Who is the "queen of heaven" referenced in Jeremiah 44:19?

 

We see in Jeremiah 44:18-19 that the pre-E

xilic Jews had burnt incense and offered libations to the Queen of Heaven. Mark S. Smith says, in The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel, that the Queen of Heaven, mentioned in Jeremiah 7:18; 44:18-19, 25:

may refer either to Astarte, the only West Semitic goddess bearing this title during the Iron Age, or to Ishtar (or possibly some combination of the two).