Phoenician Goddess Who Protected Sailors (Guardamar, Spain)

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billd89
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Phoenician Goddess Who Protected Sailors (Guardamar, Spain)

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This interests me because I suppose Hathor travelled with (Proto-)Jewish merchants in Antiquity to trade-sites around the Mediterranean:

1) Some Egyptian 'Proto-Jews' were known to worship the 'Queen of Heaven' (Astarte) according to Jeremiah (650 BC; perhaps closer to 450 BC).
2) The Hebrew 'Queen of Heaven' (c.650-550 BC) is from the same time-period as this Spanish archaeological site's findings.
3) If some 'Proto-Jews' were Phoenician-Egyptian traders/sailors who worshipped Astarte, they would visit a Temple or Sanctuary of 'Astarte' at places like Guardamar.
4) Evidence of an Phoenician-Egyptian goddess ('Astarte') at a Western Mediterranean site suggests at least the possibility of a Judaic network of traders long before the First C. AD. Such mariners may not have identified strongly with Yahu-Baal, c.500 BC.
5) Philo Judaeus was the scion of perhaps the richest shipping magnate family in the world, probably wealthy before his father's generation (50 BC). We may safely assume a Judeo-Egyptian merchant marine or 'Jewish' Mediterranean network existed far back in time, before 150 BC.
6) The expulsion of the Isiac cult with Jews (19 AD) suggests heterodox Jews were long resident in Italy (before 150 BC), worshipping Isis?

This “mother archetype” or 'Goddess of Ten Thousand Names' was worshipped in Piraeus by Egyptian merchants c.450 BC; Egypto-Semitic merchants stayed close to their own. Before Philo's day, the 'Lady of Abundance' or 'Goddess Who Guides' was associated by Alexandrian mariners with Agathe Tyche, goddess of Alexandria and consort to Agathodaimon; this is also 'Isis-Tyche.' The persistence of this goddess - and strong likelihood She was worshipped by some heterodox Jews of the Diaspora fairly late, into the Roman Period - is relevant in consideration of archaeological materials and sites where Semitic and Jewish mariners traded.

Since (some) 'Jews' were known to be associate with Egyptian Mystery cults, we may find the answer why in Proto-Jewish mariners' ancient affiliation to "Isis" (c.250 BC) and much earlier in Coastal Egypt (under whatever name, e.g. Hathor, Ashtoreth, etc.) Therefore, Egyptian Semite mariners (c.500 BC) probably worshipped Astarte/Ashtoreth at distant Mediterranean sites like this.

https://english.elpais.com/culture/2022 ... astle.html

The authors maintain that the Astarte temple in Alicante {c.600 BC} didn’t change its affiliation with the passage of the centuries, “despite the fact that because of the heterogenous origins of the sailors that would have passed through here one might suppose the existence of hybridizations or some other kind of modification. The sacred value of the place must have stayed unchangeable during centuries,” although the Phoenician goddess ended up becoming the “goddess of the Iberians, the Tanit of the Carthaginians and a winged goddess from the beginning of the Roman Empire.”

Astarte, the goddess of the sea, was “Venus, the star that guides in the night because it’s the first that appears in the sky at sunset: goddess of the skies, of war, of sailing and fundamentally, of fertility and carnal love, but also of the magical and sacred use of water.” And they conclude: “In the area near the deposit we haven’t found grand urban structures dating before the Third Century BC, precisely because the center was the selfsame sanctuary, which functioned as the main space for cohesion in the region,” and everything was presided over by the goddess who protected the sailors, who all those carried with them as long as the pyre burned.

Egyptian-styled headdress noted, c.550 BC:
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'Egyptian' Isis in Graeco-Roman variant, c.125 AD (note headdress):
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The discovery of a terracotta fragment that belonged to a veiled female figure with a typical Hathoric hairstyle (corresponding to Egyptian goddesses) and a terracotta head with an Egyptian headdress confirmed the suspicions. The first is a figure with its arms crossed over its chest, with almond eyes, forehead wrinkles and ear shape that suggest images of the Phoenician goddess. It’s dated between the seventh and sixth centuries BC. The head, on the other hand, has a long neck topped by an Egyptian headdress and a hairstyle that also corresponds to the image of the goddess. “These pieces, interpreted as stoppers for sacred vessels in one case, were used in the eastern sanctuaries as votive offerings between the ninth and eight centuries BC.

Egyptian variants:
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As 'Nude Aphrodite' on this Alexandrian gold bracelet, c.25 BC?
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Canaanite-Phoenician variants:
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Phoenician-Egyptian Astarte = Queen of the Heavens (Jeremiah 7:18; 44:17-25.)
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