ANAT

I. The Name

The goddess is named in Ugaritic and Phoenician as ʿnt; as an-at in the Akkadian of the middle Euphrates region; as ꜥntjt in Egyptian; and as ʿānāt in Hebrew, and Ἀναθ (Anath) in Greek. No possible etymology for the name has ever been demonstrated. One proposal for the etymology of the name that is widely accepted is based upon the assumption that Anat is derived from the Arabic word ʿanwat meaning force or violence, which corresponds to what Anat is depicted as being in the actual texts describing her. Older attempts at derivation have largely been abandoned due to their construction upon a characterization of Anat that the available evidence does not confirm. For example, Deem has suggested a hypothetical root *ʾnh ("to love") based on a characterization of Anat that the evidence does not demonstrate.¹

There is a possibility that a "younger" goddess, Anat, may have been preceded by an older goddess. Wilfred Lambert has suggested that she be identified as Ḫanat. She is known to have been worshipped in the land of Suhum (the middle Euphrates) and is also very well documented in the Old Babylonian Archives at Mari. The goddess received sheep from the offerings of the king's daughters during the time of King Zimri-Lim, and she received oil from the women of the palace.^2,3

Her cult city bore her name and was indicated with the divine determinative. Historians are divided on whether it preceded her or not..Those who are researching Anat in the first millennium identify her as a goddess of Suhum (Anat) and state that her name (Ḫa-na-at in earlier texts) can appear as an-at in local inscriptions.^2,4

The First Attestation in Egyptian

The first recorded use of the term outside Mesopotamia was in Egypt, however, was not in religious text. In addition to these two leaders (Anat-her, 'Aper-'Anati) who had the term in their name as part of a scarab seal were referred to as "heqa-khasut", or "rulers of foreign lands" which were used by early kings of the Hyksos Fifteenth dynasty. According to Kim Ryholt 'Aper-'Anati is dated to approximately the 17th century BCE. Anat-her was documented solely through his scarabs.⁵

Richard Wilkinson cites the name Anat-her as evidence that the Hyksos worshiped the goddess.⁶ Christiane Zivie-Coche is more careful. She observes that the Hyksos attestations amount to a single theophoric name, and that as of 2011 there was no material evidence for Anat in a religious context in Egypt before the reign of Ramesses II. Reshep and Haurun, deities of the same origin, appear in Egyptian records as far back as Amenhotep II.⁷

A name on a seal is not a cult. What the scarabs establish is that the goddess was known by name in the Nile Delta some four centuries before anyone in Egypt is known to have made her an offering.

The First Attestation in Phoenician

Four inscribed votive objects dedicated to Anat have been recovered from Idalion on Cyprus. Two of them are datable: a horse-binder of the seventh century BCE and a spearhead of the fifth or early fourth.¹ The horse-binder is the earliest attestation of the theonym in Phoenician, and both objects are military, which is taken to indicate that her warlike character carried over into Phoenician religion.¹

The famous Phoenician text is later and comes from the same island. The bilingual altar inscription from Larnakas tis Lapithou, cut into the rock on the southern slope of the Kyrenia range and dated to the late fourth century BCE, opens in Phoenician l-ʿnt ʿz ḥym, "to Anat, Strength of the Living," and renders her in the Greek as Athena Soteira Nike. When Melchior de Vogüé published it in 1867 he noted that the first line gave, with certainty, the Semitic spelling of the goddess's name, which had not until then been met with in the inscriptions.^8,9

The claim is often repeated that this is the first attestation of Anat in a Canaanite inscription. It was the first known in 1867. The Idalion horse-binder is three centuries older.

Sources: Day for the etymology and the Idalion objects;^1,1 Schwemer and Feliu for Ḫanat and the Mari evidence;^2,3 Frame for the Suhum inscriptions;⁴ Ryholt for the Hyksos scarabs;⁵ Zivie-Coche for the Egyptian sequence;⁷ de Vogüé and Donner and Röllig for KAI 42.^8,9

II. In the Ba'al Cycle

What follows is the story as the six tablets tell it, in the order they tell it.^10,11

The Messengers of Yam and the Battle

The first section of this text is called "the messengers of Yam". In this part of the text, Yam, Ba'al’s opponent for control over the gods, sends his representatives to an assembly with an ultimatum. Ba’al immediately attempts to attack them. However, both envoys are protected by the goddesses Anat and Athtart, who hold his arms, protecting the envoys from harm.

