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Ishtar
Ishtar , ancient fertility deity, the most widely worshiped goddess in Babylonian and Assyrian religion. She was worshiped under various names and forms. Most important as a mother goddess and as a goddess of love, Ishtar was the source of all the generative powers in nature and mankind. However, sh...
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Astarte
Astarte , Semitic goddess of fertility and love. She was the most important goddess of the Phoenicians and corresponds to the Babylonian Ishtar and the Greek Aphrodite. She took a dominant place in Middle Eastern religions, and the Jews strictly forbade use of her name. She is referred to in the Bib...
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Semiramis
Semiramis , mythical Assyrian queen, noted for her beauty and wisdom. She was reputed to have conquered many lands and founded the city of Babylon. After a long and prosperous reign she vanished from earth in the shape of a dove and was thereafter worshiped as a deity, acquiring many of the characte...
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Tammuz
Tammuz , ancient nature deity worshiped in Babylonia. A god of agriculture and flocks, he personified the creative powers of spring. He was loved by the fertility goddess Ishtar , who, according to one legend, was so grief-stricken at his death that she contrived to enter the underworld to get him ...
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Uruk
Uruk or Erech , ancient Sumerian city of Mesopotamia , on the Euphrates and NW of Ur (in present-day S Iraq). It is the modern Tall al Warka. Uruk, dating from the 5th millennium BC, was the largest city in S Mesopotamia and an important religious center. The sanctuaries of the goddess Inanna (...
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Virgo
Virgo [Lat.,=the virgin], constellation lying on the ecliptic (the sun's apparent path through the heavens) between Libra and Leo, and SW of Boötes; it is one of the constellations of the zodiac . Virgo is traditionally depicted as a maiden holding an ear of grain to symbolize the harvest...
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Aphrodite
Aphrodite , in Greek religion and mythology, goddess of fertility, love, and beauty. Homer designated her the child of Zeus and Dione. Hesiod's account of her birth is more popular: she supposedly rose from the foam of the sea where Uranus' genitals had fallen after he had been mutilated by Kronos. ...
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Babylon
Babylon , ancient city of Mesopotamia. One of the most important cities of the ancient Middle East, it was on the Euphrates River and was north of the cities that flourished in S Mesopotamia in the 3d millennium BC It became important when Hammurabi made it the capital of his kingdom of Babylonia...
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Warren Beatty
Warren Beatty (Henry Warren Beatty) , 1937-, motion picture actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, b. Richmond, Va. An eminently bankable star, the handsome, charismatic, yet oddly elusive leading man made his film debut in Splendor in the Grass (1961). His reputation as a Hollywood Don Ju...
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fertility rites
fertility rites magico-religious ceremonies to insure an abundance of food and the birth of children. The rites, expressed through dances, prayers, incantations, and sacred dramas, seek to control the otherwise unpredictable forces of nature. In primitive agricultural societies natural phenomena, s...
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