This book is the formal publication of the PhD dissertation defended the same year at the University of Texas at Austin by the author, A. M. Wilson-Wright (henceforth “WW”). The book's central purpose is to present a “new model for studying deities” based on the idea that “what people do in their daily life corresponds to the type of deities they worship”. One might legitimately wonder whether this approach is more aptly described as a method rather than a model. In the substantial introduction, the author surveys previous methods used to study ancient deities, and the way in which they mix different aspects of a deity in order to create a composite figure, though derived from different cultural, geographical and political contexts, ignoring what WW calls “the dynamic and transformative processes of transmission”.

WW applies his method to the study of the goddess Athtart in three different contexts from the Late Bronze Age: in Egypt; and at two sites in Syria – Emar (inland) and Ugarit (Mediterranean coast). He proposes to study all the attestations of this deity; he defines his corpus primarily on the presence of the divine name itself, since for him “only deities that have the same cognate names should be considered genetically related”. Such an approach requires more detailed and rigorous argumentation, however, since many of the texts WW is studying employ logographic writings, which are often ambiguous and polyvalent. For example, WW does not mention the fact that in some lists of divine names from Ugarit, the local scribes make a coherent distinction between the logograms ^d ištar (=ʿṯtrt) and ^d inanna (=ʿnt). WW considers all occurrences of the latter as referring to Athtart, and never considers the ambiguity of the logographic writing.

WW shows expertise in linguistic and philological matters. He discusses the etymology of the name Athtart, and her epithets, etc. The emphasis placed on etymology is perhaps excessive for such a subject, however. Was it really important for worshippers at the end of the second millennium to understand etymologically what the goddess's name actually meant in the third millennium? Was the memory of the etymological meaning of the name still present in people's minds a millennium later?

The most important criticism one could formulate about this book, however, is the lack of nuance (and the bibliography) in discussing the history of the Late Bronze Age. The historical presentations and mise en contexte seem very often rather simplistic. The dichotomy between Syrian and Syro-Anatolian tablet formats at Emar is emphasized to such a point as to become a gauge for tracking an important change in the local vision of Athtart at Emar: before the Hittites came to dominate the region, Athtart represented an agricultural divinity, but with the advent of the Hittites, it is more of a military divinity that we can see from the texts. Such an arrangement on the basis of tablet format is not convincing (and there is a large bibliography on this subject that could have been mentioned). One could wonder if the figure of Athtart, as conceived by her worshippers, really changed that much in just a few years, in the wake of political change. Some shortcuts also appear to have been taken in the reconstruction of the historical discussion: the dichotomy between the two tablet formats in Emar, as already mentioned, but also the presentation of the affair of the “sin” of the king's brothers at Ugarit, who are never said to be the older brothers, or the reconstitution of the career of the scribe Ṯabʾilu, also at Ugarit, where part of the bibliography is missing.

Some aspects of the figure of Athtart would also have benefited from a broader approach. The link between the goddess and horses in Egypt, for example, deserves a lengthier development for Ugarit. The author rightly cites the Ugaritic myth of Horanu and the Mare, and the mention of Athtart of Mari, but he does not seem to know that the horse trade flourished in the kingdom of Ugarit and considerably enhanced its wealth. It is in this context that the horses of the god Milku of ʿAṯtartu (where the second element could refer to a toponym bearing the goddess's name) could be discussed.

The figure of Athtart of Cyprus (especially pp. 141–2) could also have benefitted from a lengthier and more nuanced treatment. It is in her presence that the two brothers of the king of Ugarit (see above) are sent to swear an oath. One might also wonder why the author considers that Athtart ḫurri “also served as a treaty goddess on a local level” at Ugarit, since she appears in treaties connected with the Hittites, and with Carchemish more specifically.

Finally, several typographical and printing errors and infelicities could have been avoided had the author taken a little more time to proofread prior to publication. One notices a lack of harmonization in transliterations (both Zū-Ba‘la and Zū-Ba^ʕla, Rapanu [instead of Rapʾānu], Athtart [and not ʿAṯtart or ^ʕAṯtart] but ^ʕAmmiṯtamru…), some editorial problems (cf. p. 74, n. 16), or the unfortunate lacuna at the end of the (last?) sentence of the book's conclusions.