Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia

Last updated
Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Chypre Kouklia Sanctuaire Aphrodite 21062014 - panoramio.jpg
Panorama of the sanctuary ruins
Official nameAphrodite's Sanctuary at Kouklia village
Location Paphos District, Cyprus
Part ofPaphos
Criteria Cultural: (iii)(vi)
Reference 79-003
Inscription1980 (4th Session)
Area32.6883 ha (80.775 acres)
Coordinates 34°42′27″N32°34′27″E / 34.70750°N 32.57417°E / 34.70750; 32.57417
Cyprus relief location map.jpg
Red pog.svg
Location of Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia in Cyprus
Conical stone which served as the cult idol in the sanctuary of Aphrodite Sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaepafos, Cyprus - conical stone (cropped).jpg
Conical stone which served as the cult idol in the sanctuary of Aphrodite
Sanctuary of Aphrodite, Palaepaphos Sanctuary of Aphrodite, Palaepaphos.jpg
Sanctuary of Aphrodite, Palaepaphos

The Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia was a sanctuary in ancient Paphos on Cyprus dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. Located where the legendary birth of Aphrodite took place, it has been referred to as the main sanctuary of Aphrodite, and was a place of pilgrimages in the ancient world for centuries. The ruins of the sanctuary were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980, due to their historical religious significance. [1]

Contents

History

The site of Paphos was a holy place for the ancient Greeks, who believed it to be the place where Aphrodite landed when she rose from the sea. [2] According to Pausanias (i. 14), her worship was introduced to Paphos from Syria, and from Paphos to Kythera in Greece.

The cult was likely of Phoenician origin. Archaeology has established that Cypriots venerated a fertility goddess before the arrival of the Greeks, and developed a cult that combined Aegean and eastern mainland aspects. Before it was proved by archaeology it was understood that the cult of Aphrodite had been established before the time of Homer (c. 700 BC), as the grove and altar of Aphrodite at Paphos are mentioned in the Odyssey (viii. 362).

Female figurines and charms found in the immediate vicinity date to the early third millennium BC. The temenos (a piece of land marked off from common uses and dedicated to a god, a sanctuary, holy grove or holy precinct) was well established before the first structures were erected in the Late Bronze Age.

The sanctuary was closed during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire in the 4th-century, and had at that time been in function for thousands of years since the Late Bronze Age:

There was unbroken continuity of cult from that time until 391 AD when the Roman Emperor Theodosius I outlawed all pagan religions and the sanctuary fell into the ruins in which we find it today [3]

Cult activity

Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia was the center of the worship of the goddess, not for Cyprus alone, but for the whole Aegean world.

The Cinyradae, or descendants of Cinyras, of Phoenician origin but Greek by name, were the chief priests. Their power and authority were very great; but it may be inferred from certain inscriptions that they were controlled by a senate and an assembly of the people. There was also an oracle here. [4] Few cities have ever been so much sung and glorified by the poets. [5]

Architecture

The sanctuary is depicted on many Roman coins from the Roman Imperial period from the reign of Vespasian as well as on earlier and later ones, and especially in the style on those of Septimius Severus. [6]

The sanctuary was destroyed by an earthquake, but rebuilt by Vespasian.

Archaeology

The remains of the vast sanctuary of Aphrodite are still discernible, its circumference marked by huge foundation walls.

Gustav Friedrich Hetsch, an architect of Copenhagen, has attempted to restore the building from the descriptions of coins as well as from archeological remains. [7] [8]

Contemporary mentions

The sanctuary is frequently referred to by ancient writers.

The Homeric Hymns written between 7th-4th centuries B.C. and spuriously ascribed to Homer in antiquity mention the sanctuary in Hymn 5 to Aphrodite:

She [Aphrodite] went to Kypros, to Paphos, where her precinct is and fragrant altar, and passed into her sweet-smelling temple. [9]

Strabo described it:

Palaipaphos [in Kypros], which last is situated at about ten stadia above the sea, has a mooring-place, and an ancient temple of Aphrodite Paphia. Then [beyond that] to the promontory Zephyria, with a landing-place, and to another Arsinoe, which likewise has a landing-place and a temple and a sacred precinct. And at a little distance from the sea is Hierokepis. Then to Paphos, which was founded by Agapenor, and has both a harbor and well-built temples. It is sixty stadia distant from Palaiphaphos by land; and on this road men together with women, who also assemble here from the other cities, hold an annual procession to Palaipaphos . . . Then [beyond that] to a city Soloi, with a harbor and a river and a temple of Aphrodite and Isis. [10]

Pausanias described the shrine:

After the capture of Troy the storm that overtook the Greeks on their return home carried Agapenor and the Arkadian fleet to Kypros, and so Agapenor became the founder of Paphos, and built the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Palaipaphos (Old Paphos). Up to that time the goddess had been worshipped by the Kyprians in the district called Golgoi. [11]

