Star of Venus

The Star of Venus.
The Islamic Star and Crescent bearing a five-pointed version of the Star of Venus.
The flag of Iraq from 1959-1963, bearing the Star of Venus.

The Star of Venus also called the Star of Ishtar is an ancient symbol originating in Iraq used as early as 2000 BCE that represents the planet Venus, historically to represent the Assyrian and Babylonian Goddess Ishtar that are connected with Venus, as well as being historically used by Phoenician culture to represent Venus and the goddess Astarte (a counterpart of Ishtar).[1][2] The symbol has been commonly represented as an eight-pointed star as it was discovered to be presented as such on a Babylonian seal approximately dated to 800 BCE.[2] However in modern times in Islamic societies it has been represented by a five-pointed star that is used alongside a crescent moon.[2]

The Star of Ishtar is the central symbol of the Assyrian flag.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hugo Gressmann, Julian Obermann. The tower of Babel. Jewish Institute of Religion Press, 1928. Pp. 81.
  2. 1 2 3 Carl G. Liungman. Symbols: Encyclopedia of Western Signs and Ideograms. Lidingö, Sweden: HME Publishing, 2004. Pp. 228.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, September 20, 2015. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.