Sunday, December 29, 2024
Tanit
Tanit was the chief goddess of Carthage, but that is where agreement about her ceases. She was usually represented in this striking geometric way. So it is easy to find thousands of images of her from all across Carthage's empire.As to where she came from, well, just her wikipedia article says in one paragraph that the name obviously comes from Berber and is thus North African, in another that the name comes from Ugarit, and in another that it may be derived from Astarte, the Phoenician mother goddess, equivalent to Ishtar. So, yeah. Probably best to think of her as the local variant of the Great Goddess worshipped across the Middle East. Some online sources say that before Carthage became independent of Phoenicia in the 6th century Astarte was the main goddess, and Tanit only emerged after 500 BC. So perhaps her rise was attached to local Carthaginian pride.In Roman times she was assimilated to various Greco-Roman deities, and started to look like this.One of my favorite things about these great goddesses is the number of things they were associated with: fertility, virginity, civilization, farming, the moon, war, plague. And, sometimes, human sacrifice. But then I suppose there is no special reason a powerful, immortal being has to have limited interests.
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1 comment:
Looks like a mason scribbled on top of the 3rd image
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