Hauron

Hauron, Horon, Haurun or Hawran (from 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. Today it is agreed that he was the Egyptian form of a god worshiped in Canaan and further north in the city of Ugarit, conventionally referred to as Horon (Ugaritic: 𐎈𐎗𐎐, romanized: ḤRN; Ḥôrānu or Ḥōrān) in scholarship.

In the Ugaritic texts, Hauron appears as a deity associated with magic and exorcisms. This role is also attested for him in Egypt and in Phoenician sources from the first millennium BCE. The best known text focused on him is KTU 1.100, often interpreted as a myth, in which the Ugaritic sun goddess Shapash implores him to help pḥlt, a figure of unknown character troubled by snakes. He is also well attested in incantations. However, his name does not appear in any offering lists from this city, and it is assumed his importance in Ugaritic religion was minor.

In the first millennium BCE, Hauron continued to be worshiped in Egypt, but his cult also spread through the Mediterranean, and he is attested in Phoenician and Punic sources from as far west as Sardinia. In the Hebrew Bible he is referenced in toponyms such as Beth-Horon. The last source to mention him is a Greek second-century BCE inscription from Delos referring to his worship in Jamnia.

The spellings Hauron and Haurun are both in use in modern Egyptological publications. Primary sources indicate there might have been no single agreed upon orthography of the name in ancient Egyptian scribal circles. While the god was known to modern researchers since François Chabas published a translation of the Harris Magical Papyrus in 1860, only in the 1930s it became possible to establish that he originated outside Egypt. While based on the Ugaritic texts, where the theonym is rendered as ḥrn (Ugaritic: 𐎈𐎗𐎐), it should be vocalized as either Ḥôrānu or Ḥōrān, the spelling Horon, which is based on the later Phoenician form of the name, is commonly employed in scholarship pertaining to the worship of Hauron in the north. A further spelling found in literature is Hawran.

It has been proposed that the name is related the root ḥwr present in Semitic languages and that it might mean "the deep one." Similarities to the Arabic word ḥaur, referring to the bottom of a well or a broad depression, and to Hebrew ḥôr, "cave" or "hole," have been pointed out, though according to Nicolas Wyatt the fact that in Ugaritic the cognate is written ḫr rather than ḥr might cast doubts over this etymology. An alternate proposal is that the name is a cognate of Arabic ḥourroun, "falcon." The early view that it might reflect the ethnonym ḫurri (Hurrian) is no longer considered credible.

The main sources of information about Hauron's character are magical texts from Ugarit, Egypt, and Arslan Tash. Earliest theories about his character were formed by William F. Albright, but they have been since deemed "conjectural and speculative." The Ugaritic texts indicate that he was chiefly associated with exorcisms and magic. In a single passage, he is addressed as a ḥbr(m), most likely to be understood as a term referring to a specialist in the field of magic comparable to Mesopotamian mašmāšu or āšipu, translated into English as "spellcaster" by Aicha Rahmouni. The craftsman god Kothar-wa-Khasis could be described in a similar way. A further Ugaritic figure whose role has been compared to Hauron's is Shatiqatu, interpreted either as a minor goddess or another type of supernatural being (a "healing genie" or an entity comparable to an angel or golem) associated with exorcisms.

The Egyptian Papyrus Harris mentions Hauron in a role similar to that he plays in Ugaritic texts, invoking him to render a wolf harmless with the help of Anat and a third deity, identified as either Arsaphes or Resheph depending on the translation. Elsewhere he occurs as a healing deity. He was also invoked to protect fields, and in this capacity has been referred to as a shepherd. Richard H. Wilkinson proposes that Egyptians associated with the deserts, and considered him a god of herdsmen and other people who wandered through this environment. Jacobus van Dijk concluded that he was understood as a god of the desert capable of protecting people and livestock from the animals inhabiting it. George Hart has characterized him as an earth god.

George Hart argued that Hauron's character was ambivalent, and asserted in particular that his association with a "tree of death" in a single text he identifies as "Canaanite" designates him as a "god of doom." The term ‘ṣ mt, translated as "tree of death" or "deathly tree," is present in the Ugaritic text KTU 1.100 in a description of plants gathered by Hauron, but the passage according to Wilfred G. E. Watson should be understood as a recipe for a cure for snakebite and lists ordinary plants, though he notes the precise identification of individual names remains disputed. He does not list the "deathly tree" among the terms he considers to be the names of specific plants. Dennis Pardee argues the passage reflects use of wood in exorcisms and since one of the plants mentioned according to him is the date palm, it might indicate that Hauron was believed to travel eastwards to Mesopotamia to gather plants typical for this area. He additionally suggests this might be a nod to perception of Mesopotamian apotropaic magic as particularly efficient. Suggestions that KTU 1.100 portrays Hauron in a negative light, presenting him as the "god of black magic, master of evil demons," can also be found elsewhere in literature, but Gregorio del Olmo Lete notes that this view is "surprising" due to his portrayal as an effective helper in this composition.