Carthage Blog 5 - Melqart
- Scot Stoddard
- 6 hours ago
- 8 min read
Who was Melqart?
Melqart was the tutelary god or "spirit protector" of the Phoenician City State of Tyre and a major deity for the Phoenicians. He may have been central to the founding myths of many various Phoenician colonies, as well as myths surrounding the exploits of Heracles. Many Phoenician colonies and cities were thought to have been founded by Melqart, arising from the fact that, in almost every instance when a new colony was started, there was a temple built to honor Melqart.
Melqart acted in a dual role as protector of the world and as ruler of the underworld.
As Phoenician trade, colonization and settlement expanded, Melqart became revered and respected in Phoenician cultures across the Mediterranean, especially in the colonies of Carthage and Cadiz (Gades or Gadir, in Phoenician). During the height of Phoenician civilization, say 1000 to 500 BCE, Melqart was associated with other pantheons and often venerated accordingly. He was identified with the Greek Heracles and the Roman Hercules from at least the sixth century BCE, and eventually became interchangeable with his Greek counterpart, being referred to as "The Phoenician Heracles".
Melqart was written in the Phoenician abjad as MLQRT and has the meaning of "King of the City". The first occurrence of the name was from the 9th century BC and found on the Ben-Hadad inscription or Melqart Stele found in 1939 north of Aleppo in modern day Syria. It had been erected by the son of a king of Aram, reading "for his lord Melqart, which he vowed to him and heard his voice". Archeological evidence for the cult of Melqart is found earliest in Tyre and pretty much spread westward as the Phoenician empire expanded. One of the earliest vestiges of Phoenician occupation in Cadiz, the westernmost Phoenician colony in modern day Spain, is a temple built to Melqart. Melqart was so revered that Carthage, Cadiz and other city states sent a tribute of ten percent of the yearly treasury to Melqart and the temple in Tyre up until the Hellenistic period.
Hannibal and Melqart
The great Carthaginian general Hannibal was a worshipper of Melqart. A roman historian recorded that Hannibal made a pilgrimage to Cadiz before setting off on his journey to Italy in attempt to dissuade (kick the shit out of) the Romans. Hannibal prayed at the Altar of Melqart and made a sacrifice to prepare himself for battle. He returned to "New Carthage" (Cartagena), and on the eve of his departure for Italy, he had a vision. I quote from Wikipedia:
"A youth of divine beauty appeared to Hannibal in the night. The youth told Hannibal he had been sent by the supreme deity, Jupiter, to guide the son of Hamilcar to Italy. “Follow me,” said the ghostly visitor, “and see that that thou look not behind thee.” Hannibal followed the instructions of the visitor. His curiosity, however, overcame him, and as he turned his head, Hannibal saw a serpent crashing through forest and thicket causing destruction everywhere. It moved as a black tempest with claps of thunder and flashes of lightning gathered behind the serpent. When Hannibal asked the meaning of the vision the being replied, “What thou beholdest is the desolation of Italy. Follow thy star and inquire no farther into the dark counsels of heaven."
The Greek historian Herodotus said that the temple of Melqart in Tyre had a tomb in its sanctuary, supporting the theory that Melqart was indeed in the founding myth of Tyre and may have been based upon a real person.
In 2021 archeologist from Seville University believed that had found the historical temple of Melqart in Spain, which classical authors believe to have contained the supposed Tomb of Melqart, in modern-day Sancti Petri, Cadiz.
Let's talk about the music!
Now that you've learned a little about Melqart -- I sure did -- let's continue on to a discussion of the music of this track!
Usually, when something changes in your gear, you might get some new and different ideas. The opening of this track shows just that. My usual tuning for my 7-string guitar was based off a drop A, or drop A and D. So A-D-A-D-G-B-E, low to high. Cat had borrowed my 7-string guitar and tuned it the way she likes to play the 7-string, such as A-E-A-D-F#-B-E, a tuning I wasn't used to. So I'm like: Cat, what's up with this tuning? She explained it, and I tried it. Basically, this gives you the same tuning as a standard tuned 6-string, just down a fourth, or everything is down one string. What's strange is the way it feels and works for chord forms or shapes.
Anyways, after some experimentation, I was able to come up with the opening sequence for this track, A+7, Bb+7, C+7, Bb+7 but just putting a straight bar across four strings, which forms all these +7 chords, move it up a fret, move it up two frets, back down two frets! Easy. But so different. Then I just wrote a melody over that chord pattern. The bridge goes D#, D, F, D#, G, F#, F, Bb. All major chords or +7 chords. BPM is 90. It's light, happy.
