The intercultural Dynamics troughout the ancient Mediterranean. A comparative Study of the Goddesses Athena and 'Anath

THE INTERCULTURAL DYNAMICS THROUGHOUT THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN. A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE GODDESSES ATHENA AND 'ANATH.

This PhD research project aims to contribute to the intercultural and religious transfer throughout the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age (1400[1]-1200[2])[3]. By means of an extensive comparison of the profiles of ‘Anath from Ugarit and the Ancient Greek Athena, this study examines all possible parallels between those two goddesses by reading and comparing the Late Bronze epic texts from Ugarit with ancient Greek texts. The purpose of this essay is to reveal a cultural transfer of religious features.

The city state of Ugarit, Ras Shamra in actual Syria, became rich, strong and prosperous throughout the Late Bronze Age.[4]The importance of Ugarit developed together with the growing political and commercial importance. Ugaritic architecture, art and literature became an example of beauty and wealth for the Eastern Mediterranean World. The Ugaritic pantheon seems to have been home to a large number of gods and goddesses. The many publications on Ugaritic religion focus more on Asherah and Astarte. This PhD project decided to follow the goddess ‘Anath, who seems to resemble Athena both in name and function.

Various translations[5] help us to approach the Ugaritic literary corpus.[6] Secondary literature on religion in Ugarit[7] is voluminous. A large number of publications - about the cultural transfer of gods and goddesses throughout the ages,[8] about female deities in Ugarit,[9] on ‘Anath[10] and her iconography-[11] guides the academic searcher of Ugarit.

Recent publications have demonstrated the goddess Athena in her function and surrounding.[12] S. Noegel[13] has made an important contribution to the study of the influence form the Ancient Near East on Greek religion, but he has only briefly summarized the Bronze Age. Burkert has made a comparison of Homeros’ Ilias with the myths of Mesopotamia.[14] Noegel describes the connection between myth and cult in Ancient Greece as different from religious life in the Ancient Near East. He puts forward the hypothesis that the Greek epic literature was much more stylised than the Sumerian and Akkadian epic texts which had a cultic function. [15] A comparative study of Athena and her Levantine college, however, has not yet been published.[16]

The proposed method used to examine the subject of this PhD thesis consists of an extensive comparison by means of a series of questions around features, responsibilities, activities, behavior and surrounding of the goddesses ‘Anath and Athena. The resulting profiles of the two goddesses, in texts as well as in iconography, will be showed in clearly presented tables and statistics. Throughout this focus on those two main figures of the Ugaritic and Ancient Greek culture, this research project focuses on the cultural and religious transfer in the Eastern Mediterranean.

After this introduction with an overview of the status quaestionis and proposed method, Part One offers an extensive analysis of the epic texts in which ‘Anath plays a considerable role: the story of Aqhat,the epic of Ba’al and the small scale text, ‘Anath and the Heifer. The results of this text analysis will be compared with the iconography of the Ugaritic goddesses. By means of the same series of questions, this section provides us with a clear understanding of the goddess ‘Anath.

Part Two concentrates on the goddess Athena from Ancient Greek throughout Homer’ Iliad. Homer described gods, goddesses and heroes of the Trojan War, which occurred during the late Bronze Age. The same method, comparing texts and iconography, explores in this Part Two the profile of Athena.

Part Three brings together the several results of the previous analyses and compares in tables and statistics the characteristics of the two goddesses, ‘Anath and Athena.

The purpose of this research project is to answer the following questions: Ἀnath from Ugarit and Athena from the ancient Greek religion, do they have specific shared characteristics? What does Athena still have in common with her precursor from Ugarit?

This paper is intended to contribute to the debate around gods and goddesses who traversed narratives and borders throughout the ages, who transcended both time and space.

[1] Important literary creations from Ugarit: around 1350 BCA.

[2] Destruction of Ugarit: 21 Jan 1192 BCA.

[3] Numerous publications about this Age and Region: some of them: BRETSCHNEIDER & VAN LERBERGHE (2014). BUCHHOLZ (1999); CROWLEY (1989); DIETRICH & LORETZ (1995); LANDAU (2010). MATTHÄUS (2014); NOEGEL (2005).

[4] WATSON & WYATT, Handbook of Ugaritic Studies, Brill, Leiden-Boston-Köln (1999).

[5] BORDREUIL & PARDEE (2004) ; CAQUOT, de Tarragon & CUNCHILLOS. (1974); DEL OLMO LETE ( 1998); DE MOOR (1987); GORDON (1949); PARDEE (2002); PARKER (1997); WYATT (2002).

[6] DIETRICH, M., LORETZ, O. & SANMARTIN, J., The Cuneiform alphabetic Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and Other Places, ALASP 8, Ugarit-Verlag, Münster, 1995; CUNCHILLOS, J.L., VITA, J.P.& ZAMORA, J.A., Ugaritic Databank, Madrid (2003).

[7] In all the above mentioned translations: religous interpretation: KHADDOUR, Lina (Husamo) (2013).

[8] DEMSKY (1997); KARAGEORGHIS (1976); SHÄFER-LICHTENBERGER (2000); NOEGEL (2007).

[9] JULOUX (2013); Burkert (2004).

[10] BARNETT (1978); CAQUOT, (1980);DAY (1992); GRAY (1979); LORETZ (1989); SMITH (1995); VIRROLEAUD (1936), (1937); (1939): WALLS (1992)

[11] BARNET (1978); CORNELIUS (1993).

[12] DEACY (1995) & DEACY (2005); DEACY & VILLING ( 2001). HERINGTON (1955).

[13] In: A Companion to Greek Religion, OGDEN (ed.) (2007)

[14] BURKERT (1991, 1992:88–93, 2005a); BURKERT (2004); ABUSCH (2001); ROLLINGER (1996); WEST, (1997).

[15]  FONTENROSE (1966); STEINER (1971).

[16] Publication about the black Athena: BERNAL (1987).