Manbij

Manbij (Arabic: منبج‎ / ALA-LC: Manbij; Syriac: ܡܒܘܓ‎ mabbug) is a town in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria, 30 kilometers west of the Euphrates. In the 2004 census by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Manbij had a population of nearly 100,000. Its inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslims of Arab, Kurdish and Circassian ethnicity.

Etymology

Coins struck at the city before Alexander's conquest record the Aramean name of the city as Mnbg (meaning spring site). For the Assyrians it was known as Nappigu (Nanpigi). The place appears in Greek as Bambyce and Pliny (v. 23) tells us its Syrian name was Mabog (also Mabbog, Mabbogh). As a center of the worship of the Syrian goddess Atargatis, it became known to the Greeks as the Ἱερόπολις (Hieropolis) 'city of the sanctuary', and finally as Ἱεράπολις (Hierapolis) 'holy city'.

Cult of Atargatis

This worship of Atargatis was immortalized in De Dea Syria which has traditionally been attributed to Lucian of Samosata, who gave a full description of the religious cult of the shrine and the tank of sacred fish of Atargatis, of which Aelian also relates marvels. According to the De Dea Syria, the worship was of a phallic character, votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze. There were also huge phalli set up like obelisks before the temple, which were ceremoniously climbed once a year and decorated.