Tanit

Tanit or Tinnit (Punic: 𐤕𐤍𐤕 Tīnnīt^[3]) was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage; she derives from a local Berber deity and the consort of Baal Hammon.^[a][5][6] As Ammon is a local Libyan deity,^[7] so is Tannit, who represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society,^[2] whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena.^[8][b][c][2] She was the goddess of wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection^[9][10] her main temples in Thinissut (Bir Bouregba, Tunisia), Cirta (Constantine, Algeria), Lambaesis (Batna, Algeria) and Theveste (Tebessa, Algeria).^[11][9][10] She had a yearly festival in Antiquity^[d] which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa but was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, who called it a pagan festival.

Tannit was also a goddess of rain, in modern-day Tunisia, 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^[12] Similarly, Algerians and Tunisians refer to "Baali farming" to mean non-irrigated agriculture.^[13]

The names themselves, Baal Hammon and Tanit, have Berber (

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 as the Greek historians such as Herodotus, Apollodorus, Pausanias mention that Athena has ancient Libyan origins in North Africa to Tanit herself as a goddess of strikingly similar aspects to Athena (Wisdom, War, Weaving..etc).^[8][e][f][2] Herodotus one of the most well known Greek historians who traveled throughout the region wrote about her the following:

"It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same. And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.” Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant. first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots."

— Herodotus, The histories, IV.189

Archeologists have recently also uncovered temples of Tannit dating back to the 4th century BC in the Azores islands dedicated to Tanit, archaeologists uncovered more than five hypogea type monuments (tombs excavated in rocks) and at least three ‘sanctuaries’ proto-historic, carved into the rock.^[24]

A shrine excavated at

The temple of Juno Caelestis, dedicated to the City Protector Goddess Juno Caelestis, which was the Roman name for Tanit, was one of the biggest building monuments of Roman Carthage, and became a holy site for pilgrims from all North Africa and Spain.^[29]

Her symbol (the sign of Tanit), found on many ancient stone carvings, the symbol of Tannit, is a triangle representing the human body, surmounted by a circle representing the head, and separated by a horizontal line which represents the hands. 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.^[30] She is also represented by the crescent moon and the Venus symbol.^[23]

Tanit is often depicted while riding a

Berber women's ritual in north africa (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) evolved around healing fertility worship lamentation and life cycles, for Berber women these rituals are supposed to bring personal and communal satisfaction regarding religious enactment spirituality emotional needs reinforcements of family and social bonds achievements of pedagogical goals, these rituals may be public or privates an example of public rituals is the right of Taghunja or tislit n unzar (bride of the rain). This is one of the oldest rights which seeks rain from the sky when the soil and agriculture are threatened by droughts and scarcity of water. The origin of this right goes back to an ancient tradition of gathering and singing in front of the Goddess Tanit to implore her to bring rain when water is scarce, the performance of this right changes from region to region but the difference is in this respect are small. A procession goes from Village to Village and from one saint's sanctuary to another carrying an effigy of a female, on the way the bride is splashed with water from Terraces and windows of houses, people give money gifts to the leader of the procession, the gathered money and food are used to prepare a big meal near a water spring or in a saint's sanctuary, usually on top of the hill.^[32][33][12]

The origins of Tanit are to be found in the pantheon of Ugarit, especially in the Ugaritic goddess Anat (Hvidberg-Hansen 1982). There is significant, albeit disputed, evidence, both archaeological and within ancient written sources, pointing towards child sacrifice forming part of the worship of Tanit and Baal Hammon.^[34]

Some archaeologists theorized that infant sacrifices have occurred. Lawrence E. Stager, who directed the excavations of the Carthage Tophet in the 1970s, believes that infant sacrifice was practiced there. Paolo Xella of the National Research Council in Rome summarized the textual, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence for Carthaginian infant sacrifice.^[35]

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

Christian era. 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.^[39]

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.

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).^[41]

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.^[42]

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.

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

Main article: Tanith

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.

