Astarte (from Greek Greek , an Indo-European language native to the southern Balkan peninsula, is the language of the Greeks. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European. It has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical Ancient Greek literature Ἀστάρτη (Astártē)) is the name of a goddess A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheistic system that includes several deities in a pantheon. Common associations of goddesses are the Earth, the Mother, Love, and the household, reflecting historical gender roles as known from Northwestern Semitic The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. They constitute a branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, the only branch of that family spoken in both Africa and Asia regions, cognate in name, origin and functions with the goddess Ishtar Ishtar is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess Astarte in Mesopotamian Widely considered as the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer, Akkadian, Babylonian and Assyrian empires. In the Iron Age, it was ruled by the Neo-Assyrian Empire and Neo-Babylonian Empire, and later conquered by the Achaemenid Empire. It mostly remained under Persian rule until the 7th century Islamic conquest of the texts. Another transliteration From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To is ‘Ashtart; other names for the goddess include Hebrew 1United States Census 2000 PHC-T-37. Ability to Speak English by Language Spoken at Home: 2000. Table 1a עשתרת (transliterated Ashtoreth), Ugaritic The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928, is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern village of Ras Shamra, Syria. It has been extremely important for scholars of the Old Testament in clarifying Biblical Hebrew texts and has revealed more of the way in which ancient Israelite 𐎓𐎘𐎚𐎗𐎚 ‘ṯtrt (also ‘Aṯtart or ‘Athtart, transliterated Atirat), Akkadian Akkadian (also Accadian, Assyro-Babylonian) is an extinct Semitic language (part of the greater Afro-Asiatic language family) that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate. The name of the language is 𒀭𒊍𒁯𒌓 D Dingir is a cuneiform sign, most commonly the determinative for "deity" although it has related meanings as well. As a determinative, it is not pronounced, and is conventionally transliterated as a superscript "D" as in e.g. DInanna. Generically, dingir can be translated as "god" or "goddess"As-tar-tú (also Astartu) and Etruscan The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. However, Latin superseded Etruscan completely, leaving only a few documents and a few loanwords in Latin e.g., persona from Etruscan Uni-Astre (Pyrgi Tablets The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy , are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ‘Ashtaret'. Pyrgi was the port of the southern Etruscan town of Caere. Two of the tablets are inscribed).

According to scholar Mark S. Smith, Astarte may be the Iron Age (after 1200 BC) incarnation of the Bronze Age (to 1200 BC) Asherah Asherah , in Semitic mythology, is a Semitic mother goddess, who appears in a number of ancient sources including Akkadian writings by the name of Ashratum/Ashratu and in Hittite as Asherdu(s) or Ashertu(s) or Aserdu(s) or Asertu(s). Asherah is generally considered identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat (more accurately transcribed as ʼAṯ.[1]

Contents

General discussion

Astarte was connected with fertility Fertility is the natural capability of giving life. As a measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population. This is different from fecundity, which is defined as the potential for reproduction . Infertility is a deficient fertility, sexuality, and war A civil war is a dispute between parties within the same nation. War is not considered to be the same as occupation, murder, or genocide because of the reciprocal nature of the violent struggle, and the organized nature of the units involved. Her symbols were the lion The lion is one of four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with a critically endangered remnant population in northwest India, having disappeared, the horse The horse is a hoofed (ungulate) mammal, a subspecies of one of seven extant species of the family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been, the sphinx A sphinx is a zoomorphic mythological figure which is depicted as a recumbent lion with a human head. It has its origins in sculpted figures of Old Kingdom Egypt, to which the ancient Greeks applied their own name for a female monster, the "strangler", an archaic figure of Greek mythology. Similar creatures appear throughout South and, the dove Pigeons and doves constitute the family Columbidae within the order Columbiformes, which include some 300 species of near passerine birds. In general parlance the terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably. In ornithological practice, there is a tendency for "dove" to be used for smaller species and &, and a star A star is a massive, luminous ball of plasma that is held together by gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth. Other stars are visible in the night sky, when they are not outshone by the Sun. Historically, the most prominent stars on the celestial sphere were grouped together into within a circle indicating the planet Venus Venus is the second-closest planet to the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Except for the Moon it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6. Because Venus is an inferior planet from Earth, it never appears to venture far from the. Pictorial representations often show her naked.