But enough of that happy stuff already! We transition into Section 2 at about 1:05, and now we're in A minor. A synth plays a vocal patch that reminiscent of an ancient cleric calling out to the townspeople to come to the temple to worship Melqart. The tone is dark, mysterious, solemn and serious. The chords are a, a/c, a/b, E7; then d-7, a-7, c, G# dim 7. Clean/chorus guitars on rhythm, harmony lead on the first pass, single lead on the second pass. Now for the bridge, and here's the fun part: F+7, e-7, d-7, C+7, Bb+7, a-7, F, E7. I really love this kind of descending chord progression with a good mix of major and minor chords, half steps and whole steps. If you look at C+7 to Bb+7 after the d-7, it's a beautiful thing. Half step from F to E, then a whole step down to the d-7, which contains a C as the -7 step, so that's the root of the C chord, which is a +7, so it sounds really almost out of place here, but a B is there in the C+7 there, which acts as a passing tone and resolves so nicely to the tonic in the Bb+7, which has an A there, which is the next chord... You get it. Or if you don't get it, that's okay, too. Just enjoy a listen, that's what it's all about. I wanted to give a bit of the theory behind all this, if anyone is interested. It's a complex/compound chord chain that sounds so juicy. Try it if you're a musician. Simple rock music to me is just boring, so I like to use more complex constructions. It's not often you hear this kind of progression in rock or metal music, which makes this whole album something different; it's not afraid to go outside the boundaries of what most people do or of convention by genre. I strive to be different and unique.
Anyways, after the bridge, the lead guitar solo continues over the opening progression of this section a few times, with the drums and bass building up. Then we go from the half time feeling to double time, but same chord chain, although it's not strummed softly on the rhythm guitars anymore; they're chugging away pretty good now.
At about 3:08 we go into a heavy riff on the 7-string guitars, and stuff starts getting intense. We're out of the melodic part and into the chaos of an angry god. Somebody didn't pay proper homage to Melqart. And he doesn't like it. A Hammond B-3 organ shows up for the first time in the track, and he wants to play a playful, teasing little riff over the heavy rhythms. It's building up into something serious here. At 3:29 we go into what would normally be, in one of my tracks, probably a harmony guitar solo. But we just introduced the Hammond, and he wants to play the harmony to the guitar now; it sounds like Deep Purple, perhaps, or maybe some little bit of Dream Theater. And we'll get back to Dream Theater a bit later, as well. Anyways, this section just shreds, and it was very difficult to play. I wrote out the guitar solo on the organ track, played the guitar to what was written there, then took that same organ part and moved the notes around to create the harmony for the organ. This was quite a chore!
This section starts in the same double time feeling as the end of the last part of this section, but the second half of the guitar/organ duet is mutated into a 3/4 pattern in the drums over a four beat for some odd accents under the insane duet going on. The heavy riffing morphs into something different here, with the organ playing chords up higher and the guitars pounding away underneath. Then we go back to where this section started off as an outro to the next section.
At 4:31, we're in the next section, which, believe it or not, is kind of a metal style repeat of the opening section, minus the fancy chords. The melody stays the same, only now it's in A Minor, so instead of the major intervals, it's minor; the G# is now G natural, the C# is now C natural. It gives that light, happy major theme at the beginning a new life in the underworld that Melqart controls! And we're going to mess with that for a minute, then go into a different heavy riff. This repeats a few times, then a lead ascends into the heavens over the pounding pattern.
After a little transition we're back to a major chord chain for the buildout section and a new melody that wasn't heard previously. And here is where I went for something reminiscent of Dream Theater again. If you're familiar with their music, you hear this kind of theme a lot. I wanted this to be somewhat of a nod to the track "At Wit's End" from their "Distance Over Time" album, with the epic building ending that goes on for a while. I've linked the "Live In London" version here, however, because it's totally awesome; give it a listen, and you'll see what I'm talking about. I'm no John Petrucci, so I stuck mostly to the melody I had written here in this end section, and just took it up an octave on the third and final pass. I just needed James to sing "Don't Leave Me Now" a couple times, and it would have been perfect. And that brings us to the conclusion!
Conclusion
That's it! I hope you've enjoyed this story and breakdown of the track. Visit the Carthage page on this site to hear all the songs, they're all there in final form now!
Album release is imminent!
I've set the album release date on all the major platforms for July 16th! Until then, you can enjoy unlimited streaming with no commercial interruptions right here at the home of Scot Stoddard Music online. Stream away and enjoy. I suggest, however, for you to set out 80 minutes and stream the entire album in order, if you can. I know how things are. But there's a story to be told here, and it's chronological and logical. You don't want to miss the fine points. The album cover art is also up on the Home page and in the music player. And read the corresponding blogs to each track so you get a good feeling where this is all coming from. I hope you love listening as much as I did making this album. Thank you!
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