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The ancient near-east has long been a rich source of evidence for gay and lesbian cultures (and communities) within early human civilization. But this region is increasingly an investigative focus for inquiry into the queer community in a much broader sense – particularly transgender, nonbinary and gender diverse history. In a recent post, I considered the genderfluid goddess Ishtar of Mesopotamia. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ishtar was connected to another influential goddess of queer worshippers among the ancient pagans: Atargatis.
Like Ishtar, Atargatis was reputed to preside over, and among, a cult devoted to gender transformation. In her case, this devotion was not just theoretical or mystical, but rather evidenced in physical acts of worship which made her infamous throughout the Greco-Roman and Hellenistic world.
The Syrian Goddess
The religious practices of the near-eastern world in ancient times were exceptionally diverse. Pantheons of deities shifted from city to city, even neighborhood to neighborhood, and were regularly edited by subsequent generations. War and trade moved spiritual beliefs throughout the known world; in their new locales, deities were transformed to meet the needs of the neophyte worshippers, often resulting in new authorities, new powers, new acts and even new names for a given object of devotion.
Most of the heavenly figures of this period in history have (at least) a few different identifications across time and space. Ishtar, for example, was known by multiple names (most prominently Inanna) depending on which governing polity had rule over Mesopotamia.
Such was the case for Atargatis, whose worship dates back at least to the 4th century BCE in her home region of Syria (though her actual veneration may date earlier).[1] Outside of Syria, Atargatis went by many names. For the Greeks and Romans, she was simply “the Syrian goddess” or “Dea Syria”.[2] Another name, primarily used by Roman contemporaries, was “Derceto” which was, according to scholars, linguistically comparable to Atargatis in the languages of that region.[3]
Unsurprisingly, Atargatis bore a range of origins and associations, and may have been the inspiration for later Greco-Roman goddesses such as Artemis/Diana and Aphrodite/Venus. As a goddess of love and fertility, she has also been confused (or perhaps mixed) with the Mesopotamian deity Ishtar. What seems unique about Atargatis, apart from her maternal attributes, are her marine ones. Atargatis is often called the “mermaid goddess” because her iconography regularly depicts a deity that is half woman, half fish.[4] Her most common origin myths suggest that this strange transformation occurred as a consequence of falling into a lake (thought the exact cause and course of events differ depending on the mythology).
As a result, fish were thought to be profoundly sacred to the goddess. At her central shrine in Hierapolis, for example, Roman commentators reported that her statue would be immersed in water ritualistically on an annual basis by her priests.[5] Her aquatic affiliations also point to the dolphin specifically, with some evidence of Atargatis depictions including “heraldic dolphins” for her crown.[6] Vegetation and stalks of grain are also visible within the goddess’s iconography, although historical records of her depictions show considerable variation depending on the location.[7] The goddess was also know to be portrayed wearing wall-like crowns to represent the protective barriers for the cities believed to be entrusted to her.[8]
The Cult of Atargatis
Atargatis, then, was a uniquely dynamic deity with fluid, diverse presentations across the cultural and civilizational fault lines of the Hellenistic world. Accordingly, her cult – her priesthood – was famous for how it starkly reflected the endlessly reinvented, transformational “mother”.
A crucial account comes from the Roman observer Lucian, who traveled to “the Sacred City” of Syria, which scholars argue was indeed Hierapolis, and thence to the temple of Derceto or Atargatis. Lucian, like his contemporaries, endeavors to connect the unfamiliar Syrian goddess with a few that he already knew well: Rhea, Hera, Artemis and Aphrodite, among others.[9] But it is what he describes in his account – a form of ritualistic self-castration – that is especially fascinating.
“[T]he custom once adopted remains even to-day, and many persons every year castrate themselves and lose their virile powers: whether it be out of sympathy with Combabus, or to find favour with Hera. They certainly castrate themselves, and then cease to wear man’s garb; they don women’s raiment and perform women’s tasks.”[10]
Combabus, in this context, refers to a local legend relayed by Lucian in which a forlorn royal advisor to a King castrated himself in order to prove his innocence of an affair with his master’s consort. Lucian specifically refers to the castrated priesthood as galli, noting:
“[T]he Galli who are in the temple in no case castrate themselves in honour of Juno, but of Rhea, and this in imitation of Attes. All this seems to me more specious than true, for I have heard a different and more credible reason given for their castration.”[11]
Lucian goes on in his narrative to explain the frenetic spiritual process by which new galli are made. He suggests that men who wish to join the cult of Atargatis did so willingly, and were required to be active participants in their own “unmanning”:
“During these [spring festival] days they are made Galli. As the Galli sing and celebrate their orgies, frenzy falls on many of them and many who had come as mere spectators afterwards are found to have committed the great act. I will narrate what they do. Any young man who has resolved on this action, strips off his clothes, and with a loud shout bursts into the midst of the crowd, and picks up a sword from a number of swords which I suppose have been kept ready for many years for this purpose. He takes it and castrates himself and then runs wild through the city, bearing in his hands what he has cut off. He casts it into any house at will, and from this house he receives women’s raiment and ornaments. Thus they act during their ceremonies of castration.”[12]
Incredibly, these rituals of self-castration and gender transformation proved quite difficult for monotheistic authorities to stamp out in the late ancient period – even when paganism began to decline in the wider region. In the 1st century CE, the legendary Christian King Abgar attempted to stamp out ritual self-castration from his capital at Edessa, where a temple to Atargatis reportedly thrived.[13] A chronicler recorded that the King threatened the penalty of a chopped hand to any man who chopped his nether regions in an act of ecstatic worship.
