The local divinity, must have been adopted by the Greeks when they arrived on the island. Under the influence of Cretan colonies who settled in Cyprus in the 11th century B.C., she takes the form of a goddess with her arms raised. The arrival of the Phoenicians who settled in Kition during the 9th century B C. and who took over existing temples which they dedicated to Astarte, their own goddess, reinforces once again her oriental character whose cult seemed very oriental to the Greeks (Herodotus associates it to the cult of Astarte in Askalon because of the sacred prostitution which was practised in Paphos). Therefore, the divinity that was worshipped during the Iron Age and whom the Cypriotes presumably did not yet call Aphrodite, was of a complex and original nature.

It is possible that the Greeks who did not have in those ancient times any divinity called Aphrodite (her name is not mentioned among the Greek gods, quoted on the linear B tablets) met her in Cyprus in the form of this oriental goddess of fertility known under a certain name of oriental origin, which we ignore and they may have transcribed as Aphrodite. The simple etymology according to which "Aphrodite" means the one that emerges from the foam, derived from the root "aphro-"- foam, is thought by linguists as fanciful. Homer and Hesiod are the most ancient sources to mention the name Aphrodite. In Cyprus, the most ancient inscriptions that we have mentioning the name of the divinity date from the 6th century B.C. These are dedications to Wanassa, (the Sovereign), Paphia (the Paphian) or Golgia (the Golgian). The name Aphrodite is not used in Cyprus until the period when Greek culture started to strongly influence local religion, that is from the 5th century B.C., along with the name of other Greek gods and goddesses.

According to mythology, Aphrodite had numerous love affairs, most of them in Cyprus. We know that she was the object of desire of all the gods and married the ugliest of all, Hephaistos, the smith-god. Zeus gave Aphrodite to Hephaistos because he offered him a bowl of excellent workmanship. To Aphrodite he offered a necklace sparkling with precious stones. Another tradition is preserved by two late poets, Apollonios of Rhodes and Claudianus: the cripple god offered Aphrodite a palace as a wedding present or, a piece of land surrounded by a golden fence, containing palaces of gold and precious stones. This was situated on a mountain of Cyprus, inaccessible to mortals, where a sweet climate prevailed, where the soil produced without being cultivated, and where there were two springs among green foliage. There lived Aphrodite surrounded by Erotes. Another poet, Atheneus, mentions the "Baths of Aphrodite" where the goddess took her bath after having slept with Hephaistos. Aphrodite, however, was unfaithful to Hephaistos, having had the god of war, Ares, as her lover. The myth of the marriage of Aphrodite to Hephaistos and her affair with Ares, may reveal a historical reality. Archaeological discoveries have revealed that in the 11th and 12th centuries B.C., the Great Goddess of Cyprus became a divinity protecting metallurgy in association with one male god. Kinyras himself was a metallurgist king.Thus, at Kition, in the sacred quarters, two divinities were worshipped in the temples of Area II. Near the temples were copper-smelting work shops, which communicated with the temples. The use and trading of copper, which was the greatest wealth of the island at the time, was under the supervision of priests and priestesses, and the protection of the divinities of fertility. The discovery of statuettes of the Late Bronze Age, two female and one male, standing on a base in the form of an ingot, supports this hypothesis. The goddess who is represented nude (statuette Bomford, Ashmolean Museum Oxford and statuette in the Cyprus Museum),

[INLINE] Archaic figurines of the goddess with her arms lifted and of Astarte holding her breasts (Cyprus Museum)

bears all the characteristics of a goddess of fertility. The god (bronze statuette found in Enkomi, today in the Cyprus Museum) is a warrior god, armed with a spear and holding a shield.

