Astarte: Encyclopedia II - Astarte - General discussion

Astarte - General discussion

‘Ashtart was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus. Pictorial representations often show her naked.

‘Ashtart was accepted by the Greeks under the name of Aphrodite. The island of Cyprus, one of ‘Ashtart's greatest cult centers, supplied the name Cypris as Aphrodite's most common byname.

Other major centers of ‘Ashtart's worship were Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos. Coins from Sidon portray a chariot in which a globe appears, presumably a stone representing ‘Ashtart. In Sidon she shared a temple with Eshmun. At Beirut coins show Poseidon, Astarte, and Eshmun worshipped together.

Other cult centers were Cytherea, Malta and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina. A bilingual inscription on the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BCE found near Caere in Etruria equates ‘Ashtart with Uni, that is Juno. At Carthage ‘Ashtart was worshipped along side the goddess Tanit.

Donald Harden in The Phoenicians discusses a statuette of ‘Ashtart from Tutugi (Galera) near Granada in Spain dating to the 6th or 7th century BCE in which ‘Ashtart sits on a throne flanked by sphinxes holding a bowl beneath her breasts which are pierced. A hollow in the statue would have been filled with milk through the head and gentle heating would have melted wax plugging the holes, producing an apparent miracle.

The Syrian goddess Atargatis (Semitic form ‘Atar‘atah) was generally equated with ‘Ashtart and the first element of the name appears to be related to the name ‘Ashtart.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "General discussion", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki