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For the metal band, see Atargatis (band). Ancient Semitic religion spans the Polytheistic religions of the Semitic speaking peoples of the Ancient Near East. Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian Akkadian Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris In the Levantine pantheon the Elohim are the sons of El the ancient of days (olam assembled on the divine holy place Mount Zephon ( Jebel This is a sub-article to Pre-Islamic Arabia Arabian mythology comprises the ancient Pre-Islamic beliefs of the Arabs Prior to the The Religions of the Ancient Near East were mostly Polytheistic, with some early examples of emerging Henotheism ( Atenism, early The Yazidi (also Yezidi, Kurdish: ئزیدی or Êzidî, Arabic: يزيدي or ايزدي Assyrian/Syriac: ܓ̰ܠܟܝܐ is a See also Names of the Levant The Levant (lə'vænt is a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia, roughly bounded on the north by the Eli (Hebrew אל is the Northwest Semitic word and name either translated into English as "god" or "God" or left untranslated as Eli, depending The name or epithet or word ‘Elyōn ( Masoretic pronunciation of Hebrew עליון) is traditionally rendered in Samaritan Hebrew as illiyyon Haddad בעל הדד (in Ugaritic Haddu) was a very important northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the Adonis (Άδωνης also Άδωνις is a figure of West Semitic origin where he is a central cult figure in various Mystery religions, who enters Anat, also ‘Anat is a major northwest Semitic goddess ‘Anat in Ugarit In the Ugaritic Ba‘al / Hadad cycle ‘Anat The Palmyran god of the Evening star. He is usually portrayed as riding a camel with his Twin brother Azizos. Asherah (from Hebrew אשרה generally taken as identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat (more accurately transcribed as ʼAṯirat) was Astarte (from Greek Ἀστάρτη ( Astártē) is the name of a Goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions cognate in name origin In ancient Levantine mythology, Azizos or Aziz is the Palmyran god of the Morning star. Ba'al (pronounced; Hebrew בעל (ordinarily spelled Baal in English is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" Ba‘alat Gebal, 'Lady of Byblos ' was the goddess of the city of Byblos sometimes known to the Greeks as Baaltis. In his euphemistic account of the Phoenician deities Sanchuniathon says In their time is born a certain Elioun called "the Most High" and a female Dagon was a major northwest Semitic god reportedly of grain and agriculture In the Levantine pantheon the Elohim are the sons of El the ancient of days (olam assembled on the divine holy place Mount Zephon ( Jebel Eshmun (or Eshmoun, less accurately Esmun or Esmoun) was a Phoenician god of healing and the tutelary god of Sidon. Kubaba (in the Esagila "Chronicle" Sumerian Kug-Bau) is the only queen on the Sumerian king list. Liluri was an old Syrian Goddess of Mountains She was the consort of Manuzi, a Syrian Weather god and bulls were Manuzi was an old Syrian weather god His consort was Liluri, a goddess of mountains bulls were sacrificed to both of them In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title Shalim is the king of dusk in the pantheon of Ugarit. He is the twin brother and counterpart of Shahar the king of dawn For information about Yahweh see God in Abrahamic religions, which provides useful links Yamm, from the Canaanite word Yam, meaning "Sea" is one name of the Ugaritic god of Rivers and Sea Yarikh, in Canaanite mythology Yarkhibol in Phoenician, also written as Jerah, Jarah, or Jorah (Hebrew spelling ירח Atargatis is a Symphonic metal band from Germany, formed in 1997 in Regensburg.

Atargatis, in Aramaic ‘Atar‘atah, was a Syrian deity, "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Rostovtseff called her,[1] commonly known to the Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Derceto or Derketo[2] and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria", rendered in one word Deasura. Syria ( سوريّة or) officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic ar الجمهورية العربية السورية Mikhail Ivanovich Rostovtzeff, or Rostovtsev (Михаи́л Ива́нович Росто́вцев ( Zhitomir, Ukraine &ndash October 20, She is often now popularly described as the mermaid-goddess, from her fish-bodied appearance at Ascalon and in Diodorus Siculus — a widely accessible source — but which is by no means her universal appearance. [3]

Her consort is usually Hadad. Haddad בעל הדד (in Ugaritic Haddu) was a very important northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the As Ataratha she may be recognized by the self-mutilation of her votaries, recorded in a perhaps sensationalist Christian passage from the Book of the Laws of the Countries, one of the oldest works of Syriac prose, an early-third-century product of the school of Bar Daisan (Bardesanes):

"In Syria and in Urhâi [Edessa] the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Ataratha. Bardaisan (ܒܪܕܝܨܢ Bardaiṣān; 154–222 also Latinized as Bardesanes) was a Syriac Gnostic, founder of the Bardaisanites Edessa ( Greek:) is the historical name of a Syriac town in northern Mesopotamia, refounded on an ancient site by Seleucus I Nicator But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a hand cut off. A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore. " —Chapter 45.

