Category: Matrifocus

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The “Holy One”

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Lammas 2007, Vol 6-4


A nude goddess with a prominent pubic triangle or wearing a pubic covering stands on a crouching lion. Her Hathor-style coiffure is topped by horns extending to the side. She wears a necklace and bracelets. Her arms are bent into a V shape, and she holds in each hand a long plant (lotus?). Plaque from a tomb in Akko (Acre), Israel. Cast in bronze in a mold and retains pierced suspension piece. Might have been part of the face piece or bridle of a horse. Dated ca. 1550-1200 BCE. Lost (stolen).
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.21

Qedesh[et], lady of heaven, mistress of all the gods, eye of
Ra, without her equal
(Egyptian inscription, quoted by Cornelius 2004: 83)

A nude goddess, often standing on a lion and holding snakes, plants, or both, is a very familiar figure to archaeologists working on Late Bronze Age sites (ca.1500-ca.1200 BCE) throughout the Levant.[1] Plaques, pendants, and figurines of this goddess abound,[2] but it is by no means clear who she was (Cornelius 2004: Plates 5.19-5.62; Keel and Uelinger 1998: 66-68; Patai 1990: 58-60). A few scholars have identified her with Anat, more think she was Astarte, and some argue for Asherah.[3]

Anat. Those who opt for Anat normally start from the assumption that the beautiful, young female warrior was also a sex / fertility goddess, and they usually base this view on a probable misinterpretation of at least one of the mythic texts from Ugarit, an ancient city on the coast of Syria (Wyatt 2002: 156-160; Patai 1990: 61; Coogan 1978: 108).[4] In addition, they take the figure’s nudity to signal sexuality and fertility (Stuckey 2005: 37; Cornelius 2004: 100).

Astarte. The proponents of Astarte’s candidacy call one form of the images “Astarte plaques” (Keel and Uelinger 1998: 100-108; Patai 1990: 59). They explain this identification in large part by Astarte’s popularity in the first millennium BCE as the Phoenician lover of the god Adonis and so as deity of love and sexuality, of the evening star (Aphrodite/Venus), and of war.[5].</p<

Asherah. The case for the images representing Asherah derives partly from the assertion that, in the Ugaritic texts, Asherah was called “Lion Lady” (Wiggins 1991).[6]. Primarily, however, some scholars think that some of the Ugaritic texts referred to Asherah as the “Holy One,” Qadesh(ah)[7] (Binger 1997: 54; Pettey 1990: 29; Cross 1973:33). And they use as additional evidence a group of Egyptianized images usually called Qudshu plaques.

The close resemblance of the Egyptian goddess to the obviously very popular Levantine goddess (Anat / Astarte / Asherah) is extremely striking. What is more, several of these Egyptianized plaques bear inscriptions giving the goddess a name: Qudshu or Qodshu, also Qedeshet and Qetesh, the “Holy or Sacred One.” Clearly, the Egyptians of the Late Bronze Age (ca.1550-ca.1200 BCE) worshipped this goddess both at home and abroad. As we shall see, she probably originated in the Syro-Canaanite part of the Egyptian empire[8] and seemingly was adopted into Egyptian religion during the Ramesside Age (1300-1200 BCE).

For many centuries before any of the Levant was incorporated into the their empire, the Egyptians had contact with West Asia, usually for trade. For instance, in historic times, Egypt maintained close relations with Byblos, now in Lebanon, mainly for the valuable cedar wood that city could provide. They identified the “Lady of Byblos” (Astarte?) with Egyptian goddess Hathor, and the pharaohs regularly sent offering gifts to her temple. In the third millennium BCE, Egyptian art began to depict conquered Asiatics as rough, bearded, and often half-naked. Later texts also mentioned them, often in derogatory terms; for example, “the vile Asiatic.”

Between 2000 and 1700 BCE, Egyptian kings often campaigned in the southern Levant and took captives whom they brought back to Egypt as slaves. Other Asiatics migrated into the Nile Delta area in search of food when times were hard. Many of them stayed and, of course, they brought their religions with them.

In the early seventeenth century BCE, the unthinkable happened to Egypt: Asiatics invaded and usurped the throne. Although they paid lip service to Egyptian divinities, it is clear that their real allegiance was to Anat, Baal, and other Levantine deities. These Hyksos, “rulers of foreign lands” (Redford 1992: 100), had control of a large part of Egypt for about one hundred years, reaching the height of their power around 1580 BCE; they were not expelled until around 1550 BCE.

Then the native pharaohs began to create the Egyptian Empire, which included at least the southern part of the Levant as, among other things, insurance against a recurrence of Asiatic invasions. The Empire lasted until about 1120 BCE. Captive Asiatics poured into Egypt, as did Canaanite traders, some of whom founded a temple for Baal and his consort Astarte at Memphis. Soon, warrior pharaohs were worshipping Canaanite deities, especially those associated with warfare, the goddesses Astarte and Anat and the warrior Reshep(h). This was especially true during the Ramesside period (1300-1200 BCE).

A number of Egyptian relief plaques from this period depict a fully frontally nude goddess[9] usually standing on a lion and sometimes posed between the Canaanite warrior god Reshep(h), an Underworld deity, and the Egyptian fertility god, ithyphallic Min[10] (Cornelius 2004: Plates 5.1-5.18; Binger 1997: 56-58; Pritchard 1969: 163-164 #470-474). The Egyptians called her Qedeshet or Qudshu.


Egyptian Qudshu. Qedeshet plaque. Nude goddess stands on a striding lion with ithyphallic Egyptian god Min on her right (see note 10) and Canaanite warrior god Reshep(h) on her left. With her arms in the V position, in her right hand she holds plants out to the fertility god and, in her left, she directs a snake at the Underworld deity. Her Hathor-style coiffure is topped with bovine horns and disk. She wears a Hathor-style neckpiece and a hip belt. The inscription on the front reads: “Qedesh, lady of heaven, mistress of all the gods, eye of Ra, without her equal.” On the back occur other titles: “lady of the two lands [Egypt], “child of Ra,” “beloved of Ra” (Cornelius 2004: 83). Painted relief carving on white limestone. Dated ca. 1300-1200 BCE. Louvre.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.4

That Qedeshet/Qudshu was “a proper divine name in Egyptian” is indicated by the sign for deity, the cobra (Cornelius 2004: 84). Among her titles were “lady of heaven,” “mistress of all the gods,” “beloved of [the Egyptian creator god] Ptah,” “great of magic, mistress of the stars,” and “eye of Ra, without her equal” (Cornelius 2004:83-84).[11] According to these epithets, Qedeshet was a very great deity indeed, though seemingly she was not included in the cultic practices of royalty and the elite (Cornelius 2004: 86). “Lady or queen of heaven” was an attribute shared by the greatest of Eastern Mediterranean goddesses: Inanna and Ishtar of Mesopotamia; Asherah, Anat, and Astarte of Syro-Canaan; Isis of Egypt; and Aphrodite and Venus of the Greco-Roman world.[12] A number of these great goddesses were also called “mistress of all the gods.” Was Qedeshet a title of one of the three Canaanite goddesses Anat, Astarte, or Asherah, or was she another separate deity? Again we can turn to the Egyptian plaques for help.


