Derketo

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Coin of Demetrios III. depicting the Derketo (reverse)

Derketo (Δερκετώ Derketố or Δερκετίς Derketis ) was the main goddess of Ascalon , according to Diodorus , who refers to the lost Persica of Ktesias of Knidos . She had the upper body of a virgin and the lower body of a fish and thus resembles the philistic god Dagān . Sacrifices were made to her at a pond near the city. Fish were sacred to her, and so the people of Ascalon did not eat them. Herodotus ( Historien , I, 105) mentions a heavenly Aphrodite of Ascalon ( Aphrodite Urania), which probably corresponds to the Derketo. The temple of Aphrodite Urania in Ascalon is after Herodotus (I, 105) the oldest temple of this goddess at all. According to the Cypriots, the temples on Cyprus were founded from Askalon, those on Kythera by Phoenicians from the area of ​​Askalon. According to Strabo (XVI, 4,27), Aphrodite Urania is identical with Atargatis . Their Aramaic name is Atarata . Atargatis is sometimes viewed as a combination of the three Syrian goddesses Astarte , Anat and Aschera ( Ugaritic Atiratu) ( Dea Syria ).

According to WF Albright , the name Derketo is derived from the Ugaritic word darkatu , which means rule. Atiratu is also a sea ​​goddess , 'the mistress who walks in the sea'. Derketo's transformation into a fish would go with this. According to another Ugaritic text (RS 24.252) Atiratu is also the 'Queen of Heaven', šamīm ramīm ( Excelsis ). A silver coin of Demetrios III. shows her in the form of a fish, surrounded by ears of grain, which indicate her position as the goddess of fertility.

She is the mother of the legendary Queen Semiramis .

According to the Etymologicum magnum , the Lydian hero Kaistros was the father of Semiramis. According to a tradition from Xanthos ( Athenaios , Deipnos 8, 37) Mopsos Derketo drowned in the sacred lake of Ascalon.

literature

  • Jutta Schöps-Körber: Semiramis. Mistress of Assyria and Babylon . Monsenstein and Vannerdat, Münster 2012, ISBN 978-3-86991-658-3 .
  • WF Albright: Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan , New York 1968.
  • Wilhelm Eilers: Semiramis. Origin and reverberation of an ancient oriental legend , Vienna 1971, ISBN 3-205-03660-3 .
  • T. Kwasman, review of: Mordechai Cogan / Israel Eph'al (ed.), Ah, Assyria ... Studies in Assyrian history and ancient Near Eastern historiography presented to Hayim Tadmor (Scripta Hierosolymitana 33), (Jerusalem 1991) in: Bibliotheca Orientalis 55 (1998) 467 f.
  • CF Lehmann: The historical Semiramis and Herodotus , in: Klio I (1901) 156 ff.
  • W. Nagel: Ninus and Semiramis in legend and history; Iranian states and riding nomads before Darius , Berlin 1982.
  • Giovanni Pettinato: Semiramis. Mistress of Assyria and Babylon . Biography (original title: Semiramide , translated by Robert Steiger), Artemis, Zurich 1988, ISBN 3-7608-0748-8 , with extensive bibliography on p. 309 f; as paperback at dtv, Munich 1991, ISBN 3-423-11402-9 .
  • AH Sayce: The Legend of Semiramis , in: The English Historical Review 3/9, 1888, 104-113.
  • Hartmut Schmökel : Semiramis , in: Die Grosse der Weltgeschichte I , Kindler, Zurich 1971, 194 ff.
  • W. Schramm: Was Semiramis Assyrian Regent? , in: Historia 21 (1972) 513 ff.
  • Moshe Weinfeld: Semiramis: her name and her origin , in: Mordechai Cogan, Israel Eph'al (Ed.): Ah, Assyria ... Studies in Assyrian history and ancient Near Eastern historiography presented to Hayim Tadmor (Scripta Hierosolymitana 33), (Jerusalem 1991), 99-103.