Aphrodite had other lovers in Cyprus. Here she fell in love with Adonis. According to a Homeric scholiast, Adonis was the son of Kinyras, Aphrodite's king-priest, and of the daughter of Pygmalion. According to the most common version (Apollodorus, Bibliotheke, 3.14.4, Plutarchus, Synagogue, 22) he was born of the incestuous love affair between Kinyras with his daughter, Smyrna or Myrrha. Having been tricked by his daughter, Kinyras realised only too late that he had slept with her. He wanted to kill her, but Aphrodite pitied, her and transformed her into a tree of the same name, the myrtle. According to another legend, the Orphic hymn describes Adonis as the son of Aphrodite herself. Whoever he may have been, according to Apollodorus, Aphrodite was struck by his beauty while he was still an infant: she gave him to Persephone to be looked after, but Persephone would not give him back and Zeus gave the following sentence: he divided the life of Adonis into three parts, one to go to Aphrodite, the other to Persephone and the third to Adonis himself. But, Adonis offered his part to Aphrodite, thus spending more time with her than with Persephone. Aphrodite was in love with Adonis and used to meet him in the woods, and followed him when he was hunting. But he was killed one day by a wild boar. Certain traditions relate the animal to the god Ares another the lover of Aphrodite, who turned into a boar in order to kill his rival. Others say the god Apollo himself killed him in his fury because the goddess had blinded his son Erymanthios who had seen the goddess nude taking a bath. Aphrodite was inconsolable at having lost her lover and from her crying and lamentation sprang anemones and other flowers from the earth. After his death, Adonis used to spend six months in Hades in the arms of Persephone and six months on Earth in the arms of Aphrodite.

It is hard not to see in Adonis a god of vegetation, fertilizing the earth in spring and then periodically disappearing. Besides, the Orphic hymn to Adonis addresses him as: You, god full of desirable springs, god who nourishes all the creatures, who disappears and comes back again in the course of beautiful seasons, you, who makes the plants grow, you, who loves hunting, sweet and desirable offspring of Aphrodite... come, happy one, bring to the faithful the fruit of earth...

Adonis, whose name is semitic, can

[INLINE] Hubbard Amphora

not but evoke the oriental fertility divinities, the goddess Ishtar and her son and lover, god Tammuz, whose marriage was celebrated every year in Spring. Just as Adonis, Tammuz died and Ishtar went to the Underworld to find him and bring him back to earth, so that the cycle of the seasons would start again. Thus, the myth of the love of Aphrodite for Adonis no doubt recalls the oriental myth of the union of the goddess of fertility with the god of vegetation. There were ceremonies in honour of Aphrodite and Adonis at Amathus, during which there was a lamentation for Adonis and a supplication to him to return to earth.

The cult of this divinity and the magnificent costumes of her priestesses are illustrated by precise iconographic evidence from the 7th century B.C. onwards. A number of terracotta figurines were found in Palaepaphos on the site of the temple, depicting a woman in an adorned long low-necked robe the woman is lifting her arms up in a ritual gesture, like a divine majesty, a goddess or a priestess. Numerous other archaic figurines , wearing lavish and colourful costumes, sometimes with a long stole, ornated with rich jewels, necklaces with pendants, earrings, bracelets, are all indications of a magnificent cult. On archaic vases richly dressed women are also represented, wearing the stole, or a long scarf or belt probably servants of the goddess, or priestesses worshipping the tree of life or walking among the sacred trees, holding flowers or animals or birds. There are also representations of "hierodoules" (sacred servants) in the sacred gardens which we know surrounded the sanctuaries. One specific bowl even depicts erotic scenes in the gardens, making reference to the sacred prostitution mentioned by Herodotus. A large archaic amphora, the Hubbard amphora in the Cyprus Museum, shows on both sides scenes of the cult: on the one side, there is a sacred dance of young women holding branches and accompanied by a Iyre player and, on the other side, between a sphinx and a bucrane, symbolising the sacred, precinct, a priestess sitting on a throne, drinking from a kind of narghileh some substance served to her by a sacred servant, a scene evoking perhaps divination practices. A great number of other terracotta figurines, laid as offerings in places of worship, depict a world of musicians, women playing the tambourine, or offering a bird, a flower, a dish of sweets. But next to these richly dressed figures, we find also figurines of the nude deity, pressing their breasts, another reminder that the goddess retained her oriental character of fertility goddess.

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