Qudshu relief plaque. With pubic triangle painted black, the nude goddess stands on a lion, and both are painted yellow. The lion has a shoulder rosette. The goddess holds in her right hand a red lotus flower, and in her left a snake, originally black. Her hair is in the Hathor style, and she wears a necklace and bracelets. Black cross-bands and girdle usually indicate the carrying of weapons. Images of Mesopotamian war goddess Ishtar often show her with cross-bands. The partly broken crown is difficult to interpret. The title reads: Qedeshet, Astarte, Anat.” Painted limestone. Dated to the time of Rameses III (1198-1166 BCE). Once owned by Winchester College in England, but apparently auctioned off.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.16

One plaque is unique in bearing the inscription “Qudshu-Astarte-Anat” (Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.16; Hadley 2000: 191-192; Pritchard 1969: 352 #830; Edwards 1955). Since some scholars think that, at Ugarit, Qadesh was a title of Asherah, they have concluded that Qudshu here refers to Asherah, since she is the only Canaanite goddess omitted from the heading of the plaque. So they see this inscription as evidence that the three Canaanite great goddesses were merging together. Others argue that Qudshu in the inscription is presenting the two named goddesses as examples of the state of sacredness. Yet others understand from the inscription that the two were already merged goddesses: “her holiness Astarte-Anath” (Patai quoted by Hadley 2000:192). A few think that the third name indicates an as-yet unidentified deity, “an independent goddess” named Qedeshet (Cornelius 2004: 96). Depending on how we interpret the inscription, we may now be able to identify the so-called “Astarte plaques” discussed above, and, even if there is still a little confusion, we can at the very least conclude that they represent Qedeshet, a goddess who had some form of relationship with Astarte and Anat.

In addition, it may help to realize that, aside from in the Qudshu plaques, both Astarte and Anat were well known as separate divinities in Egypt during the Ramesside period (1300-1200 BCE.), primarily as war goddesses. Astarte and Anat were both daughters of the great sun god Ra or Re. In one text, along with Anat, Astarte was awarded as wife to the god Seth, often identified with the Syro-Canaanite storm god Baal-Hadad. Another Egyptian text described both Astarte and Anat as “the two great goddesses who were pregnant but did not bear” (Wyatt in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 111). Further, an inscription at Medinet Habu in Egypt described the two goddesses as shields of Rameses III (Wyatt in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 111).

Interestingly, in a late Egyptian text Astarte was called “Mistress of Horses, Lady of the Chariot” (Quoted in Wyatt in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 111). The many Egyptian images of a goddess riding a horse probably depict her (Cornelius 2004: Plates 4.1-26; Wyatt in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 111).[13] At Memphis in Egypt, Astarte was identified with the Egyptian lion-headed war goddess Sekmet (Cornelius 2004: 92), and she had there her own shrine with its attendant priest.


Naked goddess of the Qudshu type standing on a trotting horse. She has shoulder-length locks secured by a headband, but wears no jewelry. Her crown has two horns sticking out sideways and others stretching upwards. In the middle are Egyptian-style feathers. She carries two lotus flowers in each hand. Her eyes were originally inlaid. The horse has two ostrich feathers on its forehead and is covered with an ornate blanket or perhaps armor. The goddess might be Astarte, who was most often associated with horses. Possibly the plaque would have been attached to a screen in a cult niche of the temple in which it was found, on the acropolis at Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir), Israel. Gold foil (92% pure) torn into five pieces and wadded together, probably ritually deactivated and discarded. Dated to the twelfth century BCE. Israel Antiquities Authority.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Hadley 2000: 162

A stele depicting Anat was found in a temple built by Rameses III at Beth-shean (Beth-shan, Beisan), an Egyptian military post in Israel[14] (Cornelius 2004: 81 and Plate 3.1; Keel and Uelinger 1998: 86, 87 fig.107). Its inscription names her “queen of heaven, the mistress of all the gods” (Quoted by P. Day in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 38). However, it was in Egypt itself that Anat became a truly powerful goddess. Evidence points to her as having arrived in Egypt with the Hyksos who ruled Egypt from ca. 1650 to 1550 BCE, but the worship of Anat continued in Egypt at least until the Greco-Roman period (P. Day in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 40).

One Egyptian text described her as a woman who acted as a man (Cornelius 2004: 92). Most important, Anat became well known as a war deity of the Ramesside pharaohs. Indeed, the conquering king Rameses II “the Great” (1304-1237 BCE) took her as his patron and appealed to her as “Lady of the Heavens” to assist him in battle and validate him as ruler of the world. In his devotion Rameses II styled himself “Beloved of Anat” and named one of his daughters after her (Cornelius 2004: 85). He also dubbed one of his hunting dogs “Anat is Protection” and one of his swords “Anat is Victorious” (Quoted by P. Day in van der Toorn et al. 1999: 40).

The connection of at least Anat with Qedeshet was a close one. At the bottom of an Egyptian Qudshu plaque of this period, there is a representation, with inscription, of an offering rite to Anat (Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.1; Pritchard 1969: 163 #473).


