Astarte, a goddess of Phonecia
Astarte, the ancient Phoenician great goddess of fertility, motherhood, and war, is the counterpart of the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, and is one of the oldest Middle Eastern aspects of the great Goddess, dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Tammuz also is identified as her son/consort as he is with Ishtar. According to legend Astarte descended to earth as a fiery star, landing near Byblos in a lake at Alphaca, the site where the original Tammuz is said to have died.
The Phoenicians portrayed Astarte with cow horns, representing fertility. The Assyrians and Babylonians pictured her caressing a child. She was associated with the moon and called the Mother of the Universe, giver of all live on Earth. She ruled all spirits of the dead residing in heaven, visible from earth as stars; hence came her name Astroarche, "Queen of the Stars." She was called the mother of souls in heaven, the Moon surrounded by her star-children, to whom she gave their "astral" (starry) bodies. Occultists still refer to the astral body as the invisible double, without remembering the term's original connotation of starlight.
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