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Personal god

A reference page linking a name, group, or concept to the materials that discuss it.

An analytical concept for a deity’s relationship with an individual or family; it may overlap city worship and does not identify the god from a name alone.

Cult records and personal names in Nakata’s 1976 comparison. Modern evidence diagram; not two separate populations or proof that El’s cult was absent beyond the sample
Cult records and personal names in Nakata’s 1976 comparison. Modern evidence diagram; not two separate populations or proof that El’s cult was absent beyond the sampleModern diagram by IL Archive · CC BY 4.0 · CC BYLicense · Image source

Text

Relationship and source

“Father,” “brother” and “support” may express closeness, protection and belonging. They need not imply literal descent, a god separate from the official pantheonPantheonThe set of deities associated with a religious tradition, including their roles and relationships.Glossary · Click to read the explanation, or Ugaritic El behind every ancient name.

In 1976 Nakata compared deities in MariMariAn ancient city and kingdom on the Euphrates, at Tell Hariri in eastern Syria.Glossary · Click to read the explanation’s official documents with those inferred from personal names, finding El/Il stronger in names within his sample. “Popular religion” here is an inference from a specific source, not a census of everyone’s beliefs. The image is a modern evidence diagram, not a divine portrait or proof of development from family to pantheon. [1][2]

References and notes

  1. J. M. Pagan (1998). A Morphological and Lexical Study of Personal Names in the Ebla Texts, ARET Studi III. Browser edition prepared by Giorgio Buccellati (2012). Digital-edition introduction and selected entries: 2707 “Il knows,” 2717 “god is support,” 2721 “god is my brother,” 2737 “Il helped.” Analyses attributed to the database; not all names or original tablets inspected. Introduction: https://laa.cyb-mes.net/ebla_pns.html Return to the text ↑
  2. Ichiro Nakata (1976). Official Pantheon and Popular Pantheon of Mari. Bulletin of the Society for Near Eastern Studies in Japan 19(1), pp. 1–15, 103. doi:10.5356/jorient.19.1. English abstract: twenty selected deities and three groups comparing official documents with names; El/Il in the third. Finding limited to this comparison and material then available; full Japanese article not read. Return to the text ↑

Research history

Substantive changes are retained here. Minor copy edits remain in the internal operational log.

  1. Edition 2 · 11 October 2026 · editor:aladmin

    Substantive record update

    Read this revision in its original language (Arabic)

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IL Archive, «Personal god», Edition 2, https://ilarchive.com/en/entities/personal-god