==[TASK]== Improved Carthaginian Priestess

[Lion.Kanzen]

reinterpretation by stable diffusion si

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

Not bad at all. Matches a lot of the references.

[Lion.Kanzen]

16 minutes ago, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:

Not bad at all. Matches a lot of the references.

I have not yet finished and mixed everything.

[Lion.Kanzen]

finished version A

[Lion.Kanzen]

Phoenician priestess.

It is not very different from my concept, except for the syncretism with Isis.

[Lion.Kanzen]

13 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

Phoenician priestess.

It is not very different from my concept, except for the syncretism with Isis.

About the goddess and their cult:

I have found some new information and will do a quick review.

Asherah (] Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרָה, romanized: ʾĂšērā; Ugaritic, romanized: ʾAṯiratu; Akkadia, romanized: Aširat;[3] Qatabanian: ʾṯrt)[4] was a goddess in ancient Semitic religions. She also appears in Hittite writings as Ašerdu(s) or Ašertu(s) (Hittite: , romanized: a-e-ir-tu4),[5] and as Athirat in Ugarit. Some scholars hold that Yahweh and Asherah were a consort pair in ancient Israel and Judah,[6][7][8][9] while others disagree.[10][11][12]

----This as an introduction and review----

At that time, YHWH was the lord of the South and Baal was the lord of the North, according to Professor Jesús Mendoza.

That is a minor but important detail to understand the Canaanite-Semitic pantheon.

So Baal is the god of rain, which is important to people living in the desert, Asherah is the goddess of fertility, and YHWH was relegated to the god of war.

The new thing I found is this:

Queen of Heaven was a title given to several ancient sky goddesses worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Goddesses known to have been referred to by the title include Inanna, Anat, Isis, Nut, Astarte, and possibly Asherah (by the prophet Jeremiah). In Greco-Roman times, Hera and Juno bore this title. Forms and content of worship varied.

---It caught my attention that Isis is in that category.----

Isis was venerated first in Egypt. As per the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the fifth century BC, Isis was the only goddess worshiped by all Egyptians alike,[27] and whose influence was so widespread by that point, that she had become syncretic with the Greek goddess Demeter.[28] It is after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great, and the Hellenization of the Egyptian culture initiated by Ptolemy I Soter, that she eventually became known as 'Queen of Heaven'.

Astarte in the Levant and Egypt

Regardless of how she was depicted in texts, archaeological evidence demonstrates her popularity throughout the Levant. She was worshipped in Baalbek, Byblos, Sidon, and Tyre, and in Baalbek, the chief city of Baal worship, she had more temples and shrines than he did. From the Levant it traveled along the trade routes to Cyprus, where it became equally popular, and the same is observed in Greece and Egypt.

She arrived in Egypt during the 18th Dynasty of the New Empire (c. 1550-1292 BC) and is mentioned on the Sphinx Stele erected by Amenhotep II (r. 1427-1401 BC) as being "very pleased" with her handling of horses. Along with Anat, who traveled with her, she was considered the divine protector of the pharaoh in battle, specifically of his chariot and horses.

She was understood to be the daughter of the god Ra (or maybe Ptah) and the consort of Set along with Anat. Her association with Set is explained in the popular story of The Confrontation of Horus and Set, a tale of the struggle of the two gods for the throne. The background to the action is the cycle of Osiris and Set in which the rightful king, Osiris, is murdered by his brother Set because of jealousy, is revived by his sister and wife Isis and his other sister, Nephthys, but because he is incomplete after the resurrection, he descends to the underworld to become the Judge of the dead. Isis raises her son Horus, and when he reaches maturity he challenges Set for the throne.

In The Confrontation of Horus and Set, Horus and Set compete in the presence of a council of the gods to present their claim to the throne, and decide that they will have to settle their differences through a series of contests. Most of the gods believe that Horus should rule since he is the son of Osiris, but Ra believes that he is too young and inexperienced and that Set has the maturity to be a better king. These competitions drag on for 80 years, until Isis intervenes and convinces Ra, who grants the kingship to Horus.

----This divine council resembles that of the Semites----

https://www.worldhistory.org/astarte/

Other significant locations where she was introduced by Phoenician sailors and colonists were Cythera, Malta, and Eryx in Sicily from which she became known to the Romans as Venus Erycina. Three inscriptions from the Pyrgi Tablets dating to about 500 BC found near Caere in Etruria mentions the construction of a shrine to Astarte in the temple of the local goddess Uni-Astre [23][24] At Carthage Astarte was worshipped alongside the goddess Tanit, and frequently appeared as a theophoric element in personal names.

Iconographic portrayal of Astarte, very similar to that of Tanit,[26] often depicts her naked and in presence of lions, identified respectively with symbols of sexuality and war. She is also depicted as winged, carrying the solar disk and the crescent moon as a headdress, and with her lions either lying prostrate to her feet or directly under those.[27] Aside from the lion, she's associated to the dove and the bee. She has also been associated with botanic wildlife like the palm tree and the lotus flower.[28]

 

A particular artistic motif assimilates Astarte to Europa, portraying her as riding a bull that would represent a partner deity. Similarly, after the popularization of her worship in Egypt, it was frequent to associate her with the war chariot of Ra or Horus, as well as a kind of weapon, the crescent axe.[27] Within Iberian culture, it has been proposed that native sculptures like those of Baza, Elche or Cerro de los Santos might represent an Iberized image of Astarte or Tanit.

---I had no idea that I had arrived so early in Egypt.-----

That explains all the iconography found in Spain.

But that iconography did not reach the West.Neither in Greece nor in Rome did he arrive with wings or hats.