No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Mesopotamian or Iranian? A New Investigation on the Origin of the Goddess Anāhitā
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2022
Abstract
Arədvī Sūrā Anāhitā, a popular Zoroastrian yazatā, is celebrated in Yašt 5 (Ābān Yašt). Anāhitā is mostly believed to be an Indo-Iranian or Iranian deity who has absorbed influences from the creed and iconography of Ishtar, the Mesopotamian goddess, in the course of history. The type and the degree of such influences are still under debate. The paper places this goddess into the context of ancient Western Asia. Findings are presented in two sections: in the first section, the Indo-Iranian, Iranian and western Iranian origins of Anāhitā are questioned, and in the following section two points are clarified: first, the Mesopotamian origin for Anāhitā is more consistent with historical and archaeological evidence, and second, Anāhitā is the same as Annunit/Annunitum, Sippar—Amnamum’s goddess of war and victory and the avatar of Antu, who was added to the list of his royal patron deities as a result of political and military developments early in the reign of Artaxerxes II.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2017 Association For Iranian Studies Inc.
References
Abusch, Tzvi. “Ishtar.” In Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, edited by van der Toorn, Karel, Becking, B., and van der Horst, Pieter W., 452–456. 2nd ed. Leiden: Eerdmans, 1999.Google Scholar
Ahmed, Kozad Mohamed. “The Beginnings of Ancient Kurdistan (c. 2500–1500 BC).” PhD diss., Leiden University, 2012.Google Scholar
Anklesaria, B. T. Zand-Ākāsīh. Iranian or Greater Bundahishn: Transliteration and Translation in English. Bombay, 1956.Google Scholar
Back, M. Die sassanidischen Staatsinschriften: Studien zur Orthographie und Phonologie des Mittelpersischen der Inschriften. Acta Iranica 18. Leiden: Brill, 1978.Google Scholar
Barnett, R. D. “Xenophon and the Wall of Media.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies 83, (1963): 1–26. doi: 10.2307/628451CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaulieu, Paul Alain. “Antiquarian Theology in Seleucid Uruk.” Acta Sumerologica 14 (1992): 47–75.Google Scholar
Beaulieu, Paul Alain. “Theological and Philological Speculations on the Names of the Goddess Antu.” Orientalia 64 (1995): 187–213.Google Scholar
Beaulieu, Paul Alain. The Pantheon of Uruk During the Neo-Babylonian Period. Cuneiform Monographs: 23. Leiden, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beaulieu, Paul Alain. “Mesopotamian Antiquarianism from Sumer to Babylon”. In World Antiquarianism: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Schnapp, A. et al., 121–139. Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute.Google Scholar
Beck, R. The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Benveniste, E. The Persian Religion according to the Chief Greek Texts. Ratanbai Katrak Lectures. Paris, 1929.Google Scholar
Bounni, A., and Teixidore, J. Inventaire des inscriptions de Palmyre. XII. Damascus, 1975.Google Scholar
Boyce, M. “The Lady and the Scribe: Some Further Reflections on Anahit and Tir.” In A Green Leaf. Papers in Honour of Professor Jes P. Asmussen, edited by Duchesne-Guillemin, J., Sundermann, W., and Vahman, F., 277–282. Acta Iranica 28. Hommageset Opera Minora 12. Leiden: Brill, 1988.Google Scholar
Boyce, M., and Grenet, Frantz. A History of Zoroastrianism, III: Zoroastrianism under Macedonian and Roman Rule. Handbuch der Orientalistik, erste Abteilung: Der Nahe und Mittlere Osten, vol. 8.1.2.2.3. Leiden: Brill, 1991.Google Scholar
Boyce, M., Chaumont, M. L., and Bier, C. “ANĀHĪD.” Encyclopaedia Iranica. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Vol. I, Fasc. 9 (1983): 1003–1011. http://www.iranicaonline.org.Google Scholar
Brosius, M. “Artemis Persike and Artemis Anaitis.” In Studies in Persian History: Essays in Memory of David M. Lewis. Achaemenid History 11, edited by Brosius, M. and Kuhrt, A., 227–238. Leiden, 1998.Google Scholar
