Billa

This name derives from the Latin “Sibylla,” which in turn derives from the Greek “Síbulla (Σίβυλλα) Síbylla (Σίβυλλα), meaning “prophetess, Sibyl.” The Sibyls were oracular women believed to possess prophetic powers in ancient Greece. The earliest Sibyls, “who admittedly are known only through legend,” prophesied at specific holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, initially, at Delphi and Pessinos, one of the chthonic gods. Later in antiquity, many sibyls are attested in various writers, in Greece and Italy, but also the Levant and Asia Minor. 1) Sibylla (~1160–1190) was the Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon from 1176 and Queen of Jerusalem from 1186 to 1190. She was the eldest daughter of Amalric I of Jerusalem and Agnes of Courtenay, sister of Baldwin IV and half-sister of Isabella I of Jerusalem, and mother of Baldwin V of Jerusalem. 2) Sibylle Christine of Anhalt-Dessau (1603–1686) was a member of the House of Ascania and princess of Anhalt-Dessau by birth.