Contents

Her name

At Ugarit, cuneiform tablets attest a fecund "Lady Goddess of the Sea" (rabbatu at̪iratu yammi), as well as three Canaanite goddesses — Anat, Asherah and Ashtart — who shared many traits and might be worshipped in conjunction or separately during 1500 years of cultural history. Ugarit ( Ugaritic: ʼugrt; Hebrew:; Arabic:) (modern Ras Shamra رأس شمرة ("top/head/cape of the wild Fennel Anat, also ‘Anat is a major northwest Semitic goddess ‘Anat in Ugarit In the Ugaritic Ba‘al / Hadad cycle ‘Anat Asherah (from Hebrew אשרה generally taken as identical with the Ugaritic goddess Athirat (more accurately transcribed as ʼAṯirat) was Astarte (from Greek Ἀστάρτη ( Astártē) is the name of a Goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions cognate in name origin [4]

At Hierapolis Bambyce, on coins of about the fourth century BCE, the legend tr‘th appears, for 'Atar'ate, and tr‘th mnbgyb in a Nabataean inscription; at Kafr Yassif near Akko an altar is inscribed "to Adado and Atargatis, the gods who listen to prayer",[5] The full name ‘tr‘th appears on a bilingual inscription found in Palmyra. Manbij or Hierapolis Bambyce ( منبج) is an ancient city in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria. The Nabataeans ( Arabic: الأنباط, Al-Anbāṭ) were an ancient Semitic people Arabs of southern Jordan, Canaan Haddad בעל הדד (in Ugaritic Haddu) was a very important northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the Palmyra ( Arabic: تدمر Tadmor) was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an Oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus

This name ‘Atar‘atah is a compound of two divine names: the first part (Atar) is a form of the Ugaritic ‘Athtart, Himyaritic ‘Athtar, the equivalent of the Old Testament ‘Ashtoreth, the Phoenician ‘Ashtart rendered in Greek as Astarte. The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar (in Arabic مملكة حِمْيَر) anciently called Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans In Western Christianity, the Old Testament refers to the books that form the first of the two-part Christian Biblical canon. Astarte (from Greek Ἀστάρτη ( Astártē) is the name of a Goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions cognate in name origin Astarte (from Greek Ἀστάρτη ( Astártē) is the name of a Goddess as known from Northwestern Semitic regions cognate in name origin The feminine ending -t has been omitted. Compare the cognate Akkadian form Ishtar. Ishtar ( D IŠTAR 𒀭𒌋𒁯 is the Assyrian and Babylonian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to The second half (atis) may be a Palmyrene divine name Athe (i. Palmyra ( Arabic: تدمر Tadmor) was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an Oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus e. tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds.

Alternatively, the second half (gatis) may relate to the Greek gados "fish". [6] (For example, the Greek name for "sea monster" or "whale" is the cognate term ketos). So Atar-Gatis may simply mean "the fish-goddess Atar".

