| Astarte was a phoenician goddess whose cult was alive during the 2nd millenium B.C. The goddess was also worshipped outside the cultural phoenician environment by the Canaanites, Philistine and Mohabites and was considered as one of the most important personifications among semitic deities. Unfortunately because of scarse data we may only presume that Astarte represented preeminently a female deity. She was the mother-goddess, the progenitress of living beings, trees, animals and men.
Astarte and her heavenly husband, Baal which means “master” are sometimes mentioned as patrons of many phoenician towns. Astarte’s caracterisation in art is the so-called nude-goddess. Very often she is depicted with big curved horns, a lunar symbol, similar to those of the egyptian goddess Hathor and with rayed-disk pendants, attributes of Venus personification.
Greek identified Astarte in Aphrodite, Romans in Venus and Carthaginians in Tanit.
The name Astarte in italian language is compound by Asta which means Auction and Arte,italian translation of Art.
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