Triple Goddess Stone
Qudshu-Astarte-Anat is a representation of a single goddess who is a combination of three goddesses: Qetesh (Athirat "Asherah"), Astarte, and Anat. It was a common practice for Canaanites and Egyptians to merge different deities through a process of synchronization, thereby, turning them into one single entity. The "Triple-Goddess Stone", that was once owned by Winchester College, shows the goddess Qetesh with the inscription "Qudshu-Astarte-Anat", showing their association as being one goddess, and Qetesh (Qudshu) in place of Athirat. The "Triple-Goddess Stone" is considered sacred by some Canaanite Neopagans.
Religious scholar Saul M. Olyan (author of Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel), calls the representation on the Qudshu-Astarte-Anat plaque "a triple-fusion hypostasis", and considers Qudshu to be an epithet of Athirat by a process of elimination, for Astarte and Anat appear after Qudshu in the inscription.
Read more about this topic: Triple Deity
Famous quotes containing the words triple, goddess and/or stone:
“The triple pillar of the world transformed
Into a strumpet’s fool.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The Minoan Snake Goddess is flanked by a Chardin still-life, somber
and tranquil, and by Mohammedan angels
brilliantly clothed and with multicolored wings....”
—Denise Levertov (b. 1923)
“I’m coming home. I remember your saying when I left that people were dying and that I was crapping around with fate to come here. You were more right than you could imagine.”
—Judith Rascoe, U.S. screenwriter, Robert Stone (b. 1939)