Talk:Anat

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2019 and 23 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Bro2023.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:09, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Depictions

There is no precise description of how she looked like and no picture!

Do we need the "`A" in `Anat?

See the related discussions at Talk:Eilat, including:

I wish people wouldn't assume Hebrew has some relevance to everything ANE, expecially where we are talking a period before Akkadian spins off from Sumerian. In Egyptian Anat is spelled with the trilieral ant. where t is the feminine determinative. Anat also gets the determinative for goddess.

That relates her attributes to anna or ianna.

Forms of Anat/Anath can be dound in Sumerian which is unclassified, also Afro asiatic Egyptian, Akkadian which is Semitic and Hittite which is IE. You can make the case that as a war godess she goes back to about 2600 BC where her name is linked with Ha Dad or Ba el. By the time she shows up in Ugarit her worship is a part of most of the cultures between Ugarit and Egypts delta. Rktect (talk) 17:26, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

`Elyôn

The article titled `Elyôn also needs to be changed as its `E is not in normal use and would only confuse most readers. IZAK 07:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Similar problem with `Anat. IZAK 07:40, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Neither of these terms have a "usual" English transliteration, so the problem here is much less accute than it is in articles about modern cities or regions. I do agree though that these transliterations are strange in that there is no way that anyone is ever going to guess them and type "`Elyôn" into the "go" box. The backticks (`) are indeed accepted transliterations of ayin, though, so I don't know if to suggest to remove it or not. I don't understand the accent-circumflex on the o though. In French, the accent-circumflex suggests that a letter has been lost, and this is not the case here. Nyh 09:34, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Placing these comments (so far) on the `Elyôn and `Anat pages so that their author can take note... IZAK 10:01, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As a modern Hebrew first name

Qhanàt[h] comes up in Strong's as "answer", yet masculine: http://net.bible.org/strong.php?id=06067. It says nothing about a god. However, qhan- is a root for "cloud": http://net.bible.org/strong.php?id=06052. -lysdexia 17:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Wheel of Time

While I don't doubt that the WoT character's name comes from `Anat, I don't think this is the place for that information. Shouldn't it be in one of the WoT articles, with a link back here? 168.12.253.82 15:00, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I moved it to a "popular culture" heading for the nonce, as has been done with similar trivia in other articles. Mhari 06:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Merging of Anat/Anath

I notice that these articles have a suggested merging notice upon them. Looking at the content of both, it seems to be a fair suggestion. In fact, Anath could possibly be re-directed to Anat as it seems to be merely a different spelling of the same name. Opinions? Silverthorn 16:43, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well it is a different spelling of the same name, but putting everything under "Anat" still calls for the spelling Anath to be used in the transliteration of the Hebrew name, as the name ends with Taw which is always pronounced "th" at the end of a word (not in modern hebrew though)

Capital of the Hyksos

In "Anat in Egypt" is said that the capital of the Hyksos was Tanis. This is a quite old hypothesis. Ongoing excavations show that the capital of the Hyksos Avaris is identical to Pi-Ramasses, not Tanis. Siffler 11:32, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

"Asenath 'holy to Anath' was the wife of the Hebrew patriarch Joseph."

The article makes this bold assertion (in the section "Anath in Israel") on the Ancient Egyptian etymology of the name Asenath. This is also asserted in the article "Asenath". Can someone provide a citation from a solid modern philological scholarly source for this assertion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Setmose (talk • contribs) 16:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

In addition to that on the subject of the Ancient Israel section I also see no source for their claim that she was worshiped at Elephantine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.131.23.208 (talk) 06:27, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Credibility of employed sources

The entire article has a bit of a problem with the credibility and relevance of source - and with favoring Bible scholars, like Ruther, over authors who focus on Ugarit alone, like, say, D. Pardee, A. Rahmouni or I. Cornelius, who all wrote much more detailed treatments of Anat using more recent sources, which might create a neutral point of view issue, I think. The references to "fertility" are also outdated, and trying to connect every Ugaritic goddess imaginable to this term been criticized by Jo Ann Hackett in the 1980s already, and more recently by Cornelius (though it sadly persists in literature, especially in Bible studies and in publications aimed at general audiences, which have trouble with embracing anything newer than the 1980s quite often when it comes to history of the region). Also, where is any information whatsoever about offering lists, theophoric names, festivals? Why is almost everything discussion of literary texts alone? Even just in terms of open access publications there are dozens to pick from in English, German and French.

The worst offender is the Mesopotamia section, which is basically impossible to salvage. The origin of Anat's name has nothing to do with Anu and Antu, and the sources used to support the wild claims made include a notorious fraud (Zecharia Sitchin), a self-published author posting articles of dubious quality on academia.edu (the iconography article), and a number of articles which do not actually support the claims made (Beaulieu does not mention Anat at all in the Neo-Babylonian Uruk monograph!). We know very well what Mesopotamians knew about Anat, considering she was worshiped in Suhu (in a city quite literally named after her, at that) and the stele of its governor, Šamaš-reš-uṣur, which depicts Anat (among other deities) is a famous artifact pretty commonly discussed in modern literature. You can quite literally find it on Wikimedia Commons. Rather odd not to mention that there is a pretty well established theory that Anat originates roughly in the Mari area, and that the oldest form of the name would be "Hanat" based on attestations in theophoric names from the Mari corpus, but I guess that would get in the way of the Antu confabulations.

