court" (Jastrow, p. 653). One of the
oldest sacred basins found in the ruins of a Babylonian temple "has a
frieze of female figures in it, holding in their outstretched hands
flagons from which they pour water," a fact which establishes the
ritualistic association of female priestesses with water.

The later association of Ishtar with the moon and with the evening star,
"the leader of the heavenly procession of stars," naturally exerted an
influence over the ceremonial rites performed by the high priestess or
queen, the living image of the goddess. "Mythological associations appear
to have played a part in identifying the planet Venus with the goddess....
A widely spread nature myth, symbolizing the change of seasons, represents
Ishtar the personification of fertility, the great mother of all that
manifests life, as proceeding to the region of darkness and remaining
there for some time. The disappearance of the planet Venus at certain
seasons ... [and re-appearance] ... suggested the identification of this
planet with Ishtar." The foregoing affords an explanation why Ishtar
should have become identified with the west and also naturally suggests
the probability that the cult of Ishtar gradually imposed upon its
priestesses and its votaries of the female sex, the ceremonial observance
of periods of retirement and seclusion, coinciding with the disappearance
of the moon and evening star.

A critical examination of the accounts preserved of the Phoenician or
Canaanite religion reveals that it consisted of an idealistic development
of the Ishtar cult of Assyria. The fact that, ultimately, in Phoenicia, the
cult of the female Astarte almost superseded that of the male Baal and
that their joint cult, introduced into Palestine, seriously rivalled the
monotheism of the Israelites, furnishes another indication that we have to
deal here with the same marked divergence of cults which we have seen to
result from a common basis in ancient America. In studying the Phoenician
conception of Astarte as recorded by various authors, one is struck by its
comparative refinement and ideality although, as in ancient America, the
cult of the female principle of nature was also accompanied by secret
licentious ceremonials.

In the Astarte cult of Phoenicia we have precisely what might be expected
to have been evolved by the descendants of an ancient race of
star-watchers who, powerfully impressed by the antithesis of light and
darkness and ha