Atargatis

Fertile Crescent myth series
Mesopotamian
Levantine
Arabian
Near Eastern Religions
The Levant
El Elyon Hadad Adon Anat Arsu Asherah Astarte Atargatis Azizos The Ba‘als Ba`alat Gebal	Berith Dagon Elohim Eshmun Kubaba Liluri Manuzi Mot Shaddai Salem Yam Yarikh

Atargatis /əˈtɑːrɡətᵻs/ or Ataratheh (/əˈtærəθə/; Aramaic: ‘Atar‘atheh or Tar‘atheh‎‎) was the chief goddess of northern Syria in Classical Antiquity.Ctesias also used the name Derceto for her, and the Romans called her Dea Syriae ("Syrian goddess"). Primarily she was a goddess of fertility, but, as the baalat ("mistress") of her city and people, she was also responsible for their protection and well-being. Her chief sanctuary was at Hierapolis, modern Manbij, northeast of Aleppo, Syria. She is sometimes described as a mermaid-goddess, due to identification of her with a fish-bodied goddess at Ascalon. However, there is no evidence that Atargatis was worshipped at Ascalon, and all iconographic evidence shows her as anthropomorphic.

Michael Rostovtzeff called her "the great mistress of the North Syrian lands". Her consort is usually Hadad. As Ataratheh, doves and fish were considered sacred to her: doves as an emblem of the Love-Goddess, and fish as symbolic of the fertility and life of the waters.

According to a third-century Syriac source, "In Syria and in Urhâi [Edessa] the men used to castrate themselves in honor of Taratha. But when King Abgar became a believer, he commanded that anyone who emasculated himself should have a hand cut off. And from that day to the present no one in Urhâi emasculates himself anymore."

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