A double-register plaque with a typical Qudshu scene at the top and an Anat ritual below. The quality of the relief carving is very good, though the plaque has sustained some damage over time. For instance, the goddess’s crown is missing. The nude goddess standing on a striding lion has a clearly marked pubic triangle, Hathor-style coiffure, heavy necklace, and anklets. Her elbows bent in a V position, she holds short lotus flowers and buds in her right hand, in her left two snakes. A loop of the flower stems is visible. On either side Egyptian fertility god Min and Syro-Canaanite warrior god Reshep(h) stand on plinths. Behind Min grow a lotus or lily plant and two lettuces, both symbols of fertility and healing, the lettuce often being seen as an aphrodisiac. An inscription reads: “Ke(d)eshet, lady of heaven” (Cornelius 2004: 83). The lower register depicts a ritual to Anat, who is enthroned to the far right. Fully dressed and wearing the cross-bands and girdle of the warrior, she wields a battle axe in her left hand and holds a spear and shield in her right. Her crown is one often worn by the Egyptian pharaoh ( the atef crown). Before her is an offering table laden with food (fowl, bread) and incense, and below it are lettuce plants and a jar on a stand. The male worshiper Qaha “the justified” was a foreman from the famous village Deir el-Medina, the home of the workers who built and decorated the tombs of the Valley of the Kings. He and his sister Twy “the justified,” “the lady of the house,” worship her with gestures of adoration. His son Any follows them carrying a live (?) bird and a lotus stalk (Cornelius 2004: 69). The inscription reads: “Anat, lady of heaven, Mistress of the gods. (May) all protection, life, stability, power, and dominion be with her” (Cornelius 2004: 80). British Museum. Limestone. Late Bronze Age, ca. 1550-1200 BCE.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.1

Thus, the Egyptian sources show that Astarte and Anat were very much separate deities, and it seems that Qedeshet/Qudshu was understood as a third goddess closely associated with them. However, that does not mean that Qedeshet was Asherah, though she could well have been. One fact seems clear: The images of Egyptian Qedeshet/Qudshu are very similar to those on the large number of small plaques, pendants, and figurines from Syro-Canaan, which I discussed at the beginning of this article. Indeed, according to Tilde Binger, they depict a goddess “who iconographically is practically identical to” Egyptian images entitled Qudshu (1997: 57). Thus, whether or not the Syro-Canaanite images depict one of the three known Canaanite great goddesses, we can say that they almost certainly represent the goddess the Egyptians addressed as Qudshu or Qedeshet, the “Holy One.”


Nude goddess with large pubic triangle or covering (?). She stands in a frame. Her hair is in the Hathor style, and she wears a narrow necklace, bracelets, and anklets. In each hand she has long-stemmed flowers which join at the bottom, also framing her. Typical of what some have called the “Astarte plaque,” but in stance very like Egyptian Qudshu. Found in a potter’s workshop at Lachish (Tell ed.-Duweir), Israel. Terracotta. British Museum.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Cornelius 2004: Plate 5.38

Notes

  1. Modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, the area which I call Syro-Canaan when I am discussing the ancient Eastern Mediterranean.
  2. Her image also appears on seals, both from the Levant and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. (Vew Qadesh seal with caption here.)
  3. See my articles on these three Syro-Canaanite goddesses in the Matrifocus archives. (Anat, Astarte, Asherah)
  4. Earlier translators of a passage about Baal’s sexual exploits with a heifer understood that Anat had taken the form of the young bovine with whom the god had sexual intercourse. Later translators do not make this assumption, although Wyatt’s translation is certainly ambiguous.
  5. Especially so in Greco-Roman times.
  6. That many of the so-called “Astarte plaques” depict the goddess standing on a lion explains the suggestion that she might have been the one known as Labatu, “Lion Lady” or “Lioness.” The lion also connects her with the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna/Ishtar
  7. The Semitic root qdsh means “sacred, holy, set-apart, or tabooed.” Thus, qedesh (masc.) and qedeshah or qedeshet (fem.), both of which occur in the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) in singular and plural forms, mean “Sacred or Set-apart One,” almost certainly referring to religious functionaries, though usually translated into English as “sacred prostitute.”
  8. Keel and Uelinger 1998: 68 state that she had “a Canaanite origin.”
  9. It is “exceptional in Egyptian iconography” for a figure to face to the front (Cornelius 2004: 49).
  10. Ithyphallic means “with penis erect.”
  11. Usually equated with the great Egyptian goddess Hathor.
  12. And eventually by the Christian Virgin Mary.
  13. It is also possible that they represent Anat as warrior deity.
  14. Situated where the valley of Jezreel meets the Jordan River.

Bibliography

  • Binger, Tilde. 1997. Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel, and the Old Testament. Sheffield. UK: Sheffield Academic
  • Coogan, Michael D. 1978. Stories from Ancient Canaan. Philadelphia: Westminster
  • Cornelius, Izak 2004. The Many Faces of the Goddess: The Iconography of the Syro-Palestinian Goddesses Anat, Astarte, Qedeshet, and Asherah c.1500-1000 BCE. Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press
  • Cross, Frank M. 1973. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
  • Edwards, E.S. 1955. “A Relief of Qudshu-Astarte-Anat in the Winchester College Collection.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies. 14: 49-51
  • Hadley, Judith M. 2000. The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  • Keel, Othmar and Christoph Uelinger. 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress
  • Parker, Simon B., editor. 1997. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. [No place]: Society of Biblical Literature/Scholars Press
  • Patai, Raphael. 1990. The Hebrew Goddess. Third Enlarged Edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press
  • Pettey, Richard J. 1990. Asherah, Goddess of Israel. New York: Lang
  • Pritchard, James B., editor. 1969. The Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament: Second Edition with Supplement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
  • Redford, Donald B. 1992. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
  • Stuckey, Johanna H. 2005. “Ancient Mother Goddesses and Fertility Cults.” Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 7/1: 32-44
  • van der Toorn, Karel, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst, editors. 1999. Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible: Second Extensively Revised Edition. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill and Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans
  • Wiggins, Steve A. 1991. “The Myth of Asherah: Lion Lady and Serpent Goddess.” Ugarit-Forschungen 23: 383-394
  • Wyatt, Nicolas. 2002. Religious Texts from Ugarit. Second Revised Edition. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press

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A Canaanite Goddess Shrine at Nahariyya in Israel

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Beltane 2006, Vol 5-3


Map of the southern Levant (Canaan) showing Nahariyah in the north not far from the modern border of Israel with Lebanon.
Despite the antiquity of its site, Nahariyya is certainly a full member of the modern world. In 2001, four teenagers from the town were responsible for disseminating a major computer virus. The town has also seen its share of terrorist violence. In 1979 a terrorist invaded a family apartment and killed the father, the daughter, and a policeman, while the young mother in hiding, trying to keep her baby quiet, suffocated him. In 2001 a suicide bomber attack on the train station killed three and injured ninety.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Mazar 1990: 177

Not far south of the border with Lebanon and just north of Akko (Acre), in what is now modern Israel, lies Nahariyya (Nahariyah), a resort town with a beautiful beach. It is the northern-most seaside town in Israel, and today it has a population of about 30,000 people. The town was established in 1934 or 1935 by German Jews, and residents even today are apt to say of the town: “Es bleibt doch immer deutsch” (“It still remains always German.”). The name Nahariyya means “River of Yahweh (God).”

