Tag: Goddess in the Spotlight

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

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

Bibliography

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.

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

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).

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

Bibliography

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.

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
Imbolc 2004, Vol 3-2
From the Archives of MatriFocus
A Cross-Quarterly Web Magazine for Goddess Women Near & Far
Discover More: “ASWM Presents MatriFocus”

Gold pendant, possibly Astarte. Ugarit. 1500-1200/1150 BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu, after Toorn 1998:86, #31

Known in the ancient Levant as Ashtart and in the Hebrew Bible as Ashtereth, the beautiful Astarte may owe many of her characteristics to Mesopotamian Ishtar, as the similarity in their names proclaims. Like Ishtar, Astarte seems to have had strong connections with both war and love/sexuality. In historical times, she received offerings in ancient Ugarit in Syria; her name appears forty-six times in texts from that city. One of her main centers was Byblos, where she was identified with Egyptian goddesses Hathor and Isis. In the second millennium BCE, Astarte was, like Anat, a war goddess of the Egyptians (Patai 1990:56). Large numbers of ancient Israelites revered her, and versions of her name occur at least nine times in the Hebrew Bible. She was also an important deity of the Phoenician towns of Tyre and Sidon, whence she and her veneration spread with Phoenician merchants throughout the Mediterranean (Patai 1990:55-66).

The Ugaritic poems present Astarte as a model of beauty and usually associate her closely with Baal, the storm god, for she consistently supports his cause (Coogan 1978:61, 65, 74, 89, 116). On at least five occasions the mythic material pairs her with Anat, perhaps an indication that the two goddesses were already beginning to meld into one another. Yet, since Astarte’s name occurs quite often in offering and deity lists, it is clear that she had an important, if not central place in ritual and sacrifice (Olmo Lete 1999:71). An enormous number of female images originated from the excavations at Ugarit, and scholars have labeled many of them as Astarte. However, to date, no one has been able to demonstrate that they actually represent Astarte.

The Hebrew form of Astarte’s name ashtereth, which occurs only three times in the Hebrew Bible, resulted from the deliberate replacement of the vowels in the last two syllables of the goddess’s name with the vowels from the Hebrew noun bosheth, “shame” (Day 2000:128; Buttrick 1990:I,255). According to Patai, the “original meaning of the name Astarte was ‘womb’ or ‘that which issues from the womb,'” an appropriate title for a fertility goddess (Patai 1990:57). In statements about Syro-Canaanite religion, the Biblical texts often couple the ashteroth, “the Astartes,” with the baalim, “the Baals,” an indication that the writers knew that many local versions of these deities existed. However, this repeated connection of Astarte and Baal has led some scholars to conclude that the Hebrew Bible understood Astarte to be Baal’s consort (Day 2000:131; Patai 1990:57). If she were his consort, she too should have associations with fertility.

Astarte’s name also occurs in the Hebrew Bible as part of a place name, Ashteroth Karnaim, karnaim meaning “of the two horns” (Genesis 14:5). Ashteroth Karnaim, perhaps the “full old name of the city,” (Patai 1990:57), was probably a temple center where Astarte was worshipped as a two-horned deity. In support of this suggestion, Patai points to a mold from a shrine in Israel depicting a goddess with two horns. Dated between the eighteenth and the sixteenth centuries BCE, the mold shows a naked goddess in a high, conical hat. She has two horns, one on each side of her head (Patai 1990:57, Plate 9).

Two passages in the Book of Jeremiah (7.17-18 and 44.15-19) refer to ancient Israelite worship of a “Queen of Heaven.” These passages provide a very rare glimpse into ritual practices of Judahite popular religion. Around the turn of the seventh century BCE, Jeremiah preaches to Israelite exiles in Egypt. To his horror whole families, with women in the lead, were making offerings to a goddess. They poured libations, built fires, and baked “cakes [kawwanim] for the Queen of Heaven” (Jer.7:18). The scholarly literature presents a number of theories about who the “Queen of Heaven” was (Toorn 1998:83-88; Patai 1990:64). However, since “Queen of Heaven” was one of the many titles of the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna-Ishtar, for whom worshippers also made cakes [kamanu], it is possible that the goddess in the Jeremiah passages was Astarte (Toorn and Horst 1999:678-679; Patai 1990:64)

Clay cult stand.
Taanach, Israel. Late ninth century BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu, after Gadon 1989:174, #97.

