I want to dig up an "Ashdoda" figurine at Gath (see above picture). Or an Astarte plaque, that would also be good. Or... perhaps I'll just have to settle for seeing them at a museum, I know Ashdoda is in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. I could spend ages writing up stuff about Ashdoda on this blog, but it's really easier for me to point you in the direction of Aegaeum 22 "Potnia: Deities and Religion in the Aegean Bronze Age" and its free pdf's, one of which is "The Mother(s) of All Philistines? Aegean Enthroned Deities of the 12th - 11th Century Philistia." which will give you more information on Ashdoda than I could. Now... back to pre-dig reading.
3 comments:
Thanks for the link to that journal. It looks like there are some great articles in there... reading 'The Mother(s) of all Philistines' now when I should be working.
Firstly - I'm not a scholar. The first thing that came to my mind though after seeing the image of the Ashdoda and reading that article was wondering if there was some strand of connection with Egypt and the iconography of Isis, whose name means Throne.
Something that I was totally unaware of until I visited the museum in Heraklion was the connection between Egypt and Crete. So I'm wondering if there was some interplay here as well...
Am I totally off base?
I wouldn't think you are off base here at all, I am not actually that "up" on the _exact_ connections between Crete and Egypt, but there certainly were connections. I am currently boning up on this very subject, particularly with a book called "Egypt, the Aegean and the Levant. Interconnections in the Second Millennium BC." edited by W. Vivian Davies & Louise Schofield. While Isis was around in Egypt at the relevant time to be potentially noticed by other socieites, she wasn't hugely popular then like she was in the Ptolemaic period. Although, good point about her name meaning "throne". I often think about that in regards to her being mother of Horus (current Pharaoh) and wife of Osiris (past Pharaoh), but yes, why not think about it in terms of an enthroned female deity.
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