() is the Avestan language name of an Indo-Iranian cosmological figure, venerated as the divinity of 'the Waters' (Aban) and hence associated with fertility, healing and wisdom. Aredvi Sura Anahita is 'Ardwisur Anahid' or 'Nahid' in Middle- and Modern Persian, 'Anahit' in Armenian. The Greek and Roman historians of classical antiquity refer to her either as 'Anaïtis' or identified her with one of the divinities from their own pantheons. 270 Anahita, a silicaceous S-type asteroid is named after her. An iconic shrine cult of Aredvi Sura Anahita (see the cult, below), was - together with other shrine cults - "introduced apparently in the 4th century BCE and lasted until it was suppressed in the wake of an iconoclastic movement under the Sassanids.". Characteristics Nomenclature Only (a word otherwise unknown, perhaps with an original meaning "moist") is specific