Statue of Aphrodite

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This ancient marble torso fragment represents a nude Aphrodite from a bygone era. The Greek goddess Aphrodite embodied love, beauty, pleasure, and procreation, her essence mirrored in the planet Venus, which shares its name with the Roman goddess Venus, extensively syncretized with Aphrodite. Aphrodite's iconic symbols include myrtles, roses, doves, sparrows, and swans, each representing a facet of her multifaceted nature. The cult of Aphrodite drew heavily from that of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, a cognate of the East Semitic goddess Ishtar, whose cult was deeply rooted in the Sumerian worship of Inanna. The major centers of Aphrodite's cult were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth, and Athens, where her grand festival, the Aphrodisia, was celebrated annually on midsummer days. In Laconia, Aphrodite was revered as a warrior goddess, while she also served as the patron deity of prostitutes, an association that led early scholars to propose the concept of "sacred prostitution," now largely discredited. This ancient statue was unearthed in the Santa Maria Capua Vetere amphitheater in Caserta.