TANIT
![](Tanit_ibiza.jpg)
Bust
of Tanit found in the Carthaginian necropolis of Puig des Molins,
dated 4th century BC, housed in the Museum of Puig des Molins in
Ibiza, Spain
Tanit
was a Punic and
Phoenician
goddess, she was the chief deity of Carthage alongside her consort
Baal-Hamon.
She was adopted by the Amazigh people.
Tanit
is also called Tinnit. The name appears to have originated in Carthage
(modern day Tunisia), though it does not appear in local theophorous
names. She was equivalent to the war goddess Astarte, and later
worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis,
Juno Caelestis, or simply Caelestis.
In
modern-day Tunisian Arabic, it is customary to invoke Omek Tannou
or Oumouk Tangou ('Mother Tannou' or 'Mother Tangou', depending
on the region), in years of drought to bring rain. Similarly, Tunisian
and many other spoken forms of Arabic refer to "Baali farming"
to refer to non-irrigated agriculture.
Worship
:
![](CarthageBillion.jpg)
A
Punic coin featuring Tanit, minted in Punic Carthage between 215
and 205 BCE
Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean,
in Sicily, Malta, North Africa, Gades and many other places into
Hellenistic times. From the fifth century BCE onwards, Tanit's worship
is associated with that of Baal Hammon. She is given the epithet
pene baal ('face of Baal') and the title rabat, the female form
of rab ('chief'). In North Africa, where the inscriptions and material
remains are more plentiful, she was, as well as a consort of Baal-hamon,
a heavenly goddess of war, a "virginal" (unmarried) mother
goddess and nurse, and, less specifically, a symbol of fertility,
as are most female forms. Several of the major Greek goddesses were
identified with Tanit by the syncretic interpretatio graeca, which
recognized as Greek deities in foreign guise the gods of most of
the surrounding non-Hellene cultures.
![](398px-Bardo_National_Museum_tanit.jpg)
Tanit
with a lion's head
Her shrine excavated at Sarepta in southern Phoenicia (modern-day
Lebanon) revealed an inscription that has been speculated, but as
of yet not proven, to identify her for the first time in her homeland
and related her securely to the Phoenician goddess Astarte (Ishtar).
One site where Tanit is uncovered is at Kerkouane, in the Cap Bon
peninsula in Tunisia.
Archaeological
evidence :
![](640px-Tunisise_Carthage_Tophet_Salambo_02.jpg)
Stelae
in the Tophet of Salammbó covered by a vault built in the
Roman period
Tophet is a Hebrew term from the Bible, used to refer to a site
near Jerusalem at which Canaanites and Israelites who strayed from
Judaism by practicing Canaanite idolatry were said to sacrifice
children. It is now used as a general term for all such sites with
cremated human and animal remains. The Hebrew Bible does not specify
that the Israelite victims were buried, only burned, although the
"place of burning" was probably adjacent to the place
of burial. We have no idea how the Phoenicians themselves referred
to the places of burning or burial, or to the practice itself.
Several
apparent tophets have been identified, chiefly a large one in Carthage,
dubbed the Tophet of Salammbó, after the neighbourhood where
it was unearthed in 1921. Soil in the Tophet of Salammbó
was found to be full of olive wood charcoal, probably from the sacrificial
pyres. It was the location of the temple of the goddess Tanit and
the necropolis. Animal remains, mostly sheep and goats, found inside
some of the Tophet urns, strongly suggest that this was not a burial
ground for children who died prematurely. The animals were sacrificed
to the gods, presumably in place of children (one surviving inscription
refers to the animal as "a substitute"). It is conjectured
that the children unlucky enough not to have substitutes were also
sacrificed and then buried in the Tophet. The remains include the
bodies of both very young children and small animals, and those
who argue in favor of child sacrifice have argued that if the animals
were sacrificed then so too were the children. The area covered
by the Tophet in Carthage was probably over an acre and a half by
the fourth century BCE, with nine different levels of burials. About
20,000 urns were deposited between 400 BCE and 200 BCE, with the
practice continuing until the early years of the Christian period.
The urns contained the charred bones of newborns and in some cases
the bones of fetuses and two-year-olds. These double remains have
been interpreted to mean that in the cases of stillborn babies,
the parents would sacrifice their youngest child.