Notes

1. ^ Baal Hammon is the combination of the Libyan god Ammon and the Phoenician god Baal, this combination forms a stronger deity. The combination of the two deities was courtesy from the Carthagenian refugees when the King of the Massyles allowed them to settle in North Africa, so they adopted local custom of worship of Ammon and Tannit the local deities as a sign of appreciation to the locals.^[4]
2. ^ Herodotus. 4.189: "It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same. And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.” Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant2 first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots."
3. ^ Herodotus.IV.180:"They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins. Before the girls are set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Corinthian helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake shore."
4. ^ Herodotus.IV.180:"They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins. Before the girls are set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Corinthian helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake shore."
5. ^ Herodotus. 4.189: "It would seem that the robe and aegis of the images of Athena were copied by the Greeks from the Libyan women; for except that Libyan women dress in leather, and that the tassels of their goatskin cloaks are not snakes but thongs of hide, in everything else their equipment is the same. And in fact, the very name betrays that the attire of the statues of Pallas has come from Libya; for Libyan women wear the hairless tasselled “aegea” over their dress, colored with madder, and the Greeks have changed the name of these aegeae into their “aegides.” Furthermore, in my opinion the ceremonial chant2 first originated in Libya: for the women of that country chant very tunefully. And it is from the Libyans that the Greeks have learned to drive four-horse chariots."
6. ^ Herodotus.IV.180:"They celebrate a yearly festival of Athena, where their maidens are separated into two bands and fight each other with stones and sticks, thus (they say) honoring in the way of their ancestors that native goddess whom we call Athena. Maidens who die of their wounds are called false virgins. Before the girls are set fighting, the whole people choose the fairest maid, and arm her with a Corinthian helmet and Greek panoply, to be then mounted on a chariot and drawn all along the lake shore."
7. ^ Perhaps here archeologists note since the deities have similar aspects when it comes to War, it was only natural of ancient people in the Eastern mediterranean after Carthagenian ships started to disembark back into their ancient homelands for trade, canaanites to adopt the same symbol of Tanit used in North Africa.

References

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5. ^ Miles, Richard (2011). Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization. Penguin. p. 68.
6. ^ The standard survey is: Hvidberg-Hansen, F. O. (1982). La déesse TNT: Une Etude sur la réligion canaanéo-punique (in French). Copenhagen: Gad.. An extensive critical review by G. W. Ahlström appeared in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45(4), October 1986, pp. 311–314.
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    . Durant la période d'indépendance de la monarchie numide, Cirta a abrité un sanctuaire très important consacré au culte de Ba'al Hammon et de sa parèdre Tanit
12. ^ ^{a b} Rezgui, Sadok (1989). Les chants tunisiens (in French). Tunis: Maison tunisienne de l'édition.
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    . At Carthage the great goddess is called Tinnit (formerly read Tanit).... It would seem that Tinnit is the specific Carthaginian form of Astarte, but strangely enough there are no theophorous names containing the element Tinnit, while there are a few with Astarte. The name seems to have originated in Carthage....
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    . l'origine historique d'une déesse qualifiée de déesse mère (Amma ou Emm), est africaine qui, comme nous le montre l'épigraphie
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25. ^ Pritchard, James B. (1978). Recovering Sarepta, a Phoenician City. Princeton University Press.. The inscription reads TNT TTRT, and could identify Tanit as an epithet of Astarte at Sarepta, for the TNT element does not appear in theophoric names in Punic contexts (Ahlström 1986 review, p 314).
26. ^ Manuel Salinas de Frías, El Afrodísion Óros de Viriato, Acta Palaeohispanica XI. Palaeohispanica 13 (2013), pp. 257-271 I.S.S.N.: 1578-5386.
27. ^ ^{a b c d e} Guadalupe López Monteagudo, María Pilar San Nicolás Pedraz, Astarté-Europa en la península ibérica - Un ejemplo de interpretatio romana, Complurum Extra, 6(I), 1996: 451-470
28. ^ https://www.diariodeibiza.es/ibiza/2015/11/13/imagen-impostora-tanit-ibiza-30365878.html El más famoso icono de la diosa púnica representa, probablemente, a la diosa griega Deméter - the most famous iconic representation of the punic goddess probably represents the Greek goddess Demeter
29. ^ McHugh, J. S. (2015). The Emperor Commodus: God and Gladiator. (n.p.): Pen & Sword Books.
30. ^ ^{a b} Azize, Joseph. The Phoenician Solar Theology. p. 177.
31. ^ Marín Ceballos, M. (1987) ¿Tanit en España? Lucentum Núm. 6 pg. 43-80
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See also