This leads to the second section of the text which is called “the Battle in the Valley.” in this section of the text, Anat begins a battle in a valley located between two cities. She attacks those living along the coast to the west as well as those who live toward the rising sun to the east. Her victims fall around her like fallen fruit; her enemies fly through the air above her like swarms of locusts. She fiercely binds her victims' heads to her back and girdles their hands around her waist. As she walks through the battlefield, she wades knee deep in the blood of slain soldiers and neck-high in their gore. She forces the captured soldiers before her using a staff and uses her bow string to force any remaining soldiers to follow her.

After that, she returns to her house but is not content. She places chairs for soldiers, tables for warriors and foot stools for heroes. She then proceeds to fight the furniture. She continues to fight until her liver becomes swollen with laughter and her heart full of happiness. Following that, she cleanses her hands in the blood of soldiers and cleanses her fingers in their gore. Anat washes herself in the dew from heaven and oils herself with earth's oil. Finally, she picks up her lyre.

The Messengers of Ba'al

B'al sends Gapnu and Ugar to Anat, carrying a message of peace and calling on her. When she sees them approaching, she believes that a new enemy has arisen against Ba'al and recounts all that she had previously destroyed: Yam (the beloved of El), Nahar (the great god), the dragon Tunnanu, the twisting serpent (the seven-headed one), Arsh (the beloved of El), Atik (the calf of El), Dhabibu (the daughter of El), and the flame, Ishatu. Ba'al protests that he lacks a house like the other gods.

She goes to the source of rivers where El sits but does not bend. Anat tells him that if he shall not give her permission, she will cause his gray hair to flow with blood and his gray beard hair to flow with gore. El responds from inside his seven chambers that he knows her and that she is bold, and among goddesses not a single one bolder than her. He tells her to ask whatever she would like to ask. She asks for the house of Ba'al and does not receive it, enraging her.

The Embassy to Athirat and Death of Ba'al

Ba'al and Anat travel together to Athirat at the shore with gifts of silver and gold made in the forge of Kothar-wa-Khasis. Athirat panics as she thinks they have come to kill her children. Seeing the luxurious gifts, however, changes her mood. Anat requests that Athirat take the petition to El, being likelier to convince him. Athirat gets on a donkey and rides to the source of rivers. El grants what athirat has requested. The news reaches ba'al, and the house is constructed upon Saphon using cedar, silver and gold with an open window.

The hero Ba'al descends into the throat of Mot, the god of death. El leaves his throne and sits on the ground, tears his skin open, cuts his cheeks, and mournfully cries that Ba’al is dead and all people have perished. Anat looks everywhere upon every mountain and every hill. She finds the dead body together with Shapash the sun god, lifts it on to her shoulders and then carries it up to Saphon. Anat weeps for and buries him while killing seventy of each type of beast for funeral rites and announces his death to El. El places Athtar the luminous upon the throne; but his feet do not reach foot-stool.

Anat and Mot

A day passes and days, and Anat comes to Mot like the heart of a cow for her calf. She seizes him by the hem of his garment and demands her brother. In a rage, she splits Mot open with a blade, then she winnows him with a sieve and finally she burns him in fire and grinds him with a millstone, where his remains are scattered and the birds eat them like seeds.

El dreams that the heavens are drizzling oil and wadis run with honey. Through this, he knows Ba’al is alive again. He tells Anat to summon Shapash who searches furrows of fields for him. Ba’al returns and takes the throne. After seven years, Mot comes back again and complains about Anat's brutal treatment of him.

