On the Syrian Goddess

On the Syrian Goddess is a Greek treatise of the second century AD which describes religious cults practiced at the temple of Hierapolis Bambyce, now Manbij, in Syria. Not only does it acknowledge that at one time a paramount Goddess was worshipped in the regions of the Ancient Near East, it goes into detail of the practices of her devotees which later generations considered reprehensible. The book describes the worship as being of a phallic character, with votaries offering little male figures of wood and bronze. There were also huge phalli set up like obelisks before the temple, which were ceremoniously climbed once a year and decorated. The treatise begins with a re-telling of the Atrahasis flood myth where floodwaters are drained through a small cleft in the rock under the temple. Nonetheless, On the Syrian Goddess played an important role in the development of modern Neopaganism.