Collins, Paul. “The Sumerian Goddess Inanna (3400–2200 BC)”. Papers from Institute of Archaeology 5 (1994): 103–118. doi: 10.5334/pia.57CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornelius, Izak. “Aspects of the Iconography of the Warrior Goddess Ishtar and Ancient Near Eastern Prophecies.” In Images and Prophecy in the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean (FRLANT 233), edited by Nissinen, M. and Carter, C. E., 15–40. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalley, Stephanie. Myths from Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others, Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Dijkstra, Klaas. Life and Loyalty: A Study in the Socio-religious Culture of Syria and Mesopotamia in the Graeco-Roman Period based on Epigraphical Evidence. Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 128. Leiden: Brill, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duchesne-Guillemin, J. La religion de l’Iran ancient. 1962. Translated into Persian by Monajjem, Ro’ya [Dīn-e Irān-e Bāstān]. Tehran: Elm Press, 1385/2006.Google Scholar
Duchesne-Guillemin, J. “Iran and Greece in Commagene”. In Etudes mithriaques: Actes du 2e Congrès international, Téhéran, du 1er au 8 septembre 1975, 187–199. Acta Iranica 17. Leiden: Téhéran-Liège, 1978.Google Scholar
Dumezil, G. Tarpeia: cinq essais de philologie comparative indoeuropenne. Collection “Les Mythes Romains.” Vol. 3. Paris: Galimard, 1947.Google Scholar
Fleming, Fergus, and Lothian, Alan. The Way to Eternity: Egyptian Myth. London: Duncan Baird, 1997.Google Scholar
Garrison, M. B. “Visual Representation of Divine and the Numinous in Early Achaemenid Iran: Old Problems, New Directions”. In Iconography of Deities and Demons in the Ancient Near East, edited by Eggler, J. and Uehlinger, Ch., 2009. http://www.religionswissenschaft.unizh.ch/idd/prepublications/e_idd_iran.pdf.Google Scholar
Gershevitch, I. The Avestan Hymn to Mithra. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959.Google Scholar
Gnoli, G. “Politica religiosa e concezione della regalita sotto gli Achemenidi”. In Gururajamanjarika: Studi in onore di Giuseppe Tucci 1, 23–88. Napoli: IUO, 1974.Google Scholar
Gnoli, G. “Politique religieuse et conception de la royauté sous les Achéménides.” In Commemoration Cyrus: actes du congres de Shiraz 1971 et autres etudes, redigees a l’occasion du 2500e anniversaire de la fondation de l’empire perse, edited by Duchesne-Guillemin, J. and Lecoq, P., 117–190. Acta Iranica 2. Leiden, 1974.Google Scholar
Gnoli, G. The Idea of Iran. An Essay on Its Origin, Serie Oriental Roma LXII. Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1989.Google Scholar
Gnoli, G. “Iranian identity ii. Pre-Islamic Period”. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2006. http://www.iranicaonline.org.Google Scholar
Goviri, S. “Anāhitā, Izadbāūiee az tabār-e khodāyān” [Anahita, the goddess from the deities’ descent]. Chistā, no. 89–90 (1371/1992): 1012–1042.Google Scholar
Hansman, J. F. “The Great Gods of Elymais.” In Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, 229–246. Acta Iranica 24. Paris, 1985.Google Scholar
Harper, R. P. “A Dedication to the Goddess Anaitis at Ortakӧy, North of Aksaray, (Nitalis?).” Anatolian Studies 17 (1967): 193. doi: 10.2307/3642449CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, Rivkah. Ancient Sippar: A Demographic Study of an Old-Babylonian City (1894–1595 B.C.). Leiden: Nederlands Historisch-archaeologisch Instituut te Istanbul, 1975.Google Scholar
Heimpel, W. “A Catalog of Near Eastern Venus Deities”. Syro-Mezopotamian Studies 4, no. 3 (1982): 9–22.Google Scholar
Henkelman, W. F. M. “The Other Gods Who Are. Studies in Elamite-Iranian Acculturation Based on the Persepolis Fortification Texts”. PhD diss., University of Leiden, 2006.Google Scholar
Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Waterfield, Robin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, G. Auszuge aus syrischen Akten persicher Martyrer. Abhandlungen fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes. VII.3. Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1880.Google Scholar