An elaborate terra-cotta cult stand from ancient Taanach in northern Israel may have been used in the worship of Astarte (Gadon 1989:174, Figure 97). Just over twenty-one inches in height, it dates to the tenth century BCE, during the period when the Israelites were establishing themselves in the land (Hadley 2000:169). In the center of the bottom level, as if underpinning everything, stands a naked goddess controlling two flanking lions. The second register contains an empty, door-like space flanked by winged sphinxes wearing goddess locks. On the next level, two ibexes nibble at a sacred tree, a scene which is flanked by lions. The top register is occupied by a quadruped, either a bull calf or a young horse, which strides between two door posts. Above it is a rayed or winged sun disc.

Explanations of the stand vary from understanding it as totally Canaanite to its being an Israelite cult object dedicated to the Israelite deity and a consort (Hadley 2000:169-176). There is, however, general agreement that the piece models a temple to the deities or deity depicted on the façade, with the tiers displaying temple scenes (Hadley 2000:171-172).

Interpreted strictly as a Canaanite cult object, the Taanach stand depicts either important Canaanite deities, female and male; or goddesses alone; or even a single goddess. In these views, the bottom level shows the naked goddess and the third level from the bottom her symbol, the sacred tree. The empty space on level two is a doorway into the shrine, and the door posts on level four frame either a temple entrance or the “holy of holies” (Hadley 2000:172). Between these posts, either the Canaanite god El or the storm god Baal Hadad manifests himself in the form of a bull calf (Hadley 2000:172-173).

Since a goddess is central to the symbolism of the Taanach stand, I would argue that a goddess is there also in the door on level two and the animal on level four. The symbolism of the cult stand suggests that this Levantine goddess is very similar to the Mesopotamian great goddess Inanna-Ishtar (Stuckey 2001:92-94). The female figure on the bottom register underpins everything; she is the foundation of all and so queen of heaven, earth, and underworld. She is both life and death, the latter present in the menacing lions which she controls. Above her, there looms both the door to her shrine and the mystic entrance to her realm both on earth and in the underworld. More important, it is the symbol of her essential nature: like Sumerian Inanna, she embodies change (Stuckey 2001:95). To enter into her realm is to undergo transformation, whether by dying on the battlefield, being born, falling in love, engaging in sexual activity, or leaving the ordinary and, through ritual, entering sacred time and space.

The tree on level three is yet another statement of the goddess’s presence, and, like her, it has its branches in the heavens, its trunk on the earth, and its roots reaching toward the world beneath the earth (Stuckey 2001:101). The animal on the fourth level, which I think may be a bull calf, probably represents her consort, the storm god, whose function it is to bring rain to fertilize the earth so that the life cycle can go on. Given what we know about Canaanite religion in the first millennium BCE, I would assign the Taanach stand tentatively to Astarte, who seems, at that time, to have been consort of the storm god Baal (Patai 1990:56-57).

Devotion to Astarte was prolonged by the Phoenicians, descendants of the Canaanites, who occupied a small territory on the coast of Syria and Lebanon in the first millennium BCE. From cities such as Byblos, Tyre, and Sidon, they set forth by sea on long trading expeditions, and, venturing far into the western Mediterranean, they even reached Cornwall in England (Tubbs 1998:140-141). Wherever they went, they established trading posts and founded colonies, the best known of which was in North Africa: Carthage, the rival of Rome in the third and second centuries BCE (Tubbs 1998:142-145). Of course they took their deities with them. Hence, Astarte became much more important in the first millennium BCE than she had been in the second millennium BCE (Patai 1990:56-57). In Cyprus, where the Phoenicians arrived in the ninth century BCE, they built temples to Astarte, and it was on Cyprus that she was first identified with Greek Aphrodite (Friedrich 1978).

The Greco-Roman period saw another great Levantine goddess called Atargatis being worshipped in the Levant and elsewhere. Her name seems to have come from a combining of the names Astarte and Anat. On the other hand, it may have resulted from a fusion of the names of all three Levantine great goddesses (Toorn and Horst 1999: 111). To the second century of our era is dated a Greek account of the “Syrian” Goddess”; the work is traditionally attributed to the satirical writer Lucian. Though the writer gives Greek names for the deities he describes, the goddess of the title is clearly Atargatis (Lucian 1976:4). The worship of Atargatis spread from Syria across the Mediterranean and lasted well into the third century of our era (Godwin 1981:150-152, 158 #124). Thus, long after she lost her independent identity, Astarte lived on in a composite “Syrian Goddess.”

References & Suggested Readings

Author: Johanna Stuckey, PhD
Samhain 2003, Vol 3-1
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Ivory bas-relief Ugarit-Ras Shama 1550-1200/1150 BCE.
Drawing © Stéphane Beaulieu after Pope 1977: Plate XI.
About the bas-relief: Early excavators at Ugarit unearthed a few exquisite ivory furniture panels, one of which shows a goddess nursing two princes. Since Anat is the only female deity whom the Ugaritic poems describe as actually flying, this beautifully winged goddess is probably Anat.

