Astarte, The Phoenician Warrior Queen

The Phoenician pantheon of gods was greatly influenced by surrounding cultures, with names and myths clearly borrowed and adapted to the local context. They usually worshipped a triad of deities, including a primary god, often called Baal (lord), his son, and a female goddess. She was most often known as Astarte, the Greek version of Attart. She was a divine warrior goddess also associated with healing, protection, and kingship.

Origins

Astarte was principally worshipped at the big Phoenician trading centres of Tyre, Sidon, and Elath. She was known variously as Asherar-yam, our lady of the sea, and Baalat, our dear lady.

She seems originally to have been an Amorite goddess worshipped in cities including Ugarit, Emar, Mari, and Ebla, with evidence for her worship dating back as far as the 3^rd millennium BCE.

In a surviving Ugaritic pantheon list (KTU 1.47 and 1.118), Astarte appears alongside other important Ugaritic goddesses:

• Anath – the maiden warrior
• Sapas – the sun goddess
• Arsy – one of the Earth
• Ushara – a chthonic goddess

Astarte is the last on the list. She was viewed as the sister of the more prominent Anath in Ugaritic mythology, and the two shared many qualities, suggesting that they may have once been one goddess who separated into two. They are both described as perfect beauties with a love of war.

While Anath was more prominent in the Amorite world, Astarte overshadowed her among the Phoenicians. At Sidon, a 6th-century BCE inscription lists the divine triad of the city as Eshmun, Baal, and Astarte, and calls Astarte the “name of Baal,” associating her with the powerful lord god.

Realms of Influence

While Astarte was one of many on the Ugaritic list, she overshadowed other female goddesses in the Phoenician world, which meant that she was associated with several aspects of life.

She was principally a warrior goddess who supported her people in battle. In the Treaty of Esarhaddon (680-669 BCE) with Baal of Tyre, Astarte is addressed as a warrior goddess: “May Astarte break your bow in the thick of battle, and have you crouch at the feet of your enemy, may a foreign enemy divide your belongings.”

She was also associated with protective magic and healing. Often described as a hunter, she would “hunt” for healing herbs in the forest to make cures. She was also specifically associated with healing snakebites and hangovers. Astarte was sometimes hailed as a bringer of life or as taking away afflictions and was often invoked as a protector or helper.

She was often described as a perfect beauty, and may have been linked with sexuality and fertility, although the evidence for this comes from very late.

Astarte was also linked with royal power and the power structures that dominated the Phoenician world. While she is never described as the consort of Baal, the divine lord, she seems to be the female counterpart to leadership. An inscription on the sarcophagus of King Tabnit of Sidon (KAI 13:1) from the 6^th century BCE says that the king is the priest of Astarte, confirming an association between kingship and the goddess.

She was also linked with the evening star, which is the planet Venus. Her temples were often oriented to align with the star.

Symbols

Astarte was associated with the lion and sometimes referred to as a lioness. She was sometimes depicted in the presence of lions, who were sometimes prostrate before her.

She was also associated with the horse, and, by extension, chariots. Some of the few definitively identifiable images of her (since it is not always clear who the female figures are meant to be) show her as a warrior, either on horseback or in a chariot. This was the image of her adopted in Egypt, where she was often shown in the war chariot of Ra or Horus.

Some Bronze Age cylinder seals suggest that she may also have been linked with the dove and the bee.

Astarte was also sometimes shown winged and carrying a solar disk and crescent moon, with lions lying prostrate nearby.

While divine roles often reflected human ones, gods were not bound by the same mortal rules. Astarte was a warrior and a huntress, which already gave her traditional masculine attributes. She was also sometimes depicted with masculine features, such as a beard.

Temples and Worship

Several temples have been found dedicated to the goddess across the Mediterranean, with the earliest found in Byblos in the Near East and dating to around 2800 BCE, while the rest date to the Iron Age, between the 11^th and 6^th centuries BCE. They are mostly aligned to a sun-rising and moon-rising orientation, reflecting her association with the celestial world.

Scholarship has long suggested that ecstatic rights took place in her temple, and that her priestesses may have engaged in cultic prostitution, but the evidence makes this assumption increasingly questionable. These descriptions were largely influenced by the absence of later Roman writers, such as Lucian (De Dea Syria 15) and Apuleius (Metamorphoses 8.27-28), who describe these cults in Syria in their own day, 500-1,000 years later.

Mentions of prostitutes (klbm) at her temples in inscriptions (e.g. KAI 37:16 from Kition) may actually refer to gods (klbm) and puppies (grm), and there is sometimes evidence of dog cemeteries near her temples (e.g. Kition and Ashkelon). Dogs are associated with healing.

Syncretism

Astarte also appears in third-party sources. For example, Ashtoreth is mentioned so often in the Bible that scholars think that it is a deliberate combination of the Greek name Astarte and the Hebrew word boshet, meaning shame, which suggests Hebrew contempt for her cult. Ashtaroth, the plural form of the goddess’s name in Hebrew, became a general term denoting goddesses and paganism.

Her Akkadian counterpart was Ishtar, known as Innana in Mesopotamia.

Later, Astarte became assimilated with the Egyptian deities Isis and Hathor. She may have been introduced in the 15^th dynasty when the Hyksos arrived from the east. Many scarabs from this period may attest her name. She later rose to prominence, appearing on a stele of Amenhotep II (1438-1412) from Tura and in the tomb of Thutmose IV, where he is addressed as “valiant on the chariot like Astarte.”

In the Magical Papyrus Harris 501, Astarte and Anath are addressed as “the two great goddesses who were pregnant but did not bear,” seemingly suggesting that they were considered virgin goddesses.

She became particularly prominent in the 19^th dynasty. This may be the result of the rise of leaders like Horemheb, with questionable ties to the royal line but a focus on military leadership based around the chariot. A votive inscription made by a master of the stable, Sen-nefer, from the reign of Horemheb, refers to her as the Mistress of Heaven, and she is second on the list, right after Ptah.

In the Greco-Roman world, she was connected with Aphrodite when the Phoenicians established colonies on Cyprus, and later with Artemis in Greece and Juno (Hera) in the Roman world. Inscriptions from Delos mention Philistine Astarte Ourania Aphrodite from Ashkelon.