Astarte was accepted by the Greeks Greece /ˈɡriːs/ (Greek: Ελλάδα, transliterated: Elláda [e̞ˈlaða] , historically Ἑλλάς, Hellás, IPA: [e̞ˈlas]), officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, [e̞liniˈkʲi ðimo̞kɾaˈtia]), is a country in southeastern Europe, situated on the southern end of the Balkan under the name of Aphrodite Aphrodite (pronounced /ˌæfrɵˈdaɪtiː/; Ancient Greek: IPA: [apʰɾoˈdiːtɛː], Modern Greek: [afɾoˈðiti]) is the Greek goddess of love and beauty. According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Ouranos was castrated by his son Cronus. Cronus threw his severed genitals into the sea, and from the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite. The island of Cyprus Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, [cipɾiaˈci ðimo̞kɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti), is a European island country situated in the eastern Mediterranean, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel, east of Greece, and north of Egypt, one of Astarte's greatest faith centers, supplied the name Cypris as Aphrodite's most common byname.

Other major centers of Astarte's worship were Sidon Sidon,or Saïda, is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km (25 mi) north of Tyre and 40 km (25 mi) south of the capital Beirut. Its name means a fishery. It is a city of 200,000 inhabitants mainly of the Muslim Sunni, Shiite, and Christian Greek Catholic and, Tyre Tyre is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible. Tyre juts out from the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and it is located about 80 km (5, and Byblos Byblos is the Greek name of the Phoenician city Gebal (earlier Gubla). It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic name of Jbeil (جبيل Ǧubayl) and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades. It is believed to have been founded around 5000 BC, and according to fragments. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot The chariot is the earliest and simplest type of carriage, used in both peace and war as the chief vehicle of many ancient peoples. Chariots were built in Mesopotamia by the Mesopotamians as early as 3000 BC and in China during the 2nd millennium BC. The original chariot was a fast, light, open, two or four-wheeled conveyance drawn by two or more in which a globe appears, presumably a stone representing Astarte. In Sidon, she shared a temple with Eshmun. At Beirut Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon with a population of over 2.1 million as of 2007. Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's coastline with the Mediterranean sea, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport and also forms the Beirut District area, which consists of the city and its suburbs. The first mention of coins show Poseidon In Greek mythology, Poseidon was the god of the sea and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes. The name of the god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. Linear B tablets show that Poseidon was venerated at Pylos and Thebes in pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, but he, Astarte, and Eshmun worshipped together.

