Plural of baetulus; sacred stones or meteoric objects believed to possess divine power in pre-Islamic Arabian and ancient Mediterranean religions.
From Semitic roots, possibly related to 'beth-el' (house of god). These stones were venerated across the ancient Mediterranean, particularly in Phoenician, Greek, and Arabian cultures.
Baetuli might have been meteorites—ancient people would have seen stones falling from the sky and interpreted them as divine gifts, making them sacred objects of worship thousands of years before we understood meteors scientifically!
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