Tacitus described the altar and aniconic black stone worshipped at the sanctuary as the simulacrum of Venus:

Blood may not be shed upon the altar, but offering is made only with prayers and pure fire. The altar is never wet by any rain, although it is in the open air. The representation of the goddess is not in human form, but it is a circular mass that is broader at the base and rises like a turning-post to a small circumference at the top. The reason for this is obscure. [12]

It was also referred to by Apuleius in The Golden Ass:

You [Aphrodite] are venerated at the wave-lapped shrine of Paphos. [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aphrodite</span> Ancient Greek goddess of love

Aphrodite is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, procreation, and as her syncretized Roman goddess counterpart Venus, desire, sex, fertility, prosperity, and victory. Aphrodite's major symbols include seashells, myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans. The cult of Aphrodite was largely derived from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was based on the Sumerian cult of Inanna. Aphrodite's main cult centers were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens. Her main festival was the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated annually in midsummer. In Laconia, Aphrodite was worshipped as a warrior goddess. She was also the patron goddess of prostitutes, an association which led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution" in Greco-Roman culture, an idea which is now generally seen as erroneous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amathus</span>

Amathus or Amathous was an ancient city and one of the ancient royal cities of Cyprus until about 300 BC. Some of its remains can be seen today on the southern coast in front of Agios Tychonas, about 24 miles (39 km) west of Larnaca and 6 miles (9.7 km) east of Limassol. Its ancient cult sanctuary of Aphrodite was the second most important in Cyprus, her homeland, after Paphos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ares</span> God of war in ancient Greek religion

Ares is the Greek god of war and courage. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. The Greeks were ambivalent towards him. He embodies the physical valor necessary for success in war but can also personify sheer brutality and bloodlust, in contrast to his sister Athena, whose martial functions include military strategy and generalship. An association with Ares endows places, objects, and other deities with a savage, dangerous, or militarized quality.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinyras</span> Mythical founder of the city of Paphos in Greek mythology

In Greek mythology, Cinyras was a famous hero and king of Cyprus. Accounts vary significantly as to his genealogy and provide a variety of stories concerning him; in many sources he is associated with the cult of Aphrodite on Cyprus, and Adonis, a consort of Aphrodite, is mentioned as his son. Some scholars have proposed a connection with the minor Ugaritic deity Kinnaru, the god of the lyre. The city Cinyreia on Cyprus was believed to have taken its name from Cinyras. According to Strabo, he had previously ruled in the city of Byblos in Phoenicia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Greek religion</span> Religion in ancient Greece

Religious practices in ancient Greece encompassed a collection of beliefs, rituals, and mythology, in the form of both popular public religion and cult practices. The application of the modern concept of "religion" to ancient cultures has been questioned as anachronistic. The ancient Greeks did not have a word for 'religion' in the modern sense. Likewise, no Greek writer known to us classifies either the gods or the cult practices into separate 'religions'. Instead, for example, Herodotus speaks of the Hellenes as having "common shrines of the gods and sacrifices, and the same kinds of customs."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paphos</span> City and municipality in Paphos District, Cyprus

Paphos is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus and the capital of Paphos District. In classical antiquity, two locations were called Paphos: Old Paphos, today known as Kouklia, and New Paphos. It is the fourth-largest city in the country, after Nicosia, Limassol and Larnaca, with an urban population of 63,600 in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Astarte</span> Middle Eastern goddess, worshipped from the Bronze Age through classical antiquity

Astarte is the Hellenized form of the Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galatea (mythology)</span> Nereid from Greek mythology

Galatea is the post-antiquity name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory alabaster by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baetyl</span> Type of sacred standing stone

A baetyl, literally "house of God" is a sacred stone that was venerated and thought to house a God or deity. The most famous example is the Omphalos stored in the Temple of Apollo at the Greek town of Delphi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kouklia</span> Village in Paphos District, Cyprus

Kouklia is a village in the Paphos District, about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) east from the city of Paphos on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. The village is built in the area of "Palaepaphos", mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty, which became the centre for her worship in the ancient world. Because of its ancient religious significance and architecture, Kouklia was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List along with Kato Paphos in 1980.

In Greek mythology, Agapenor was a leader of the Arcadians in the Trojan war.

In ancient Greek religion, Kanathos in the Argolid was the spring at Nauplia, where Hera annually renewed her virginity. There, Pausanias noted, was "a spring called Kanathos where, so say the Argives, Hera bathes every year and, by so doing, becomes a maiden; it is this story which is of the secrets connected with the rites which they perform to Hera." The unspoken nature of the ritual forbade its being embodied openly or directly in Greek mythology. S. Casson suggested that it was the obscure subject of the so-called "Ludovisi Throne", generally considered to represent the parallel, and far better-known, renewal of Aphrodite, bathing in the sea at Paphos.