Lady of Galera

Other faith centers were Cytherea, Malta Malta /ˈmɔːltə/ , officially the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta), is a densely populated developed European country in the European Union. The island nation comprises an archipelago of seven islands situated in the Southern European areas of the Mediterranean Sea, 93 km off the coast of Sicily (Italy), 288 km east of Tunisia, and Eryx ERYX is a short-range portable SACLOS-based wire-guided anti-tank missile produced by European company MBDA. It is used by several countries, including the Canadian Forces, French, and Norwegian armies. The weapon can also be used against bunkers and pillboxes. It also has some capability in the anti aircraft role to bring down low flying in Sicily Sicily is an autonomous region of Italy. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily covers the largest land area at 25,708 square kilometres (9,926 sq mi) and currently has just over five million inhabitants. It is also the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. In addition, several much smaller islands surrounding it are also considered to be part of from which she became known to the Romans Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world as Venus Venus was a major Roman goddess principally associated with love, beauty and fertility,who played a key role in many Roman religious festivals and myths. From the third century BC, the increasing Hellenization of Roman upper classes identified her as the equivalent of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. In this way Venus was the consort of Vulcan. Virgil, Erycina. A bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets The Pyrgi Tablets, found in a 1964 excavation of a sanctuary of ancient Pyrgi on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy , are three golden leaves that record a dedication made around 500 BC by Thefarie Velianas, king of Caere, to the Phoenician goddess ‘Ashtaret'. Pyrgi was the port of the southern Etruscan town of Caere. Two of the tablets are inscribed dating to about 500 BC found near Caere in Etruria Etruria — usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia — was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H. Lawrence's Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays equates Astarte with Etruscan The Etruscan language was spoken and written by the Etruscan civilization in the ancient region of Etruria and in parts of Lombardy, Veneto, and Emilia-Romagna (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. However, Latin superseded Etruscan completely, leaving only a few documents and a few loanwords in Latin e.g., persona from Etruscan Uni-Astre that is, Juno Juno was an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Juventas, Mars, and Vulcan. Her Greek equivalent is Hera. At Carthage Carthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian. The city of Carthage is located on the eastern side of Lake Tunis across from the center of Tunis. According to Roman legend it was founded Astarte was worshipped alongside the goddess Tanit Tanit was a Phoenician lunar goddess, worshiped as the patron goddess at Carthage where from the fifth century BCE onwards her name is associated with that of Baal Hammon and she is given the epithet pene baal and the title rabat, the female form of rab (chief) (Markoe 2000:130). Tanit and Baal Hammon were worshiped in Punic contexts in the.

Donald Harden in The Phoenicians discusses a statuette of Astarte from Tutugi (Galera) near Granada Granada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain in Spain Spain /ˈspeɪn/ (Spanish: España, pronounced [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), or the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.[note 6] Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with Gibraltar; to the north by France, dating to the 6th or 7th century BC in which Astarte sits on a throne A throne is the official chair or seat upon which a monarch is seated on state or ceremonial occasions. "Throne" in an abstract sense can also refer to the monarchy or the Crown itself, an instance of metonymy, and is also used in many terms such as "the power behind the throne" flanked by sphinxes holding a bowl beneath her breasts which are pierced. A hollow in the statue would have been filled with milk Milk is an opaque white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals . It provides the primary source of nutrition for newborn mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. The early lactation milk is known as colostrum, and carries the mother's antibodies to the baby. It can reduce the risk of many diseases in the baby. The through the head and gentle heating would have melted wax plugging the holes in her breasts, producing an apparent miracle A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be attempted to be explained by divine intervention, and is sometimes associated with a miracle-worker. Many folktales, religious texts, and people claim various events they refer to as "miraculous". People in different cultures have substantially different when the milk emerged.

The Syrian Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎), is an Arab country in Southwest Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the southwest, Jordan to the south, Iraq to the east, and Turkey to the north goddess Atargatis Atargatis, in Aramaic ‘Atar‘atah, was a Syrian deity, "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Rostovtseff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria", rendered in one word Deasura. She is often now popularly described as the (Semitic form ‘Atar‘atah) was generally equated with Astarte and the first element of the name appears to be related to the name Astarte.

Astarte in Ugarit

Astarte appears in Ugaritic texts under the name ‘Athtart', but is little mentioned in those texts. ‘Athtart and ‘Anat together hold back Ba‘al Ba‛al (ordinarily spelled Baal in English) is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. A Baalist or Baalite means a worshipper of Baal from attacking the other deities. Astarte also asks Ba‘al to "scatter" Yamm "Sea" after Ba‘al's victory. ‘Athtart is called the "Face of Ba‘al".

Astarte in Egypt

Astarte first appears in Ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern state of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and it developed over the next three millennia. Its history beginning in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt along with other deities who were worshipped by northwest Semitic people. She was worshipped especially in her aspect of a warrior goddess, often paired with the goddess Anat.

