Babylonian Goddess Ashtarte Ishtar Statue 2000 BC (also known as Eastre, Astarte, Artemis, fertility goddesses).

Astarte is the Greek name of the Assyrian, Akkadian, and Babylonian Semitic goddess Ishtar. She has also been known as the deified evening star.

She was worshiped in the Phoenician city states of Sidon, Tyre, and Byblos; as well as Syria and Canaan, beginning in the first millennium BC. Greeks in classical, Hellenistic, and Roman times occasionally equated Aphrodite with Astarte. In Sicily, from which she became known to the Romans as Venus.

Astarte arrived in Ancient Egypt during the 18th dynasty. She appeared as daughter of Ra, and was given in marriage to the god Set.

Terracotta statuette of woman holding her breasts, a probable representation of Ishtar, goddess of fertility, 14th-12th century BC (stone)

A multifaceted goddess, Ishtar takes three paramount forms:
* She is the goddess of love and sexuality, and thus, fertility.
* She is responsible for all life, but she is never a Mother goddess.
* She is a goddess of war, often shown winged and bearing arms.

Sumerian stone. From Susa. Iran. Elamite period.

Date: 1400 BC - 1101 AD (C14th BC - C12th AD)