APHRODITE'S ANICONIC SYMBOL OF ENLIGHTENMENT. A CONICAL INSENCE BURNER.

                            FIRE WORSHIPED IN CYPRUS IN HONOR OF ADONIS.


                      APHRODITE'S ANICONIC SYMBOL  IS BELLOWING SMOKE

                                            SACRED KINYRIAD GEOMETRY?

                        "Where there is smoke there is Fire"
A PERFECT CONE SHAPE REPRESENTING THE ESSENCE OF FIRE. IT WAS THREE FEET HIGH, I POSIT IT WAS MADE OF SELINITE/GYPSUM/ALABASTER, POSSIBLY HOLLOW, TO CREATING AN UP-DRAFT TO FEED THE INCENSE BURNER THAT WAS POSITIONED ON TOP OF THE CONE WHICH WAS TRUNCATED. SEE HOMER ON THE SANCTUARY OF KYPRIS/APHRODITE AND HER INCENSE BURNING ALTAR.

                           

Well aware that it is through the language of archetypal symbols that we reconnect with the primordial ground from which all human cultures have sprung, I searched to see what I could find regarding the symbolic meaning of the temple of Aphrodite in Cyprus. 
What a shock I had when I found nothing esoteric, absolutely nothing. Here was a detailed, perfect image on a coin, of a universal archetypal symbol of enlightenment, that must have been established by enlightened minds at least 3500 years ago.
What caught my attention, when observing the top of the aniconic image/structure on one of the coins, shown above, was the heavy smoke bellowing out.

Tacitus  approximately 15 A.D. stated that the aniconic image was three feet tall and the stone conical . We can clearly see on all the coins that predate Tacitus that the aniconic structure on the altar does not look anything like a stone, it looks more like a rude Stupa, the Stupa of enlightenment, which some claim holds the 'ashes' of the holy one, the Buddha.

One must remember that Tacitus who wrote the following came along to observe the Temple at least 1400 years after its establishment. I quote some of what has been written, "The goddess is not represented in human form" "the 'idol' is a sort of pyramid shaped plain smooth, three foot tall stone, rising from a broad base to a small round top, like a turning-post." " Blood must not be poured on the altar, at which they offer only prayers and fire untainted and smoke."
" Although the altars stand in the open air they are never wetted by rain."

An aniconic form within a temple like structure is a familiar sight throughout the ancient world. They all show profound expressions of knowledge based on reason and intuition. For me a Temple attempts to represent or mirror the harmony and perfection of universal principles and invites the human mind to meditate and awaken its full capabilities. 

Imagine a heap, a xoanon, a stupa,  a table, an altar, a lamp, lantern or lighthouse, a triangle, a tree, each as a world axis. Even a simple stake placed in the ground around which a tethered animal would walk in circles invokes the same idea; a hill or mound inside which a jar containing the ashes of a dead hero are placed, are all metaphors of a hearth, designed to keep a community grounded and united. This symbolic image with meaning, incorporated within the sacred alter within the temple of Aphrodite could not go beyond the idea of affirming to the collective enlightenment of a universal principle of 'Origins'.

To follow the Stupa idea one learns that in their early history, they were used as reliquaries or as graves - similar to the pyramids of Egypt. It is only from the time of Sidhartha Gautama (VI - V century B.C.) the design and meaning of the Stupa became more sophisticated, their symbolic aspects developed and changed superficially.

The SMOKE which we see bellowing out of the early Roman coin, could be said to be a symbol of connection between heaven and earth, spirit and matter. Smoke is without a doubt the best world AXIS going. This symbolism is also said of incense smoke and the smoke that rises from the peace pipe. The ascending smoke is symbolic of the prayers rising to heaven. The connection of heaven to earth.

An ALTAR in all religions is a raised place within a cult precinct that serves the purpose of sacrifice and other sacred acts. The raised location represents the lavation of the sacrificial gift to the God or Goddess. This alter was/is considered the spiritual center of the chosen cult/community and the universe. The Alter in Christianity was represented by the 'table' the table of the Last Supper and the body of Christ, the white cloth cover, the shroud. A place of enlightenment, of refuge, of asylum. A TABLE like an altar, is a raised center around or about which a clan gather. It is a symbol of communal eating, of sacrifice, of atonement, of spiritual union, of sharing knowledge, of enlightenment. In Islamic belief there is a Great table where God has inscribed the fate of each life.

The AXIS, a world Axis, whatever form it takes unites the man defined heaven and the earth, this defined axis, this upright vertical acts to symbolize the interrelationship of all the levels or realms of the cosmos known and defined by humans. It represents, like the altar and table, the center around which the community/clan are organized, and enlightened. The world axis has been imagined in many forms, among the most common of which was a cone, a pyramid a triangle a wedge, which transformed in time to become a column,  a pillar, or of ascending SMOKE like a pillar, or a flame of ascending fire, a tree, a mountain, a simple staff or a lance, the cross of Christ, the Tantric spinal column, the Indian lingam and many more examples. All of these, have been connected to light, elimination, showing the way as does a lantern, a lighthouse. According to Plato and the Buddha it is the place of radiant diamonds and precious gems.