Humbach, H., and Skjærvø, P. O. The Sassanian Inscription of Paikuli, Part 3.1: Restored Text and Translation. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1983.Google Scholar
Jacobsen, T. “Ancient Mesopotamian Religion: The Central Concerns”. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107 (1963): 473–484.Google Scholar
Kellens, J. “Questions préalables”. In La religion iranienne à l’époque achéménide, edited by Kellens, J., 81–86. Iranica Antiqua Supplément V. Gent, 1991.Google Scholar
Kent, R. G. Old Persian: Grammar, texts, Lexicon. American Oriental series 33. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 1950.Google Scholar
Kerr, Sam. “An-āhītəm: Purity undefiled—A Primal Spiritual Tradition in the Way of Life among the Indo-Iranian Peoples”. In Anahita Persian Goddess and Zoroastrian Yazata, edited by Nabarz, P., 73–83. Avalonia, 2011.Google Scholar
Korn, A. “Lengthening of i and u in Persian.” In Exegisti monumenta. Festschrift in Honour of Nicholas Sims-William, edited by Sundermann, W., Hintze, A., and de Blois, F., 197–213. Iranica 17. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2009.Google Scholar
Kosmetatou, E. “Cistophori and Cista Mystica. A New Interpretation of the Early Cistophoric Types”. Revue Belge de Numismatique 144 (1998): 11–19.Google Scholar
Kuhrt, Amélie. “The Problem of Achaemenid ‘Religious Policy.’” In Die Welt der Götterbilder, edited by Groneberg, B. and Spieckermann, H., 117–142. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007.Google Scholar
Kuz’mina, E. E. The Origin of the Indo-Iranians, edited by Mallory, J. P. Leiden: Brill, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, W. G. “Old Testament Mythology in its Ancient Near Eastern Context”. In Congress Volume: Jerusalem, Vetus Testamentum Supp, edited by Emerton, J. A., 124–143. Leiden, 1986.Google Scholar
Lambert, W. G. “Ishtar of Nineveh.” Iraq, no. 66 (2004): 35–39. doi: 10.1017/S0021088900001595CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lamberg-Karlovsky, C. C. “Archaeology and Language: The Indo-Iranians.” Current Anthropology 43, no. 1 (2002): 63–88. doi: 10.1086/324130CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Langdon, Stephen. Tammuz and Ishtar: A Monograph upon Babylonian Religion and Theology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914.Google Scholar
Lecoq, P. Les inscriptions de la Perse achéménide. L’Aube Des Peuples. Paris: Gallimard, 1997.Google Scholar
Lommel, H. “Anahita–Sarasvati.” In Asiatica: Festschrift Friedrich Weller Zum 65, edited by Schubert, Johannes and Schneider, Ulrich, 405–413. Geburtstag: Otto Harrassowitz, 1954.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Lina. “Two Cities of Sippar: Tell Abu-Habbah and Tell ed-Der.” MA diss., Stony Brook University, 2006.Google Scholar
MacDowall, D. W. “The Role of Mitra among the Deities of the Kushạ̄ṇa Coinage”. In Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, edited by Hinnells, R., 142–151. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Majidzādeh, Y. Tarīkh va Tamadon-e Ilām [History and civilization of Elam]. Tehran: Markaz-e Nashr-e Daneshgāhī, 1370/1991.Google Scholar
Malandra, W.W. An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion, Reading from the Avesta and Achaemenid Inscriptions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Meyer, E. “Anaitis”. In Ausführliches Lexicon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie. Vol. 1, edited by Roscher, W. H., 330–334. Leipzig, 1884–86.Google Scholar
Moulton, J. H. Early Zoroastrianism, The Hibbert Lectures 1912. London, 1913, repr. 1972.Google Scholar
Nissinen, M. “Akkadian Rituals and Poetry of Divine Love”. In Mythology and Mythologies: Methodological Approaches to Intercultural Influences, Proceeding of the Second Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project Held in Paris, France October 4–7, 1999, Melammu Symposia 2, edited by Whiting, R., 93–36. Helsinki, 2001.Google Scholar
Nyberg, H. S. Die Religionen des Alten Iran. Translated from Swedish into German by Schaeder, H. H. Leipzig, 1938; reprint 1966.Google Scholar
