Baaltars


Baaltars was possibly the chief deity of the city of Tarsus during the Achaemenid Empire.
The image of Baaltars featured on the legends of coins struck by Mazaeus and Datames, who were Achaemenid satraps of Cilicia, and of Pharnabazus II, who was satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia.
Baaltars was depicted holding an ear of wheat and a bunch of grapes, and was likely a local representation of the Luwian Storm-god Tarḫunzas.
Baaltars might be the same deity whom Eratosthenes of Cyrene in the 3rd century BCE called Zeus Tersios.
Some scholars have hypothesised that Baaltars later lost his prominence to Sandas, while Olivier Casabonne has proposed that Baaltars was also identified with Sandas/Nergal, who was in turn identified with the Phoenician god Melqart of Tyre.