Amathous, the ancient city of Cyprus, and sacred site dedicated to Aphrodite

Amathous, on the coast of Cyprus, is an ancient city with its first foundations dating to 11^th century BC. Alexander the Great of Macedonia ruled Amathous in the 4^th century BC, and afterwards Ptolemy ruled the city before the Romans.

There was an earthquake in the 4^th century AD and the Christians took over the city until the 7^th or 8^th century. From then on, it was abandonned. The locals call the ruins ‘Old Lemesos’ or Old Limassol.

It has been an archeological site for 40 years by the French School at Athens and the Department of Antiquities in Cyprus. They found the city of Amathous to be ‘complex and cosmopolitan.’

Amathous was probably a wealthy Eteocypriot Kingdom with a strong Phoenician presence. A sanctuary existed on the top of the acropolis with two large stone vases nearby. The sanctuary seems to have been rebuilt at least once – and this is where the goddess Aphrodite is worshipped. There was also a temple and a banquet hall. In the 7th century AD the Christians built a basilica next to the temple using stone blocks. There is also a Royal Palace with a storeroom. Several cemeteries contained female figurines buried with the dead. There are also public baths and a fountain.

Amathous is one of the two great sites dedicated to Aphrodite in Cyprus. The other is Palaepaphos. The archeological ruins are the remains of the temple to Aphrodite, built in the first century AD on the site of a previous temple dating to the Hellenistic period.

Archeologists think that the first Amathusians worshipped an ancient Cypriot Goddess, but by the end of the 4^th century BC to the end of the 4^th century AD they called her Aphrodite, represented as a Greek deity. She was seen to have universal power, promoting fertility by inspiring desire and love. As a fertility goddess she also protected agriculture and metallurgy, and she is said to have had sacred gardens in her sanctuaries.

It was Homer who first referred to the Goddess of Cyprus as Aphrodite but she was not called Aphrodite until the 4^th century BC. From inscriptions the Goddess of Cyprus was called Anassa, the Sovereign, the Paphian, and the Golgian. In fact she had many names, such as Kyprogenea the Cyprus born goddess; Potnia Kyprou the mistress of Cyprus; Akraia the goddess of promontories; Pontia the marine goddess; Ourania the heavenly goddess; Pandemos the goddess of all; Egchelos the goddess with the spear; Aphroditos the male Aphrodite; Adoneia the funereal Aphrodite; Eleemon the compassionate goddess; Chrysostephanos the goddess with the golden crown; and Kourotrophos the goddess patron of infants.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).