Athirat
ATHIRAT, called Ashiratum or Ashratum in Old Babylonian texts, was a West Semitic goddess, worshiped in Syria in the second millennium BCE and still widely attested in southern Arabia in the mid-first millennium BCE and later. The Old Babylonian spellings of her name—with and without the internal vowel i—show that this vowel was short and could be elided. This is confirmed by the spellings Abdi-Ashirtu and Abdi-Ashratu of the name of the famous Amorite chieftain in the Amarna correspondence from the fourteenth century BCE. The divine name was thus formed on the active participle of ʾṯr, "to walk" or "to tread on." Hence it was rightly explained as "walker" or "trampler."
Sun Goddess
Ashiratum was the consort of Amurrum, as Babylonians were calling the chief deity of the western nomads, the Amorites, and her realm was the steppe. The proper name Ashratum-ummi, "Athirat is my mother," shows how she was regarded by her worshipers. Later mythological texts from Ugarit indicate that she was the mother of the gods. The Gracious Gods Dawn and Sunset, as well as the heir of King Keret in the Ugaritic epic are supposed to suck the milk of Athirat. Since Amurrum was in fact a moon god, his consort was most likely a sun goddess or a particular aspect of the solar deity.
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