Summary
The Kotharat are the goddesses of conception and birth on the tablets of Ugarit. They enter the house where a child is hoped for, are fed and given drink, and leave after seven days; they are sung at weddings, and their names begin with the bride's dowry and end with the cutting of the cord.
In the Tale of Aqhat Danel has no son, so he spends seven days in the sanctuary feeding the gods, until Baal intercedes for him before El, who blesses him and promises him a son. Danel returns home rejoicing and finds that the Kotharat have entered his house, "the daughters of Hll, the Bright Ones". He slaughters an ox for them and feeds them and gives them drink day after day, the first and second, the third and fourth, the fifth and sixth; on the seventh day they leave his house, "those who apportion the delights of the bed of conception, the joys of the bed of childbirth". Then Aqhat is born.
In KTU 1.24 the poet sings the wedding of Yarikh the moon and Nikkal, saying that Yarikh embraced "her who was born of the Kotharat", and breaks off the tale three times with the call: "Hear, goddesses, Kotharat, daughters of Hll, the Bright Ones!" After Yarikh has paid the bride-price and the bride's family has set up the scales, the text ends with a hymn to them: "I sing of the goddesses, the Kotharat, daughters of Hll, daughters of Hll, lord of Gamlu, who go down to the nut-groves and among the olive-groves.. in my mouth is their number, on my lips is the sum of them", and then it lists their names, in Wyatt's translation: "Trousseau" and "Dowry", "Cord-Cutter" and "Womb-Opener", "Breather-of-Breath" with Perubahsh, and "Goodness", the youngest of the Kotharat.
The idea their appearances turn on is that a child is one road that begins with the wedding and ends with the birth, and the Kotharat watch over all of it. Their first names come from the bride-price and the trousseau, their last from opening the womb, cutting the cord and breathing breath into the newborn. So Wyatt says their roles cover everything from the nuptials to the birth of a child, "not just mid-wives but health-visitors", and cites Husser's view that they preside over the critical first six days of the newborn's life. For Wyatt they are seven, answering to the Akkadian šassūrātu, the womb goddesses, and he suggests that they pass their own traits to the newborn and so form its character. The story belongs to the sacred marriage, since their hymn was recited at weddings.
We read the name in the Arabic tongue like this. The tablets write kṯrt, the feminine plural of kṯr, the name of Kothar-wa-Khasis, the craftsman of the gods; the final t is the plural ending, and Kotharat is the plural of Kothar as Arabic would form it. The project's Canaanite essay reads Kothar from kathura and kawthar, much and abundant good, and makes his name "the skilled one who produces much". The essay does not mention the Kotharat, but they carry his very name, so its reading holds for them: they are the ones who make many, and akthara in Lane is to make a thing much and multiply it, which is what they do in Danel's house: they enter the house of a man without a son and leave it with his household increased. Hebrew has the same letters in kāšēr, to succeed and be fitting, and kôšārôt, prosperity, in the psalm that says God "settles the solitary in a home".
Linguistic Root
| Spelling or word | Language | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| kṯrt | Ugaritic | the Kotharat, plural of kṯr |
| kṯr | Ugaritic | Kothar, the craftsman; as adjective, skilful |
| kathura, akthara, kawthar | Arabic | to be much; to multiply; abundant good |
| kāšēr, kôšārôt | Hebrew | to succeed, be fitting; prosperity |
| snnt | Ugaritic | the Bright Ones, or the swallows |
| sanā | Arabic | light, the light of lightning |
| hll | Ugaritic | Hll, their father |
The ṯ across three languages
Ugaritic ṯ stays th in Arabic and becomes š in Hebrew, as in ṯawr and šôr, ox. So Ugaritic kṯr is Arabic k-th-r and Hebrew k-š-r. Wyatt says the Kotharat are the feminine plural of kṯr, which as a divine name is Kothar the artificer, and renders them "the skilful goddesses", citing Pardee that there is no evidence of a link between the god and the goddesses. The three senses lie side by side: skill in Ugaritic, success and fitness in Hebrew, abundance in Arabic, and all three are what a household hoping for a child needs. The reading joins the essay's "the abundant one" for Kothar with Wyatt's "the skilful": a skill that multiplies.
The Bright Ones or the swallows
Their epithet on the tablets is snnt. Virolleaud, the first editor, read it "swallows", from Akkadian sinuntu and Hebrew sənûnît, and this gave them their common name. Pardee and Wyatt render it "the Bright Ones". Arabic sanā is light, the light of lightning and of fire, a high light, so the second reading finds its root in Arabic: the daughters of Hll, the shining ones; and their father Hll is usually read as Arabic hilāl, the new moon, the first light of the moon after its absence. Wyatt records three views of Hll: the Arabic new moon, the usual one; Enlil; and a god Helel.
Key Mythic Narratives
In the pantheon and offering lists
The Ugaritic pantheon list sets the Kotharat after "Earth and Heaven" and before Yarikh, and the Akkadian version renders them šassūrātu, the womb goddesses. In the list of sacrifices of Saphon a ram is offered to them, and another ram to Kothar the craftsman in the same list; elsewhere El receives a ram and the Kotharat a ram. Wyatt compares them with NIN.MAH, as told under Ninhursag, who makes human beings from clay.
How many they are
Wyatt holds that they are seven, since the poet says "in my mouth is their number", which a count of two would hardly need, and he compares the seven spirits of Isaiah 11:2. Watson takes them as two midwives, like the two Hebrew midwives of Exodus, and takes what is counted in the hymn to be the months of pregnancy; Wyatt rejects this on grammatical grounds.
Cross-Cultural Parallels
In Greece the three Moirai attend the birth and allot the child its share; when Meleager was seven days old they came and declared that he would die when the brand burning on the hearth was burnt out, as the Kotharat stay six days in Danel's house and leave on the seventh. In Homer the Eileithyiai, goddesses of childbirth and daughters of Hera, hold the bitter pangs in their keeping and send their sharp dart into the woman in travail: a company like the Kotharat, though they send pain where the Kotharat apportion delights.
In the North the norns come on the night the hero Helgi is born and twist the threads of his fate, and Sigurðr asks the dragon Fáfnir about the norns who come to women in childbirth and free mothers of their children, so the allotters of the North are midwives too, as the Kotharat apportion "the delights of the bed of conception".
In Egypt the Westcar papyrus tells that Ra sent Isis, Nephthys, Meskhenet, Heqet and Khnum to a woman in labour who carried three future kings; they went into her house disguised as dancing girls, delivered her and cut the navel cord, and Meskhenet said over each child: a king who will assume the kingship in this whole land. They are a company of birth goddesses who enter the house as the Kotharat enter Danel's, cut the cord as the Kotharat's "Cord-Cutter" does, and speak what the child will be.