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Yahweh is dead. As it shall be.
~ Anat

Anat, also known as Anath, Anant, or Anit, is the Canaanite archer and warrior goddess of war and sacrifice along with being the Syrian goddess that is associated with love, fertility and sex.

Overview[]

She is the older sister and wife of the Canaanite deity Baal Hadad. She is known for constantly avenging her brother by killing Mot and bringing him back from the land of the dead. The continuous cycle signifies the changing of seasons.

Description[]

She is famous for having a violent temperament and for taking joy in slaughter. Anat represents necessary endings, sacrifices to be made to serve a greater purpose, or old habits that may no longer work and need to be let go. In this way the field of growth grows green again.

In the Baal Cycle texts, Anat appears as a war-goddess, initially called upon by her father El to set the stage for the coronation of Yam; Anat, however, agitates for her younger brother and lover Baal. Text fragments describe her appearance in battle  in a fragmentary passage from Ugarit ‘Anat appears as a fierce, wild and furious warrior in a battle, wading knee-deep in blood, striking off heads, cutting off hands, binding the heads to her torso and the hands in her sash, driving out the old men and townsfolk with her arrows, her heart filled with joy. "Her character in this passage anticipates her subsequent warlike role against the enemies of Baal". She is later described ritually re-enacting battle, and then purifying herself, in her temple, where she receives a message from Baal asking her to establish peace on terms favorable to him.

History[]

Background[]

Though she is the daughter of El, the patriarch of the Gods, she does not hesitate to threaten him when she feels Ba'al is being treated unfairly. If El does not grant Ba'al a splendid palace like all the other gods have, "I shall surely drag him [El} like a lamb to the ground, I shall make his grey hairs run with blood, the grey hairs of his beard [thick] with gore."

Epic of Ba'al[]

In the 14th century BCE Ugartic text The Epic of Ba'al, she defends her brother Baal Hadad, called by his title Ayelin, "Mightiest," against Mot or Mavet, the force of sterility and death who represents the intense heat of the dry season which causes the crops to wither.

But Mot triumphs against Ba'al and sends him to the land of the dead; Anat, with help from the sun goddess Shapash, who has access to the Underworld, brings him back to life. Anat then takes revenge on Mot, cutting him up into tiny pieces, winnowing Him like grain, grinding him up, and then sowing him in the fields. Ba'al and Mot are symbolic of the alternating seasons of rain and drought, of life and death, and by grinding Mot up and scattering him like grain, Anat allows for the season of plenty to come again and the wheat to be reborn another year.

Before Anat goes into battle she prepares herself by anointing herself with henna and ambergris, and dressing in saffron (gold) and murex (purple) dyed clothing, both of which are famously expensive, and royal, colors. She then proceeds to slaughter the enemies of Ba'al, across the west and the east, hanging severed heads from her back, and affixing hands to her belt. Laughing and rejoicing, She wades to her knees in the blood of soldiers, "to her thighs in the gore of quick warriors." When the slaughter slowly subsides, she then washes herself in the rain-water of her brother Ba'al, and again adorns herself with ambergris.

Extended Worship[]

Her worship was also known in Egypt, where she was considered the consort of the chaos god Seth, and her sexual aspects led her to be associated with Min, who is a fertility god. She was especially popular in the New Kingdom, and she was one of Ramses II's patron deities, who watched over him in battle.

Though often called "virgin," Anat also has a strong sexual aspect, much like the war and sex goddess of the Irish the Morrigan, and, though she is not usually considered the consort of Ba'al, was said to have had seventy-seven children by him, after they had copulated in the forms of cow and bull. Given this, calling Anat a "virgin" probably should to be taken to mean "independent young woman."

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