Cult centers and images

As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified as ‘Ashtart. [7] The two deities were probably of common origin and have many features in common, but their cults are historically distinct. We find reference in 1 Maccabees 5. 1 Maccabees is a deuterocanonical book written by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom probably about 100 BC. 43 to an Atargateion or Atergateion, a temple of Atargatis, at Carnion in Gilead, but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Israel or Canaan, but Syria itself: at Hierapolis Bambyce she had a great temple. From the Scriptures " Gilead " means hill of testimony or mound of witness, ( Genesis 3121 a mountainous region east of the Jordan For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Israel topics. Canaanites redirects here For the 1940s social and political movement in Israel, see Canaanites (movement. Manbij or Hierapolis Bambyce ( منبج) is an ancient city in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria. At Palmyra she appears on the coinage with a lion, or her presence is sgnalled with a lion and the crescent moon: an inscription mentions her. Palmyra ( Arabic: تدمر Tadmor) was in ancient times an important city of central Syria, located in an Oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus In the temples of Atargatis at Palmyra and at Dura-Europos[8] she appeared repeatedly with her consort, Hadad, and in the richly syncretic religious culture at Dura-Europos, was worshipped as Artemis Azzanathkona. Dura-Europos ("Fort Europos" was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border City built on an Escarpment ninety meters above Haddad בעל הדד (in Ugaritic Haddu) was a very important northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the [9]In the 1930s numerous Nabatean bas-relief busts of Atargatis were identified by Nelson Glueck at Khirbet et-Tannûr, Jordan, in temple ruins of the early first century CE;[10] there the lightly veiled goddess's lips and eyes had once been painted red, and a pair of fish confronted one another above her head. The Nabataeans ( Arabic: الأنباط, Al-Anbāṭ) were an ancient Semitic people Arabs of southern Jordan, Canaan Her wavy hair, suggesting water to Glueck, was parted in the middle. At Petra the goddess from the north was syncretised with a North Arabian goddess from the south al-Uzzah, worshipped in the one temple. Petra (from "petra" rock in Greek; Arabic: البتراء Al-Batrāʾ) is an archaeological site in the Arabah Mentioned in the Qur'an ( Sura 53:19 al-‘Uzzá "the Mightiest One" or "the strong" (derived from the root ʕzz) was a pre- At Dura-Europus among the attributes of Atargatis are the spindle and the sceptre or fish-spear. Dura-Europos ("Fort Europos" was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border City built on an Escarpment ninety meters above [11]

At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, there were fish ponds, whose fish only her priests might touch. Manbij or Hierapolis Bambyce ( منبج) is an ancient city in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria. Edessa ( Greek:) is the historical name of a Syriac town in northern Mesopotamia, refounded on an ancient site by Seleucus I Nicator [12] Glueck noted in 1936 that "to this day there is a sacred fish-pond swarming with untouchable fish at Qubbet el-Baeddwī, a dervish monastery three kilometres east of Tripolis, Lebanon. Darvesh or Dervish ( Arabic and Persian: درویش) as it is known in European languages refers to members of Sufi Tripoli ( Lebanese Arabic: طرابلس Ṭrāblos or Ṭrēblos locally Ṭrōbles Standard Arabic: Ṭarābulus Τρίπολις Tripolis is the second-largest "[13]

On the reverse of a coin of Demetrius III Eucaerus, a fish-bodied veiled Atargatis, flanked by barley stalks, holds a flower.
On the reverse of a coin of Demetrius III Eucaerus, a fish-bodied veiled Atargatis, flanked by barley stalks, holds a flower. Demetrius III (d 88 BC called Eucaerus ("well-timed" possibly a misunderstanding of the derogative name Akairos, "the untimely one" and

From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest West. Greece (Ελλάδα transliterated: Elláda, historically, Ellás,) officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία Lucian[14] and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανός ὁ Σαμοσατεύς Lucianus c Apuleius should not be confused with Lucius Appuleius Saturninus, a Roman demagogue or with Pseudo-Apuleius, an author The wide extension of the cult is attributable largely to Syrian merchants; thus we find traces of it in the great seaport towns; at Delos especially numerous inscriptions have been found bearing witness to her importance. The island of Delos ( Greek: Δήλος Dhilos) isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman Empire. Sicily ( Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is an autonomous region of Italy. The leader of the rebel slaves in the First Servile War, a Syrian named Eunus, claimed to receive visions of Atargatis, whom he identified with the Demeter of Enna. The First Servile War of 135 – 132 BC was an unsuccessful slave uprising against the Romans on the island of Sicily, in Enna. Eunus (d 132 BC a slave from Apamea in Syria, became leader of the slave uprising in the First Servile War in Sicily. Demeter (dɨˈmiːtɚ Greek:, possibly "distribution-mother" from the noun of the Indo-European mother-earth * dheghom * mater Enna is also a genus of spiders ( Trechaleidae) Enna ( Sicilian: Castrugiuvanni; Greek

