Astarte: Goddess of Canaan

As we move to the next stop tracking the evolution of the Mediterranean Goddess Astarte is the form we know the least about. She was known by many other names such as Ashtar, Ashtart, Ashtoret, and Ashtaroth. The difference in her name and image from region to region makes it harder to find information about her. She was a goddess of war and sexual love and had some links to fertility.

Her cult can tell us a lot more about her. Many people in the ancient Middle East practiced henotheism, or as someone I knew in college coined it; polytheism with favoritism. Henotheism is the belief in one main god without discounting the belief that other gods exist, just that yours is superior. Many cities had one singular god, usually male, that they worshiped. Astarte was often cited as the consort of many of these city gods allowing her worship to be shared across different cities and peoples.

Her worship spread throughout the Middle East. Even the bible mentions her under the name Ashtoreth. Her cult stretched beyond the lands of Canaan to Egypt and into Asia Minor where her cult encountered the Phoenicians. It was the Phoenicians that brought her worship across the sea. Phenocians were sea traders and had contact with many different cultures and peoples across the Mediterranean. Just as they shared their alphabet with others they also shared their religion and their gods. Astarte’s cult traveled to the islands in the Aegean Sea. Around 1200 BCE her cult set up a new hub in Cyprus and started spreading her worship to neighboring islands. Eventually, the goddess of Cyprus took on another name; Aphrodite.

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References

• From Ishtar to Aphrodite-Marcovich

• Britannica-Astarte

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Join us next month as we see how Aphrodite took the Greek world by storm.

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