perseus.tufts/hopper/artifact?name=BCMA+1914.6.6&object=Coin

1. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=BCMA+1914.6.6&object=Coinhttp://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=BCMA+1914.6.6&object=Coin

4. Attributed to the Brygos PainterAthena holding ahelmet and a spear, with an owl. Attic red-figure lekythos, Circa 490 – 480 BCE

5. Wikipedia entry: Athena and Owl • The reasons behind the association of Athena and the owl are lost in time. Some mythographers, such as David Kinsley andMartin P. Nilsson suggest that she may descend from a Minoan palace goddess associated with birds[4][5] and MarijaGimbutasclaim to trace Athena's origins as an Old European bird and snake goddess.[6][7] • On the other hand, Cynthia Berger theorizes about the appeal of some characteristics of owls —such as their ability to see in the dark— to be used as symbol of wisdom[2] while others, such as William Geoffrey Arnott, propose a simple association between founding mythsofAthens and the significant number of Little Owls in the region (a fact noted since antiquity by Aristophanes in The Birds and Lysistrata).[8] • In any case, the city of Athens seems to have adopted the owl as proof of allegiance to its patron virgin goddess,[8][9] which according to a popular etiological myth reproduced on the West pediment of the Parthenon, secured the favor of its citizens by providing them with a more enticing gift than Poseidon.[10] • Owls were commonly reproduced by Athenians in vases, weights and prize amphoras for the Panathenaic Games.[8] The owl of Athena even became the common obverse of the Athenian tetradrachms after 510 BC and according to Philochorus, the Athenian tetradrachm was known as glaux (γλαύξ, owl) throughout the ancient world[11] and "owl" in present day numismatics.[12][13] They were not, however, used exclusively by them to represent Athena and were even used for motivation during battles by other Greek cities, such as in the victory ofAgathocles of Syracuse over the Carthaginians in 310 B.C. —in which owls flying through the ranks were interpreted as Athena’s blessing[2]— or in the Battle of Salamis, chronicled in Plutarch's biography of Themistocles.[14] • Rome[edit] • For more details on this topic, see Minerva. • The association between the owl and the goddess continued through Minerva in Roman mythology, although the later sometimes simply adopts it as a sacred or favorite bird. For example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Cornix the crow complains that her spot as the goddess' sacred bird is occupied by the owl, which in that particular story turns out to be Nyctimene, a cursed daughter of Epopeus, king ofLesbos.[15] • As for ancient Roman folklore, owls were considered harbingers of death if they hooted while perched on a roof and placing one of its feathers near someone sleeping could prompt him or her to speak and reveal their secrets.[1]

6. 2000 BCE Burney Relief of IshtarBritish MuseumOld Babylonian Period

7. Myths of Ishtar • Ishtar was the goddess of love, war, fertility, and sexuality. • Ishtar was the daughter of Ninurta.[2] She was particularly worshipped in northern Mesopotamia, at the Assyrian cities of Nineveh, Ashur and Arbela (Erbil).[2] • Besides the lions on her gate, her symbol is an eight-pointed star.[3] • The lion was her symbol (detail of the Ishtar Gate) • In the Babylonian pantheon, she "was the divine personification of the planet Venus".[2] • Ishtar had many lovers; however, as Guirand notes, • "Woe to him whom Ishtar had honoured! The fickle goddess treated her passing lovers cruelly, and the unhappy wretches usually paid dearly for the favours heaped on them. Animals, enslaved by love, lost their native vigour: they fell into traps laid by men or were domesticated by them. 'Thou has loved the lion, mighty in strength', says the hero Gilgamesh to Ishtar, 'and thou hast dug for him seven and seven pits! Thou hast loved the steed, proud in battle, and destined him for the halter, the goad and the whip.' • Even for the gods Ishtar's love was fatal. In her youth the goddess had loved Tammuz, god of the harvest, and—if one is to believe Gilgamesh—this love caused the death of Tammuz.[2] • Her cult may have involved sacred prostitution.[4] Guirand referred to her holy city Uruk as the "town of the sacred courtesans" and to her as the "courtesan of the gods".[2] • Descent into the underworld[edit] • One of the most famous myths[5] about Ishtar describes her descent to the underworld. In this myth, Ishtar approaches the gates of the underworld and demands that the gatekeeper open them: • If thou openest not the gate to let me enter,I will break the door, I will wrench the lock,I will smash the door-posts, I will force the doors.I will bring up the dead to eat the living.And the dead will outnumber the living. • The gatekeeper hurried to tell Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld. Ereshkigal told the gatekeeper to let Ishtar enter, but "according to the ancient decree".

8. Isis – From Egyptian Tomb of Seti Iin the Valley of the Kings, Circa 1360 – 1335 BCE