Tanit or Tinnit (Punic: 𐤕𐤍𐤕 Tīnnīt (JStor)) was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage. She is the consort of Baal Hammon.The standard survey is: . An extensive critical review by G. W. Ahlström appeared in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 45(4), October 1986, pp. 311–314. As Ammon is a local Libyan deity, so is Tanit, who represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society, and whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection. Her main temples were in Thinissut (Bir Bouregba, Tunisia), Cirta (Constantine, Algeria), Lambaesis (Batna, Algeria) and Theveste (Tebessa, Algeria). She had a yearly festival in Antiquity which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa but was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, who called it a pagan festival.
Tannit was also a goddess of rain, in modern-day Tunisia, it is customary to invoke or ('Mother Tannou' or 'Mother Tangou', depending on the region), in years of drought to bring rain.
Etymology
The names themselves, Baal Hammon and Tanit, have Berber (Tamazight) linguistic structure. Many feminine names begin and end with "t" and "n" in the Berber languages; in Berber "Tanit" means spring or stream, though it does not appear in local theophorous names. Before 1955, the only attestations of the goddess's name were in Punic, which is written without vowels as "TNT" Tanit or "TNNT" as Tannit and was arbitrarily vocalized as "Tanit". In 1955, Punic inscriptions transliterated in Greek characters found at El-Hofra (near Constantine, Algeria) transliterated the name as (Thinith) and (Thenneith). The inscriptions indicate that the name was likely pronounced as Tinnīt. Still, many scholars and writers continue to use "Tanit". She was later worshipped in Roman Carthage in her Romanized form as Dea Caelestis, Juno Caelestis, or simply Caelestis.
Worship
Tanit was worshiped in Punic contexts in the Western Mediterranean, in North Africa, Sicily, Malta, Gades and many other places into Hellenistic times when Rome expanded into North Africa. Long after the fall of Carthage, Tanit was still venerated in North Africa under the , for her identification with Juno by the Romans.Tanit's worship had a massive local cult of origin in North Africa, since in ancient Carthage, Tanit soon eclipsed the more established cult of Baal Hammon and, in the Carthaginian area at least, was frequently listed before him on the monuments. From the fifth century BC onwards, Tanit's worship is associated with that of Baal Hammon. She is given the epithet ('face of Baal') and the title , the female form of ('chief' or 'lord').Markoe 2000:130. In North Africa, where the inscriptions and material remains are more plentiful, she was, as well as a consort of Baal Hammon, a heavenly goddess of war, a "virginal" (unmarried) mother goddess and nurse, and, less specifically, a symbol of fertility, as are most female forms. Tanit's worship became popular in Carthage, especially after the separation between Carthage and Tyre in the 6th century BC when the traditional Phoenician cults of Astarte and Melqart were replaced by the worship of local North African deities Tanit and Baal Hammon.
Several of the major Greek goddesses were identified with Tanit by the syncretic interpretatio graeca, which recognized as Greek deities in foreign guise the gods of most of the surrounding non-Hellene cultures as the Greek historians such as Herodotus, Apollodorus, Pausanias mention that Athena has ancient Libyan origins in North Africa to Tanit herself as a goddess of strikingly similar aspects to Athena (Wisdom, War, Weaving..etc.). Herodotus one of the most well known Greek historians who traveled throughout the region wrote about her the following:
Archeologists have recently also uncovered temples of Tannit dating back to the 4th century BC in the Azores islands dedicated to Tanit, archaeologists uncovered more than five hypogea type monuments (tombs excavated in rocks) and at least three 'sanctuaries' proto-historic, carved into the rock.