Near the resort there is an ancient mound, Tel Nahariyah, which has not yet been excavated. It covers a town or village. About 800 meters from the tell and at the mouth of the River Ga’aton are situated the excavated remains of what was almost certainly an open-air Canaanite sanctuary. Like many such sites, it was established near an important fresh-water spring (Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 29; Dever 1992: 995; Mazar 1990: 176). The sanctuary sits on a hillock and is quite visible from the sea (Brody 1998: 55; Dever 1992: 995). It was founded in the Middle Bronze Age (about 2000-about 1550 BCE) and used well into the Late Bronze Age (about1550-1200/1150 BCE) (Tubb 1998: 76; Dothan 1981: 74-81). Excavations of the sanctuary uncovered the remains of three consecutive temples. The first was a small, square temple accompanied by a “typical Canaanite high place,” that is, a circular open-air platform/altar built of stone (Pettey 1990: 179). The second featured auxiliary structures, some of which were probably residences for cult personnel, and a larger “high place” with a standing stone. The third and latest temple had a few more auxiliary buildings but a smaller “high place” (Nakhai 2001: 94).

At the Nahariyah cult installation, archaeologists found evidence of offerings placed on the altar and oil poured on it. There was also considerable indication that the sanctuary had been the location of much sacrificial feasting (Pettey 1990: 179).[1] Excavators also discovered a number of naked female figurines in silver and in bronze, some on the “high place” of the shrine, more in a pottery jar under the plaster pavement (Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 31; Negbi 1976: 64 and #1525-1534).[2] One of the most exciting finds was not in metal, but was a soapstone (steatite) mold for casting metal figurines (Patai 1990: Plate 9; Negbi 1976: 64 #78, Plate 39 #1532).


Goddess figure from Nahariyah, the ancient mold on the left, a modern cast from it on the right.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Negbi 1976: Plate 39 #1532.

The slim figure in the mold is naked and stands with her arms at her sides and hands framing her pubic area. Her breasts are small, and she has a protruding navel. Her hair flows about her shoulders. Her tall, conical hat has a horn sticking out on each side. To date, no figurine produced from this mold has come to light (Negbi 1976: 178).

The other female images from Nahariyah, all made of metal, are of two kinds: Some “were poured solid, of the type that one could produce using the steatite mold,” but the rest were “cut out using sheet-silver or sheet-bronze” (Keel & Uehlinger 1998: 31; Negbi 1976: 65,#77,#79, 81-82). Although two of the cut-out metal figures from the Nahariyah shrine wear short skirts, the others are naked. One of the skirted figures was clearly intended to be worn as a pendant, for she has a loop on the back of her head (Patai 1990: Plate 22; Negbi 1976: 81 #96). The figurines were probably made in workshops at the shrine (Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 29, 31).

The figurines indicate that the shrine was probably dedicated to a goddess, but to which one? Those who argue for the shrine’s having been devoted to the chief Canaanite goddess Asherah base their case primarily on Nahariyah’s “seacoast location near Tyre and Sidon, where Asherah was the local deity” (Pettey 1990: 179; Dothan 1981:80). One scholar argues that the shrine served both the locals and seafarers who worshiped “Lady Asherah of the Sea”; in addition, he points out, the shrine could certainly have functioned as a shore marker (Brody 1998). Others think, because of the mold figure’s horns (Patai 1990: 65)[3] or because of the Hathor-style (Ω) locks of many of the figurines (Gray 1982: 81), that she was another Canaanite goddess Astarte (Mazar 1990: 221). In addition, at least one scholar thought she was the Canaanite warrior goddess Anat (Cross cited in Dothan 1981: 80), though I think there is little evidence to support this contention.


Front view of cut-metal figure from Nahariyah showing the loop for hanging it around the neck.
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Negbi 1976: 81 Fig. 96

Whoever she was — and I myself tend to think she was Asherah — her shrine presents us with information on the practices of ancient goddess worship in the Bronze Age in the land of Canaan. From the auxiliary buildings, we can surmise that there were probably one or more priests/priestesses attached to the sanctuary. Offerings were made on the large round altar in the open air. Some of these would have been animal sacrifices, parts of which would later provide food for the feasting that clearly went on. The mold might suggest that images of the shrine’s deity were produced at the shrine to give worshipers a memento of their visit. Finally, the fact that the shrine was used from its beginnings until well into the Late Bronze Age testifies to the popularity of its female deity.

Notes

  1. From the animal bones and eating vessels discovered at the site (Nakhai 2001: 92-97).
  2. The jar contained nineteen whole or fragmentary figures of goddesses (Keel and Uehlinger 1998: 31). Excavators also found offering vessels, bowls, lamps, incense stands, precious stone beads, metal jewelry, and animal figurines (Pettey 1990: 179).
  3. The Hebrew Bible mentions a town called Ashteroth Karnaim, “Astarte of the Two Horns” (Genesis 14:5).

Bibliography

  • Brody, A, J. 1998. “Each Man Cried Out to his God”: The Specialized Religion of Canaanite and Phoenician Seafarers. Atlanta, GA: Scholars.
  • Dever, William G. 1992. “Nahariyeh,’ 995-996, in Anchor Bible Dictionary. Vol. 4. New York: Doubleday.
  • Dothan, Moshe 1981. “Sanctuaries along the Coast of Canaan in the MB Period Nahariyah,” 74-81, in Temples and High Places in Biblical Times: Proceedings of the Colloquium in Honor of the Centennial of Hebrew Union College …. Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College.
  • Gray, John 1982. Near Eastern Mythology. London: Hamlyn.
  • Keel, Othmar and Christoph Uehlinger 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
  • Mazar, Amihai 1990. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible 10,000-586 B.C.E. New York: Doubleday.
  • Nakhai, Beth Alpert 2001. Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel. Boston, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research.
  • Negbi, Ora 1976. Canaanite Gods in Metal: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figures. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University.
  • Patai, Raphael 1990 (1978). The Hebrew Goddess: Third Enlarged Edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University.
  • Pettey, Richard J. 1990. Asherah: Goddess of Israel. New York: Lang.
  • Tubb, Jonathan N. 1998. Canaanites. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.

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Asherah and the God of the Early Israelites

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Lammas 2004, Vol 3-4


Clay pillar figurine. Israel. 9th Century BCE.
Drawing @ S. Beaulieu, after Patai 1990: Plate 1.

