I. Name

Athena is the main polis divinity in Greek religion. The Romans identified her with Minerva (etrusc. Menrva); the Greeks themselves found numerous homologues in the ancient Near East, e.g. the Egyptian Neith of Saïs (Mora 1985:95) and the Ugaritic-Syrian Anat (CIS 1, 95). The affiliation between the armed Greek goddess and Near Eastern armed goddesses like Anat or Ishtar (Colbow 1991) is controversial, but Oriental influence is plausible. In the Bible, Athena occurs only as t…