A
detailed breakdown of the age of the buried children includes pre-natal
individuals – that is, still births. It is also argued that
the age distribution of remains at this site is consistent with
the burial of children who died of natural causes, shortly before
or after birth. Sergio Ribichini has argued that the Tophet was
"a child necropolis designed to receive the remains of infants
who had died prematurely of sickness or other natural causes, and
who for this reason were "offered" to specific deities
and buried in a place different from the one reserved for the ordinary
dead". He adds that this was probably part of "an effort
to ensure the benevolent protection of the same deities for the
survivors." However, this analysis is disputed; Patricia Smith
and colleagues from the Hebrew University and Harvard University
show from the teeth and skeletal analysis at the Carthage Tophet
that infant ages at death (about two months) do not correlate with
the expected ages of natural mortality (perinatal).
Other
usage :
![](Tophet_Carthage.2.jpg)
Stele
with Tanit's symbol in Carthage's Tophet, including a crescent moon
over the figure
![](tanit.jpg)
Goddess
Tanit Stele
Tanit
with both hands raised represents egyptian symbol Ka. To know more
about Ka and raising hands during prayer Click
here.
Long
after the fall of Carthage, Tanit was still venerated in North Africa
under the Latin name of: Juno Caelestis, for her identification
with the Roman goddess Juno. [unreliable source] The ancient Berber
people of North Africa also adopted the Punic cult of Tanit. Her
symbol (the sign of Tanit), found on many ancient stone carvings,
appears as a trapezium closed by a horizontal line at the top and
surmounted in the middle by a circle; the horizontal arm is often
terminated either by two short upright lines at right angles to
it or by hooks. Later, the trapezium was frequently replaced by
an isosceles triangle. The symbol is interpreted by Danish professor
of Semitic philology F. O. Hvidberg-Hansen as a woman raising her
hands. Hvidberg-Hansen notes that Tanit is sometimes depicted with
a lion's head, showing her warrior quality.
Cultural
references :
In Gustave Flaubert's historical novel Salammbô (1862), the
title character is a priestess of Tanit. Mâtho, the chief
male protagonist, a Libyan mercenary rebel at war with Carthage,
breaks into the goddess's temple and steals her veil.
In
Kate Elliott's Spiritwalker trilogy, a romanticised version of Tanit
is one of many deities commonly worshiped in a polytheistic Europa.
The narrator, Catherine, frequently appeals to "Blessed Tanit,
Protector of Women", and the goddess occasionally appears to
her.
G.
K. Chesterton refers to Tanit in his account of the Punic Wars,
"War of the Gods and Demons" (a chapter of his book The
Everlasting Man). Describing the cultural shock of foreign armies
invading Italy when Hannibal crossed the Alps, Chesterton wrote
:
It
was Moloch upon the mountain of the Latins, looking with his appalling
face across the plain; it was Baal who trampled the vineyards with
his feet of stone; it was the voice of Tanit the invisible, behind
her trailing veils, whispering of the love that is more horrible
than hate.
In
Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin there is an epigraph on a Carthaginian
funerary urn that reads: "I swam, the sea was boundless, I
saw no shore. / Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answered. /
O you who drown in love, remember me."
In
John Maddox Roberts's alternate history novel Hannibal's Children,
in which the Carthaginians won the Second Punic War, one of the
characters is Princess Zarabel, leader of the cult of Tanit.
Isaac
Asimov's 1956 science fiction short story "The Dead Past"
tells of Arnold Potterley, a professor of ancient history, who is
obsessed with exonerating the Carthaginians of child sacrifice and
tries to gain access to the chronoscope, a device which allows direct
observation of past events. Eventually, Potterley's obsession with
the Carthaginian past has far-reaching effects on the society of
the present.
Given
name :
In modern times the name, often with the spelling Tanith, has been
used as a female given name, both for real people and in fiction.
Analysis from outside wikipedia source :
The
Phoenician were Sun worshipping Aryans after the Marriage of Thor
/ Adam / Indra with Eve / Venus / Astarte (Ishtar) who was a Aryan
Goth but raised by The Moon Cult tribe known as Chaldees and Edenites.
The Moon Cult was merged with Sun Cult and Animal and Human sacrifice
were present in Moon cult from which the Sun worshipping Aryans
always kept away.
Since
the site was of Tanit it can be that she is Astarte (Ishtar) and
the Moon Cult tribe known as Chaldees and Edenites did pratice there
animal and human sacrifice.
Source
:
https://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Tanit