This broiling, gory mass proceeded to travel the Mediterranean, from the island of Kythera to the port of Paphos in Cyprus. Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus, painted in But despite her violent and salty start, the young goddess, as she emerged from the sea on to the barren, dry land, witnessed a miracle: green shoots and flowers springing up beneath her feet.
Aphrodite, an incarnation of fecund life, was accompanied, as she made her flower-sweet progress through the dusty earth, by gold-veiled Horai, the two Greek seasons of summer and winter, spirits of time and of good order.
Born from abuse and suffering, this sublime force is being described to us not just as the goddess of mortal love, but as the deity of both the cycle of life and life itself. Aphrodite is far more than an attractive figure on a Valentine's Day card. This is how many in Ancient Greece explained Aphrodite's birth. It is a story, with some variations an alternate myth suggested that Aphrodite was the daughter of the king of the gods, Zeus, and the sea nymph Dione , that was told and retold across the Mediterranean world.
The ancients had a vivid mental picture of how their supernatural goddess of love and desire was conceived. Her psychological imprint was evident. But what about her physical trail? What does the archaeology in the ground reveal about the historical inception of Aphrodite and of her adoration? Venus of Willendorf statuette dating from around 25, BCE. As we might expect, the material evidence offers a compelling alternative to the myth. Yet the truth of Aphrodite's origins is almost as strange as the fiction.
On the island of Cyprus there is a record of the celebration of the miracle of life, and of the sexual act, long before the Classical Greeks conceived of a voluptuous blonde they named Aphrodite.
The life-giving powers of a spiritual, highly sexualised figure can be found in the formidable form of the so-called Lady of Lemba , a quite extraordinary limestone sculpture.
More than years old, this wonderful creature has fat, fructuous thighs, a pronounced vulva, the curve of breasts and a pregnant belly — and instead of a neck and head, a phallus, with eyes. The Lady of Lemba is in fact a wondrous mix of both female and male. I have had the privilege of studying this "Lady" outside her glass case. Thirty centimetres tall, she pulses with power and potential. Found lying on her back, surrounded by other, smaller figurines, the Lady of Lemba is intriguing, a distant ancestor of our goddess of love.
And she's not alone. Probing deeper in time, back at least years, the plateaux and foothills of western Cyprus are littered with tiny, pregnant stone-women, again with phallic-shaped necks and faces and pronounced female sex organs. These figurines — lovely things, crouching down, smooth to touch, an otherworldly soft green — were produced in huge numbers here. Many have pierced heads, so must have been worn as amulets.
Aphrodite, born from the sea in a shell, c. Credit: Getty. I first met these inter-sex marvels in the atmospheric back storerooms of the old Cyprus Museum in Nicosia. Lovingly laid in Edwardian wooden cabinets, they are an extraordinarily vivifying connection to a prehistoric past. A number of the figures, made of the soft stone picrolite, have shrunken versions of themselves worn, as amulets, around their own stone necks.
Dating from a time — the Copper Age — when the division of labour between women and men on Cyprus seems to have had parity, the majority of the enigmatic taliswomen-men were found in domestic spaces or near what could be prehistoric birthing centres. Those mini-mes around their necks may represent unborn children. Some of the basic stone-and-mud huts at one site, Lemba, have now been reconstructed. This ability was well suited to a goddess of love and war — both areas where swift reversals can take place, utterly changing the state of play.
In ancient love charms, her influence was invoked to win, or indeed, capture, the heart and other body parts of a desired lover. Ishtar is described by herself in love poems, and by others as a beautiful, young woman. Her lover, Tammuz, compliments her on the beauty of her eyes, a seemingly timeless form of flattery , with a literary history stretching back to around BCE.
In love poetry telling of their courtship, the two have a very affectionate relationship. But like many great love stories, their union ends tragically. This ancient narrative, surviving in Sumerian and Akkadian versions both written in cuneiform , was only deciphered in the 19th Century. Ostensibly, she is visiting her sister to mourn the death of her brother-in-law, possibly the Bull of Heaven who appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
But the other gods in the story view the move as an attempt at a hostile takeover. Ishtar was known for being extremely ambitious; in another myth she storms the heavens and stages a divine coup.
She carefully applies make-up and jewellery, and wraps herself in beautiful clothing. Ishtar is frequently described applying cosmetics and enhancing her appearance before undertaking battle, or before meeting a lover. Much as a male warrior may put on a breast plate before a fight, Ishtar lines her eyes with mascara. Next, in a humorous scene brimming with irony, the goddess instructs her faithful handmaiden, Ninshubur, on how to behave if Ishtar becomes trapped in the netherworld. First, Ninshubur must clothe herself in correct mourning attire, such as sackcloth, and create a dishevelled appearance.
Then, she must go to the temples of the great gods and ask for help to rescue her mistress. But when Ereshkigal learns that Ishtar is dressed so well, she realises she has come to conquer the underworld.
So she devises a plan to literally strip Ishtar of her power. Immortal and unaging, Aphrodites' age would have been unknown to any but perhaps Chronos, as she was 'born' from the sea after Chronos cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea. This would have been before the time of the rest of the Greek gods, so of the normal pantheon, she is the oldest. To the Greek mythos, as far as I know, even the 'normal' members of the pantheon Zeus, Hera, Hephesteus, Diana, et al having origins before Zeus or shortly after the Titans were bound or slain outright , and thus before there was even land the time of Chaos , and it was through Zeus' actions of eliminating the Titans cuts out the competition, you know that all Greece and indeed if taken as a whole, ALL land was created.
However, you also have to keep in mind that I have been able to find NO reference to her death, and even now, she may still have greek followers. Thus, while she may have been killed in a fictional television show, there is no evidence that she fell within the Greek mythos.
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