Ma was a local goddess at Comana in Cappadocia. Her name Ma means "Mother", and she also had the epithets "Invincible" and "Bringer of Victory". [1]
Ma has been interpreted as a mother goddess, but at the same time as a warrior goddess, as her name and epithets indicate both. [1]
She was associated with the transition of adulthood of both genders, and sacred sex rituals were practiced during her biennial festivals. [1]
Ma was also seen as a moon goddess, being associated with the Anatolia moon god Mēn, with a temple estate dedicated to Mēn Pharnakou and Selene at Ameria, near Cabira, in the Kingdom of Pontus, being an attempt to counter-balance the influence of the Moon goddess Ma of Comana.
Ma has been identified with a number of other deities, indicating her function. She has been compared to Cybele and Bellona. The ancient Greeks compared Ma to the goddess Enyo and Athena Nicephorus. [2] Plutarch likened her with Semele and Athena. [1] Ma was introduced and worshiped in Macedonia together with other foreign deities. [3] [4]
Ma-Enyo, a fusion between the Anatolian goddess Ma and the Greek Goddess, Enyo, was considered the great west Asian nature-goddess, with Comana's temple and its fame in ancient times as the place where the rites of this, a variety of the nature goddess, were celebrated with much solemnity.
Ma is described as a local Anatolian goddess, with her cult centered around her temple at Komana in Cappadocia. Her temple in Comana is described by Strabo. [5]
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Diana is a goddess in Roman and Hellenistic religion, primarily considered a patroness of the countryside and nature, hunters, wildlife, childbirth, crossroads, the night, and the Moon. She is equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, and absorbed much of Artemis' mythology early in Roman history, including a birth on the island of Delos to parents Jupiter and Latona, and a twin brother, Apollo, though she had an independent origin in Italy.
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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.
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In Greek mythology and ancient religion, Nike is the goddess who personifies victory in any field including art, music, war, and athletics. She is often portrayed in Greek art as Winged Victory in the motion of flight; however, she can also appear without wings as "Wingless Victory" when she is being portrayed as an attribute of another deity such as Athena.
In Ancient Greek Religion and mythology, Enodia is a distinctly Thessalian Ancient Greek goddess, identified in certain areas or by certain ancient writers with Artemis, Hecate or Persephone. She was paired with Zeus in cult and sometimes shared sanctuaries with him. Enodia was primarily worshipped in Ancient Thessaly and was well known in Hellenistic Macedonia.
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Ancient Greek literary sources claim that among the many deities worshipped by a typical Greek city-state, one consistently held unique status as founding patron and protector of the polis, its citizens, governance and territories, as evidenced by the city's founding myth, and by high levels of investment in the deity's temple and civic cult. The temple of the deity involved was usually founded on the highest ground (acropolis) within the city walls, or elsewhere within the central public assembly space, the agora. Conversely, a city's possession of a patron deity was thought to be a mark of the city's status as polis.
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