Though all three ancient Levantine great goddesses appear in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Old Testament, Asherah occurs most often: forty times in nine books. The biblical texts are hostile witnesses, for they either vilify the goddess or, more often, obliterate her grammatically, for instance, by referring to her in the masculine plural as “the asherahs.” Until the Ugaritic tablets were deciphered beginning in the 1930s, most scholars did not even speculate that “the asherahs” might be obscuring a goddess(Hadley 2000:4). They interpreted “the asherahs” as either wooden poles, cult objects from Baal worship, or groves of trees. Only a brave few claimed that “the asherahs” referred to a goddess citing such passages as I Kings 18, in which “prophets of Asherah”(1) served Queen Jezebel(Binger 1997:111; Yamashita 1963:126). The first detailed study of Asherah in the Hebrew Bible after the Ugaritic discoveries concluded that “the asherah” represented both a wooden cult object and a goddess (Reed 1949:37, 53), a position some scholars still hold today.

Unquestionably, “the asherahs” were usually wooden; they stood upright, often beside altars, along with stone pillars. However, in at least eight instances, they are described as carved(Pettey 1990:45). Thus, far from being merely wooden “cult poles,” they were probably quite large carved images. As was the case with cult statues in other areas of the Eastern Mediterranean, “the asherahs” almost certainly would have been “animated” ritually (Walker and Dick 1999:57). Thus they did not just represent the goddess, but actually were worshipped as Asherah herself. Further, according to the Bible, a statue of Asherah stood in the Solomonic temple in Jerusalem for about two-thirds of its existence (Patai 1990:50). Asherah “must, then, have been a legitimate part of the cult of Yahweh” (Olyan 1988:13).

The Hebrew Scriptures regularly pair Asherah’s name, especially “the asherahs,” with Baal’s, so that some scholars have wondered whether Asherah had ousted Astarte as Baal’s consort. In 1963 Yamashita noted that most of the references to Asherah in the Hebrew Bible, including those pairing Asherah with Baal, were associated with only one source (1963:123-137). Later, Olyan argued very convincingly that the biblical attacks on Asherah were “restricted to the Deuteronomistic History”(2) and to texts exhibiting Deuteronomistic influence. For instance, the numerous pairings of Baal with Asherah’s “cult symbol,” called “the asherah,” are part of a reformist, monotheistic “anti-asherah polemic” aimed at discrediting “the asherah” by associating it with Baal and Astarte (Olyan 1988: 1, 3, 13-14). This polemic was necessary because Asherah “had some role in the cult of Yahweh … not only in popular Yahwism, but in the official cult as well” (Olyan 1988:74).

In addition to the testimony of the Hebrew Bible, there is also considerable archaeological evidence that may throw light on the role of Asherah in the religion of the early Israelites. First, a considerable number of small, clay, female statuettes, which archaeologists usually call “pillar figurines,” have been unearthed all over Israel. Dating to the eighth and early seventh centuries, that is, to the height of the Israelite monarchy, they occur in almost every excavation of the period (Kletter 1996: 4, 40-41).(3) So many pillar figurines have been excavated in the heartland of Judah that they are often regarded as “a characteristic expression of Judahite piety” (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:327; Kletter 1996:45).


Clay pillar figurine. Israel. 9th Century BCE.
Drawing @ S. Beaulieu, after Patai 1990: Plate 6.

This statuette depicts a female naked to the waist with prominent, usually heavy breasts, which she supports or cups with her hands. The backs of most are rough, perhaps indicating that they were to be viewed from the front, maybe in a household shrine (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:332). The figurines get their name from the fact that the lower part, which looks like a long, flared skirt, is usually described as a pillar or a pedestal, even as “pole-like” (Kletter 1996:28; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:332).

In the past twenty-five years, a number of scholars have suggested that the pillar figurines may depict the goddess Asherah (Toorn 1998:95; Kletter 1996:81; Hestrin 1991:57). Some base their arguments on seeing the lower part of the statuette as like a pole, a description which suggests that they interpret the biblical “asherahs” as poles and therefore understand the figurines as “small clay counterparts of the larger wooden Asherah poles which were set up by implanting them in the ground” (Patai 1990:39). However, such a suggestion seems unlikely, since the flared bases of the figurines are not “pole-like.” On the other hand, the clay figurines could have been “popular, domestic copies of some larger Asherah image” from an important shrine (Hadley 2000:202).

Whatever explanation we give for both the textual “asherahs” and the pillar figurines, it seems likely that, during the Israelite Monarchy, both were associated not with Canaanite worship, but with Israelite official and popular religion. That leads me to ask the obvious question: What was Asherah’s role in Israelite religion? Could she have been the consort of the Israelite god?

Relatively recently, startling archaeological discoveries in modern Israel have strengthened the arguments that Asherah was the Israelite god’s consort (Hadley 2000: 86-102). One dig was in the heartland of Judah, the other in the northern Sinai. Several blessing inscriptions from the sites contain a controversial phrase possibly to be translated as “Yahweh and his Asherah.” Even more exciting are drawings that accompany the inscriptions, especially those from the Sinai site (Toorn 1998:88-89).

The Sinai sketches appear on several pieces of pottery from two large jars found in a strange structure in the northern Sinai (Hadley 2000: 111, 119). One of the accompanying inscriptions reads: “I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and his [/its] Asherah,” while the two others use the formula: “I bless you by Yahweh of Teman (the South) and his [/its] Asherah” (Toorn 1998:89). Interpretation of the phrase “by his [/its] Asherah” has led to much scholarly disagreement.(4) Some translators argue that the pronoun “its/his” should be translated “its” and read as referring, respectively, to Samaria and Teman. Thus, the blessings would be appealing both to the Israelite god and to famous “cultic installations,” the “asherahs” of Samaria and Teman (Binger 1997:108). Others translators translate the pronoun as “his,” understanding it to be referring to the Israelite god, and so render the phrase as either “Yahweh and his asherah [cult object]” (Hadley 2000:124; Olyan 1988:33) or “Yahweh and his Asherah [goddess]” (Toorn 1998:90; Binger 1997:108; Patai 1990:53).


Jar A drawing. Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Israel. Early 8th century BCE
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Keel and Uelinger 1998: 213, figure 220.

Associated with the inscriptions are some amazing drawings full of rich symbolism (Hadley 2000:116-119, #4, #5, #6, #7). Fascinating and evocative, they provide considerable support for understanding “asherah” as a goddess. Although there are drawings on two sides of one jar and on one side of the other, they do not appear to constitute “a coherent composition” (Beck 1982:4). Rather they present “a series of motifs,” many of which would have been very familiar to most inhabitants of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean. One of the pictures depicts a cow suckling a calf, two standing figures, and one seated figure playing a lyre (Hadley 2000:115, #3; Beck 1982:9, #5). The blessing “by Yahweh of Samaria and his/its asherah” overlaps the headdress of the larger of the standing figures.

