But there were many other festivals at Mabog besides that which commemorated the subsidence of the deluge. Pilgrims flocked to it from all parts--Arabia, Palestine, Kappadokia, Babylonia, even India. They were required to drink water only, and to sleep on the ground. Numerous and rich were the offerings which they brought to the shrine, and once arrived there were called upon to offer sacrifices. Goats and sheep were the most common victims, though oxen were also offered. The only animal whose flesh was forbidden to be either sacrificed or eaten was the swine; as among the Jews, it was regarded as unclean. After being dedicated in the court of the temple the animal was usually led to the house of the offerer, and there put to death; sometimes, however, it was killed by being thrown from the entrance to the temple. Even children were sacrificed by their parents in this way, after first being tied up in skins and told that they were 'not children but oxen.'
Different stories were current as to the foundation of the temple. There were some who affirmed that Sisythes had built it after the deluge over the spot where the waters of the flood had been swallowed up by the earth. It is possible that this was the legend originally believed in Mabog before the traditions of Carchemish had been transferred to it. It seems to be closely connected with the local peculiarities of the site. The other legends had doubtless had their origin in the older Hierapolis. According to one of them, the temple had been founded by Semiramis in honour of her mother Derketo, half woman and half fish, to whom the fish in the neighbouring lake were sacred. Another account made Attys its founder, and the goddess to whom it was dedicated the divinity called Rhea by the Greeks.
Derketo and Rhea, however, are but different names of the same deity, who was known as Kybelê or Kybêbê in Phrygia, and honoured with the title of 'the Great Mother.' Her images were covered with breasts, to symbolise that she was but mother-earth, from whom mankind derived their means of life. Her attributes were borrowed from those of the Babylonian Istar, the Ashtoreth of Canaan; even the form assigned to her was that of the Babylonian Istar, as we learn from a bas-relief discovered at Carchemish, where she is represented as naked, a lofty tiara alone excepted, with the hands upon the breasts and a wing rising behind each shoulder. She was, in fact, a striking illustration of the influence exerted upon the Hittites, and through them upon the people of Asia Minor, by Babylonian religion and worship. Even in Lydia a stone has been found on which her image is carved in a rude style of art, but similar in form to the representations of her in the bas-relief of Carchemish and the cylinders of ancient Chaldæa.