Astarte

(religion, spiritualism, and occult)

Astarte, asteroid 672 (the 672nd asteroid to be discovered, on September 21, 1908), is approximately 19 kilometers in diameter and has an orbital period of 4.1 years. Astarte was named after the Middle Eastern goddess, roughly equivalent to Venus, also known as Ishtar. J. Lee Lehman associates Astarte with Venus and Aphrodite (divinities of sex and fertility), asserting that this asteroid is more “primal” than the other two. Jacob Schwartz gives the astrological significance of Astarte as “expressing primal population controls through fertility and war.”

Sources:

Kowal, Charles T. Asteroids: Their Nature and Utilization. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Ellis Horwood Limited, 1988.

Lehman, J. Lee. The Ultimate Asteroid Book. West Chester, PA: Whitford Press, 1988.

Room, Adrian. Dictionary of Astronomical Terms. London: Routledge, 1988.

Schwartz, Jacob. Asteroid Name Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 1995.

Astarte

beautiful goddess of fertility and sexual love. [Phoenician Myth.: Zimmerman, 33]

See: Beauty, Feminine

Astarte

goddess of fecundity. [Phoenician Myth.: Jobes, 144]

See: Fertility

Astarte

(Ashtoreth) personification of moon in crescent stage. [Phoenician Myth.: Brewer Dictionary, 726–727]

See: Moon

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Astarte

Greek name for the principal Phoenician goddess Ashtart.

Astarte was worshipped as an earthly goddess of fertility, motherhood, and love and also as a celestial deity. Sidon and Ugarit were the centers of the Astarte cult. The Sidonian kings were sometimes also the high priests of Astarte. Veneration of Astarte spread to Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Carthage, and elsewhere. Characteristic of the Astarte cult was the presence of hieratic priestesses who practiced so-called holy prostitution (hierodules). Astarte was usually depicted as a naked woman, sometimes with cow’s horns on her head.

M. L. GEL’TSER

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Jud., VIII, 146) relata como Hiram, rei de Tiro contemporaneo a Salomao, mandou derrubar templos antigos e colocou nos seus lugares novos, em honra a Heracles e a Astarte. O mesmo rei teria sido o primeiro a celebrar o despertar (egersis) de Heracles no mes peritios (fevereiro-marco).

Phoenician-Punic games/Jogos fenicio-punicos

This narrative, together with Lady Byron's archive and her grandson's portrait in Astarte, provided Julia Markus with the rich materials for this compelling feminist defense of a remarkable woman.

From scandal to recovery

Exposicoes individuais realizadas na Galeria SCQ (Santiago de Compostela, 1998 e 2002), Galeria Astarte (Madrid, 2005), Espaco T (Porto, 2010) ou a intervencion realizada no MARCO (Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo, 2010/2011) entre outras.

Editing committee & academic peers--biographic notes/Notas biograficas--conselho editorial & comissao cientifica

No feeding habit was dominating, and a mixture of suspension feeders (e.g., the mollusc Astarte elliptica), predators (e.g., the polychaete Aphrodita aculeata), and subsurface deposit feeders (e.g., Macoma calcarea) was recorded in these sites.

Identification of fine-scale marine benthic ecoclines by multiple parallel ordination

Luciano relata e descreve inumeros templos (construidos por assirios, fenicios e egipcios) dedicados a essas deusas que, a depender do local, recebiam o nome de Hera, Astarte, Afrodite, Europa, Selene, Semiramis etc.

"Os deuses nao ficarao escandalizados": ascendencias e reminiscencias de femininos subversivos no sagrado

Rather, they are called forth in the hope that they might help him absolve himself of the crime which has deprived him of his elevated existence--his implication in the death of his beloved, Astarte; one who is disturbingly like himself:

Unexorcised conscience: the Byronic complex of Maldoror

In these objects, he discerns a fleeting blue and green gaze that he associates with the Semitic goddess Astarte. He initially pursues this look in the eyes of the mime Willi Stephenson--"beaute d'echafaud" (75)--and of the dancer Ize Kranile, who is repeatedly compared to Salome.

Reading Hoffmann: Mythmaking and Uncanniness in Jean Lorrain's Monsieur de Phocas

In its most vivid segments, the film captures the spirit of the 1960s and '70s when the youth rebellion, fueled by resistance to the Vietnam War and the rise of pop culture, brilliantly paralleled the revivals of Kurt Jooss' antiwar ballet The Green Table and Leonide Massine's dadaist Parade, and the premieres of Joffrey's psychedelic Astarte and Arpino's rock-lest Trinity.

Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance

Fantastic (Gothic) elements appear in The Thirteen Problems, "A Christmas Tragedy," "The Bloodstained Pavement" or "The Idol House Astarte." In those novels where the head of the family is murdered (Crooked House, Ordeal by Innocence), the transitional period is informed by a Bakhtinian carnivalesque, and the emergent, new social order is dependent on the detective's successful investigation.

Fantastic Liminality