Mother-Goddess Worship Spreads

Orientalist Édouard Dhorme speaks of the “expansion of Ishtar worship.” It spread throughout Mesopotamia, and either Ishtar herself or goddesses with different names but similar attributes were worshiped in Egypt, Phoenicia, and Canaan, as well as in Anatolia (Asia Minor), Greece, and Italy.

To the northwest in Anatolia, the equivalent of Ishtar was Cybele, known as the Great Mother of the gods. She was also called the All-Begetter, the All-Nourisher, the Mother of all the Blessed. From Anatolia the cult of Cybele spread first to Greece and then to Rome, where it survived well into the Common Era. The worship of this fertility goddess included frenzied dancing, self-laceration by the priests, self-castration by candidates for the priesthood, and processions in which the statue of the goddess was borne in much splendor.b