There is also the issue of the monstrous hyperdiffusionist graphic on the bottom of the article. What exactly has Anat to do with a random selection of Paleolithic statuettes picked from completely unrelated sites? Why was this even posted on wikipedia in the first place? HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 13:03, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out these problems. I removed the absurd hyperdiffusionist chart myself. While that was a recent addition, much of the rest of the problem dates back years; the first paragraph of the Mesopotamia section is largely the same as the one that appeared when the article was created in 2004! While I often encounter similar old garbage in articles about Egyptian deities, I'm not a Near Eastern expert and wouldn't know what to cut. If you see stuff that you know is egregiously wrong, I encourage you to remove it, even if you don't have the time to write up text to replace it. It's better to have gaps in the article than to have misinformation. A. Parrot (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I should be able to work on the article relatively soon - I think it's a bigger priority than any Ugaritic deities with no articles at all (who are mostly the very minor ones, to be fair). I only have one big project which needs to be done first (Teshub, in pretty dire condition too but more due to vagueness) and I can dedicate all my time to this afterwards. I've only started on the Ugarit-related articles recently, but would like to bring them all to an acceptable level - I'm only done with Yarikh and a few minor deities, so there is a lot of work left. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 15:32, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

@A. Parrot I'm done. I will try to eventually bring the Ashtart, Resheph and Hauron/Horon articles to a similar level but it will take a longer while. Please let me know if you think the Egypt section is missing something - I already found another source I'll have to go through for another sub-section so I will inevitably come back to this article anyway.

EDIT: Tragically, the article will likely have to endure a wave of disruptive edits from an anonymous user who appears to stalk me and tries to prove every deity is just Ninurta. I'm sorry. Note they are using sources to say the opposite of what they claim (ex. Jo Ann Hackett said that Anat and Inanna should not be treated as identical, not that they were, which would make 0 sense for obvious reasons), on top of copy pasting from other articles I wrote too (irrelevant information they keep adding to the paragraph about Na'aman's and Day's proposals regarding Anat - not Inanna, Ishtar or Ashtart who are all treated as interchangeable by them... ) without really figuring out how a bibliography works. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 14:27, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

For future editors

Anat is, demonstrably, not Inanna or Ishtar. Please do not form original theories about Anat relying on publications which pertain to Inanna or Ishtar, like someone attempted previously. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 10:44, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

William F. Albright

The section commenting on the depiction of Anat in the Book of Judges contains an outdated reference to the views of William F. Albright. His views are over 50 years old (as he died in 1971), and his assertions about the historicity of the Book of Exodus, the Book of Joshua and the Book of Judges have largely been discredited. Why is he mentioned at all? Per Wikipedia:Fringe theories:

• "For a fringe view to be discussed in an article about a mainstream idea, independent reliable sources must discuss the relationship of the two as a serious and substantial matter." Dimadick (talk) 09:32, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I think he can be removed, I only included him because Shupak explicitly contrasts her theory with his. I am personally against using him as a source, but I think pointing out his views are actively contested by other researchers is a good idea in order to illustrate why he should not be used as a source himself. Note that the article elsewhere also points out that modern scholarship contradicts his assertions; in the case of Atargatis I am afraid he needs to stay becayse despite Day's call for "reassesment" to my knowledge not much happened, and more recent studies still in passing refer to this theory, faulty as it is. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 10:10, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Though I will admit this might be too much caution on my part - I was partially driven by the fact there are many anonymous additions of long outdated sources to Mesopotamian and related deity articles lately, so pointing out recent authors explicitly contest old theories and they are no longer accepted seemed like a sound preventive measure at the time (i do not think it works from the perspective of past few days, though).

On an unrelated note, thanks for the links to articles on general topics you added, I often forget about these, but they will surely help the average reader a lot. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 10:14, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Atargatis seems to be accurately viewed as a syncretic deity, merging aspects from previous cults. But Wikipedia has a problem with treating Albright as an authority on Biblical history, long after his biases were exposed by secular archaeologists. Several of his theories are currently only popular with hardcore evangelicals, rather than archeologists. Dimadick (talk) 11:40, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I have noticed. He is also treated as an authority of non-Biblical matters which makes even less sense, but notice that it is a pattern that especially older Wikipedia articles about ANE deities uncritically use sources from before the scripts were even properly understood (the Hadad article - which needs an overhaul but that's beside the point right now - had someone add a "source" nearly 150 years old recently!). I don't know if you are familiar with Theodore J. Lewis, but he wrote a good critical essay about Albright and his legacy - I plan to use it as a source in a (forthcoming) Ugaritic religion article for Wikipedia. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 11:48, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

It could be worse. I think we have articles that mention Alexander Hislop as a source. And he was a real crackpot. Anyway, Albright had apparently written texts on every aspect of Near Eastern archaeology. His main legacy is probably the Albright Institute of Archaeological Research which still has influence in the field of biblical archaeology.

Pointless image change

The older image actually showed Anat's well attested attribute, the atef crown, as well as a brandishing pose typical for warlike deities. The new one, added by an anonymous user in place of it, does not, and based on its wikimedia commons description its identification as Anat seems dubious to put it lightly, considering the completely outdated references to "fertility" not taken seriously by the majority of researchers today. I do not remember anything like it being mentioned among possible depictions in Cornelius' monograph, either. I think the old image should be restored. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Fringe speculation in the "Legacy" section

To my knowledge, it is somewhat hard to speak of "legacy" when the connection boils down to a single person in the 1960s (in a field where sources from as recently as 1980s are not always held to be credible anymore!) asserting myths separated by 2000 years and an enormous geographic distance are sort of similar. The entire section should basically be removed as it borders on a case of Wikipedia:Fringe theories. Not to mention the fact that it arbitrarily refers to a "consort" relation between deities which is not even accepted universally. HaniwaEnthusiast (talk) 12:05, 2 March 2023 (UTC)