Some scholars, including the excavator of the site, consider the inscription to be connected to the drawing (Meshel 1986:239). A few then interpret the standing figures as possibly the Israelite god and Baal and the seated lyre player as possibly Asherah (Coogan 1987:119; McCarter 1987:146-147). However, another interpretation of this drawing seems more likely: Beck’s carefully developed and widely accepted conclusion that the standing figures represent male and female Egyptian deities and the lyre player a temple musician (Hadley 2000:137-144; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:218; Beck 1982:4, 27-36).

Whatever the interpretation of the seated figure, there is certainly a goddess elsewhere in this picture: the cow suckling a calf (Hadley 2000:115, #3). The cow-and-calf image, which had wide distribution in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, was “one of the most popular motifs of the first millennium in Western Asia.” It appears on many seals and on an “enormous quantity of ivory plaques,” beautifully carved by Phoenician artists of the eighth and seventh centuries BCE (Beck 1982:120). The cow-and-calf motif is usually connected with the symbol system of goddesses (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:215).


Jar A shoulder drawing. Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Israel. Early 8th century BCE
Drawing © S. Beaulieu, after Bonanno 1985:336, #21.

On the fragment coming from just around the shoulder of the jar, there is another drawing that has very strong goddess implications: a sacred tree with animals eating from it (Hadley 2000:117, #5; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:211, #219; Beck 1982:7, #4). In its details, this tree has obvious “parallels in the iconography of the sacred trees in the ancient Near East” (Beck 1982:13, 14-15). Although some interpreters argue that there is no significance to the relation between tree and lion in this image (Beck 1982:18), others think not only that the relationship is significant, but that it probably signifies a goddess (Hadley 2000:154; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:241). Whoever drew the sacred tree almost certainly intended it to represent a goddess, for the artist emphasized the goddess content by placing the tree on a lion’s back, a stance assumed by numerous goddesses in numerous images. The lion also had a clear and time-honoured association with goddesses (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:86).

Whoever did the drawings on the first jar understood the symbolic tradition of goddesses very well and, probably intentionally, brought goddesses into the pictures by using three of the most prominent and potent goddess allusions: cow and calf, lion, and sacred tree. However, the drawings may or may not depict Asherah, either in person as the lyre player or in the symbols. Beck, among others, thinks that it is “doubtful if [the] scenes [on the first jar discussed] were connected to any particular deity” (Beck 1982:16). On the other hand, those who argue that the drawings show or allude to Asherah also use that possibility as support for interpreting the inscriptions as referring to her (Hadley 2000:152,153; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:236). For them, then, the drawings clarify the inscriptions and point to Asherah, both in Israel and in Judah, as the consort of the early Israelite god.

As for me, I tend to agree that Asherah was probably consort of the Israelite god. It seems likely that, in Canaan, the early Israelites, originally pastoral semi-nomads, were slowly becoming settled agrarians. As such they would have needed to worship deities who promoted their farming activities: a heterosexual couple one of whose concerns was the land’s fertility. In that worship they would be like the cultures surrounding them. What would be more natural, then, than their adopting and adapting deities from the agrarian peoples among whom they were settling? So they identified their main god with Canaanite El(5) and, as consort for their own god, took over El’s female counterpart Asherah.

Footnotes

  1. All quotations from the Hebrew Bible come from Tanakh 1988.
  2. The Deueronomistic History is “the theory of history in the biblical books Deuteronomy-2Kings and based on the hypothesis that these books were edited as a whole according to a consistent principle” (Bowker 1997: 271).
  3. The dates of the monarchy are 900-539 BCE. It was in the latter part of the seventh century BCE that Josiah, King of Judah, began his drastic religious reforms. Josiah was “one of the great heroes of the
    Deuteronomists” (Binger 1997: 117).
  4. A few scholars have put forward what is clearly a minority view: the word”asherah” means “sacred place”; so they translate the critical phrase as”Yahweh of Samaria [or Teman] and his sanctuary” (Olyan 1988: 26, n. 16, n.19).
  5. There is considerable evidence that they did. See John Day’s Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 2000) Chap. 1.

Works Cited

  • Beck, Pirhiya 1982. “The Drawings from Horvat Teiman (Kuntillet ‘Ajrud),” Tel Aviv 9:3-68.
  • Binger, Tilde 1997. “Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament”, Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 232.
  • Bonanno, Anthony, ed. Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean. Amsterdam: Gruener, 1985.
  • Bowker, John, ed. 1997. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Oxford: Oxford University.
  • Coogan, Michael D. 1987. “Canaanite Origins and Lineage: Reflections on the Religion of Ancient Israel,” 112-124, in Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. P.D. Miller, Jr., P.D. Hanson, and S.D. McBride. Philadelphia: Fortress.
  • Hadley, Judith M. 2000. The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
  • Hestrin, Ruth 1991. “Understanding Asherath[sic]: Exploring Semitic Iconography,” Biblical Archaeology Review 17:50-59.
  • Keel, Othmar and Christoph Uehlinger 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
  • Kletter, Raz 1996. The Judean Pillar-Figurines and the Archaeology of Asherah. London: Tempus Reparatum. British Archaeological Reports International Series 636.
  • Meshel, Ze’ev 1986. “The Israelite Centre of Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Sinai,” 237-240, in Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, ed. Anthony Bonanno. Amsterdam: Grüner.
  • McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. 1987. “Aspects of the Religion of the Israelite Monarchy: Biblical and Epigraphic Data,” 137-155, in Ancient Israelite Religion, ed. P.D. Miller, Jr., P.D. Hanson, and S.D. McBride. Philadelphia: Fortress.
  • Olyan, Saul 1988. Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel. Atlanta, GA: Scholars.
  • Patai, Raphael 1990 (1978). The Hebrew Goddess: Third Enlarged Edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University.
  • Pettey, Richard J. 1990. Asherah: Goddess of Israel. New York: Lang.
  • Reed, W.L. 1949. The Asherah in the Old Testament. Fort Worth, TX: Originally Yale University dissertation.
  • Tanakh – The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text 1988. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
  • Toorn, Karel van der 1998. “Goddesses in Early Israelite Religion,” 83-97, in Ancient Goddesses: The Myths and the Evidence, ed. L. Goodison and C. Morris. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin.
  • Walker, Christopher and Michael B. Dick 1999. “The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotamia: The Mesopotamian mis pî Ritual,” 55-121, in Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cult Image in the Ancient Near East, ed. Michael B. Dick. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns
  • Yamashita, Tadanori 1963. The Goddess Asherah. New Haven, CT: Yale University, Ph.D. dissertation.

Graphics Credits

Contributors retain the copyright to their work; please do not take art or words without permission. Other graphics and reference materials are used and attributed as per the Fair Use Provision of The Copyright Act and individual terms of use.

