Since the term Semitic represents a rough category when referring to cultures, as opposed to languages, the definitive bounds of the term "ancient Semitic religion" are only approximate but exclude the religions of "non-Semitic" speakers of the region such as Egyptians, Elamites, Hittites, Hurrians, Mitanni, Urartians, Luwians, Minoans, Greeks, Phrygians, Lydians, Persians, Medes, Philistines and Parthians.
Ethiopic The Sun, Moon, and the five planets visible to the naked eye connected with the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon.
Until the excavation (1928 onwards) of the city of Ras Shamra (known as Ugarit in antiquity) in northern Syria and the discovery of its Bronze Age archive of clay tablet alphabetic cuneiform texts,[10] scholars knew little about Canaanite religious practice.
Unlike the papyrus documents found in Egypt, ancient papyri in the Levant have often simply decayed from exposure to the humid Mediterranean climate.
Recent study of the Ugaritic material has uncovered additional information about the religion,[11] supplemented by inscriptions from the Levant and Tel Mardikh archive[12] (excavated in the early 1960s).
Like other peoples of the ancient Near East, the Canaanites were polytheistic, with families typically focusing worship on ancestral household gods and goddesses while acknowledging the existence of other deities such as Baal, Anath, and El.
The marriage of the deity with the city seems to have biblical parallels with the stories that link Melkart with Tyre, Yahweh with Jerusalem, and Tanit and Baal Hammon with Carthage.
[citation needed] Philo states that the union of El Elyon and his consort resulted in the birth of Uranus and Ge (Greek names for Heaven and Earth).
This closely parallels the opening verse of the Hebrew Bible, Genesis 1:1—"In the beginning God (Elohim) created the Heavens (Shemayim) and the Earth" (Eretz).