A TRIANGLE or CONE on its base pointing up suggests fire. The principal that separates man from all other is fire. The HEARTH is the apostrophic effect of fire and its need to never be extinguished is to keep evil spirits away. The TRIANGLE and the cone are associated with the number THREE, in antiquity they were understood as a LIGHT symbols, symbols of illumination. With the apex pointing upward it is the most common symbol of FIRE; used as a sign of the AllOne/OneAll, in three aspects, God is unity and harmony; a triune, the logos. Through birth maturity and death, we congregate, to be reminded, to direct our will toward right thought, right speech, and right action.

The SUN, the LIGHT, the FIRE, the FLAME, and the HEARTH as symbols, all take us directly to the sacred, purifying and renewing principals or regeneration, transformation recreation. The suns power to make and destroy is interpreted as the means of regenerating life by creating nutrients, thus also interpreted as the means of spiritual rebirth, a higher level for humanity. In the Old Testament God appears as a COLUMN of Fire and speaks through a burning bush. Fire is the only classical element, which having come from above, always rises! Cremation of Demigods and the Phoenix also feature.

The TREE. The TRee is the symbol of the widest distribution, firstly as a center, a divine essence and or as the residence of the numinous powers. A symbol of rebirth and renewal. It is the embodiment of the world axis. Bearing fruit and granting shade makes it a nurturing, feminine or maternal symbol. The association of the tree with flame, representing the life force within, for it was pointedly said exoterically that fire is drawn out of TWO pieces of wood rubbing against each other. It represents the garden god/man created, the 'paradise', which simply means 'garden' in  IE (Armenian) and its life giving and preserving value reminding us to avoid acting contrary to the natural laws and divine commandments.

It appears that ancient Greeks had a similar relation to wood as the Ancient Egyptians did, considering wood itself as the medium for a designated god or hero. Botticher’s theory is that the early worship of Greek gods was founded on pre-existing tree cults.  A 'xoanon of Aphrodite' reads a description of a coin. Clement of Alexandria wrote that the image of Hera Kiqai-runia at Thespiai was a cut tree stump. Pausanias spoke of the early theory that Greek mediums to the gods were wooden. Pausanias also revealed that the Pythian priestess in Delphi prophesied to the Corinthians that they must find the tree and worship it just like a god. ; coins in some areas of Greece showed gods actually seated in trees. Pliny explained that "images of the deities were made from trees” and "the images of gods dedicated in the shrines were more usually of wood or terra-cotta.

The LIGHT/FIRE of the sun was said to represent absolute reality and the light of the moon, which is reflected, symbolized, indirect knowing via rational, logical, discursive thought. Light offers spiritual clarity and enlightenment. Its duality with darkness is a fundamental principal of spirit and matter, male and female. Light like fire is seen as an ascent from darkness, and it plays a fundamental role in the development of the individual as well as humanity. It is the light of knowledge, it simply expresses the spiritual source of illumination, it is ENLIGHTENMENT. Light is the omnipresent phenomenon, the immateriality of it represents the spirit, the god, as well as happiness and life itself.

The crescent moon and the Star Venus seen above the Aphrodite's temple structure are obviously meaningful. The LINGA as a symbol of the Hindu god Shiva, as a truncated rising column, often has a cubic/square base. This is a metaphor for the divine, the masculine creative power, and a world axis. The female counterpart is the YONI. Together they defined, completion of the divine intention,  the divine purpose.

FIRE WORSHIPED IN CYPRUS IN HONOR OF ADONIS.

I begin with a statement of an unknown Greek writer about the Fire Worship in Cyprus in honor of Adonis. He states that Adonis was honored by Aphrodite and all Cyprians, and that after his death they cast live doves into a pyre in his honor, and that these birds, flew away from the flames and subsequently fell into another pyre and were consumed. This statement seems to be a description of an actual custom of burning doves in sacrifice to Adonis. Such a mode of honoring him would make sense, since doves were sacred to his divine mistress Astarte and Aphrodite. At the Syrian Hierapolis, one of the chief seats of her worship, these birds were so holy that they might not even be touched, but on the appointed day of the year. Hence the birds were so tame that they lived with the people in their houses, on the temple and commonly picked up their food fearlessly as observed on the top of the columns, as well as in the semi-circular fenced garden, shown on all the coins.
Can the burning of the sacred bird of Aphrodite in the Cyprian worship of Adonis have been a substitute for the burning of the sacred man who personated the lover of the goddess at other locations was Frazer’s question? It seems that the intention to burn the god whom they worship, was not for wishing to destroy the deity, or a punishment or disrespect, but the desire to make the deity live forever, to place him beyond the reach of that process of degeneration and final dissolution to which all things here below appear by their nature to be subject. "He does not die in the fire. Oh no! Only the corruptible and mortal part of him perishes in the flames: all that is incorruptible and immortal of him will survive the purer and stronger for being freed from the contagion of baser elements.

