

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Kothar-wa-Khasis (also translated Kothar-and-Khasis) means "Skillful-and-Wise" or "Adroit-and-Perceptive" or "Deft-and-Clever". Another of his names means "Deft-with-both-hands". Kothar is smith, craftsman, engineer, architect, and inventor. He is also soothsayer and magician, creating sacred words and spells, in part because there is an association in many cultures of metalworking deities with magic. The god-name Ka-sha-lu in texts from Ebla suggests that he was known in Syria as early as the late third millennium.

Kothar aids Baal in his battles, as recounted in the Myth of Baal, by creating and naming two magic weapons with which Baal defeats Yam. Kothar also creates beautiful furniture adorned with silver and gold as gifts for Athirat. And he builds Ba`al's palace of silver, gold, lapis lazuli, and fragrant cedar wood. One of his significant actions is as the Opener of the window through which Ba`al's rains can come and go to fertilize the earth and provide for the continuance of life.

Kothar's abode is actually in two lands. One is the city of Memphis in Egypt, written in Ugaritic as h.k.p.t (read perhaps as "hikaptah") and means "the house of the ka of Ptah". Memphis is the site of the temple of Ptah, the Egyptian god responsible for crafts, whose name means "the Opener". Kothar's second land is Kaphtor (in Akkadian "kaptaru"), which is generally identified as Crete.

In his book on the Myth of Baal, Mark Smith notes that there is a possible pun involved in Kothar's epithet "The Opener". According to the Phoenician mythology according to Mochos, as cited in Damascius' De principiis (Attridge and Oden 1981:102-03), Chusor, Kothar's name in Phoenician Greek, was the first "opener." Assuming the West Semitic root *pt h, "to open," Albright argues that this title represents word-play on the name of the Egyptian god Ptah.

Smith further explains Kothar's double abodes as reflexes of metal or craft trade both from Egypt and from the Mediterranean Sea to Ugarit, as Kothar is imputed to be the divine patron of these skills.

[edit] References

• Gibson, J.C.L., originally edited by G.R. Driver. Canaanite Myths and Legends. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, Ltd., 1956, 1977.
• Smith, Mark S. The Ugaritic Baal Cycle. Volume 1: Introduction with Text, Translation & Commentary of KTU 1.1-1.2. Supplements to Vetus Testamentum, Volume LV. Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1994.