ASHTAROTH (sh'ta-rotta), (Heb. ash law-roth', a wife, and Ashtaroth-Carnaim, a town of Basilan (Dcut. 1:4; Josh. ix:to) which was included in the territory of the half.
tribe of Manasseh (Josh. and was as signed to the Levites (t Chron, vi:71; Judg.
Sam. vii:3; xxxi:io; I Kings x1:5, 33; xxiii:13). It is placed by Eusebius 6 miles from Edrei, the other principal town of Basilan, and 25 miles from Bostra. The town existed in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv :5); and as its name of Ash taroth appears to be derived from the worship of the moon under that name (see AsirrokEm), there is little need to look further than the cres cent of that luminary and its symbolical image for an explanation of the addition Carnaim, or rather Karnaim, ' horned.' In 2 Macc. xii:26, mention is made of the temple of Atergatis (Ashtaroth) in Carillon, which is described as a strongly fortified town of difficult access, but which was taken by Judas Maccab:cus, who slew 25,000 of the people therein (2 Macc. 26). Ashtaroth-Carnaim is now usually identified with Mezareib, the situation of which corresponds accurately enough with the distances given by Eusebius. Here is the first castle on the great pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca. It was built about 3)0 years ago by the Sultan Selim, and is a square structure, about too feet on each side, with square towers at the angles and in the center of each face, the walls being 40 feet high. The interior is an open yard with ranges of warehouses against the castle wall to contain stores of provisions for the pilgrims. There are no dwellings beyond the castle, and within it only a few mud huts upon the tlat roofs of the warehouses, occupied by the peasants who cultivate the neighboring grounds. Close to this
building on the north and cast side are a great number of springs, whose waters at a short dis tance collect into a lake or pond about a mile and a half in circumference. In the midst of this lake is an island, and at an elevated spot at the ex tremity of a promontory advancing into the lake, stands a sort of chapel, around which are many ruins of ancient buildings. There are no other ruins. (Burckhardt, p. 212; (Buckingham's Arab Tribes, p. 162.) Porter thinks it possibly identical with Kenath and modern Rundwat. Others, with greater probability, suggest 7'//-Ishiir,f, 20 miles east of the Sea of Galilee. "The antiquity of Ash. taroth (if the name lie read and identified cor rectly) is attested independently by Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions: an .-Istertu occurs in the list of places in Southern Syria compiered by Taloomes I I I, of the 18th dynasty, in Ins twenty second year (Tomkins, TSB,-1 ix, 262, and in RP2 v. 45, No. 28; W. Max Midler, eisien rz. Eur. nach Penkm., 1..162; cf. 1Viedemann, Gesrh. 318 f., 371); and an Ashtarti is mentioned in the correspondence, from Palestine, with Amena phis IV 5th cent. B. C.) as having been in the possession 01 the Egyptians, and !wing seized by alkyls (11crold and Budge, The Tel r/ A marna lets in the Prit. .11 us., Nos. 43, 61; Sayce, Pao tar hal • tee. I8, j, pp. 133, 1;1 . The writers named identify these places '.15litandi-Kar naini; but they may equally %Yell have been the later capital of Og, 'Ashtaroth (supposing this to have been distinct)." (S. R. Driver, Hastings' Bib.