To this Baal the productiveness of the soil was due.
As the female counterpart of the Phoenician Baal (viewed as a sun-god), and on the testimony of late writers (Lucian, Herodian) that she was represented with horns, the place-name AshterothKarnaim in Gilead ("Ashteroth of the horns") has been considered ample proof in favour of the theory.
The name Baal might therefore be used for any deity such as Milk (Milcom) or Shemesh (" sun ") who was the divine owner of the spot.
She is everywhere the great female principle, answering to the Baal of the Canaanites and Phoenicians 2 and to the Dagon of the Philistines.
Sometimes the god received a distinguishing attribute which indicates an association not with any particular place, but with some special characteristic; the most common forms are Ba'al-bamman, the chief deity of Punic north Africa, perhaps " the glowing Ba'al," the god of fertilizing warmth, and Baal-shamem, " Baal of the heavens."
