Asherah pole

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13th-century BC statuette depicting the goddess Asherah nursing the twins Shahar and Shalim. Her symbols, the sacred tree and the ibex, appear on her thighs. The figurine may have been held by women in childbirth.

An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the goddess Asherah. The relation of the literary references to an asherah and archaeological finds of Judaean pillar-figurines has engendered a literature of debate.

The asherim were also cult objects related to the worship of Asherah, the consort of either Ba'al or, as inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom attest, Yahweh, and thus objects of contention among competing cults. Most English translations of the Hebrew Bible translate asherim (Biblical Hebrew: אֲשֵׁרִים, romanized: ăšērim or אֲשֵׁרוֹת ăšēroṯ) to "Asherah poles".

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