Allat
Palmyrene · deity · hellenistic roman palmyra · Recorded classification
Allat, 'the Goddess', was a major pre-Islamic Arabian deity who held an important place in the Palmyrene pantheon, reflecting the Arab component of the city's population. Her temple stood in the western quarter of Palmyra. By the second century CE she was thoroughly assimilated to Greek Athena and styled Athena-Allat, depicted with helmet, aegis and spear, while retaining Semitic cultic forms. Her most famous monument is the colossal limestone lion that guarded her temple, shown sheltering a gazelle between its paws, an emblem of her protective power. She was equated by the Palmyrenes with such goddesses as Atargatis and identified in the Greek world with Athena.
Domains
- war and protection
- wild animals and the desert
Powers
- to protect her worshippers in war
Epithets
- ʾltH. J. W. Drijvers, The Religion of Palmyra (Iconography of Religions XV/15), Leiden: Brill, 1976. (secondary)
Sources
- Allat was a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess worshipped at Palmyra, assimilated to Athena and associated with the lion, with her own temple in the western quarter of the city.: Ted Kaizer, The Religious Life of Palmyra (Oriens et Occidens 4), Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2002. (secondary); Michał Gawlikowski, Le sanctuaire d'Allat à Palmyre, in Studia Palmyreńskie, Warsaw, 1977. (secondary)