Young and impetuous Anat was one of the great goddesses of the the area now occupied by Israel, Transjordan, and Syria. In mythic poems from the ancient city of Ugarit on the coast of Syria, she had a very active role, but the other important source for the polytheistic religion of the area, the Hebrew Bible, almost ignores her. Anat may once have been worshipped throughout the Levant, although she was probably more important in the north than in the south. However, by the Late Bronze Age (1550-1200 BCE), to judge from Ugarit, her cult seems to have begun to die out even in the north, as her attributes and functions were slowly taken over by other great goddesses.

According to Ugaritic poems dated to the latter part of Bronze Age (about 2000-1200 BCE), Anat was certainly a warrior goddess. Like Hindu Kali, she suspended severed hands and heads about her person and exulted in battle:

Anat’s soul was exuberant,
as she plunged knee-deep in the soldiers’ blood,
up to her thighs in the warriors’ gore … (Coogan 1978:91).

Not only did Anat delight in warfare, but she also enjoyed hunting. When she asked foolhardy, young prince Aqhat to give her his beautiful bow, he refused her request in a very insulting manner:

…bows are for men!
Do women ever hunt? (Coogan 1978:37).

Not surprisingly, ruthless Anat had him killed.

Contrary to the norms of patriarchal Ugarit, Anat behaved as if she were male, not female. She was an aggressive advocate for Baal, the god of storm and rain. On his behalf she threatened her father El, the ruler of the cosmos:

I’ll smash your head,
I’ll make your gray hair run with blood,
Your gray beard with gore …. (Coogan 1978:95)

She also ruthlessly destroyed Mot, the god of drought, sterility, and death, in order to release Baal from his clutches.

Despite her seemingly masculine nature, however, Anat did have a soft, almost motherly side, especially with regard to Baal. When she was searching for Baal after Mot had swallowed him, the poem comments:

Like the heart of a cow for her calf,
like the heart of a ewe for her lamb,
so was Anat’s heart for Baal. (Coogan 1978:111)

Further, she was one of “the two wet nurses of the gods” (Coogan 1978:66). In this capacity, she probably validated royal heirs, but she was no mother goddess. Indeed, in the Ugaritic poems, her usual epithet was “Virgin.”

Anat was not, however, a virgin in our sense. Rather, the word indicates that she was a young and marriageable woman who had not yet borne a child (Day 1991:145). As a perpetual teenager, Anat could indulge in culturally masculine activities. More important, she could cross sex-role boundaries precisely because she was not “a reproductive ‘fertility goddess’ (Day 1991:53)

Ugaritic cultic texts make clear that Anat was still venerated in the northern Levant during the Late Bronze Age (about1550-1200/1150 BCE). She also had a later, if a somewhat ambiguous, role in other areas of the ancient Levant. Although the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, never refers to Anat as a deity, she does appear in it occasionally in place and personal names. In all probability, the places named for Anat boasted important temples or shrines to the goddess (Day 2000:133). The Hebrew Scriptures also record two personal names containing the word Anat, the more interesting being that of the “judge” Shamgar ben Anat, “a champion in Israel” (Judges 3:31; 5:6). A number of scholars have put forward theories about the phrase “ben Anat, son of Anat.” Most convincing, however, is the hypothesis that “ben Anat” was a military designation, since a number of known Canaanite warriors also carried the same title. The warrior goddess was probably their guardian deity (Day 2000:134)

It was also in the Late Bronze Age that Anat achieved her greatest status, when she became an Egyptian war goddess, especially important to the warlike Ramesside pharaohs. Indeed, the “great” warrior king Ramses II (1304-1237 BCE) regarded her as his patron deity (Patai 1990:62). In addition, some Egyptian reliefs of the Ramesside Age (1300-1200 BCE) are dedicated to Canaanite goddesses, and some mention Anat by name. At the bottom of one, there is a depiction, with inscription, of a ritual offering to Anat (Westenholz 1998:80,#28)

In the Iron Age, from 1200 BCE on, at least one Israelite/Jewish community in exile seems to have revered Anat. It was a military colony in Upper Egypt. At the end of the fifth century BCE, a member of that community wrote letters mentioning Anat along with “Yaho,” that is, Yahweh (Patai 1990:65-66). It is possible that, in the colony, Anat was Yahweh’s consort. In addition, some evidence left on the island of Cyprus by the Phoenicians, the descendants of the Canaanites, refers to Anat and suggests that she was venerated there, where, later, she seems to have been identified with Greek Athene (Oden 1976:32). Otherwise, Anat did not survive as a separate deity, but may have been assimilated into the “Syrian Goddess” of Roman times.

References & Suggested Readings

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