Bettany Hughes has spent a decade, she tells us, exploring the origins of the goddess Aphrodite, first for a BBC documentary aired in 2017 and now for this book. I think it’s fair to say that if you saw the documentary, the book won’t have much more to offer you. If not it’s an intriguing tale that tracks the gorgeous and omnipresent Venus of western civilisation back 6,000 years to a series of strange little knobbly figures with penis-heads and emphasised vulvas found on Cyprus, presumably connected with a fertility cult.
In the fourth millennium BC, a fearsome trio of goddesses swept into Bronze Age Cyprus from Mesopotamia. Innanna, described in a poem written c. 2350 BC ‘of blazing dominion/clad in dread/riding on fire-red power’ was worshipped in 180 sanctuaries in Babylon alone, while Ishtar was immortalised as ‘she who vanquishes all’; Astarte, riding in the bows of a Phoenician boat, encapsulated war, death and destruction as well as life and sex. Arriving in Cyprus, a version of these three melded with the local nature goddess who had succeeded the penis-heads, thus forming a bizarre and alarming bird-headed woman. She came complete with sexy curves, baby at the breast and glamorous earrings to offset her evil-looking beak and eyes.
This cult coincided with a copper-mining boom on Cyprus, and remains of the goddess’s temple at Paphos reveal the riches and sensuality of her cult. Her warlike attributes fell into abeyance and instead she was worshipped as the source of pleasure and of union between men and women, the impulse behind civilisation and progress. Her powers were still double-edged; desire can be destructive as well as harmonious; and she was also, interestingly, non-binary (as she was in Babylon too), occasionally appearing with a beard.
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