Asherah is the principal goddess of the Israelite and Judahite cult, continuous with the Ugaritic Athirat, consort of El and mother of the gods. In the Hebrew Bible her name denotes both the deity and a wooden cult-symbol, an 'asherah', that stood beside altars and even within the Jerusalem temple until it was removed by reforming kings. Blessing inscriptions from Kuntillet ʿAjrud and Khirbet el-Qom invoke 'Yahweh and his asherah', evidence read by many scholars as pairing the goddess with Yahweh as his consort, though others take the term as his emblem; the sources genuinely differ. Household terracotta pillar figurines from Judah are frequently, if not unanimously, connected with her veneration in the domestic sphere of fertility and protection.