I. Name
The ancient Phoenician city of Sidon, situated 25 miles north of Tyre, plays a considerable role in biblical literature. It came to stand for Phoenicia in general (Schmitz 1992:17). Lewy has argued that the city bears the name of the demon Ṣı̄dānu known from the Myth of Nergal and Ereshkigal (1934).
II. Identity
In Assyrian records, the city of Sidon is written ṣi-du-nu (S. Parpola, Neo-Assyrian Toponyms [AOAT 6; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1970] 322–323). The name thus resembles the Akkadi…