Dagon — Museum of the Fallen

The Obituary

Dagon, also called Dagan, was an ancient Semitic god of grain and fertility, worshipped from the third millennium BCE at Ebla, Mari, and Terqa on the middle Euphrates and named in Ugaritic texts as the father of Baal. The Philistines adopted him as their national god, raising temples at Ashdod and Gaza. The Book of Samuel famously describes his idol falling shattered before the Ark of the Covenant, and Samson pulling down his temple. His Philistine and Phoenician cult faded through the Iron Age and was gone by Roman times.

Worth remembering

In the Book of Samuel his idol at Ashdod falls and breaks before the captured Ark of the Covenant.
Father of Baal in Ugaritic texts, he was an ancient grain-god whose name was linked to Hebrew dagan, 'grain.'

Gallery

Ruins of the Palace of Zimri-Lim at Mari (Tell Hariri), Syria, cult center of the grain god Dagan, 18th c. BCE Herbert Frank · CC BY 2.0

Diorite statue of Tura-Dagan, governor of Mari, named for the god Dagan, Old Babylonian period Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg) · CC BY-SA 4.0

Sources

Dagon was a Mesopotamian and Canaanite god associated with grain and fertility Wikipedia
The Philistines worshipped Dagon at temples in Ashdod and Gaza Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dagan was the West Semitic god of crop fertility and the legendary inventor of the plow; his name is the Hebrew and Ugaritic common noun for 'grain,' and his cult is attested from about 2500 BCE. Encyclopaedia Britannica
Dagan was a major deity in the Mesopotamian pantheon, worshipped extensively at Mari and Terqa on the middle Euphrates, where he was considered lord of the land. Oracc — Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses (University of Pennsylvania)

A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.