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Apuleius
Apuleius (sometimes called Lucius Apuleius; c. 125 – c. 180) was a Latin prose writer. He was a Berber, from Madaurus (now M'Daourouch, Algeria). He studied Platonist philosophy in Athens; travelled to Italy, Asia Minor and Egypt; and was an initiate in several cults or mysteries, including the cult of Isis. The most famous incident in his life was when he was accused of using magic to gain the attentions (and fortune) of a wealthy widow. He declaimed and then distributed a witty tour de force in his own defense before the proconsul and a court of magistrates convened in Sabratha, near Tripoli. This is known as the Apologia.
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Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus (Greek: ), was a Greek historian who lived in the 1st century BC. According to Diodorus' own work, he was born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira). With one exception, antiquity affords no further information about Diodorus' life and doings beyond what is to be found in his own work, Bibliotheca historica. Only Jerome, in his Chronicon under the year of Abraham 1968 (49 BC), writes, "Diodorus of Sicily, a writer of Greek history, became illustrious". His English translator, Charles Henry Oldfather, remarks on the "striking coincidence" that one of only two known Greek inscriptions from Agyrium (I.G. XIV, 588) is the tombstone of one "Diodorus, the son of Apollonius".
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Himyarite Kingdom
The Himyarite Kingdom or Himyar (in Arabic مملكة حِمْيَر mamlakat ħimyâr), anciently called Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a state in ancient Yemen dating from 110 BC taking the modern day city of Sanaa as its capital after the ancient city of Zafar. It conquered neighbouring Saba (Sheba) in c.25 BC, Qataban in c.200 CE and Hadramaut c.300 CE. Its political fortunes relative to Saba changed frequently until it finally conquered the Sabaean Kingdom around 280 CE.
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Moshe Weinfeld
Moshe Weinfeld (Hebrew: משה ויינפלד) (born 1925 Poland; died 29 April 2009), Professor Emeritus of Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and recipient of the 1994 Israel Prize for Bible.
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Nabataean
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Nabatean
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Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso (20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria. He is also well known for the Metamorphoses, a mythological hexameter poem, the Fasti, about the Roman calendar, and the Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto, two collections of poems written in exile on the Black Sea. Ovid was also the author of several smaller pieces, the Remedia Amoris, the Medicamina Faciei Femineae, and the long curse-poem Ibis. He also authored a lost tragedy, Medea. He is considered a master of the elegiac couplet, and is traditionally ranked alongside Virgil and Horace as one of the three canonic poets of Latin literature. The scholar Quintilian considered him the last of the canonical Latin love elegists. His poetry, much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, decisively influenced European art and literature and remains as one of the most important sources of classical mythology.
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Pindar
Pindar (, Pindaros; Latin: Pindarus) (ca. 522–443 BC), was an Ancient Greek lyric poet. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, Pindar is the one whose work is best preserved. Quintilian described him as "by far the greatest of the nine lyric poets, in virtue of his inspired magnificence, the beauty of his thoughts and figures, the rich exuberance of his language and matter, and his rolling flood of eloquence".
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Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 AD – August 25, 79), better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, which became a model for all such works written subsequently. Pliny the Younger, his nephew, wrote of him in a letter to the historian Tacitus:
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Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre.
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Strabo
Strabo (; 63/64 BC – ca. AD 24) was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.
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Ashkelon or Ashqelon Arabic عسقلان ˁAsqalān ( ;
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Edessa () is the historical name of an Assyrian town in northern Mesopotamia, refounded on an ancient site by Seleucus I Nicator. For the modern history of the city, see Şanlıurfa.
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Enna (Sicilian: Castrugiuvanni; Greek: ; Latin: Henna and less frequently Haenna) is a city and comune located roughly at the center of Sicily in the province of Enna, towering above the surrounding countryside. It has earned the nicknames "belvedere" (panoramic viewpoint) and "ombelico" (navel) of Sicily.
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Greece (; , Elláda, ; , Hellás, ), also known as Hellas and officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Ellīnikī́ Dīmokratía, ), is a country in southeastern Europe. Situated on the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula, Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the tenth longest coastline in the world at in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at .
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Israel (, ''Yisrā'el; , Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel (Hebrew: , Medīnat Yisrā'el; , Dawlat Isrā'īl''), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and Gaza on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is the world's only predominantly Jewish state, and is defined as A Jewish and Democratic State by the Israeli government.
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Lebanon ( or ; ; ), officially the Republic of Lebanon (Arabic: ; French: ), is a country on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.
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Manbij or Hierapolis Bambyce (, is an ancient city in the Aleppo Governorate, Syria.
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Niha ( ) is a village in the Bekaa Valley about 8 km (5 miles) North of Zahle. It is famous for its Roman archeological ruins, and in particular two lower Roman temples that date back to the first century A.D.