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Final Home Page — Sage Art, Farrell Poem

From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Samhain 2009

TO OUR READERS

Much of MatriFocus (published Samhain 2001 to Lammas 2009) is archived here.

In four issues a year for eight years, MatriFocus published work on Goddess experience and history, feminism and community, seasonal awareness, earth-based spirituality, divination, ritual, and more. Over 100 writers and many more artists contributed their work.

At the time of final publication, MatriFocus had 2,000 subscribers, 25,000 unique monthly visitors, millions of hits per year, and a worldwide readership. Many MatriFocus articles are referenced in Wikipedia and numerous other websites and blogs.

MatriFocus began as a one-issue print zine for a small Dianic circle in Madison, WI. After that, the journal appeared on the web, edited by Sage, who was later joined by Feral as co-editor, Nano Boye Nagle as poetry editor, and first Dawn Work and later Giselle Vincett as scholarly editor. MatriFocuswas published in the spirit of the gift economy, without subscriber fees or advertising revenues, and offered an independent voice in the Goddess Movement.

Bringing writers, readers, artists, scholars, and practitioners together on the web has been volunteer work of the most exquisite kind for us. Though we’re moving on to other projects, we’re maintaining the MatriFocus archive online for readers new and old.

We thank everyone who participated in MatriFocus, contributors and readers alike. We look forward to experiencing the next generations’ work on these enduring subjects.

Blessed be.

Sage & Farrell


Bird-headed Snake Goddess.

© 2010 Sage (Starwalker) Collins
Pastel on paper
(after photo, Hallie Austen Iglehart’s The Heart of the Goddess)

Song for CedarWeb
Poem © 2010 Farrell Collins

We are the daughters of the fruited vine.
We are the daughters of the planted rows.
We are the daughters of cedar and pine.
We are the daughters of all that grows.
And we grow here among them,
And they grow here among us.
We are the daughters of wolf and whale.
We are the daughters of hawk and hare.
We are the daughters of otter and owl.
We are the daughters of deer and bear.
And we grow here among them,
And they grow here among us.
We are the daughters of the honey bee.
We are the daughters of the luna moth.
We are the daughters of the ladybug.
We are the daughters of the spider path.
And we grow here among them,
And they grow here among us,
And we grow, we grow, we grow…

Contributors retain the copyright to their work; please do not take art or words without permission. Other graphics and reference materials are used and attributed as per the Fair Use Provision of The Copyright Act and individual terms of use.

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Asherah, Supreme Goddess of the Ancient Levant

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Beltane 2004, Vol 3-3


Gold pendant.
Ugarit-Ras Shamra. 1550-1200/1150 BCE.
S. Beaulieu, after Negbi 1976, Plate 53, #1661.

As soon as El saw her,
he opened his mouth and laughed;
… he raised his voice and shouted:
“Why has Lady Asherah-of-the-Sea arrived?
why has the Mother of the Gods come?”
(Coogan 1978:100)

Although texts from the ancient Syrian city Ugarit do not explicitly name Asherah as consort of the supreme male deity, she was arguably his female counterpart, for she was Elat, “Goddess,” to his El, “God” (Hadley 2000:38). Indeed, Asherah and El function as “supreme couple,” and their offspring include “all the other deities in the first generation” (Olmo Lete 1999:47). Like El, Asherah was primarily a figure of authority, but only that authority which a patriarchal culture accords the feminine. Alone of Ugaritic goddesses, Asherah carried a spindle, which marked her as feminine and domestic (Coogan 1978:97; Hadley 2000:39).

Occurring near the top of deity and offering lists, Asherah was certainly the most important goddess at Ugarit (Binger 1997:89). Appropriately for the chief goddess of a sea-trading city, her full name, athirat yam, means “She treads on Sea,” (Coogan 1978:116; Hadley 2000:49-51). In the myths, while not having a central role, Asherah still plays a critical part. She has “sufficient power for El to be willing to take her advice concerning Baal’s successor” (Hadley 2000:39; Coogan 1978:111).

Since one of her epithets was “Creatrix, or Progenetrix, of the Gods” (Coogan 1978:97), and her sons numbered seventy, that is, a great many (Coogan 1978:104), Asherah was probably a “mother goddess.” Certainly, as “creatrix” and “wet nurse” of the gods, Asherah was “somehow related to birth and fertility” (Hadley 2000:43). However, given her authority and her role as power broker, it is unlikely that she was only a fertility goddess.

One of Asherah’s functions seems to have been to act as mediator between the other deities and the supreme El. Though the approach of the aggressive deities Anat and Baal terrifies her at first, Asherah calms down after they bestow sumptuous gifts on her, and, clearly higher in rank than they are, she undertakes to approach El on their behalf (Coogan 1978:98, 99-101 Hadley 2000:39).

Asherah could also be fierce in defence of her prerogatives. In one poem, Kirta, her punishment of a human vow-breaker is both swift and severe (Coogan 1978:67; Hadley 2000:41). It is this poem that mentions her supreme position at two other major cities of the ancient Levant, cities that she seems to have ruled well into the Roman period (Hadley 2000:42). She is “Asherah of Tyre” and “the goddess [elat] of Sidon” (Coogan 1978:63). The poem also uses the word Qudshu, which some translators render as “shrine” (Coogan 1978:63), but others as “Holy One,” probably an epithet of Asherah (Hadley 2000:47). The fact that El promises the king Kirta that Asherah will join Anat in suckling the royal heir suggests that Asherah too was a “divine guarantor of the throne” (Pettey 1990:16).

The chief female deity at Ugarit was also revered in other parts of the Levant, and a good deal of evidence suggests that Asherah may have had an especially close relationship with trees. Such a relationship would not be surprising since, generally in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean, goddesses and what scholars call “sacred trees” seem to go together. Excavated in the Late Bronze Age Canaanite city of Lachish (Tubb 1998:79-80), the Lachish Ewer is usually understood as Canaanite and dated to “the late thirteenth century B.C.E.” (Hestrin 1987:212). Its decoration “consists of a row of animals and trees,” above which there is an inscription: “Mattan. An offering to my Lady `Elat” (Hestrin 1987:211,214). A person named Mattan presented the ewer and probably its contents to the temple of the goddess Elat ((Hadley 2000:159).

the shard of the Lachish Ewer with Elat above the tree
Decorated potsherd.
Lachish, Israel. 1550-1200/1150 BCE.
S. Beaulieu, after Keel and Uelinger 1998:73, #81

What is really intriguing is that the word for goddess, Elat, is positioned right over one of the stylized trees (Hadley 2000:156; 157, #8). The artist finished the drawings and then did the inscription (Hadley 2000:160), so that the placing of the word was “not by chance” (Hestrin 1987:220). Thus, the word Elat was probably placed so as to designate the tree as the goddess, to indicate that it “represented her presence” (Smith 1990:82).

