Thus she would be styled the “good” Astartê, Ashtoreth Naamah, or the “horned” Astartê, Ashtoreth Qarnaîm, because of the lunar crescent which appears on her forehead, as a sort of head-dress.* She was the goddess of good luck, and was called Gad;** she was Anat,*** or Asîti,**** the chaste and the warlike.
* The two-horned Astartê gave her name to a city beyond the
Jordan, of which she was, probably, the eponymous goddess:
(Gen xiv. 5) she would seem to be represented on the curious
monument called by the Arabs “the stone of Job,” which was
discovered by M. Schumacher in the centre of the Hauran. It
was an analogous goddess whom the Egyptians sometimes
identified with their Hâthor, and whom they represented as
crowned with a crescent.
** Gad, the goddess of fortune, is mainly known to us in
connection with the Aramæans; we find mention made of her by
the Hebrew writers, and geographical names, such as Baal-Gad
and Migdol-Gad, prove that she must have been worshipped at
a very early date in the Canaanite countries.
*** Anat, or Anaîti, or Aniti, has been found in a
Phoenician inscription, which enables us to reconstruct the
history of the goddess. Her worship was largely practised
among the Canaanites, as is proved by the existence in the
Hebrew epoch of several towns, such as Beth-Anath, Beth-
Anoth, Anathôth; at least one of which, Bît-Anîti, is
mentioned in the Egyptian geographical lists. The appearance
of Anat-Anîti is known to us, as she is represented in
Egyptian dress on several stelæ of the XIXth and XXth
dynasties. Her name, like that of Astartê, had become a
generic term, in the plural form Anathôth, for a whole group
of goddesses.
**** Asîti is represented at Radesieh, on a stele of the
time of Seti I.; she enters into the composition of a
compound name, Asîtiiàkhûrû (perhaps “the goddess of Asiti
is enflamed with anger “), which we find on a monument in
the Vienna Museum. W. Max Müller makes her out to have been
a divinity of the desert, and the place in which the picture
representing her was found would seem to justify this
hypothesis; the Egyptians connected her, as well as the
other Astartês, with Sit-Typhon, owing to her cruel and
warlike character.
The statues sometimes represent her as a sphinx with a woman’s head, but more often as a woman standing on a lion passant, either nude, or encircled round the hips by merely a girdle, her hands filled with flowers or with serpents, her features framed in a mass of heavy tresses—a faithful type of the priestesses who devoted themselves to her service, the Qedeshôt. She was the goddess of love in its animal, or rather in its purely physical, aspect, and in this capacity was styled Qaddishat the Holy, like the hetairæ of her family; Qodshu, the Amorite capital, was consecrated to her service, and she was there associated with Rashuf, the thunder-god.*
* Qaddishat is know to us from the Egyptian monuments
referred to above. The name was sometimes written Qodshû,
like that of the town: E. de Bougé argued from this that
Qaddishat must have been the eponymous divinity of Qodshû,
and that her real name was Kashit or Kesh; he recalls,
however, the rôle played by the Qedeshoth, and admits that
“the Holy here means the prostitute.”
But she often comes before us as a warlike Amazon, brandishing a club, lance, or shield, mounted on horseback like a soldier, and wandering through the desert in quest of her prey.* This dual temperament rendered her a goddess of uncertain attributes and of violent contrasts; at times reserved and chaste, at other times shameless and dissolute, but always cruel, always barren, for the countless multitude of her excesses for ever shut her out from motherhood: she conceives without ceasing, but never brings forth children.** The Baalim and Astartês frequented by choice the tops of mountains, such as Lebanon, Carmel, Hermon, or Kasios:*** they dwelt near springs, or hid themselves in the depths of forests.**** They revealed themselves to mortals through the heavenly bodies, and in all the phenomena of nature: the sun was a Baal, the moon was Astartê, and the whole host of heaven was composed of more or less powerful genii, as we find in Chaldæa.
* A fragment of a popular tale preserved in the British
Museum, and mentioned by Birch, seems to show us Astartê in
her character of war-goddess, and the sword of Astartê is
mentioned by Chabas. A bas-relief at Edfû represents her
standing upright in her chariot, drawn by horses, and
trampling her enemies underfoot: she is there identified
with Sokhît the warlike, destroyer of men.
** This conception of the Syrian goddesses had already
become firmly established at the period with which we are
dealing, for an Egyptian magical formula defines Anîti and
Astartê as “the great goddesses who conceiving do not bring
forth young, for the Horuses have sealed them and Sit hath
established them.”
*** The Baal of Lebanon is mentioned in an archaic
Phoenician inscription, and the name “Holy Cape” (Rosh-
Qodshu), borne in the time of Thûtmosis III. either by
Haifa or by a neighbouring town, proves that Carmel was held
sacred as far back as the Egyptian epoch. Baal-Hermon has
already been mentioned.
**** The source of the Jordan, near Baniâs, was the seat of
a Baal whom the Greeks identified with Pan. This was
probably the Baal-Gad who often lent his name to the
neighbouring town of Baal-Hermon: many of the rivers of
Phoenicia were called after the divinities worshipped in the
nearest city, e.g. the Adonis, the Bêlos, the Asclepios, the
Damûras.
They required that offerings and prayers should be brought to them at the high places,* but they were also pleased—and especially the goddesses—to lodge in trees; tree-trunks, sometimes leafy, sometimes bare and branchless (ashêrah), long continued to be living emblems of the local Astartês among the peoples of Southern Syria. Side by side with these plant-gods we find everywhere, in the inmost recesses of the temples, at cross-roads, and in the open fields, blocks of stone hewn into pillars, isolated boulders, or natural rocks, sometimes of meteoric origin, which were recognised by certain mysterious marks to be the house of the god, the Betyli or Beth-els in which he enclosed a part of his intelligence and vital force.
* These are the “high places” (bamôth) so frequently
referred to by the Hebrew prophets, and which we find in the
country of Moab, according to the Mesha inscription, and in
the place-name Bamoth-Baal; many of them seem to have served
for Canaanitish places of worship before they were resorted
to by the children of Israel.