Aphrodite Goddess of Love Discovered
Buried in ancient Roman soils for over 1,500 years, archeologist unearthed three clay figurines of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. According to the researchers, it was clear that the pagan worshippers of Aphrodite had wished to hide the three goddess figurines, as they were found complete.
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“It is possible that during the fourth century [CE], when Christianity was gradually becoming the governing religion in the Roman Empire, there were still a number of inhabitants in Sussita, Isreal, who remained loyal to the goddess of love, and therefore wished to hide and preserve these items,” suggests Archeology Professor Arthur Segal, one of the excavation’s leaders.
The buried clay goddesses were discovered when the researchers exposed a shop in the southeastern corner of the forum district of Sussita, which is the central area of the Roman city that was built in the second century BCE; existed through the Roman and Byzantine periods and destroyed in the great earthquake of 749 CE. The clay images are 23 cm tall and represent the common model of the goddess of love known to the experts as Venus pudica, “the modest Venus.” This name was given to the figurines due to their upright stature and the goddess covering her Venus mound, her female sexuality, with the palm of her hand. Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The term “aphrodisiac” comes from the Greek name of the goddess. According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Ouranos was castrated by his son Kronos. Kronos threw the severed genitals into the sea, and from the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite. Because of her beauty, other gods feared that jealousy would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, and so Zeus married her to Hephaestus, who was not viewed as a threat. However, Aphrodite became instrumental in the Eros and Psyche legend, and later was both Adonis’ lover and his surrogate mother. |
Venus is the Roman name for Aphrodite, the goddess of love. The term “aphrodisiac” comes from the Greek name of the goddess.
According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Ouranos was castrated by his son Kronos. Kronos threw the severed genitals into the sea, and from the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite. Because of her beauty, other gods feared that jealousy would interrupt the peace among them and lead to war, and so Zeus married her to Hephaestus, who was not viewed as a threat. However, Aphrodite became instrumental in the Eros and Psyche legend, and later was both Adonis’ lover and his surrogate mother.
Aphrodite is also known as Kypris (Lady of Cyprus) and Cytherea after the two places, Cyprus and Kythira, which claim her birth. Her Roman equivalent is the goddess Venus. Myrtle, dove, sparrow, and swan are sacred to her. The Greeks identified Aphrodite with the Ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor.
Aphrodite had a festival of her own, the Aphrodisia, which was celebrated all over Greece but particularly in Athens and Corinth. At the temple of Aphrodite on the summit of Acrocorinth (before the Roman destruction of the city in 146 BC), sexual intercourse with her priestesses was considered a method of worshiping Aphrodite. This temple was not rebuilt when the city was reestablished under Roman rule in 44 BC, but it is likely that the fertility rituals continued in the main city near the agora.
The discovery of these three totems of Aphrodite suggests that there was pagan resistance to the rise of Christianity, which at that time was the growing religion influencing the Roman Empire.
As we know, Paganism never died out. It simply went underground, and in this case it did so literally.
