According to many legends, Cyprus is the birthplace of Aphrodite, goddess of Love. We like love as much as the next minimalists (provided it doesn’t take up too much room). And we adore Greek mythology!
Once upon the time when the earth was new, there weren’t a whole lot of options for sexual partners. So naturally, the sky, Ouranos, had sex with the earth, Gaia. Continuously. And that involved considerable discomfort for her. She worked out a deal – the mechanics of this are a bit fuzzy – with her son Cronos (Time) to cut off Ouranos’ genitals. Which he did, and then he threw them into the ocean. They foamed – ‘Aphros’ is Greek for foam and ‘dite’ means issuing from [there is a lot of dispute about this etymology (we weren’t there so we can’t say) – and eventually formed Aphrodite.
Cyprus, specifically, the coast near Paphos, is where she first washed up. (The Kythereans, backed up by the poet Hesiod, claim her too, but we don’t live there so we’ll give priority to Cyprus.) Specifically, Petra tou Romiou, the ‘Rock of the Romans’, where the seas are rough and create a lot of sea-foam. It’s an awfully pretty place, especially at around sunset, and we came upon many couples and polyamorous units disporting themselves on the beach.
Cyprus is now very much associated with Greece, but its geographic location in the far eastern Mediterranean means that there have been many Egyptian, Arabic, and near-Eastern influences on the island. And so, the Cypriots built temples to Aphrodite, but also to a series of pre-Greek goddesses who filled much of the same role (Ishtar, Isis, Inanna, Astarte, you name her!). Fertility-goddess worship dates back to about 3000 BCE on the island. In fact, the sanctuary at Kouklia, near Paphos, has a volcanic stone that has been worshipped since at least the 13th century BCE. Kouklia is a UNESCO world heritage site, and it sits upon a hill overlooking the water. The museum has a bunch of cool stuff in it, including a mosaic found nearby, and artefacts from its stint as a sugar refinery in the 18th century.
The people of Paphos, one of the four ancient Cypriot kingdoms, had numerous dealings with Aphrodite. Mostly, they were not good. Or it’s more precise to say that they were a little odd. Kinyras, an early king, angered Aphrodite and so she made his daughter Myrrha fall in love with him. They produced a child, Adonis, and Myrrha herself turned into a myrrh-tree. Adonis was unspeakably handsome and so Aphrodite fell in love with him, like you do. All was going well until a boar killed him. (The Adonia, a festival in the Greek world, commemorated his death.) Then there was Pygmalion, a Paphian sculptor. He hated women but was lonely. So he created a statue of a beautiful woman and named it Galatea. Then he fell in love with the statue. He prayed to Aphrodite to give him a wife like her and, hey presto! Galatea came to life.
There are ever-so-many other peculiar stories and rituals surrounding the cult of Aphrodite. These include the male version, Aphroditos, another figure Hermaphroditus (son of Aphrodite and Hermes, who had both sets of sexual organs), and a number of sanctuaries that practised sacred prostitution. (There is scholarly doubt about the last item, but we thought we’d mention it just the same.) Our best advice: admire from afar.