However, to which of the Levantine goddesses did Elat refer? In the Hebrew Bible, elah, the grammatically feminine form of el, occurs seventeen times, but is always translated as “oak or “terebinth,” that is, a living tree. Further, “all occurrences of the word can be understood as tree” without damaging the text; however, in some places, the translation equally could be “goddess” (Binger 1997:135). In the Ugaritic texts, although elat can mean “goddess in a rather general way,” it can also be one of Asherah’s titles, “nearly a name” (Pettey 1990:13).

As a result, quite a number of scholars think that the “Elat” of the Lachish Ewer names the Canaanite goddess Asherah (Hadley 2000:159-160; Keel and Uehlinger 1998:72; Pettey 1990:181; Smith 1990:82; Hestrin 1987:220). However, this identification does not prove, conclusively, that the Levantine sacred tree always represented Asherah, though it is clear that a sacred tree could represent any or all of the goddesses.


Decorated potsherd.
Lachish, Israel. 1550-1200/1150 BCE.
S. Beaulieu, after Keel and Uelinger 1998:73, #80.

Another artefact from the Lachish excavations adds to the argument. It is a goblet decorated with “two ibexes facing each other, repeated four times” (Hestrin 1987: 215). They are flanking not by a tree, but by “an inverted triangle strewn with dots” (Keel 1998:34; Part I, #50; Hestrin1987:215, #2; 216, #3). Most scholars interpret the inverted image as a pubic triangle (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:72; Hestrin 1991:55; Hestrin 1987:215). This well-known image, then, they see as replacing of the sacred tree with the vulva symbol making it highly likely “… that the tree indeed symbolizes the fertility goddess …” (Hestrin 1987:215). In response to scholarly doubts, Othmar Keel discusses “recently published evidence” from three different sites in Israel that “may confirm” that the triangles on the Lachish goblet do represent pubic triangles (Keel 1998:34-35; Part I, #51, 52).


Ivory box cover.
Ugarit-Minet el-Beida.
1550-1200/1150 BCE
S. Beaulieu, after Patai 1990, Plate 19.

Thus, it seems that, in the Bronze Age Levant, tree was all but synonymous with goddess. Not only do pendants depict goddesses with trees growing up from their vulvic triangles (see image, top of the page) and seals and other artifacts show trees, complete with browsing animals, next to goddesses, but one of the most beautiful objects from Ugarit presents a goddess as a tree(1). On a fragment of a carved ivory lid of a small box, a goddess takes the position normally held by the sacred tree and feeds goat-like animals that lean forward and upward to take the vegetation out of her hands (Keel 1998: Part I, #43; Patai 1990: Plate19). Despite this exquisite Late Bronze testimony to the identity of goddess and tree, Keel demonstrates that, by that period, the figure of the goddess “is to a large extent replaced by the tree flanked by caprids” (Keel 1998:35). Gradually, throughout the Iron Age, the image of sacred tree with goat-like animals became rare in Israel and Judah (Keel and Uehlinger 1998:399-400), though it continued as an important symbol in surrounding ancient Eastern Mediterranean cultures. The tree symbol, however, may have survived even in Judah in the form of “the seven-branched lampstand of the priestly tradition” (Keel 1998:56).

From its mythic and cultic texts, we saw that Asherah was chief goddess of Ugarit, as well as of the cities of Tyre and Sidon. Undoubtedly, Asherah continued to be an important goddess in the Levant during the first millennium BCE, especially in certain localities. Further, it is possible that she was, for a time, consort of Israel’s god Yahweh [an argument that I will discuss in my next column]. However, it was Asherah’s fate, like that of both Anat and Astarte, slowly, to begin to disappear as a separate entity.

The identity of Carthaginian Tanit has been a focus of scholarly dispute, with cases being made for all three Canaanite great goddesses (Pettey 1990:32). However, there appears now to be general agreement that Asherah probably survived in Tanit, the chief deity of the highly successful Phoenician colony of Carthage in North Africa (Pettey 1990:32). With the Carthaginians, Tanit/Asherah worship spread far from her original Levantine homeland across the Mediterranean into Western Europe. In addition, as we have seen, during the Greco-Roman period, a great goddess Atargatis was worshipped in the Levant, and her name indicates that she was probably a fusion of all three Levantine great goddesses (Pettey 1990:32-33). Spreading from Syria across the Mediterranean, Atargatis’s worship continued well into the third century of our era (Godwin 1981:150-152, 158 #124). Thus, Asherah and her sister goddesses went on living as part of the powerful and much-adored “Syrian Goddess.”

Notes

    1. The object looks Late Mycenaean in style, but the “symmetric arrangement is purely Mesopotamian and Syrian …” (R.D. Barnett cited in Keel 1998:31).

Bibliography

    • Binger, Tilde 1997. Asherah: Goddesses in Ugarit, Israel and the Old Testament. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplement Series 232.
    • Coogan, Michael D., tr. 1978. Stories from Ancient Canaan. Louisville, KY
    • Godwin, Joscelyn 1981. Mystery Religions in the Ancient World. London: Thames and Hudson.
    • Hadley, Judith M. 2000. The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess. Cambridge: Cambridge University.
    • Hestrin, Ruth 1987. “The Lachish Ewer and the `Asherah,” Israel Exploration Journal 37:212-223.
    • Keel, Othmar 1998. Goddesses and Trees, New Moon and Yahweh: Ancient Near Eastern Art and the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic.
    • Keel, Othmar and Christoph Uehlinger 1998. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
    • Negbi, Ora 1976. Canaanite Gods in Metal: An Archaeological Study of Ancient Syro-Palestinian Figures. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University.
    • Olmo Lete, Gregorio del 1999. Canaanite Religion According to the Liturgical Texts of Ugarit. Bethesda, MD: CDL.
    • Patai, Raphael 1990 (1978). The Hebrew Goddess: Third Enlarged Edition. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University.
    • Pettey, Richard J. 1990. Asherah: Goddess of Israel. New York: Lang.
    • Smith, Mark S. 1990. The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
    • Tubb, Jonathan N. 1998. Canaanites. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma.

Graphics Credits

Contributors retain the copyright to their work; please do not take art or words without permission. Other graphics and reference materials are used and attributed as per the Fair Use Provision of The Copyright Act and individual terms of use.