As Tyrian trade, colonization and settlement expanded, Melqart became venerated in Phoenician and Punic cultures across the Mediterranean, especially its colonies of Carthage and Cádiz.

Edward Lipinski theorizes that it was derived from MLK QRT (𐤌𐤋𐤊 𐤒𐤓𐤕 Mīlk-Qārt), which means "King of the City".

"The Phoenician[10] novelist, Heliodorus of Emesa, in his Aethiopica, refers to the dancing of sailors in honor of the Tyrian Heracles: "Now they leap spiritedly into the air, now they bend their knees to the ground and revolve on them like persons possessed".

The historian Herodotus recorded (2.44): In the wish to get the best information that I could on these matters, I made a voyage to Tyre in Phoenicia, hearing there was a temple of Heracles at that place, very highly venerated.

I visited the temple, and found it richly adorned with a number of offerings, among which were two pillars, one of pure gold, the other of smaragdos, shining with great brilliance at night.

In a conversation which I held with the priests, I inquired how long their temple had been built, and found by their answer that they, too, differed from the Hellenes.

So I went on to Thasos, where I found a temple of Heracles which had been built by the Phoenicians who colonised that island when they sailed in search of Europa.

[12] The Roman Emperor Septimius Severus was a native of Lepcis Magna in Africa, an originally Phoenician city where worship of Melqart was widespread.

[citation needed] The first occurrence of the name is in the 9th-century BCE the "Ben-Hadad" inscription found in 1939 north of Aleppo in today's northern Syria; it had been erected by the son of the king of Aram "for his lord Melqart, which he vowed to him and he heard his voice".

Strabo believes the account to be fraudulent, in part noting that the inscriptions on those pillars mentioned nothing about Heracles, speaking only of the expenses incurred by the Phoenicians in their making.

In 2004 a highway crew in the Avinguda Espanya, (one of the main routes into Ibiza), uncovered a further Punic temple in the excavated roadbed.

He returned to New Carthage with his mind focused on the god and on the eve of departure to Italy he saw a strange vision which he believed was sent by Melqart.

His curiosity, however, overcame him, and as he turned his head, Hannibal saw a serpent crashing through forest and thicket causing destruction everywhere.

Follow thy star and inquire no farther into the dark counsels of heaven.”[17] It was suggested by some writers that the Phoenician Melicertes son of Ino found in Greek mythology was in origin a reflection of Melqart.

"[18] Athenaeus (392d) summarizes a story by Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 355 BCE) telling how Heracles the son of Zeus by Asteria (= ‘Ashtart ?)

Then, in a climactic burst of syncretism, Dionysus identifies the Tyrian Heracles with Belus on the Euphrates, Ammon in Libya, Apis by the Nile, Arabian Cronus, Assyrian Zeus, Serapis, Zeus of Egypt, Cronus, Phaethon, Mithras, Delphic Apollo, Gamos 'Marriage', and Paeon 'Healer'.

There is red light in the fiery eyes of this shining god who clothed in a robe embroidered like the sky (presumably with various constellations).

The god reveals how he taught the primeval, earthborn inhabitants of Phoenicia how to build the first boat and instructed them to sail out to a pair of floating, rocky islands.

On one of the islands there grew an olive tree with a serpent at its foot, an eagle at its summit, and which glowed in the middle with fire that burned but did not consume.

So Heracles gathered many murex shells, extracted the dye from them, and dyed the first garment of the colour later called Tyrian purple.