Aphrodite

I am trying to bring in as much detail as I can in regards to the findings of gold artifacts of the Goddess Άφροδίτη in the now modern region known as Afghanistan.

This is an image of Aphrodite Bactria, named after the region in which she was found. Her pose is very much in the Grecian style, while having hindi jewelry and a dot (third eye) to show that she is married, while the wings are more of a Near Eastern style placing her as a local deity.

This area, strategically placed within the silk road route, has been trove of treasures for archeologists. Some of their findings include depictions of Buddha with a Greco art-style and images of Herakles, Cybele and Eros.

Some information regarding the region of Bactria can be found here,


While Afghanistan is a relatively new nation—a committee fashioned its borders in the late nineteenth century—the regions bound together include some of the world’s oldest cultures. By 2000 B.C.E. , when the manmade oases flourishing in northern Afghanistan attracted invaders as well as traders, there rose up fortified towns with urban centers. During that era, the renowned city of Balkh became Bactria’s capital city. Described in antiquity as “the mother of all cities,” Balkh was the birthplace of the ancient poet and religious prophet Zoroaster, who may be buried there.

It was Cyrus the Great of Persia who named this area “Bactria” around 530 B.C.E. Darius ruled there shortly thereafter, and Alexander the Great came through around 328 B.C.E. on his way to India. In Balkh, Alexander took Darius III’s daughter as his bride.

Thus, Bactria became an outpost of Greek culture. Aï Khanum, meaning “Lady Moon,” was established by one of Alexander’s commanders, Seleucus, in 300 B.C.E. and unearthed by French archaeologists in 1964, the first evidence of an ancient Greco-Bactrian city. The city flourished until 145 B.C.E., when it was brought down by Eurasian nomads, possibly a tribe related to the nomads buried at Tillya Tepe.

The worship of Aphrodite is far more reaching than I had thought. She is known to be equated with the Sumerian Inanna, Phoenician Astarte, and Etruscan Turan. I am aware however that the Roman Venus was originally a Latin vegetation and vineyard goddess that under Greek influenced became equated with the Goddess risen from the foam.