Translations:The Pantheon of Qedar/4/en

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The worship of Atarsamain was widespread among Arab tribes except in Nabataea. Atarsamain ("Morning Star of Heaven" عثتر سمين), which I will now call by the more accurate Arabic ʿAṯtart Samay (عثترة السمي/السماء), is associated with Venus. Some have proposed that Athtart Samay could be equivalent to Allat but this identification is difficult because under Hellenistic influence Allāt was identified with Athena/Minerva and not Aphrodite/Venus. But before the Hellenistic era Herodotus does identify Her with Aphrodite: "They believe in no other gods except Dionysus and the Heavenly Aphrodite... They call Dionysus, Orotalt; and Aphrodite, Alilat." (Histories, Book 3) Herodotus also associates Astarte with Heavenly Aphrodite saying: "The great goddess (Mother of Heaven and Earth) worshipped by Eastern nations under various names—Mylitta in Assyria, Astarte in Phoenicia: called Heavenly Aphrodite, or simply the Heavenly One, by the Greeks." (Histories, Book 1) The identification of Allāt with Astarte and thus Heavenly Aphrodite is found in Palmyra where Arab families would sometimes invoke their patron deity as Allāt, and sometimes as Astarte/Ishtar.