APHRODISIAS
APHRODISIAS PAGE III
Aphrodite of Aphrodisias
The cult image that is particular to Aphrodisias, the Aphrodite of Aphrodisias, doubtless was once housed in the Temple of Aphrodite. She was a distinctive local goddess who became, by interpretatio graeca, identified with the Greek Aphrodite. Her canonical image, typical of Anatolian cult images, shows that she is related to the Lady of Ephesus, widely venerated in the Greco-Roman world as Artemis of Ephesus.
The surviving images, from contexts where they must have been more civic than ritual, are without exception from the late phase of the cult, in Hellenistic and Roman times. They are rendered in the naturalistic style common to their culture, which gave the local goddess more universal appeal. Like the Lady of Ephesus, the "Aphrodite" of Aphrodisia wears a thick, form-disguising tunic, encasing her as if in a columnar box, always with four registers of standardized imagery. Her feet are of necessity close together, her forearms stretched forward, to receive and to give. She is adorned with necklaces and wears a mural crown together with a diadem and a wreath of myrtle, draped with a long veil that frames her face and extends to the ground. Beneath her overtunic she wears a floor-length chiton.
The bands of decoration on the tunic, rendered in bas-relief, evoke the Goddess's cosmic powers: the Charites, the Three Graces that are the closest attendants of Aphrodite; heads of a married pair (the woman is veiled), identified by Lisa Brody as Gaia and Uranos, Earth and the Heavens, over which this goddess reigns, rather than as Zeus and Hera; Helios and Selene separated by a pillar; the marine Aphrodite, riding a sea-goat, and at the base a group of Erotes performing cult rituals.
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Relief depicting the birth of Aphrodite (Aphrodite Anadyomene), Aphrodisias Museum
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This cult image Aphrodite of Aphrodisias was once housed in the Temple of Aphrodite. She was a distinctive local goddess of fertility who became, by interpretatio graeca, identified with the Greek Aphrodite. (Left)
A panel from Aphrodisias. (Right)
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Aphrodite of Aphrodisias originated in the Archaic period or earlier as a local Carian goddess, but by the Hellenistic era she was identified with the Greek Aphrodite and was given a completely new, canonical image.
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Marble head of a goddess, found in the Hadrianic Baths, 2nd century AD, Aphrodisias Museum
