Tanit

Tanit
Goddess of civilized life
Carthaginian coin depicting the face of Tanit on the front, and her symbols the horse and the date palm tree in the opposite side.
Other namesThinnith, Tannit, Tinnit, Tinnith
AbodeIn the heavens with Baal Hammon
Animalshorse, Lion, Dove
SymbolAegis, spear, armor, chariot
TreeOlive tree, Dates Tree
Genderfemale
RegionNorth Africa: Carthage, Numidia, Libya
Genealogy
Avatar birthLake Tritonis
ParentsAtlas, Triton
SiblingsPallas
ConsortBaal Hammon
Equivalents
CanaaniteAnat
RomanMinerva
EgyptianNeith
GreekAthena

Tanit or Tinnit (Punic: 𐤕𐤍𐤕 Tīnnīt) was a chief deity of Ancient Carthage; she derives from a local Berber deity and the consort of Baal Hammon. As Ammon is a local Libyan deity, so is Tannit, who represents the matriarchal aspect of Numidian society, whom the Egyptians identify as Neith and the Greeks identify as Athena. She was the goddess of wisdom, civilization and the crafts; she is the defender of towns and homes where she is worshipped. Ancient North Africans used to put her sign on tombstones and homes to ask for protection her main temples in Thinissut (Bir Bouregba, Tunisia), Cirta (Constantine, Algeria), Lambaesis (Batna, Algeria) and Theveste (Tebessa, Algeria). She had a yearly festival in Antiquity which persists to this day in many parts of North Africa but was banned by Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, who called it a pagan festival.

Tannit was also a goddess of rain, in modern-day Tunisia, it is customary to invoke Omek Tannou or Oumouk Tangou ('Mother Tannou' or 'Mother Tangou', depending on the region), in years of drought to bring rain Similarly, Algerians and Tunisians refer to "Baali farming" to mean non-irrigated agriculture.