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τῶν τριχῶν τὴν κουρήν. For the Arab hair cutting cf. Jer. ix. 26 R. V. ‘those that have the corners of their hair polled, that dwell in the wilderness’ (cf. also Lev. xix. 27). The custom was forbidden to the Jews because the heathen dedicated their hair to their gods (Robertson Smith, ib. p. 325). Translate ‘they cut it in a ring (περιτρόχαλα used adverbially), shaving round under the temples’. It was in cutting the hair on the temples that the Arabs were different from the Greeks.

Orotalt is explained (Movers, Phön. i. 337) as ‘ignis dei’, i. e. the sun or the star Saturn; Alilat (i. e. Al-Ilat, ‘the goddess’) is at once the moon and the evening star. The pair correspond to the Baal and Ashtoreth of the North Semites; they are at once heavenly deities, and the powers of destruction and reproduction. Robertson Smith, however (Kinship in Arab. p. 298 seq.), says that they are the great nature goddess and her son (and husband) Dusares. H. (i. 131. 3 n.) gives a list of the various names of the goddess, to which we may add ‘Argimpasa’ (4. 59). For other unconvincing explanations of ‘Orotalt’ cf. Gruppe, Myth. Liter. (1908), p. 579.

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