Note 187 — Chapter V

Hang, "Essays," p. 179. The passages given in the text from the Aban Yasht, notwithstanding the swelling breasts, shows how definitely the form of Anahita belongs to the Iranian conception, how peculiarly this goddess of fountains is represented in this form, and how intimately connected she is with the whole Iranian system of the boon of water, and the legends of the heroes. A brass tablet found at Grächwyl in the canton of Berne, which exhibits the Persian Artemis with swelling breasts, surrounded by four lions, with a bird of prey on her head and serpents instead of ears, and wings on the shoulders, has decided J. Stickel ("De monumento Graechwyliano") to regard the Persian Artemis as identical with the Semitic goddess of birth. This tablet is due to the syncretism of Roman times. Certain similarities between the Syrian goddess of birth and fertility, Mylitta-Derceto, and the Persian goddess of water, might lead to such a syncretism even under the Achæmenids, and this coincidence might determine Artaxerxes Mnemon to erect images of Anahita in Ecbatana and Susa after the pattern of the Semites. Beros. fragm., 16 ed. Müller, and below.