Glossary Religion and cult
Astarte
A Phoenician goddess associated with love, fertility and war, worshipped in Iron Age Cyprus at Kition, Tamassos and elsewhere.
Phoenicians settled at Kition rebuilt a large temple there, possibly for Astarte, on the foundations of a Late Bronze Age building. At Tamassos a copper-smelting workshop was attached to a temple of Astarte. Greek writers later identified her with Aphrodite. See the Phoenicians.
The name is also attached to Late Bronze Age Base Ring figurines of nude women ('Astarte type'). These are older than the Phoenician settlement, the label is a convention, and whether they show a goddess at all is debated.
Related terms
- Great Goddess
A modern name for the chief goddess of Palaepaphos, and for a single prehistoric mother goddess that many scholars now doubt.
- Syncretism
The merging or equating of gods from different cultures, so that one deity is worshipped under two names or with combined features.
- Reshef
A Canaanite and Phoenician god of plague, war and protection, worshipped in Iron Age Cyprus and equated there with Apollo.
Where it appears
- Base Ring Figurines (Astarte Type)
- Music and Musical Instruments in Ancient Cyprus
- Snowman Figurines
- How Cypriot Figurines Are Classified
- Medicine and Healing in Ancient Cyprus
- Birds in Ancient Cyprus
- Clothing and Dress in Ancient Cyprus
- Copper Metallurgy in Ancient Cyprus
- Furniture in Ancient Cyprus
- Glass in Ancient Cyprus
- The Phoenicians
- The Statues of Ancient Cyprus
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