III. Epithets

IV. Sites of Worship

Ugarit

Anat was one of the primary goddess of Ugarit and she received offerings on an ongoing basis. In the standard list of gods she is between Athirat and Shapash. In some lists she receives rams under the tittle "offering to the gods of Mount Saphon", bulls and rams elsewhere.¹³

She also has appearances in the Hurrian offering lists at the city. In one listing she receives a ram after Ashtabi and Simige, and in the other she receives a ram after Nupatik. She is mentioned as part of a Hurrian anointing ritual which includes only Hurrian gods for all others. Schwemer explained this presence as being part of fact that she did not have a direct equivalent among the Hurrians.^{4,13,17, 18}

Suhum

The city (modern day Anah) on the mid-Euphrates river which was dedicated to Ishtar as a cult center is where she was worshipped. The temple bore the ceremonial Sumerian name E-shuziana ("House, True Hand of Heaven") and was patroned by King Hammurabi of Babylon per an inscription from much later. Ninurta-kudurri-usur, son of the governor of Suhu, renovated this temple and produced a written account referring to her as "the Best Lady, highest of all the Gods, greatest of the Igigu (heroes), who has no equal for courage with other Goddesses." In the same written account he also stated that at one time or another, the Assyrians removed the decorations from her image and then hid it. He recovered it.^4,19

Tanis and Beisan

Three possible temples of Anat have been identified in Egypt. One at Tanis within the temple complex of Mut is definite, and one ambiguous figure shows Anat or Astarte at Temple of Hibis in the Kharga Oasis. The Egyptians also built her a temple at Beisan, ancient Beth-Shan, under Ramesses III.^1,6,15

At Tanis, Jean Yoyotte’s understanding of the archeological evidence described it precisely as the so-called “Enclosure of Anta,” containing both a temple of Mut and the house of Anat the Phoenician. It was s shared complex suggesting a dualistic relationship of the two goddesses.^20,21

Other than the ruins of several remaining parts of its wall enclosures, remains of the bases of its large granite columns and some pieces of those large granite column bases exist at the site. Additionally, a limestone double well used for ceremonial water purification rites by priests is found to be still standing. An uncompleted sacred basin was also located on the site. As well as these artifacts, a reused statue depicting Ramesses II alongside Sekhmet, the lioness goddess, has survived at the site.^21,22,23,24

The enclosure was located southwest of the Amun precinct and was arranged on a north–south axis. Its first substantial construction appears to belong to the Twenty-first Dynasty, although it was repeatedly reconstructed and enlarged through the Late and Ptolemaic periods. The attestation of Hibis is far less certain.²³

Beisan in northern Palestine is less ambiguous; it was part of two temples built side-by-side to contain or be close to the site of an earlier temple complex from the Egyptian Period. There were also reused royal monuments in front of it, which included stelae of Seti I and Ramesses II as well as a reused statue of Ramesses III that had been located within the central courtyard area.^25,26,27

The most important object was a limestone stela dedicated by an Egyptian named Hesi-Nakht. It portrays a slender goddess wearing an Egyptian double-plumed crown. She carries an ankh in her right hand and a was-sceptre in her left, while Hesi-Nakht stands before her with his hands raised in worship. The inscription calls her 'Antit, queen of heaven, mistress of the gods'. It is still debated, however, whether this Antit refers to Anat or Astarte.

Elsewhere in the Levant

The remaining presence of Anat is sparse and faint. Although there are many references to her at Emar (the city where she received worship) the number of references indicate that it was less than the number of references to her at Ugarit. Theophoric names such as Anat-ummi are currently being recognized as part of the local collection. Names with the element ha-nuta in a lawsuit from Hazor date back to sometime between the 18th century B.C.E. through the 16th century B.C.E. that were originally believed to invoke her. There is only one other reference to a theophoric name, Anati, that can be found from Byblos. In addition, a ship's captain from an unknown location in Syria during the time of Ramesses II is referred to as "bn 'nt.^1,19

Cyprus

The most compelling evidence of Phoenicians is to be seen on the island of Cyprus. There are the four votive offerings from Idalion and an inscribed stone altar carved into the side of a mountain at Larnakas tis Lapithou. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter (in the nineteenth century) examined the area where Larnakas tis Lapithou was located, but could find no sign of a cult using images and no parts of any image, only narrow wall remains which he believed formed a peribolos around the altar; therefore, it appeared that the natural mountain rock represented the symbol of the goddess.^1,28

