Aphrodite at Paphos
“The sanctuary of Aphrodite at Old Paphos (the modern K[o]uklia) was one of the most celebrated shrines in the ancient world. From the earliest to the latest times it would seem to have preserved its essential features unchanged. For the sanctuary is represented on coins of the Imperial age, and these representations agree closely with little golden models of a shrine which were found in two of the royal graves at Mycenae…. If antiquaries are right in regarding the golden models as copies of the Paphian shrine, that shrine must have suffered little outward change for more than a thousand years; for the royal graves at Mycenae, in which the models were found, can hardly be of later date than the twelfth century before our era….
Ruins of the Sanctuary of Aphrodite Paphia, in Kouklia, Cyprus.
(Source: rene boulay, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
“Thus the sanctuary of Aphrodite at Paphos was apparently of great antiquity…. Her image was simply a white cone or pyramid. In like manner, a cone was the emblem of Astarte at Byblus, of the native goddess whom the Greeks called Artemis at Perga in Pamphylia, and of the sun-god Heliogabalus at Emesa in Syria. Conical stones, which apparently served as idols, have also been found at Golgi in Cyprus, and in the Phoenician temples of Malta; and cones of sandstone came to light at the shrine of the ‘Mistress of Torquoise’ among the barren hills and frowning precipices of Sinai.
Aniconic cult image, thought to have been the conical stone representing Aphrodite in her Sanctuary at Paphos.
(Source: Wojciech Biegun, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
“The precise significance of such an emblem remains as obscure as it was in the time of Tacitus. It appears to have been customary to anoint the sacred cone with olive oil at a solemn festival, in which people from Lycia and Caria participated. The custom of anointing a holy stone has been observed in many parts of the world; for example, in the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi. To this day the old custom appears to survive at Paphos, for ‘in honour of the Maid of Bethlehem the peasants of Kuklia anointed lately [i.e., c. 1896], and probably still anoint each year, the great corner-stones of the ruined Temple of the Paphian Goddess. As Aphrodite was supplicated once with cryptic rites, so is Mary entreated still by Moslems as well as Christians, with incantations and passings through perforated stones, to remove the curse of barrenness from Cypriote women, or increase the manhood of Cypriote men.’ Thus the ancient worship of the goddess of fertility is continued under a different name. Even the name of the old goddess is retained in some parts of the island; for in more than one chapel the Cypriote peasants adore the mother of Christ under the title of Panaghia Aphroditessa [sic]."
—J.G. Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, part 1 (The Golden Bough, vol. V, 1914, pp. 33-36)
The Mother of God embraces the Universe.
(Source: Eccesale, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
