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A goddess is a female deity. In many known cultures, goddesses are often linked with literal or metaphorical pregnancy or imagined feminine roles associated with how women and girls are perceived or expected to behave. This includes themes of spinning, weaving, beauty, love, sexuality, motherhood, domesticity, creativity, and fertility. Many major goddesses are also associated with magic, war, strategy, hunting, farming, wisdom, fate, earth, sky, power, laws, justice, and more. Some themes, such as discord or disease, which are considered negative within their cultural contexts also are found associated with some goddesses. There are as many differently described and understood goddesses as there are male, shapeshifting, or neuter gods.
Inanna is an ancient Mesopotamian goddess of love, war, and fertility. She is also associated with beauty, sex, divine justice, and political power. She was originally worshiped in Sumer under the name "Inanna", and later by the Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians under the name "Ishtar". She was known as the "Queen of Heaven" and was the patron goddess of the Eanna temple at the city of Uruk, which was her main cult center. She was associated with the planet Venus and her most prominent symbols included the lion and the eight-pointed star. Her husband was the god Dumuzid and her sukkal, or personal attendant, was the goddess Ninshubur.
Qetesh was a goddess who was incorporated into the ancient Egyptian religion in the late Bronze Age. Her name was likely developed by the Egyptians based on the Semitic root Q-D-Š meaning 'holy' or 'blessed,' attested as a title of El and possibly Athirat and a further independent deity in texts from Ugarit.
Mehet-Weret or Mehturt is an ancient Egyptian deity of the sky in ancient Egyptian religion. Her name means "Great Flood".
Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess Ashtart or Athtart, a deity closely related to Ishtar, who was worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity. The name is particularly associated with her worship in the ancient Levant among the Canaanites and Phoenicians, though she was originally associated with Amorite cities like Ugarit and Emar, as well as Mari and Ebla. She was also celebrated in Egypt, especially during the reign of the Ramessides, following the importation of foreign cults there. Phoenicians introduced her cult in their colonies on the Iberian Peninsula.
Al-Lat, also spelled Allat, Allatu and Alilat, is a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshipped under various associations throughout the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Mecca where she was worshipped alongside Manat and al-'Uzza as one of the daughters of Allah. The word Allat or Elat has been used to refer to various goddesses in the ancient Near East, including the goddess Asherah-Athirat.
Ishara (Išḫara) was the tutelary goddess of the ancient Syrian city of Ebla. The origin of her name is unknown. Both Hurrian and West Semitic etymologies have been proposed, but they found no broad support and today it is often assumed that her name belongs to an unknown linguistic substrate.
Sarpanit was the consort of Marduk, the main god of Babylon, and a goddess of birth. She was already attested as the wife of Marduk before his ascension to the top of the Mesopotamian pantheon, appearing in inscriptions of the Babylonian kings Sumulael and Samsu-iluna. Some researchers regard her simply as one of the "prototypical divine wives."
Hittite mythology and Hittite religion were the religious beliefs and practices of the Hittites, who created an empire centered in what is now Turkey from c. 1600–1180 BC.
Nanaya was a Mesopotamian goddess of love, closely associated with Inanna.
Patricia Monaghan was a poet, a writer, a spiritual activist, and an influential figure in the contemporary women's spirituality movement. Monaghan wrote over 20 books on a range of topics including Goddess spirituality, earth spirituality, Celtic mythology, the landscape of Ireland, and techniques of meditation. In 1979, she published the first encyclopedia of female divinities, a book which has remained steadily in print since then and was republished in 2009 in a two volume set as The Encyclopedia of Goddesses and Heroines. She was a mentor to many scholars and writers including biologist Cristina Eisenberg, poet Annie Finch, theologian Charlene Spretnak, and anthropologist Dawn Work-MaKinne, and was the founding member of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology, which brought together artists, scholars, and researchers of women-centered mythology and Goddess spirituality for the first time in a national academic organization.
Aya was an Akkadian goddess of dawn, and the wife of Shamash, the sun god. Her Sumerian equivalent was Sherida, wife of Shamash's equivalent Utu.
In the earliest prehistoric period Astłik had been worshipped as the Armenian deity of fertility and love, later the skylight had been considered her personification, and she had been the consort of Vahagn. In the later heathen period she became the goddess of love, maidenly beauty, and water sources and springs.
Šauška (Shaushka), also called Šauša or Šawuška, was the highest ranked goddess in the Hurrian pantheon, associated with love and war, as well as with incantations and by extension with healing. While she was usually referred to as a goddess and with feminine titles, such as allai, references to masculine Shaushka are also known. The Hurrians associated her with Nineveh, but she was also worshiped in many other centers associated with this culture, from Anatolian cities in Kizzuwatna, through Alalakh and Ugarit in Syria, to Nuzi and Ulamme in northeastern Mesopotamia. She was also worshiped in southern Mesopotamia, where she was introduced alongside a number of other foreign deities in the Ur III period. In this area, she came to be associated with Ishtar. At a later point in time, growing Hurrian influence on Hittite culture resulted in the adoption of Shaushka into the Hittite state pantheon.
Queen of Heaven was a title given to a number of ancient sky goddesses worshipped throughout the ancient Mediterranean and the ancient Near East. Goddesses known to have been referred to by the title include Inanna, Anat, Isis, Nut, Astarte, and possibly Asherah. In Greco-Roman times, Hera and Juno bore this title. Forms and content of worship varied.
Ninsianna was a Mesopotamian deity considered to be the personification of Venus. This theonym also served as the name of the planet in astronomical texts until the end of the Old Babylonian period. There is evidence that Ninsianna's gender varied between locations, and both feminine and masculine forms of this deity were worshiped. Due to their shared connection to Venus, Ninsianna was associated with Inanna. Furthermore, the deity Kabta appears alongside Ninsianna in many texts, but the character of the relation between them remains uncertain.
Goddess of the Night (Sumerian: 𒀭𒈪, DINGIR.GE6) was a deity worshiped in the Hurrian kingdom of Kizzuwatna, and later also in Šamuḫa in the Hittite Empire. Only the logographic writing of her name is known, and multiple attempts at identifying her identity have been made. Most researchers assume that she was at least partially similar to goddesses such as Ishtar, Šauška and Ishara. She most likely represented the night sky, and was also associated with dreaming.
Uṣur-amāssu was a Mesopotamian deity. While originally viewed as male, she later came to be regarded as a goddess. Regardless of gender, Uṣur-amāssu was considered as a child of Adad and Shala and like other members of their entourage was considered a deity of justice. The earliest attestations of veneration of Uṣur-amāssu are theophoric names from cities such as Kish, but the female version of this deity is best attested in sources from Uruk from the Neo-Babylonian period. She belonged to the pentad of goddesses who stood on top of the local pantheon, which also included Ishtar, Nanaya, Bēltu-ša-Rēš and Urkayītu. She is still attested in texts from the Seleucid period, and continued to be celebrated during an akitu festival.
Annunitum (Anunītu) was a Mesopotamian goddess of war. While initially she functioned as an epithet of Ishtar, she started to develop into a separate deity in the final years of the Sargonic period and through the Ur III period.
Ašratum was a Mesopotamian goddess of Amorite origin. She was regarded as the wife of the god Amurru. Her name is a cognate of Ugaritic Athirat, but despite likely sharing the same origin these two goddesses occupied different positions in the respective pantheons.
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