TYPE: Moon Goddess
ORIGIN: Carthaginian [North Africa]
INFORMATION: The Romanized form of the Punic goddess Tanit. Elsewhere she became syncretized into the cult of Aphrodite-Venus. Annual games were held in her honor. She was brought to Rome in the form of an abstract block of stone (like that of Kybele from Pessinus) and became popular there during the early part of the third century CE; in this guise she was known as the "mighty protectress of the Tarpeian hill."