Oikonomides, A. N. “Artemis Medeia: An Unpublished Funerary Stele in the J. P. Getty Museum”. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 45 (1982): 115–118.Google Scholar
Origen. Contra Celsum. Translated by Chadwick, Henry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Pirart, É. “Avestique hīm”. Syntaxe des langues indo-iraniennes anciennes, Aula Orientalis Supplementa 6, 143–160. Barcelona, 1997.Google Scholar
Piras, Andrea. “Mesopotamian Sacred Marriage and Pre-Islamic Iran”. In Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development of Modern Historiography. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Ravenna, October 13-17, 2001, edited by Panaino, A. and Piras, A., 249–259. Milano: Universita di Bologna and Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente, 2004.Google Scholar
Plato. Timaeus. Translated with introduction by Zeyl, D. J. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000.Google Scholar
Radner, K. “A Median Sanctuary at Bit-Ištar”. In Continuity of Empire (?) Assyria, Media, Persia. Proceeding of the Internatinal Meeting in Padova, 26th–28th April 2001, edited by Lanfranchi, G. B., Roaf, M., and Rollinger, R., 119–130. History of the Ancient Near East. Monographs 5. Padova: S.A.R.G.O.N. Editrice & Libreria, 2003.Google Scholar
Rapp, A. “Die Religion und Sitte der Perser und übrigen Iranier nach den griechischen und römischen Quellen”. Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (1865): 1–89.Google Scholar
Rawlinson, H. C. “The Persian Cuneiform Inscription at Behistun, Decyphered and Translated, with a Memoir on Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions in General, and on that of Behistun in Particular”. JRAS 10, no. 1 (Sept. 1846) [copy, transcription with interlinear Latin translation, English translation, epigraphic notes, chapters I–II]; 10, no. 2 (1847) [chapter III and supplementary note]; 10, no. 3 (July 1847) [chapters IV–V]; 11, no. 1 (1849) [chapter VI]; 12, no. 2 (1850): I–XXI [epigraphic corrigenda] (1846–7).Google Scholar
Reiner, Erica. “The Elamite Language”. In Altkleinasiatische Sprachen, edited by Spuler, B., 54–118. Handbuch der Orientalistik, I 2.1. Leiden: Brill, 1969.Google Scholar
Ricl, Marijana. “The Cult of the Iranian Goddess Anāhitā in Anatolia before and after Alexander”. Živa Antika 52 (2002): 197–210.Google Scholar
Roberts, J. J. M. The Earliest Semitic Pantheon. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1972.Google Scholar
Rogers, J. H. “Origin of the Ancient Constellations II: The Mediterranean Traditions”. Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108, no. 2 (1998): 79–89.Google Scholar
Russell, James. R. Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Harvard Iranian Series 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Saadi-nejad, Manya. “Iranian Goddesses”. In Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present, edited by Foltz, Richard, 56–74. London: Oneworld, 2013.Google Scholar
Saadi-nejad, Manya. “Arəduuī Sūrā Anāhitā: An Indo-European River Goddess”. Analytica Iranica 4–5 (2013): 253–274.Google Scholar
Sasson, Jack M. “The Posting of Letters with Divine Messages.” In Florilegium Marianum 2: Recueil d’études à la mémoire de Maurice Birot (Mémoires de N.A.B.U., 3), edited by Charpin, D. and Durand, J. M., 299–316. Paris: Nouvelles assyriologiques Brèves et Utilitaires, 1994.Google Scholar
Sasson, Jack M. “King Hammurabi of Babylon”. In Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, edited by Sasson, Jack, 901–915. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1995.Google Scholar
Schwartz, M. “The Religion of Achaemenian Iran.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, II, edited by Gershevitch, I., 664–697. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selz, G. J. “Five Divine Ladies: Thoughts on Inana(k), Ištar, In(n)in(a), Annunitum, and Anat, and the Origin of the Title ‘Queen of Heaven’”. NIN: Journal of Gender Studies in Antiquity 1 (2000): 29–61.Google Scholar
Shaked, S. Dualism in Transformation: Varieties of Religion in Sasanian Iran. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1994.Google Scholar