V. Objects and Documents

The Corpus is divided both geographically (regionally) and according to material (medium). Ugaritic tablets and a list of rituals are found at Ugarit while votive weapons and one altar are found at Cyprus. In addition to these two sites, monumental stone statues and reliefs were found in Egypt and Egyptian-controlled areas of Palestine. Reliability for identifying her through visual means is low as several regional goddesses have similar iconography.¹⁵

Scholars and Error

One object fits into this collection by virtue of its omission. For years, the KTU 1.96 tablet was used to support the claim that Anat was a cannibal. That interpretation had influenced generations of writers describing her savagery. In 1996, Theodore Lewis indicated that the reading depended upon an old photograph of the tablet, washed-out and epigraphically useless. An examination of the tablet in Damascus revealed that it did not mention Anat (the 'n' in ʿnn is not a typo for ʿnt).^30,31

Gregorio del Olmo Lete proposes the text is an incantation against the evil eye. The correction is now generally accepted, and the goddess who ate her enemies has quietly left the corpus.^15,30

VI. Tanit and Anat?

Carthage has a goddess who has been identified as Anat numerous times, but the evidence is far from conclusive. Tanit (𐤕𐤍𐤕), consort of Ba’al Hamman (pn b’ll “Face of Ba’l” and rb’t “Lady”), was the primary goddess of Carthage from approximately the 5th Century B.C.E., and her icon can be found on over 10,000 stone stele located at the tophet of Carthage and at other sites such as Sousse and Motya. Her cult spread across the western Mediterranean from Malta to Gades. William Foxwell Albright supported the position that her name represented Anat. Flemming Hvidberg-Hansen, in his book about this deity, likewise hypothesized that Tanit was a descendant of Anat.^31,32

Historians debate any connection. Steve Wiggins advised caution about this claim as it seems to have originated in earlier literature. So it therefore be viewed with a critical eye, and one cannot assume that Tanit refers to any of the most prominent deities of the second millennium. As for methodology, Richard Clifford makes the same point concerning methodological limitations of data: although there are many Phoenician texts related to worship, few of these texts relate to mythology; none of these myths are longer than a single sentence; we cannot establish the degree of continuity of religion between the time of the Phoenicians and the time of Ugaritic religion. In addition, there is another problem. Onomastically speaking, the root tn, "to ring" or "to resound", (the root from which the name Tinnit derives), does not occur in any Punic context within theophoric personal names.^33,34,35

AThe Phoenician and Punic evidence for Anat is centered on Cyprus. The very few theophoric names invoking Anat, as well as the overall sparseness of other Anat-related evidence indicate that her cult in the West was reduced significantly from where it had been during the 2nd millennium B.C.E. Izak Cornelius claims that she was removed from many local pantheons. However, Peggy Day disagrees with this assertion.^1,15,36

VII. Anat in Egypt

Anat received the greatest share of worship in Egypt, a curiosity that is lacking with the majority of other gods from Phoenicia. Both Anat and Astarte received high recognition in the country of their adoption.

The conventional account of the arrival of Anat in Egypt is that she arrived in Egypt by the hands of the Hyksos during the Second Intermediate period (approximately a hundred years). While the Hyksos' presence in Egypt does result in the appearance of a theophoric name, it was the Eighteenth Dynasty's reconquest of the former Hyksos area and increased travel/traffic on the Mediterranean coast and to other parts of the Near East which brought northern deities to Egyptian religious practices in greater number. Worship of this goddess was not limited to those who had been displaced due to captivity, as some scholars have suggested. In fact, textual sources demonstrate that both Pharaohs and priests of Ptah, as well as common Egyptians, participated in worshiping the foreign deity.^1,6,7

The apex of the recognition of Anat was at the highest point of the New Kingdom. Amidst his conquests in the Levant, the great Pharaoh Ramesses II called himself the beloved of Anat and rendered her his mother. The inscriptions give her warlike traits befitting the Pharaoh's nature. Ramesses II named a daughter, Bintanath, after the goddess, while also naming a war dog and a sword for her. The goddess was given an additional honor when his successor, Ramesses III, gave the name to her of the one who helped protect him during battle. The goddess and the Pharaoh are shown together in a statue that came from his temple at Tanis..^6,15

