Category موضوعي
Names and languages
Words, theophoric names and linguistic relationships in context.
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Concept
Allah
The Arabic name for God, used before Islam and in several Arabic-speaking religious traditions.
‘الله’ and Allāh in a modern typographic illustration. The written name does not depict the deity; this graphic is not evidence dating its pre-Islamic use
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Arabic ilah
The Arabic common noun meaning “god” or “deity”, with the plural aliha.
‘إله’ and ʾilāh in a modern typographic illustration of the Arabic word. An image of a word, not a representation of a divine figure or a witness from an ancient inscription
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Alaha
A Syriac word for God or a deity, part of the related Semitic divine vocabulary.
Approximate transliteration of Syriac Alaha (ʾalāhā) in a modern linguistic illustration. It is not a manuscript image or a definition of every user’s beliefs
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Language
Syriac
A literary form of Aramaic, with an extensive Christian heritage and earlier non-Christian attestations.
Folios 9v and 10r of the Rabbula Gospels, a sixth-century Syriac manuscript: canon tables and portraits of the Evangelists. An example of Syriac Christian book culture, rather than the language’s entire history
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Language
Aramaic
A group of Northwest Semitic language varieties with a long history across the Near East.
Palmyrene funerary relief with an Aramaic inscription, ca. 181 CE; The Met, 02.29.4. An example of a historical Aramaic variety, not a representation of Syriac or every stage of the language
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Concept
Theophoric name
A personal name containing the name of a deity or a divine element.
Detail of the inscription on Iddin-Ilum’s statue from Mari, ca. 2100–2000 BCE; Louvre, AO 19486. It illustrates the dedicator’s name containing a divine element; the statue represents a human, not El
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Concept
Elohim
A Hebrew word with plural morphology, used for “gods” or for a singular deity according to context.
Elohim, אֱלֹהִים, in a modern typographic illustration. Plural morphology alone does not establish the meaning in use; number, grammar, and context must be read together
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Eloah
A Hebrew word for a deity, linguistically related to El and Elohim.
Eloah, אֱלוֹהַּ, in a modern linguistic typographic illustration. The entry explains the word and its use; this image is not an ancient manuscript
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Concept
Akkadian ilu
The Akkadian word for “god”; its occurrence does not automatically identify the deity El.
Cylinder seal and its modern impression, owned by Ilum-bani, ca. 2028–2004 BCE; The Met, 1988.380.2. An example of a personal name with a divine element, not a verified depiction of El
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Language
Akkadian
An ancient East Semitic language written in cuneiform in Mesopotamia.
Letter from Abi-milku, ruler of Tyre, to the Egyptian king, written in Akkadian cuneiform; ca. 1347–1330 BCE. The Met, 24.2.12. An example of the language in international correspondence
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Proper name
A name identifying a particular individual, place or other entity.
Modern linguistic diagram highlighting a proper name referring to a particular entity. ʾEl is an illustrative written example, not a portrait of a deity or an archaeological witness
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Common noun
A word naming a class of things, such as “god”, rather than one particular individual.
Modern linguistic diagram: ilu illustrates a common noun meaning ‘god’. The boxes explain the naming of a category; they do not depict a historical pantheon
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Linguistic reconstruction
A comparative method for inferring forms in an older language from related languages.
Modern educational diagram of systematic correspondences across comparative rows. The symbols a, b, and c are schematic teaching examples, not data transcribed from an ancient language
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Proto-Semitic
The reconstructed common ancestor of the historically known Semitic languages.
The form *ʾil- in a modern linguistic illustration. The asterisk marks a reconstruction, not an inscribed word or evidence dating a particular cult
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Concept
Semitic languages
A language family including Akkadian, Ugaritic, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic.
Modern simplified diagram of examples in the Semitic family: Akkadian (akk), Hebrew (heb), Aramaic (arc), and Arabic (ara). It does not provide the full classification or dates of divergence
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