MAT-EM.34

Ancient Galley, standing figure of Astarte

Phoenicia, Tyre (Lebenon)

126 B.C. to circa 40 B.C.

Ishtar (Akkadian), Astarte (Phoenician), or Inanna (Sumerian) was the most important female deity in Mesopotamia through the second millennium BC. She was identified with the planet Venus, and the sunrise. She was the goddess of both sexual love and warfare. The Greeks identified her with Aphrodite.