ASTARTE was a Syro–Palestinian goddess widely attested throughout the Mediterranean Levant. References to her first appear in texts from Syria in the third millennium BCE (at Ebla and perhaps Early Dynastic Mari), and increase in the second millennium BCE (at Emar and Ugarit). Her cult was imported to Egypt in the latter half of the second millennium. From the first millennium BCE on, worship of Astarte spread via the Phoenicians from their coastal cities (e.g., Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos) to Cyprus, Carthage and North Africa, Italy, Malta, Spain, and Greece. She appears in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament mostly in the role of a generic Canaanite goddess.

Astartē is the Greek form of the deity's name, but the earliest form in the third millennium, Ashtart (from Aštarta), ultimately reflects the feminine of Semitic Ashtar/Athtar, a Venus deity. The name of the goddess Ishtar also...