Melqart

Melqart (also Melkarth or Melicarthus) was an important Phoenician god and patron deity of the city of Tyre. Associated with the monarchy, sea, colonization, and commercial enterprise, both at home and abroad the god is a significant, if still somewhat mysterious, figure of the Phoenician religion. As with other Phoenician gods and their culture in general, first-hand information from the Phoenicians themselves is scarce and details of worship and mythology are sorely lacking. Historians have been obliged to piece together scraps of information from contemporary cultures and what can be discovered from Phoenicia's colonies. Nevertheless, Melqart's stature is attested by the reverence the god was accorded by two of the Phoenician's immediate successor cultures in the ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Carthage.