Atarsamain (also spelled Attar-shamayin, Attarshamayin,Retso, Jan. The Arabs in Antiquity: Their history from the Assyrians to the Umayyads. Routledge, 2013, p. 168 Attarsame (ʿAttarsamē);Ahmad al-Jallad, "On the origins of the god Ruḍ aw and some remarks on the pre-Islamic North Arabian pantheon," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (2021) "morning star of heaven") () was an astral deity of uncertain gender, worshipped in the pre-Islamic northern and central

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula, (; ar, شِبْهُ الْجَزِيرَةِ الْعَرَبِيَّة, , "Arabian Peninsula" or , , "Island of the Arabs") or Arabia, is a peninsula of Western Asia, situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian Plate ...

. Worshipped widely by

Arab tribes The Tribes of Arabia () or Arab tribes () are the ethnic Arab tribes and clans that originated in the Arabian Peninsula. The tribes of Arabia descend from either one of the two Arab ancestors, Adnan or Qahtan. Arab tribes have historically inhabit ...

, Atarsamain is known from around 800 BC and is identified in letters of the Assyrian kings Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal.Hoyland, 2001, p. 68. Atarsamain may be identical with Allāt, whose cult was centred on Palmyra and also with Attar. According to Dierk Lange, Atarsamain was the main deity in a trinity of gods worshipped by what he calls the Yumu'il Confederation, which he describes as a northern Arab tribal confederation of Ishmaelite ancestry headed by the "clan of Kedar" (i.e. the Qedarites).Lange, 2004, pp. 268–269. Lange identifies Nuha as the

solar deity A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The ...

, Ruda as the lunar deity, and Atarsamin as the main deity associated with Venus. A similar trinity of gods representing the sun, moon and Venus is found among the peoples of the South Arabian kingdoms of Awsan, Ma'in, Qataban and

Hadhramawt Hadhramaut ( ar, حَضْرَمَوْتُ \ حَضْرَمُوتُ, Ḥaḍramawt / Ḥaḍramūt; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, ''Ḥḍrmt'') is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Sau ...

between the 9th and 4th centuries BC. There, the deity associated with Venus was Astarte, the sun deity was

Yam Yam or YAM may refer to: Plants and foods *Yam (vegetable), common name for members of ''Dioscorea'' * Taro, known in Malaysia and Singapore as yam * Sweet potato, specifically its orange-fleshed cultivars, often referred to as yams in North Amer ...

, and moon deity was variously called Wadd,

Amm Amm or AMM may refer to: Entertainment Music *AMM (group), British free improvisation group Television *Amy's Mythic Mornings, an educational show on APTN Kids Video games * Automated MatchMaking, in the context of the Warcraft III Ladder system ...

and Sin. Atarsamain is twice mentioned in the annals of

Ashurbanipal Ashurbanipal (Neo-Assyrian language, Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , meaning "Ashur (god), Ashur is the creator of the heir") was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 669 BCE to his death in 631. He is generally remembered as the last great king o ...

, king of the Neo-Assyrian empire in the 7th century BC. The reference is to ''a?lu (sā) a-tar-sa-ma-a-a-in'' ("the people of Attar of Heaven") who are said to have been defeated together with the Nebayot (

Nebaioth Nebaioth ( ''Nəḇāyōṯ'') or Nebajoth is mentioned at least five times in the Hebrew Bible, according to which he was the firstborn son of Ishmael, and the name appears as the name of one of the wilderness tribes mentioned in the Book of Genes ...

/ Nabataeans) and the Qedarites led by Yauta ben Birdadda, who was also known as "king of the Arabs".

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