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Palmyra () was an ancient Syrian city, In the old times it was an important city of central Syria, located in an oasis 215 km northeast of Damascus and 180 km southwest of the Euphrates at Deir ez-Zor. It has long been a vital caravan city for travellers crossing the Syrian desert and was known as the Bride of the Desert. The earliest documented reference to the city by its Semitic name Tadmor, Tadmur or Tudmur (which means "the town that repels" in Amorite and "the indomitable town" in Aramaic.) is recorded in Babylonian tablets found in Mari.
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Syria ( ; ' or '), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
http://wn.com/Syria -
Tripoli (Standard Arabic: طرابلس Tripolis) is a city in Lebanon. Situated north of Batroun and the cape of Lithoprosopon, Tripoli is the capital of the North Governorate and the Tripoli District (in Lebanon the districts are subunits of governorates). The city is located 85 km north of the capital Beirut, and is the easternmost port of Lebanon.
http://wn.com/Tripoli_Lebanon
- 2 Maccabees
- `Ashtart
- Akkadian language
- Akko
- Amphitrite
- Anat
- ancient Greece
- Aphrodite
- Apuleius
- Asherah
- Ashkelon
- Ashtart
- Ashtoreth
- Assyria
- Atargatis (band)
- Atergatis (crab)
- Athenaeus
- Canaan
- Catasterismi
- Christian
- Conan the Cimmerian
- crab
- Ctesias
- cuneiform
- Cupid
- Cybele
- De Dea Syria
- Delos
- Demeter
- Derketo (Conan)
- dervish
- Diodorus Siculus
- Dione (mythology)
- Dura-Europos
- Dura-Europus
- Edessa, Mesopotamia
- Enna
- Eros (god)
- Eunus
- Euphrates
- fecund
- First Servile War
- Gad (deity)
- Gaius Julius Hyginus
- genus
- Gilead
- Greece
- Hadad
- Himyarite Kingdom
- Ishtar
- Israel
- ketos
- Lebanon
- Lucian
- Manbij
- mermaid
- Metamorphoses (poem)
- Michael Rostovtzeff
- Moshe Weinfeld
- mural crown
- Nabataean
- Nabatean
- Niha Bekaa
- Old Testament
- Ovid
- Palmyra
- Petra
- phallic symbol
- Pindar
- Piscis Austrinus
- Pliny the Elder
- Rhea (mythology)
- Robert E. Howard
- Seleucid Empire
- Semiramis
- Sicily
- Strabo
- syncretism
- Syria
- Talmud
- tessera
- Tripoli, Lebanon
- Tyche
- Typhon
- Ugarit
- Uzza
- Venus (mythology)
Atargatis
Releases by year: 2007 2006
Album releases
Nova (Released 2007)
- Balance / Intro
- Ebon Queen
- Frozen Innocence
- Riven
- Stars Are Falling
- Crucified
- Green Lake's Ground
- Fever of Temptation
- When the Ice Breaks
- The Marching of the Fey
- Firebird
- Deliverance
Nova (Released 2007)
- Balance (intro)
- Ebon Queen
- Frozen Innocence
- Riven
- Stars Are Falling
- Crucified
- Green Lake's Ground
- Fever of Temptation
- When the Ice Breaks
- The Marching of the Fey
- Firebird
- Deliverance
- Comets (Nova, Part I)
- Watermight (Nova, Part II)
Wasteland (Released 2006)
- Desert (Intro)
- Wasteland
- Selina (Widow of the Moon)
- The Crystallic Ascension
- Cradle of Fern
- Through the Mists of Oblivion
- 4giving
- My Solace
- Circle of Life
- Angels Crying
- Eden (Outro)

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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.
Her consort is usually Hadad. 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. "In Syria and in Urhâi [Edessa] the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Ataratha. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a hand cut off. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore." —Chapter 45.
Her name
At 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.At 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.
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. The feminine ending -t has been omitted. Compare the cognate Akkadian form Ishtar. The second half (atis) may be a Palmyrene divine name Athe (i.e. tempus opportunum), which occurs as part of many compounds.
Alternatively, the second half (gatis) may relate to the Greek gados "fish". (For example, the Greek name for "sea monster" or "whale" is the cognate term ketos). So Atar-Gatis may simply mean "the fish-goddess Atar".