Syncretism

In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and mythologies became fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs often while melding practices of various schools of thought This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim. Atargatis generally appears as the wife of Hadad. Haddad בעל הדד (in Ugaritic Haddu) was a very important northwest Semitic storm and rain god, cognate in name and origin with the They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, wearing a mural crown, is the ancestor the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances. In Hellenistic culture a mural crown identified the goddess Tyche, the embodiment of the fortune of a city familiar to Romans as Fortuna. The word phallus can refer to an erect Penis, or to an object shaped like a penis Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By the conjunction of these many functions, despite originating as a sea deity analogous to Amphitrite, she becomes ultimately a great nature-goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea: In one aspect she typifies the protection of water in producing life; in another, the universal of other-earth;[15] in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldean astrology), the power of Destiny. In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite (Ἀμφιτρίτη (not to be confused with Aphrodite) was a sea-goddess Originally a Hittite and Phrygian Goddess, Cybele (Κυβέλη was a deification of the Earth Mother and was worshipped in Rhea ( ancient Greek) was the Titaness daughter of Uranus, the sky and Gaia, the earth in classical Greek mythology

Atargatis mythology

The legends are numerous and of an astrological character. A rationale for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish is seen in the story in Athenaeus 8. Athenaeus ( Ancient Greek - Athếnaios Naukratios Latin Athenaeus Naucratita of Naucratis in Egypt Greek rhetorician and grammarian flourished 37, where Atargatis is naively explained to mean "without Gatis", the name of a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish. Thus Diodorus Siculus (2. 4. 2), quoting Ctesias, tells how Derceto fell in love with a youth and became by him the mother of a child and how in shame Derceto flung herself into a lake near Ascalon and her body was changed into the form of a fish though her head remained human. Ctesias of Cnidus ( Greek) was a Greek Physician and Historian from Cnidus in Caria. Derceto's child grew up to become Semiramis, the Assyrian queen. Semiramis was a legendary Assyrian queen also known as Semiramide, Semiramida, or Shamiram in Aramaic Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture In another story, told by Hyginus, an egg fell from the sky into the Euphrates, was rolled onto land by fish, doves settled on it and hatched it, and Venus, known as the Syrian goddess, came forth. Gaius Julius Hyginus (ca 64 BC &ndash AD 17 was a Latin author but whether a native of Spain or of Alexandria is not sure a pupil of the famous The Euphrates ( ( Arabic: ar نهر الفرات; Turkish: tr Fırat Syriac: syr ܦܪܬ; Hebrew: he פרת Venus was a major Roman Goddess principally associated with Love, Beauty and fertility, the equivalent of the Greek goddess

The author of Catasterismi explained the constellation of Piscis Austrinus as the parent of the two fish making up the constellation of Pisces; according to that account, it was placed in the heavens in memory of Derceto's fall into the lake at Hierapolis Bambyce near the Euphrates in Syria, from which she was saved by a large fish — which again explains the Syrian abstinence from fish. Catasterismi ( Greek Καταστερισμοί, "placings Piscis Austrinus (ˈpaɪsɪs ɒsˈtraɪnəs or Piscis Australis (/ɒsˈtreɪlɪs/ Southern Fish) was one of the 48 Constellations Manbij or Hierapolis Bambyce ( منبج) is an ancient city in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria.

Ovid in his Metamorphoses (5. Publius Ovidius Naso ( March 20, 43 BC – 17 AD was a Roman poet known to the English -speaking world as Ovid who wrote on many topics including The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem 331) relates that Venus took the form of a fish to hide from Typhon. In Greek mythology, Typhon ( Ancient Greek:, Tuphōn) also Typheus / Typhoeus ( Tuphōeus) Typhaon ( In his Fasti (2. 459-. 474) Ovid instead relates how Dione, by whom Ovid intends Venus/Aphrodite, fleeing from Typhon with her child Cupid/Eros came to the river Euphrates in Syria. Dione in Greek mythology is a vague goddess presence who has her most concrete form in Book V of Homer 's Iliad as the mother of Aphrodite In Greek mythology, Typhon ( Ancient Greek:, Tuphōn) also Typheus / Typhoeus ( Tuphōeus) Typhaon ( In Roman mythology, Cupid (Latin cupido) is the god of Erotic Love and Beauty. Hearing the wind suddenly rise and fearing that it was Typhon, the goddess begged aid from the river nymphs and leapt into the river with her son. Two fish bore them up and were rewarded by being transformed into the constellation Pisces — and for that reason the Syrians will eat no fish. Pisces (ˈpaɪsiːz Fish (plural symbol, Unicode ♓ is a Zodiac Constellation which lies between Aquarius to the west and Aries