A festival of Anat at Gaza is known from a thirteenth-century BCE ostracon, a copy of a letter from a scribe named Ipuy to a garrison commander named Bak-en-amun describing conditions in the territory under his charge; the details of the festival itself are lost. A situla said to come from Gaza and naming Anat may not be authentic. Egyptian names invoking her follow native patterns exactly. Anat-em-heb, "Anat in her festival," is built like the names formed on Amun or Horus.^1,6,15,37

Anat kept her place in the Egyptian pantheon through the first millennium BCE and into the period of Roman rule. She is even among the deities depicted at Dendera in the Roman period, and she appears on a stele in Greco-Roman style beside Khonsu and Mut.^7,15

VIII. How the Egyptians Read Her

Dress and Attribute

Anat wore the Atef (crown of Upper Egypt) and carried a spear and shield, a fenestrated battle axe;,or possibly a "was" sceptre although this sceptre is generally better known as being associated with Astarte. The Beth-Shan Stele shows her wearing a crowned headpiece very similar to the white crown and carrying a sceptre and the ankh in each hand. On the Tanis material she is shown sitting on a throne and holds a spear, axe and shield.

Egyptians usually depicted foreign gods by local standards; and what symbols were given them were based on the god's characteristics rather than where he came from. Anat holding the ankh is the work of an Egyptian sculptor who gave a war goddess the symbol of eternal life.^7,15

Filiation

The Egyptians solved the problem of a foreign goddess's parentage by assigning her a native father. She and Ashtart could both be called daughters of Ra or of Ptah, though the two are not always explicitly called sisters. The Memphite inscriptions call her daughter of Ptah. A goddess who is consistently the daughter of El in the Ugaritic texts becomes, in Egypt, the daughter of whichever great god presided over the city that housed her.⁷

The Wives of Seth

The New Kingdom composition The Contendings of Horus and Seth for many years was interpreted as conferring Anat and Astarte upon Set as brides, since the Egyptians associated Set with Ba'al. However, Egyptian scholars have challenged this interpretation since at least the 1970s; similarly, Ugaritic scholars have also challenged it., Neal Walls argued in 1992 that the reading is based on an incorrect assumption. Furthermore, as reported by Mark Smith in 2014, none of these challenges have produced conclusive evidence to settle the matter.¹⁹

The passage carries importance beyond just this passage, as it is one of the very limited passages in which an Egyptian source seems to discuss Anat with regard to a Ba'al figure. Therefore it has been utilized within the discussion regarding if Anat and Ba'al are consorts at Ugarit.¹⁹

The Winchester Stele

The Winchester College Stele depicts a single female form and names Qetesh, Anat, and Astarte in a single line of inscription. This piece was used to assert that Qetesh would be an important Syro-Palestinian goddess, along with the other two; therefore a triad of large goddesses is inferred using this piece.^15,33

Reconstruction of the system of goddesses has taken place from multiple angles. The theory that Anat, Astarte, and Athirat were the three major goddesses of Ugarit has been disputed in light of the prominence of Shapash, nor do any groups at Ugarit associate Anat and Ashtart with Athirat. Zivie-Coche disputed the notion that Qetesh was an aspect of Anat or a Syrian deity at all; she believes that she evolved in Egypt as a deity based upon a Semitic stem. Day states prior to the Hellenistic era there is no additional evidence to indicate Anat merged with any other goddess within Egyptian tradition. The hieroglyphics indicate at the time of publication in 1955 that they were written by someone who had difficulty writing in the style of hieroglyphic script; thus, it was also possible that these hieroglyphics were created fraudulently. The provenance of the artifact is unknown; the object itself has since gone missing.^1,7,15,33

What Egypt Made of Her

Egypt gave to Anat temples, statues, festivals, her own name to many people as their queen's name, a pharaoh that said she was his mother, and went on and on with its offerings to her for centuries through to the Roman period. Her adoptive land is also where we find the most complete set of records of worship for her.