In the Canaanite religion, or Levantine religion as a whole, Ēl
or Il was the supreme God, the Father of humankind and all
creatures and the husband of the Goddess Asherah as recorded in
the clay tablets of Ugarit (modern Ra′s Shamrā - Arabic: رأس
شمرا, Syria). The noun ʾEl was found at the top of a list of
Gods as the "Ancient of Gods" or the "Father of all Gods", in
the ruins of the royal archive of the Ebla civilization, in the
archaeological site of Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC.
The bull was symbolic to Ēl and his son Baʻal Hadad, and they
both wore bull horns on their headdress. He may have been a
desert god at some point, as the myths say that he had two wives
and built a sanctuary with them and his new children in the
desert. Ēl had fathered many gods, but most important were
Hadad, Yam, and Mot. Linguistic forms and meanings  In Northwest
Semitic usage ʾl was both a generic word for any "God" and the
special name or title of a particular god who was distinguished
from other Gods as being "th