Hadad (Haddu / Adad / Iškur)

Attestations vary by region and period. In Ugaritic mythic cycles Haddu/Baʿal functions as the sky/storm lord who fights the sea-god Yamm and secures rulership among the gods (the Baal Cycle). Mesopotamian and Sumerian traditions use cognate forms (Adad, Iškur) and the Sumerogram dIM to denote the storm power; genealogical placement differs in texts and traditions (the deity appears with different parentage and family relations in different corpora), reflecting variant local theological schemes rather than a single canonical birth-narrative.

Textual and iconographic evidence (especially Mesopotamian/Akkadian) commonly portray the storm god as a bearded male figure wearing a bull-horned headdress and bearing martial/storm attributes such as a club and a thunderbolt or spear; the bull is a regular symbolic animal associated with him. Regional art and texts show some variation in depiction and emphasis across time and place.

Hadad/Adad/Iškur is associated with storm, thunder, and rain and is invoked as the deity who brings fertility to fields through rainfall and, conversely, can cause destructive storms and drought when absent or angered. In Mesopotamia he shares cultic association with the sun-god Shamash in the patronage of oracles and divination; mythic narratives position him as a warrior figure in contests that establish cosmic and cultic order.