[1304] Ezek. viii, 16.
[1305] Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 82. The Babylonian and Assyrian triads were loosely constructed, and had, apparently, no significance for the local and royal cults. In this regard they differed from the Egyptian triads and enneads, which were highly elaborated and organised (Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, p. 104 ff.; Breasted, History of Egypt, p. 56.; Steindorff, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 29).
[1306] Cf. article "Astarte" (by Ed. Meyer) in Roscher, Lexikon.
[1307] For the cuneiform material see Delitzsch, Assyrisches Handwörterbuch, and, for various etymologies proposed for the name, Barton, Semitic Origins, p. 102 ff.; Haupt, in Journal of the American Oriental Society, xxviii, 112 ff.; Barton, ibid., xxxi, 355 ff. The frequent expression ilani u ishtarâti, 'gods and goddesses,' suggests that the original sense of ishtar is simply 'a deity'; it is not probable that a proper name would become a common noun and have a plural; cf. the treatment of the title ilu, 'a god.'
[1308] As the title bel, 'lord,' became the proper name of a particular god, so the title ishtar, 'mistress,' 'lady,' might become the proper name of a particular goddess; in neither case is the detailed history of the process known to us.
[1309] They were probably local "lords"; in Moab Ashtar was combined with a deity called Kemosh, of whom nothing is known except that he was a Moabite national god (cf. G. F. Moore, article "Chemosh" in Encyclopædia Biblica). For a different view of Ashtar and Athtar see Barton, Semitic Origins, Index, s.vv. Chemosh, Athtar; he regards these deities as transformations of the mother-goddess Ashtart.
[1310] Baethgen, Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, p. 66 ff.; Jeremias, "Syrien und Phönizien" (in Saussaye's Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte).
[1311] Rawlinson, History of Phœnicia; Pietschmann, Geschichte der Phönizier; Jeremias, op. cit.
[1312] Article "Esmun" in Roscher's Lexikon; article in Orientalische Studien Nöldeke gewidmet. Of the vague group known as the Kabiri (the 'great ones,' seven in number, with Eshmun as eighth) we have little information; on the diffusion of their cult in Grecian lands see Roscher, op. cit., article "Megaloi Theoi."
[1313] Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes, pp. 21 ff., 45 ff.; W. R. Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, chap. vi, note 8; chap. viii, note 2; article "Dusares" in the Anthropological Essays presented to F. W. Putnam.