A recent analysis of the cult of Atargatis is the essay by Per Bilde, in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom (in series "Studies in Hellenistic Civilization") Aarhus University Press (1990), in which Atargatis appears in the context of other Hellenized Great Goddesses of the East. The Seleucid Empire /sə'lusɪd/ ( 312 - 63 BC) was a Hellenistic empire i

Notes

  1. ^ M. Rostovtseff, "Hadad and Atargatis at Palmyra", American Journal of Archeology 37 (January 1933) , pp 58-63, examining Palmyrene stamped tesserae. "Abaciscus" redirects here For the Geometer moth Genus, see Abaciscus (moth.
  2. ^ Strabo 16. Strabo ( Greek: Στράβων 63/64 BC – ca AD 24 was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher. 785; Pliny, Natural History 5. Gaius or Caius Plinius Secundus, ( AD 23 – August 25, AD 79 better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient Author 81.
  3. ^ The modern repertory of literary allusions to her is Paul Louis van Berg, Corpus Cultus Deae Syriae (C. C. D. S. ): les sources littéraires, Part I: Répertoire des sources grecques et latines; Part II: Études critiques des sources mythologiques grecques et latines (Leiden:Brill) 1973.
  4. ^ Robert A. Oden, Jr, "The Persistence of Canaanite Religion" The Biblical Archaeologist 39. 1 (March 1976, pp. 31-36) p. 34; "the name of the Hellenistic and Roman goddess Atargatis was a compound of Astarte and Anat", JAB simply states in Piotr Bienkowski, Alan Ralph Millard , eds. Dictionary of the Ancient Near East, (2000:s. v. "Anat").
  5. ^ These instances are noted in Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, Pieter Willem van der Horst, Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, (1995:s. v. "Hadad"); the name also appears in the Talmud ("Ab. The Talmud ( Hebrew: he תַּלְמוּד is a record of Rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, customs and history Zarah" 11b, line 28) as tr‘th.
  6. ^ Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, s. v. Atargatis" (See text at Perseus.org)
  7. ^ Dirven's hypothesis that at Palmyra Atargatis was identical to Astarte, who functioned as the Gad of Palmyra, has been criticised by Ted Kaizer (The Religious Life of Palmyra 2002 :153f), who suggests that we "stick to the divine names actually given by the worshippers" and follow the Palmyrene inscriptions, which distinguish between them.
  8. ^ She is intended at Dura-Europos in the guise of the Tyche of Palmyra, accompanied by the lion, in a fresco from the sanctuary of the Palmyrene gods, removed to the Yale Art Gallery. In ancient Greek city cults, Tyche (Τύχη meaning "luck" in Greek, Roman equivalent Fortuna) was the presiding Tutelary
  9. ^ Rostovtseff 1933:58-63; Dura-Europos III.
  10. ^ Nelson Glueck, "A Newly Discovered Nabataean Temple of Atargatis and Hadad at Khirbet Et-Tannur, Transjordania" American Journal of Archaeology 41. 3 (July 1937), pp. 361-376.
  11. ^ Baur, Dura-Europos III, p. 115. For Pindar (Sixth Olympian Ode), the Greek sea-goddess Amphitrite is "goddess of the gold spindle". Pindar (ˈpɪndɚ (or Pindarus, Greek:) (probably born 522 BC in Cynoscephalae a village in Boeotia; died 443 BC in Argos) was an Ancient In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite (Ἀμφιτρίτη (not to be confused with Aphrodite) was a sea-goddess
  12. ^ Lucian, De Dea Syria; Diodorus Siculus II. Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανός ὁ Σαμοσατεύς Lucianus c De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess " is the conventional Latin title of a work written in Greek that has been traditionally ascribed to the Hellenized 4. 2.
  13. ^ Glueck 1936: p. 374, note 4
  14. ^ Lucian, De Dea Syria. De Dea Syria ("Concerning the Syrian Goddess " is the conventional Latin title of a work written in Greek that has been traditionally ascribed to the Hellenized
  15. ^ Macrobius. This article is about Macrobius the author for Macrobius the bishop of Seleucia and Calycadnum see Macrobius of Seleucia Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius Saturn, 1. 23.

References

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