Shapash

Torch of the Gods

At Ugarit the sun is a goddess, Shapash, the "Torch of the Gods". Because she crosses the sky by day and, in Ugaritic belief, passes through the underworld by night, she can go where other gods cannot, and she acts as a go-between for the realms of the living and the dead.

In the Baal Cycle

Shapash appears at the crucial moments of the cycle's last tablets. She helps Anat lift Baal's body onto Anat's shoulder so that Anat can carry it to Zaphon for burial (KTU 1.6 I). When El dreams that Baal lives, Anat asks Shapash to search for him, and she agrees. When Baal and Mot fight to exhaustion, it is Shapash who warns Mot that El will overturn his throne if he continues, and Mot gives way (KTU 1.6 VI). The cycle closes with a hymn to her, praising her rule over the shades of the dead.

In ritual

Shapash also appears in Ugaritic incantations against snakebite, in which a mare's daughter calls on the sun to carry her message to the gods; and in the royal funerary liturgy (KTU 1.161), where she is called on to accompany the dead king. Her solar role is not simply heavenly; it is a role of crossing.