The Making of a God. The Baal Oz of the Trophy Inscription (Larnaka, Cyprus)

A Phoenician inscription found in Larnaka (Cyprus) in 1990 records the offering of a trophy to the god Baal Oz, “Lord of Strength”. The object was dedicated by Milkyaton, king of Kition and Idalion, during the first year of his reign (392/391 BCE). The offering followed the victory that was won – granted by the god, as the epigraph states – over certain enemies (who are not named in the text). Quite apart from its importance for the reconstruction of the eventful history of Cyprus, the document is undoubtedly of interest since it represents to date the only attestation of the onomastic formula b‘l ‘z. The objective of these notes is therefore to re-examine the inscription as a whole in an attempt to frame historically the figure of Baal Oz and to recognize some of the mechanisms through which divine qualifiers were “constructed” in the Phoenician context.