In the Contest Between Horus and Set, these two goddesses appear as daughters of Re and are given in marriage to the god Set, here identified with the Semitic name Hadad. Astarte also was identified with the lioness warrior goddess Sekhmet, but seemingly more often conflated, at least in part, with Isis to judge from the many images found of Astarte suckling a small child. Indeed there is a statue of the 6th century BC in the Cairo Museum, which normally would be taken as portraying Isis with her child Horus on her knee and which in every detail of iconography follows normal Egyptian conventions, but the dedicatory inscription reads: "Gersaphon, son of Azor, son of Slrt, man of Lydda, for his Lady, for Astarte." See G. Daressy, (1905) pl. LXI (CGC 39291).

Plutarch, in his On Isis and Osiris, indicates that the King and Queen of Byblos, who, unknowingly, have the body of Osiris in a pillar in their hall, are Melcarthus (ie. Melqart) and Astarte (though he notes some instead call the Queen Saosis or Nemanūs, which Plutarch interprets as corresponding to the Greek name Athenais).

Astarte described by Sanchuniathon

In the description of the Phoenician pantheon ascribed to Sanchuniathon Astarte appears as a daughter of Sky and Earth and sister of the God El. After El overthrows and banishes his father Sky, as some kind of trick Sky sends to El his "virgin daughter" Astarte along with her sisters Asherah and the goddess who will later be called Ba`alat Gebal, "the Lady of Byblos". It seems that this trick does not work as all three become wives of their brother El. Astarte bears to El children who appear under Greek names as seven daughters called the Titanides or Artemides and two sons named Pothos "Longing" and Eros "Desire".

Later we see, with El's consent, Astarte and Hadad reigning over the land together. Astarte, puts the head of a bull on her own head to symbolize Her sovereignty. Wandering through the world Astarte takes up a star that has fallen from the sky (meteorite) and consecrates it at Tyre.

Astarte in Judea

The Masoretic pointing in the Hebrew Tanach (bible) indicate the pronunciation as ‘Aštōret instead of the expected ‘Ašteret, probably because the two last syllables have here been pointed with the vowels belonging to bōshet "abomination" to indicate that word should be substituted when reading. The plural form is pointed ‘Aštārōt.

For what seems to be the use of the Hebrew plural form ‘Aštārōt as the name of a demon, see also Astaroth.

Astarte, or Ashtoret in Hebrew, was the principal goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the productive power of nature. She was a lunar goddess and was adopted by the Egyptians as a daughter of Ra or Ptah.

In Jewish mythology, She is referred to as Ashtoreth, supposedly interpreted as a female demon of lust in Hebrew monotheism. The name Asherah may also be confused with Ashtoreth, but is probably a different goddess.

Literary references

Came ASTORETH, whom the PHOENICIANS call'd ASTARTE, Queen of Heav'n, with crescent Horns; To whose bright Image nightly by the Moon SIDONIAN Virgins paid their Vows and Songs, In SION also not unsung, where stood Her Temple on th' offensive Mountain [the Mount of Olives], built By that uxorious King [Solomon], whose heart though large, Beguil'd by fair Idolatresses, fell To Idols foul.

Other associations

Some sources[who?] claim that the Greek goddess Aphrodite (especially in her aspect as Aphrodite Erycina) is another name for Astarte.[citation needed] Herodotus wrote that the religious community of Aphrodite originated in Phoenicia and came to Greeks from there. He also wrote about the world's largest temple of Aphrodite, in one of the Phoenician cities.

Her name is the second name in an energy chant sometimes used in Wicca: "Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Inanna." [1]

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References

  1. ^ Smith, Mark S (2002), The early history of God : Yahweh and the other deities in ancient Israel (2nd ed.), Grand Rapids WI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., ISBN 080283972X

External links

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Categories: Egyptian goddesses | West Semitic goddesses | Fertility goddesses | Lunar goddesses | War goddesses | Love and lust goddesses | Levantine mythology | Deities in the Hebrew Bible | Phoenician mythology

 

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