Sherwin-White, S. M. “Median’ Artemis in an Early Hellenistic Funerary Inscription”. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 49 (1982): 30.Google Scholar
Sims-Williams, N. “The Inscription of Rabatak Describes”. Silk Road Art and Archaeology 4, Kamakura (1995/96): 75–142.Google Scholar
Skjærvø, P. O. “Persia and the Bible—Yamauchi, EM”. Review of book Persia and the Bible, by E. M. Yamauchi. Journal of the American Oriental Society 114, no. 3 (1994): 499–504. doi: 10.2307/605115CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skjærvø, P. O. Introduction to Zoroastrianism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Near Eastern Languages, 2005.Google Scholar
Strabo. The Geography of Strabo. Translated by Leonard Jones, Horace. Vol. 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961.Google Scholar
Ṭabarī, Mohammad b. Jarīr. Tārīkh al-Rusul wa-al-mulūk [The history of the prophets and kings]. Vol. II. Translated into Persian by Pāyandeh, Abolqāsem. Tehran: Asātir Publication, 1362/1983.Google Scholar
Tacitus, Cornelius. The Annals. Translated by Church, A. J. and Brodribb, W. J. New York: Random House, 1942.Google Scholar
Tavernier, J. “Iranians in Neo-Elamite Texts”. In Elam and Persia, edited by Álvarez-Mon, J. and Garrison, M. B., 191–261. Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuplin, Christopher. “The Limits of Persianization: Some Reflections on Cultural Links in the Persian Empire”. In Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by Gruen, E. S., 150–182. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2011.Google Scholar
Turner, Patricia, and Coulter, Charles Russell. Dictionary of Ancient Deities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Vallat, F. “Elamite Religion”. Encyclopaedia Iranica, 8 (1998): 335–342. http://www.iranicaonline.org.Google Scholar
Van Binsbergen, W. M. J. “With Black Athena into the Third Millennium CE?”. In Proceedings of the XVth International Congress of Classical Archaeology, Amsterdam, July 12–17, 1998: Classical Archaeology towards the Third Millennium: Reflections and Perspectives: Text, edited by Docter, R. E. and Moormann, E. M., 425–427. Allard Pierson Series, 12. Amsterdam: Allard Pierson Musueum, 1999.Google Scholar
Van der Spek, Robartus J. “Darius III, Alexander the Great and Babylonian Scholarship.” In A Persian Perspective: Essays in Memory of Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg, Achaemenid History XIII, edited by Henkelman, W. F. M. and Kuhrt, A., 289–346. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 2003.Google Scholar
Van Wyk, Susandra J. “A New Translation of an Old Babylonian Sippar Division Agreement between Brothers and a Sister Regarding their Communally-shared Inheritance”. Journal for Semitics 22, no. 2 (2013): 302–342.Google Scholar
Watson, Wilfred G. E. “The Goddess of Ugarit: A Survey”. Studiepigrafici e Linguistici 10 (1993): 47–59.Google Scholar
Weller, Hermann. “Anahita, Grundlegendes zur Arischen Metrik, Yašt V metrisch herausgegeben, übersetzt und erklärt”. Veröffentlichungen des Orientalischen Seminars der Universität Tübingen. Abhandlungen zur Orientalischen Philologie und zur allgemeinen Religionsgeschichte 9. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1938.Google Scholar
Westenholz, A. “Personal Names in Ebla and in Pre-Sargonic Babylonia”. In Eblaite Personal Names and Semitic Name-Giving, edited by Archi, A., 99–117. Archivi Real di Ebla, Studi 1. Rome: Missione archeological italiano in Siria, 1988.Google Scholar
Westenholz, J. G. “Inanna and Ishtar in the Babylonian World”. In The Babylonian World, edited by Leick, G., 332–347. New York: Routledge, 2007.Google Scholar
Witzel, M. “Autochthonous Aryans? The Evidence from Old Indian and Iranian Texts”. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 7, no. 3 (2001): 1–115.Google Scholar
Yarshater, E. “Iranian National History”. In Cambridge History of Iran III, edited by Yarshater, E., 359–447. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.Google Scholar