A shrine excavated at Sarepta in southern Phoenicia revealed an inscription that has been speculated to have connection between the goddesses Tanit and Astarte (Ishtar).. The inscription reads , and could identify Tanit as an epithet of Astarte at Sarepta, for the element does not appear in theophoric names in Punic contexts (Ahlström 1986 review, p 314). Iconographic portrayals of both deities later become similar thanks to the influence of Carthage's trade empire across the mediterranean West to East.Manuel Salinas de Frías, El Afrodísion Óros de Viriato, Acta Palaeohispanica XI. Palaeohispanica 13 (2013), pp. 257-271 I.S.S.N.: 1578-5386. The relation between both deities has been proposed to be hypostatic in nature, representing similar aspects of the goddesses.Julio González Alcalde, Simbología de la diosa Tanit en representaciones cerámicas ibéricas, Quad. Preh. Arq. Cast. 18, 1997Guadalupe López Monteagudo, María Pilar San Nicolás Pedraz, Astarté-Europa en la península ibérica - Un ejemplo de interpretatio romana, Complurum Extra, 6(I), 1996: 451-470 In Carthage, Astarte another war goddess was worshipped alongside the goddess Tanit, the two deities are clearly not equal and one does not originate from the other. Although Tanit did not appear at Carthage before the 5th century BC, this shows her clear origins locally from North Africa. However it is well known that the Phoenician Astarte is a deity of wars of aggression, in direct contrast to Libyan Tanit which only goes to war in the defense of the civilization or the homeland where she is worshipped, called "defender of homes and families", giving direction and help to those who seek wisdom. Carthagenians spread the cult of Tanit-Astarte to the Iberian Peninsula with the foundation of Gadir (modern day Cádiz) and other colonies, where the goddess might have been also assimilated to native deities. Her worship was still active after the Roman conquest, when she was integrated with the Roman goddess Juno (along with elements from Diana and Minerva) in a goddess named Dea Caelestis, the same way Baal Hammon was assimilated to Saturn. Dea Caelestis retained Punic traits until the end of classical antiquity in the fourth century CE. Similarly, long after the fall of Carthage, Tanit was still venerated in North Africa under the , for her identification with Juno.
The temple of Juno Caelestis, dedicated to the City Protector Goddess Juno Caelestis, which was the Roman name for Tanit, was one of the biggest building monuments of Roman Carthage, and became a holy site for pilgrims from all North Africa and Spain.McHugh, J. S. (2015). The Emperor Commodus: God and Gladiator. (n.p.): Pen & Sword Books.
Iconography
Her symbol (the sign of Tanit), found on many ancient stone carvings, the symbol of Tannit, is a triangle representing the human body, surmounted by a circle representing the head, and separated by a horizontal line which represents the hands. Later, the trapezium was frequently replaced by an isosceles triangle. The symbol is interpreted by Danish professor of Semitic philology F. O. Hvidberg-Hansen as a woman raising her hands. She is also represented by the crescent moon and the Venus symbol.
Tanit is often depicted while riding a lion or having a lion's head herself, showing her warrior quality, and is often naked or bare-breasted, as a symbol of sexuality.Marín Ceballos, M. (1987) ¿Tanit en España? Lucentum Núm. 6 pg. 43-80 She is also depicted winged, possibly under the influence of Egyptian artwork of Isis. Her associated animal and plants are the lion, the dove, the palm tree and the rose. Another motif assimilates her to Europa, portraying Tanit as a woman riding a bull that would represent another deity, possibly El.
Rituals
Berber women's ritual in North Africa (Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) evolved around healing fertility worship lamentation and life cycles, for Berber women these rituals are supposed to bring personal and communal satisfaction regarding: religious enactment, spirituality, emotional needs, reinforcement of family and social bonds, and achievement of pedagogical goals. These rituals may be public or private. An example of a public ritual is the right of or (bride of the rain). This is one of the oldest rites which seeks rain from the sky when the soil and agriculture are threatened by droughts and scarcity of water. The origin of this rite goes back to an ancient tradition of gathering and singing in front of the Goddess Tanit to implore her to bring rain when water is scarce, the performance of this rite changes from region to region but the differences in this respect are small. A procession goes from village to village and from one saint's sanctuary to another carrying an effigy of a female, on the way the bride is splashed with water from terraces and windows of houses, people give money gifts to the leader of the procession, the gathered money and food are used to prepare a big meal near a water spring or in a saint's sanctuary, usually on top of the hill.
Child sacrifice
The origins of Tanit are to be found in the pantheon of Ugarit, especially in the Ugaritic goddess Anat (Hvidberg-Hansen 1982). There is significant, albeit disputed, evidence, both archaeological and within ancient written sources, pointing towards child sacrifice forming part of the worship of Tanit and Baal Hammon.Markoe, p. 136
Some archaeologists theorised that infant sacrifices have occurred. Lawrence E. Stager, who directed the excavations of the Carthage Tophet in the 1970s, believes that infant sacrifice was practiced there. Paolo Xella of the National Research Council in Rome summarised the textual, epigraphical, and archaeological evidence for Carthaginian infant sacrifice.
Archaeological evidence
is a Hebrew term from the Bible, used to refer to a site near Jerusalem at which Canaanites and Israelites who rejected king Josiah's reforms in Yahwism by practicing Canaanite idolatry were said to sacrifice children. It is now used as a general term for all such sites with cremated human and animal remains. The Hebrew Bible does not specify that the Israelite victims were buried, only burned, although the "place of burning" was probably adjacent to the place of burial. We have no idea how the Phoenicians themselves referred to the places of burning or burial, or to the practice itself.