Amoashtart

Amoashtart ( *ʾAmīʿaštārt, "my mother is Astarte") was a Phoenician queen of Sidon during the Persian period. She was the daughter of Eshmunazar I, and the wife of her brother, Tabnit. When Tabnit died, Amoashtart became co-regent to her then-infant son, Eshmunazar II, but after the boy died "in his fourteenth year", she was succeeded by her nephew Bodashtart, possibly in a palace coup. Modern historians have characterized her as an "energetic, responsible [woman], and endowed with immense political acumen, [who] exercised royal functions for many years".

The only source for her biography is the sarcophagus of her son.

Etymology
Amoashtart is the Romanized form of the Phoenician theophoric name 𐤀𐤌𐤏𐤔𐤕𐤓𐤕 meaning "my mother is Astarte". Variable spellings include: Em-Astarte, Amo-Astarte, ’Am‘aštart, and Immi-Ashtart.

Biography
Amoashtart became queen ca. 550 BCE, as the wife of king Tabnit. This was a period when the economy of Sidon thrived, possibly after the competing city of Tyre had been hit severely by an earthquake (c. 550). Sidon was "reborn as an independent kingdom" and became "the leading Phoenician polity". The economic boom made possible an extensive building program of new city districts and grandiose temples for Ashtart, Baal, and Eshmun, as is testified in the inscriptions of both Eshmunazar II and Bodashtart. Because of the age of her boy son, these activities will in practice have been the initiative of the mother. A sign of the preeminent role of Sidon in Phoenicia is that the Persian kings (the "Lord of Kings") endowed Sidon with the rule over the two southern Palestinian cities of Dor and Jaffa, and the "land of Dagon".

As the Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II tells us, Amoastart was also a high priestess of Astarte. This traditionally was the main task of Sidonian kings. An Amoashtart sarcophagus has never been found. It is thought that one of the nameless sarcophagi in the royal tomb of Sidon may be hers. However, a uninscribed 26th dynasty Egyptian sarcophagus, along with the Sarcophagus of her husband Tabnit and her son Eshmunazar II were located at the nearby Royal Necropolis of Ayaʿa in the late 19th century. Marie-Louise Buhl's monograph The late Egyptian anthropoid stone sarcophagi confirmed the sarcophagus as belonging to them, which began in 664 BC and ended with Cambyses II's conquest of Egypt in 525 BC – many centuries after the last of the known Egyptian Stelae in the Levant. As these three Egyptian sarcophagi were buried together, it's are considered to have contained the bodies of the same family – i.e. Eshmunazar II and his parents Tabnit and Amoashtart. The uninscribed Sarcophagus that presumed to be Amoashtart's currently resides at the Istanbul Archaeology Museums along with Tabnit's sarcophagus.

Egyptian influences
Amoashtart was married to her own brother, Tabnit. This was common practice among the Egyptian pharaohs, and it may be a sign of strong Egyptian cultural influence in Phoenicia at the time. Since the ninth century Phoenicia had nominally been part of at first the Assyrian, then the Babylonian, and then the Persian empires, but in the early sixth century, between ca. 610 and c. 570, Egypt had repeatedly invaded Phoenicia, and economic contacts between Egypt and Phoenicia traditionally were strong. Admiration for Egyptian culture is also visible from the use of Egyptian or Egyptian style sarcophagi by the Sidonian rulers Tabnit and Eshmunazar II.

Genealogy
Amoashtart is the daughter of Eshmunazar I, the founder of his namesake dynasty.