Anahit

Most-popularly-venerated goddess of the Armenian polytheistic pantheon; fertility, healing, and motherland-patroness. Her Erznka temple gold cult-statue was the most-famous Armenian polytheistic cult image; the bronze head fragment in the British Museum (acquired 1872) is widely attributed to her cult, though the British-Museum-attribution is contested by some scholars. Her Vardavar water-festival continued in folk-residual form as the Christian Vardavar (Transfiguration-water-pouring) — among the most-actively-preserved Armenian polytheistic rituals in modern practice. The variant father-Aramazd / consort-Aramazd framing (see Aramazd entry) places her either as daughter or consort depending on source, with the consort-framing more prominent in Agathangelos.

Powers

• Give life and fertility
• Heal the sick

Epithets

• Ոսկեմայր
• Մեծ տիկին

Relations

• equated with: Aredvi Sura Anahita

Sources

• Khorenatsi 2.12-14, 49
• Agathangelos Ch. 778-810
• Erznka temple gold-statue head (British Museum bronze fragment)