ributes of the
goddess. She remained Istar, without any feminine suffix, and it was
never forgotten that she was the evening-star.

It was otherwise in the West. There Istar became Ashtoreth with the
feminine termination, and passed eventually into a Moon-goddess "with
crescent horns." Ashtoreth-Karnaim, "Ashtoreth with the two horns," was
already in existence in the age of Abraham. In Babylonia the Moon-god of
ancient Sumerian belief had never been dethroned; but there was no
Moon-god in Canaan, and accordingly the transformation of the Babylonian
goddess into "the queen of the night" was a matter of little difficulty.

Once domesticated in Palestine, with her name so changed as to declare
her feminine character, Ashtoreth soon tended to lose her independence.
Just as there were Baalim or "Baals" by the side of Baal, so there were
Astaroth or "Ashtoreths" by the side of Ashtoreth.

The Semites of Babylonia themselves had already begun the work of
transformation. They too spoke of Istarat or "Istars," and used the word
in the general sense of "goddesses." In Canaan, however, Ashtaroth had
no such general meaning, but denoted simply the various Ashtoreths who
were worshipped in different localities, and under different titles. The
individual Ashtoreth of Gebal was separate from the individual Ashtoreth
of Bashan, although they alike represented the same divine personality.

It is true that even in the West Istar did not always become the
feminine complement of Baal. Here and there the old form of the name was
preserved, without any feminine suffix. But when this was the case, the
necessary result was that the female character of the deity was
forgotten. Istar was conceived of as a god, and accordingly on the
Moabite Stone Ashtar is identified with Chemosh, the patron-god of
Mesha, just as in Southern Arabia also Atthar is a male divinity.

The worship of Ashtoreth absorbed that of the other goddesses of Canaan.
Among them there was one who had once occupied a very prominent place.
This was Asherah, the goddess of fertility, whose name is written Asirtu
and Asratu in the tablets of Tel el-Amarna. Asherah was symbolized by a
stem stripped of its branches, or an upright cone of stone, fixed in the
ground, and the symbol and the goddess were at times confounded
together. The symbol is mistranslated "grove" in the Authorized Version
of the Old Testament, and it often stood by the side of the altar of
Baal. We find it thus