thinking about the discrepancy between aphrodite and dionysus as deities from the east(TM) and how well it illustrates that myths =/= nuggets of prehistoric knowledge that can be deciphered into a reconstruction of pre-literary history.
the myth about dionysus' origin is that, while a son of Zeus and perhaps the Theban princess Semele, he was born in the far east (or south, which were often conflated in Greek geography) on the fairytale like mount Nysa and then (slowly) made his way back to Greece. perhaps conquering the Indians along the way. This led scholars to believe up until the 60's that he was a middle-eastern god imported into the Greek pantheon aroudn the 7th century, since he does not really feature in Homer's epics.
and then post WWII war classicists deciphered the Mycenaean script linear B and discovered a god among the sacrifice tallies called di-wo-nu-so. HUH! moral of the story being that Greek myth projects as much as it preserves, and Dionysus' subversive character and eastern characteristics are a Greek projection, an emic (internal) view of that external to Greekness for that exact function: providing a countermodel that is neatly incorporated into the Greek cultural (religious) system. go figure.
Meanwhile Aphrodite features HEAVILY in Homer's epics, is given a primordial origin (born of Ouranos' ball foam landing in the Aegean), arriving on Cyprus or Cythera, still (arguably) within the sphere of influence of the Mycenean Aegean. her origin is solidly presenting her as Greek or at least Close.
but then you look at how she defends Troy in the Trojan war and how Zeus makes a point of saying she should not have any pretensions of belonging on the battlefield and how he makes a point in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite of "subduing" her, since her matchups of gods and mortals tend to disrupt the proper balance of things and embarrass the other gods. this upstart goddess (a direct descendant of Sky) needs to know her place within the pantheon.
and then the archaeological record shows us Cyprus' key role as a trading stop between the Levant and Greece, shows Phoenician trading routes from Cyprus to the southern Peloponnese (you know near Cythera) and shows statuettes of Astarte and Anat, goddesses of both warfare and sexuality. HUH. and then the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis comes in with its uncanny similarities to myths of Levantine goddesses and their mortal lover that they recover from the Underworld. but, presented as quite solidly Greek, involved with Greek festivals (the Adonia) etc. etc. (and actually the Greeks themselves knew of this origin of the myth/cult. I'm generalizing things and pointing out the discrepancy between myth and history, even the historical commentary of the Greeks themselves).
tl;dr myth preserves, historicizes, and explains, but also projects, invents, and fantacizes. While Dionysus' myths carry clear geographical configurations, to do with 'culture' and 'foreignness', Aphrodite's don't, and yet a closer look reveals that the characterisation of Aphrodite reveals more actual historical truth about Greek interaction with the outside world in the so-called Greek Dark Ages than Dionysus' does.
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