Baetylus
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Baetylus or Bethel is a Semitic word denoting a sacred stone, which was supposed to be endowed with life. These fetish objects of worship were meteoric stones, which were dedicated to the gods or revered as symbols of the gods themselves (Pliny, Nat. Hist. xvii. 9; Photius, Cod. 242).
In Phoenician mythology, one of the sons of Uranus is named Baetylus.
In Greek mythology, the term was specially applied to the stone supposed to have been swallowed by Cronus (who feared misfortune from his own children) in mistake for his infant son Zeus, for whom it had been substituted by Uranus and Gaea, his wife's parents (Etymologicunf Magnum, s.v.). This stone was carefully preserved at Delphi, anointed with oil every day and on festal occasions covered with raw wool (Pausanias X. 24).
Another famous stone was the effigy of Rhea Cybele, the holy stone of Pessinus, black and of irregular form, which was brought to Rome in 204 BCE and placed in the mouth of the statue of the goddess.
In some cases an attempt was made to give a more regular form to the original shapeless stone: thus Apollo Agyieus was represented by a conical pillar with pointed end, Zeus Meilicirius in the form of a pyramid. Other famous baetylic idols were those in the temples of Zeus Casius at Seleucia Pieria, and of Zeus Teleios at Tegea. Even in the declining years of paganism, these idols still retained their significance, as is shown by the attacks upon them by ecclesiastical writers.
Another such baetylus is the still preserved Black Stone in the Kaaba of Mecca.
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- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
