Dictionary Of God And Godedesses

24 Apedemakarrow, shield, snake and sword. 4. Goddess.Buddhist (Mahayana). She stands or treadson the god GANESA. Color: yellow. Attributes:bell, hook, image of RATNASAMBHAVA, nooseand staff.ApedemakWar god. Sudanese (Meroe). An Egyptianizeddeity, his main sanctuary was contained in a vastreligious complex and center of pilgrimage atMusawwarat-es-Sufra, north of the sixth Nilecataract. Sacred animals include cattle and theAfrican elephant. Depicted with the head of a lionand a human body, holding a scepter embellishedwith a seated lion at the tip.AphrodisiasFertility goddess. Carian [southwestern Turkey].Equating with the Greek goddess APHRODITE.APHRODITE (foam-born)ORIGIN Greek and Cypriot. Goddess of sexuallove.KNOWN PERIOD OF WORSHIP identified fromcirca 1300 BC (evolving from an earlier prehistoricAsiatic model), until Christianization(circa AD 400) and later.SYNONYMS equating with IŠTAR (Akkadian);ASTARTE (Syrian); AŠTORETH (Phoenician);Dione, Cytherea, VENUS (Roman).CENTER(S) OF CULT Paphos, Amathus and Kition(Cyprus), Corinth and elsewhere on Greekmainland.ART REFERENCES Bronze Age statuettes(Cyprus); votive stelae; the Parthenon friezeand other contemporary sculpture.LITERARY SOURCES Iliad and Odyssey (Homer);Theogony and Hymn to Aphrodite (Hesiod); templehymns, particularly Hymn of Sappho.Aphrodite is one of the major goddesses of theGreek Homeric pantheon, according to legendborn as a cosmic deity from the foam of the oceanafter her father OURANOS was castrated by KRO-NOS and his genitals were hurled into the sea. Inother accounts she is of a “younger” generation,a daughter of ZEUS. She is the consort of HEP-HAISTOS and occasional mistress of other deities,including ARES. Through liaison with the herdsmanAnchises she bore Aeneas who is said to havecarried his father to safety on his back during thesack of Troy. Her sacred animal is the goat.Aphrodite seems clearly to have evolved from thePhoenician or Mesopotamian model of a goddessof love and one of her strongest early cults was onthe island of Cyprus. Her name derives from theGreek word for the sexual act. She is perceived, insome contexts, as being androgynous and evenbearded (see also ARTEMIS). As with her Mesopotamianpredecessors she is a goddess of warand victory. Immediate predecessors to the Hellenicmodel seem to be present in the Mycenaeanperiod particularly at the Kition sanctuary. ThePaphos sanctuary definitely suggests Phoenicianinspiration. In the Iliad, Aphrodite rescues Parisfrom his fight with Menelaus and returns him tothe arms of HELEN in Troy.In Hellenic art Aphrodite is particularly drawnwearing fine clothes and jewelry. She possesses agirdle with magical properties. The famed statue ofthe goddess from Cnidos (circa 340 BC), depictingher naked, is the first of many such erotic interpretations.The temple at Paphos once dispensedmodel phalli and lumps of salt to cultic pilgrims,and the Corinthian sanctuary enjoyed, accordingto Strabo, more than a thousand cultic prostitutes.ApisBull god. Egyptian. The living personification ofthe creator god PTAH in Memphis, he acts as anintermediary between the supreme god and