Cult centers and images
As a consequence of the first half of the name, Atargatis has frequently, though wrongly, been identified as ‘Ashtart. The two deities were probably of common origin and have many features in common, but their cults are historically distinct. There is reference in 2 Maccabees 12.26 and 1 Maccabees 5:43 to an Atargateion or Atergateion, a temple of Atargatis, at Carnion in Gilead, but the home of the goddess was unquestionably not Israel or Canaan, but Syria itself; at Hierapolis Bambyce she had a temple in her name. At Palmyra she appears on the coinage with a lion, or her presence is signalled with a lion and the crescent moon; an inscription mentions her. In the temples of Atargatis at Palmyra and at Dura-Europos she appeared repeatedly with her consort, Hadad, and in the richly syncretic religious culture at Dura-Europos, was worshipped as Artemis Azzanathkona. Two well preserved temples in Niha, Lebanon are dedicated to her and to Hadad. In the 1930s, numerous Nabatean bas-relief busts of Atargatis were identified by Nelson Glueck at Khirbet et-Tannûr, Jordan, in temple ruins of the early first century CE; there the lightly veiled goddess's lips and eyes had once been painted red, and a pair of fish confronted one another above her head. Her wavy hair, suggesting water to Glueck, was parted in the middle. At Petra the goddess from the north was syncretised with a North Arabian goddess from the south al-Uzzah, worshipped in the one temple. At Dura-Europus among the attributes of Atargatis are the spindle and the sceptre or fish-spear.At her temples at Ascalon, Hierapolis Bambyce, and Edessa, there were fish ponds containing fish only her priests might touch. Glueck noted in 1936 that "to this day there is a sacred fish-pond swarming with untouchable fish at Qubbet el-Baeddwī, a dervish monastery three kilometres east of Tripolis, Lebanon."
From Syria her worship extended to Greece and to the furthest West. Lucian and Apuleius give descriptions of the beggar-priests who went round the great cities with an image of the goddess on an ass and collected money. The wide extension of the cult is attributable largely to Syrian merchants; thus we find traces of it in the great seaport towns; at Delos especially numerous inscriptions have been found bearing witness to her importance. Again we find the cult in Sicily, introduced, no doubt, by slaves and mercenary troops, who carried it even to the farthest northern limits of the Roman Empire. The leader of the rebel slaves in the First Servile War, a Syrian named Eunus, claimed to receive visions of Atargatis, whom he identified with the Demeter of Enna.
Syncretism
In many cases Atargatis, ‘Ashtart, and other goddesses who once had independent cults and mythologies became fused to such an extent as to be indistinguishable. This fusion is exemplified by the Carnion temple, which is probably identical with the famous temple of ‘Ashtart at Ashtaroth-Karnaim. Atargatis generally appears as the wife of Hadad. They are the protecting deities of the community. Atargatis, wearing a mural crown, is the ancestor the royal house, the founder of social and religious life, the goddess of generation and fertility (hence the prevalence of phallic emblems), and the inventor of useful appliances. Not unnaturally she is identified with the Greek Aphrodite. By the conjunction of these many functions, despite originating as a sea deity analogous to Amphitrite, she becomes ultimately a great nature-goddess, analogous to Cybele and Rhea: In one aspect she typifies the protection of water in producing life; in another, the universal of other-earth; in a third (influenced, no doubt, by Chaldean astrology), the power of Destiny.
Atargatis mythology
The legends are numerous and of an astrological character. A rationale for the Syrian dove-worship and abstinence from fish is seen in the story in Athenaeus 8.37, where Atargatis is naively explained to mean "without Gatis", the name of a queen who is said to have forbidden the eating of fish. Thus Diodorus Siculus (2.4.2), quoting Ctesias, tells how Derceto fell in love with a youth and became by him the mother of a child and how in shame Derceto flung herself into a lake near Ascalon and her body was changed into the form of a fish though her head remained human. Derceto's child grew up to become Semiramis, the Assyrian queen. In another story, told by Hyginus, an egg fell from the sky into the Euphrates, was rolled onto land by fish, doves settled on it and hatched it, and Venus, known as the Syrian goddess, came forth.The author of Catasterismi explained the constellation of Piscis Austrinus as the parent of the two fish making up the constellation of Pisces; according to that account, it was placed in the heavens in memory of Derceto's fall into the lake at Hierapolis Bambyce near the Euphrates in Syria, from which she was saved by a large fish — which again is intended to explain the Syrian abstinence from fish.
Ovid in his Metamorphoses (5.331) relates that Venus took the form of a fish to hide from Typhon. In his Fasti (2.459-.474) Ovid instead relates how Dione, by whom Ovid intends Venus/Aphrodite, fleeing from Typhon with her child Cupid/Eros came to the river Euphrates in Syria. Hearing the wind suddenly rise and fearing that it was Typhon, the goddess begged aid from the river nymphs and leapt into the river with her son. Two fish bore them up and were rewarded by being transformed into the constellation Pisces — and for that reason the Syrians will eat no fish.
A recent analysis of the cult of Atargatis is the essay by Per Bilde, in Religion and Religious Practice in the Seleucid Kingdom (in series "Studies in Hellenistic Civilization") Aarhus University Press (1990), in which Atargatis appears in the context of other Hellenized Great Goddesses of the East.
Notes
References
External links
Category:West Semitic goddesses Category:Sea and river goddesses Category:Hellenistic Asian deities
de:Derketo et:Atargatis es:Derceto fr:Dercéto hu:Atargatisz it:Atargatis id:Atargatis pt:Atargatis (mitologia) ru:Атаргатис tr:AtargatisThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.