In Greek mythology, Eucleia or Eukleia was the female personification of glory and good repute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roman Cyprus</span> Roman Province

Roman Cyprus was a small senatorial province within the Roman Empire. While it was a small province, it possessed several well known religious sanctuaries and figured prominently in Eastern Mediterranean trade, particularly the production and trade of Cypriot copper. The island of Cyprus was situated at a strategically important position along Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and had been controlled by various imperial powers throughout the first millennium BC. including: the Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, and eventually the Romans. Cyprus was annexed by the Romans in 58 BC, but turbulence and civil war in Roman politics did not establish firm rule in Cyprus until 31 BC when Roman political struggles ended by Battle of Actium, and after about a decade, Cyprus was assigned a status of senatorial province in 22 BC. From then until the 7th century AD, Cyprus was controlled by the Romans. Cyprus officially became part of the Eastern Roman Empire in 293 AD.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aphrodite of the Gardens</span> Ancient Greek mythological epithet

Aphrodite of the Gardens is an epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The epithet describes her patronage over vegetation and garden fertility.

The Aphrodisia festival was an annual festival held in Ancient Greece in honor of the goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite. It took place in several Ancient Greek towns, but was especially important in Attica and on the island of Cyprus, where Aphrodite was venerated with a magnificent celebration. The festival occurred during the month of Hekatombaion, which modern scholars recognize as starting from the third week in July to the third week of August on the Gregorian calendar. Aphrodite was worshipped in most towns of Cyprus, as well as in Cythera, Sparta, Thebes, Delos, and Elis, and her most ancient temple was at Paphos. Textual sources explicitly mention Aphrodisia festivals in Corinth and in Athens, where the many prostitutes that resided in the city celebrated the festival as a means of worshipping their patron goddess. Though no textual sources expressly mention an Aphrodisia festival in Cythera, Thebes, or Elis, it likely occurred since textual and iconographical sources indicate that Aphrodite Pandemos had a cult following in these areas. The Aphrodisia festival was one of the most important ceremonies in Delos, though not much is known about the details of the celebration. The inscriptions merely indicate that the festival required the purchase of ropes, torches and wood, which were customary expenses of all Delian festivals.

Aphrodite Areia or "Aphrodite the Warlike" was a cult epithet of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, in which she was depicted in full armor like the war god Ares. This representation was found in Sparta and Taras. There were other, similarly martial interpretations of the goddess, such as at her Sanctuary at Kythira, where she was worshiped under the epithet Aphrodite Urania, who was also represented as being armed. The epithet "Areia", meaning "warlike", was applied to other gods in addition to Aphrodite, such as Athena, Zeus, and possibly Hermes.

The Temple of Aphrodite Kytherea was a sanctuary in ancient Kythira dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. It was famous for reportedly being the eldest temple of Aphrodite in Greece. It was dedicated to the goddess under her name and aspect as Aphrodite Ourania and contained a statue of an Armed Aphrodite. The temple is dated to the 6th century BCE. While considered a significant sanctuary, it was described as a small building.

The Cave Sanctuaries of the Acropolis of Athens are the natural fissures in the rock of the Acropolis hill that were used as sites of worship for deities of the Panhellenic pantheon in antiquity. Traditionally a sharp distinction has been drawn between the state religion practised on the summit of the Acropolis and the cult practice of the shrines on the lower slopes. Recently, however, interest has burgeoned in the individual religious experience or personal piety in Greek society of which these cult sites may be the expression. The proceeding description follows the order of the shrines from the Klepsydra at the northwest face of the Acropolis clockwise via the Peripatos round to the foot of the Nike bastion.

In Greek mythology, Paphia may refer to the following:

References

  1. "Paphos". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  2. Tac. Hist. ii. 3; Mela, ii. 7; Lucan viii.456
  3. Archived 11 May 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  4. Engel, i.p. 483.
  5. For example, Aeschylus Suppliants 525; Virgil Aeneid i. 415; Horace Odes i. 19, 30, iii. 26; Status Silvius i. 2. 101; Aristophanes Lysistrata 833, etc.
  6. Engel, vol. i. p. 130.
  7. Müller's Archäol. § 239, p. 261; Eckhel, vol. iii. p. 86.
  8. Münter, Friedrich Christian Carl Hinrich; Hetsch, Gustav Friedrich (1824). Der Tempel der himmlischen Göttin zu Paphos: zweite Beilage zur Religion der Karthager (in German). Schubothe. OCLC   13923976.
  9. "APHRODITE CULT 2 - Ancient Greek Religion".
  10. "APHRODITE CULT 2 - Ancient Greek Religion".
  11. "APHRODITE CULT 2 - Ancient Greek Religion".
  12. Tacitus. Histories. Vol. 2. Translated by Moore, Clifford H. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. pp. 164–165. ISBN   0-674-99039-0. OCLC   11108482.
  13. "APHRODITE CULT 2 - Ancient Greek Religion".