(Aramaic mlkbl, ‘messenger of Bel’). Palmyrene god, depicted or referred to in various forms and together with a changing array of other gods in Palmyra and the Roman empire (Rome [3], Dacia [8], north Africa [4]).
In Palmyra M. was worshipped with Aglibol in the so-called ‘sacred garden’, a temple known through inscriptions (e.g. [6. no. 0197, 0314]), tesserae [7. 155-161] and a relief [2. pl. 4,1]. The latter, the so-called Dexiosis relief of the ‘sacred brothers’ in which the two gods join hands, is also found in…