Despite this warning, the practice apparently continued for centuries longer. In the 5th century, a Bishop of Edessa called Rabbula was still fighting the same intractable battle with self-castration enthusiasts: apparently, the practice had grown popular among Christian monks (perhaps influenced by the earlier pagan priests) requiring the bishop to expressly forbid the practice in canon law.[14]
Transgender Priestesses?
Where does all this strange and fragmented evidence of Atargatis’ cult leave us, and what was really going on in these ancient religious communities?
It is notable that the idea of gender reversals, transitions and transformations was not unknown or particularly unfamiliar in ancient pagan religions. Examples of such deities and legendary figures, from Ishtar to Hermaphroditus, are visible in a wide range of cultures and eras. But when considering real-life historical worshippers, such as the galli in this instance, should they be considered “queer” in the modern sense of queer theory – let alone assigned more specific identities such as genderfluid, nonbinary or transgender?
It bears emphasis, at the outset of this discussion, that none of those questions can be definitively answered – particularly with the vast distance of time, linguistic nuances, language translation and cultural disparity between then and our present-day point of view. To the extent that queer historical interpretation always presents murky areas for analysis, the ancient world is especially opaque. Hard and fast conclusions are therefore impossible, and perhaps also inadvisable.
Given these limitations and inevitable caution signs, certain aspects of these contemporaneous accounts are intriguing. We cannot possibly know the mental or emotional resonance of self-castration to Atargatis’ priests as they have not left their own records; subsequently, their motivation(s) remain in the realm of speculation. What does seem clear, however, based on the primary accounts is that the men who joined this cult did so wholly of their own volition – aware of the physical and social implications of their decision. Once completed, these individuals transitioned to serving, dressing and behaving as women for the remainder of their lives.
Even more intriguing is that this practice was apparently publicly endorsed. These physical, then social, transitions were not only accepted, but abetted, by the local communities where a temple stood to the goddess. It is possible that taking such actions to serve the goddess was seen as a special commendation or honor. Far from skepticism, these cultures seem to have welcomed gender transition as a special marker of religious dedication.
But this latter assessment raises another separate consideration: were Atargatis’ priests (priestesses?) “transgender” in the way the queer community defines this terminology today? Did these individuals “transition” their gender solely as an act of worship, or to reflect who they felt they already were (or felt called to be?) Does the question even matter, in a practical sense, given the historical record at hand?
Queer in the Ancient World
Regardless of how a commentator or scholar might answer the question of specific identities, the notion that a gender spectrum and gender transition were well-known in these ancient communities is robustly supported – even if we cannot confirm the exact motivations and social implications which facilitated the growth of Atargatis’ priesthood.
More broadly, the historical record of this dynamic, ever-evolving goddess points to the millennia-old history of gender transition and social systems centered around gender fluidity. Atargatis’ legacy is additional evidence that not only are transgender, nonbinary and other identities well-established in the annals of human civilization, but that these identities have been previously endorsed and perhaps exalted depending on the context at hand. Further scholarship will undoubtedly elucidate the many questions raised by these queer individuals who existed thousands of years into our past. As ever, it seems there is nothing new under the sun – or the rainbow.
[1] Johanna Stuckey, “Atargatis, the Syrian Goddess,” Matrifocus, Cross-Quarterly for the Goddess Woman, Beltrane, 2009, Volume 8-3, https://www.academia.edu/23577340/Atargatis_the_Syrian_Goddess_by_Johanna_Stuckey.
[2] Francis Redding Walton and Antony Spawforth, “Atargatis”, Oxford Classical Dictionary, December 22, 2015, https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-896?d=%2F10.1093%2Facrefore%2F9780199381135.001.0001%2Facrefore-9780199381135-e-896&p=emailAApssiQW6c19I.
[3] Lucian, The Syrian Goddess (Translation and Notes), tr. by Herbert A. Strong and John Garstang, 1913, https://sacred-texts.com/cla/luc/tsg/tsg07.htm.
[4] Walton and Spawforth, ibid.
[5] John Kampen, “The Cult of Artemis and the Essenes in Syro-Palestine,” Dead Sea Discoveries 10, no. 2 (2003), pg. 214, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4193273.
[6] Kampen, 217.
[7] Manfred Lindner and Jürgen Zangenberg, “The Re-Discovered Baityl of the Goddess Atargatis in the Ṣiyyaġ Gorge of Petra (Jordan) and Its Significance for Religious Life in Nabataea,” Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1953-) 109, no. 2 (1993): 141–51, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27931467.
[8] Stuckey, ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Lucian, ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid, Section 51.
[13] H.J.W. Drijvers, “THE CULT OF ATARGATIS”, In Cults and Beliefs at Edessa, (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2015), pg. 76, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004295629_006.
[14] Drijvers, pg. 77.