Searching for Tanit in Ibiza

Who is Goddess Tanit of Ibiza?

Tanit is an ancient African Mother goddess of sexuality, fertility and death. Her worship spread throughout the Mediterranean where she was honored for her ancient powers over the life-death continuum in Phoenicia, Carthage, Iberia, Libya and even Egypt.

Ibiza was her island until the Roman Emperor Vespasian suppressed her cult in AD74.  The Romans named her Dea Caelestis and worshiped her as Juno. To this day Tanit is still worshiped in Ibiza and her cave Temple, at Cova Des Cuieram on the road to Portinax, still remains as testament to her memory and spirit.

In ancient times, the Island was a sacred place associated with healing, rebirth and resurrection where Carthaginian nobility buried their dead at the necropolis at Puig des Moulins. Even the Romans laid their dead to rest there. 

Today, many people still come to Ibiza for the healing and rejuvenation powers of her waters, springs and fountains are said to possess purification, fertility, life and magnetic balance.

To me, Ibiza is the island where Tanit became my guide and protectress when I moved there to heal from a divorce. I was introduced to Her mysteries through grief and then recovery. Tanit is an African-Semitic Persephone who protects the dead and the dying. She is a healer, and Tantric mystic who teaches life, death and rebirth to all beings. She is the Goddess of regeneration, metamorphosis and spiritual resurrection.

Tanit’s origins

Tanit –  Thinit – Tanis – Rat Tanit – Lady of Carthage – Lady of the Sanctuary – Tinit – Tank – The face of Ba’al – The heavenly Goddess – Tanith – The heavenly virgin.

All are names to represent the original great goddess, an ancient and powerful force and symbol of fertility and fruitfulness.

Tanit was the highest deity and the protector of the city of Carthage, with her consort Ba’al – Hammon the god of the sky, she watched over and protected Carthage. Tanit’s worship was spread from North Africa to Spain, Malta and Sardinia.

There are varied opinions as to the date of the emergence of this goddess, most scholars treat Tanit as having come from the Phoenician mainland as a descendant of one or more of the great Canaanite goddesses. 

A few others see her as either originating in North Africa or being a combination of an indigenous North African goddess with one or more of the Phoenician/Canaanite deities.

Before her death in 2005, Monica Sjöö had been working on a book “Seeking Tanit: African/Semitic Great Goddess and Her people”. This was to be her last great work, in which she explored the origins and mysteries of the African Goddess.

Her research also shows that Tanit – the African Persephone and preserver of life in the Underworld, protector of the dead and giver of resurrection, who says “I am the Beginning and the End” – was the Goddess who presided over that world.

“I was on Ibiza – an ancient island of the Phoenicians in the Bronze Age and a sacred        centre of their Great Goddess, Tanit, who said I am the beginning and the end” – when I discovered that I had a cancerous tumour in my breast. It was February of 1997. Although the tumour was five centimetres by then, I had never noticed it. I learned that Ibiza, which was called “The Island of Pine Trees”, was a place where people came to be healed and also to die. It was a colony of the Carthaginians/Phoenicians from north Africa. There are many wells here sacred to Tanit, whose mysteries were forgotten when the Romans destroyed Carthage (Tunisia). She was the same Goddess as Astarte of the Canaanites (also a Phoenician-Semitic people) who was hated by the Hebrew prophets and their Jahweh. Tanit was also African Berber in origin. In this image are the hand of Tanit (later the hand of Fatima?) and other symbols. Here is La Dama de Elche, found in Andalucia and representing the Goddess herself or Her priestess, wearing extraordinary headplates and heavy jewellery, so mysterious. Apparently Ox T’art means “womb of the Earth”, so in Ash T’art there is the word “womb”. The Siren or Serene carries the soul of the dead to the Otherworld.”

~ Monica Sjöö