Aphrodite Akraia
Aphrodite Akraia was a Cypriot goddess. According to Strabo, she had a temple on the extreme tip of the Karpas peninsula, not far from Karpasia, on the top of a mountain called Olympos. Women were not allowed to see or enter this shrine.
In 1888, DG Hogarth identified the remains of a 36 × 17 m building on Kastros , the extreme point of Cape Apostolos Andreas . He also found a pedestal made of bluish limestone and a headless statue of a woman in an archaic style. To the west of it lay the remains of an extensive settlement.
The goddess is also mentioned in an inscription from Karpasia and an oath of allegiance to Tiberius , which was found in Nikoklia , 2 km north of Palaipaphos (Kouklia), as the first among the gods invoked, even before Apollon Hylates . Their cult is also evidenced by an inscription from Palaiopaphos. In an inscription found in 1936 while plowing in the area of Rizokarpaso , a certain Emmidoros vowed part of the yield of his field to Aphrodite Akraia, but reserved the usus fructus for himself and his male descendants. After the extinction of his families, the land is said to fall to Aphrodite Akraia. Mitford puts it on the basis of the script used in the time of Antoninus Pius or Septimius Severus .
literature
- TB Mitford: A Cypriot oath of allegiance to Tiberius . In: Journal of Roman Studies Volume 50, 1960, pp. 75-79.