[German version]

Phoenician deity; originally *mlk qrt (‘king of the city’), title of the city god of Tyrus. The oldest documentary evidence is found on the Bar-Hadad inscription (KAI 201) dated around 800 BC from Brēdsh (Buraiǧ), a village north of Aleppo. In the treaties of Asarhaddon [5. 27, IV 14] and Aššur-nēraris V. [5. 13, VI 22], written in cuneiform in the 7th cent BC, his name is recorded for the first time in connection with Tyre as ^d Mi-il-qar-tu. The name presupposes ancient concepts of a religious, god-worshipping kingdom. M. combined the features of a mythica…