So Atar-Gatis may simply mean "the fish-goddess Atar". (For example, the Greek name for "sea monster" or "whale" is the cognate term ketos). Īlternatively, the second half ( gatis) may relate to the Greek gados "fish". tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds. The second half ( atis) may be a Palmyrene divine name Athe (i.e. Compare the cognate Akkadian form Ishtar. 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. Īt Hierapolis Bambyce, on coins of about the 4th 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", The full name ‘tr‘th appears on a bilingual inscription found in Palmyra. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore." -Chapter 45.Īt 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. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a hand cut off. "In Syria and in Urhâi the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Ataratha. As Ataratha, doves and fish were considered sacred by her, doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters. 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. Primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat (“mistress”) of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis (modern Manbij), northeast of Aleppo, occasionally rendered in one word Deasura. Atargatis, in Aramaic ‘Atar‘atah, was a Syrian deity, " great goddess of northern Syria" ,"the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Rostovtseff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Aphrodite Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria".
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