"That little heap of ashes which you see there is not our god. It is only the skin which he has sloughed, the husk which he has cast. He himself is far away, in the clouds of heaven, in the depths of earth, in the running waters, in the tree and the flower, in the corn and the vine. We do not see him face to face, but every year he manifests his divine life afresh in the blossoms of spring and the fruits of autumn. We eat of his broken body in bread. We drink of his shed blood in the juice of the grape."

Fire was supposed to purge away the mortal parts of men, leaving only the immortal. The act raised the victim to the rank of a god and once a god the Dove became the perfect substitute, for the concept of annual resurrection, eternal life, and immortality. Fire, was regarded by the ancients as a purgative so powerful that properly applied it could burn away all that was mortal of a man, leaving only the divine and immortal spirit behind. Hence we read of goddesses who essayed to confer immortality on the infant sons of kings by passing them through the fire. The story is told of Isis in the house of the king of Byblos, of Demeter in the house of the king of Eleusis, and of Thetis in the house of her mortal husband Peleus.

THE ISLAND OF LOVE

Cyprus is promoted today as "the island of love," correctly following a tradition of identifying it with the goddess of “love,” fertility and sexuality, par excellence that stretches back at least to the Chalcolithic period. In Greek and Roman mythology the sea-born goddess Aphrodite emerged from the frothy waves; Hesiod writes that "First she drew near holy Cythera, (an Island half-way between Crete and the Peloponese) from there; afterwards, she (the concept) came to sea-girt Cyprus, where grass and flowers grew where she touched, beneath her shapely feet."

Tradition has her emerging from the sea at the impressive rock on the southern coast labeled on maps as Petra tou Romiou but called universally "The Rock of Aphrodite."

The goddess probably when she was referred to as Kypris, not yet Corinthian Aphrodite, embodied not only the sensuality known in Greco-Roman mythology but also, originally, incorporated aspects of fertility and military ferocity from Near Eastern prototypes of the goddess Inanna, with the result that she was revered for representing the full spectrum of the feminine god. Though there is evidence that the concept at origin was an androgynous  Aphrodite. Herodotus who recorded and published approximately 550 B.C., tells us that the sanctuary at Palaia-paphos was founded from the oldest temple of "Heavenly Aphrodite" at Askalon in Syria.

Pliny noted in passing that "Paphos possesses a famous shrine of Venus on a certain court in which rain does not fall...." Tacitus has given us the most detailed information in a description written on a side-trip taken by him and the future emperor Titus to visit the sanctuary. “Only a descendent of Cinyras is now consulted as priest. Such victims are accepted as the individual vows, but male ones are preferred." The greatest confidence was put in the reading of the entrails of kids, however, it is on record that the alter was a sanctuary for all (ASSYLUM/ASSYIA) and that blood may not be shed upon it, and that offerings were made only with prayers and pure fire. The favor from the Goddess was demonstrated to Pygmalion when the flame on the Alter was raised three times to demonstrate she favored Pygmalion's request to possess a virgin for life.

The  conical representation of the goddess does not resemble a human form in ancient Cyprus, but as we can observe on the coins, that it rises and at the apex, at the head, it appears to be like a crown, a torus, a cover as in a cover like the parasol? The symbolism for this is still obscure.

Maximus of Tyre also mentioned this complex cult image: "Aphrodite has sacred rites among the Paphians. You would not say that the statue resembles anything but a white pyramid, the substance of which is unknown."

As for the design of the temple structure we can compare with temples from the Uruk Period where they divided the temples rectangles into a tripartite, a T-shape. The tripartite plan that sat above the base rectangle had a central hall with two smaller halls on either side. The entry was along the short axis and the shrine was at the end of the long axis.

There are good reasons to believe that the worship of a fertility goddess in Cyprus reaches back into the chalcolithic period: My hypothesis is that the cult of god as a feminine principal evolved freely at first and in time became politicized. The Caucasian Kypri became Assyrian El-Ashia* or Astate or vice versa. Much later 700B.C. she was referred to as Corinthian Aphrodite. Whatever the logos of the time we know all of them were worshiped by the people of Cyprus as the Golden Lady, Wanassa. Christianity changed that and now she is represented as the Mary we all know.

The temple  we see on the coins, the first it was claimed, must have been established by Kinyriads on or about 1400 B.C. However, we must note that idols of a bird- like nature like a fertility goddess found in Paleo-Paphos, Cyprus date back to 3800 BC. The Aphrodite name and cult it is believed, owes its origins to Achaean colonists, colonists who no doubt addapted the worship of a native fertility goddess named El-Ashia,* Astorte, (the Canaanite form of Ishtar root (SS-TR) to their political and social sensibilities.

Interpretations of the coin representations have been attempted, like comparisons with three-hailed structures in Asia Minor, but the explanations are simplistic. The best on offer says "like a canopy covering but not enclosing the aniconic cult object." Commentators on the sanctuary at Palaiapaphos have concluded from the archaeological, literary, and numismatic evidence that in the historical periods the central site was laid out in the style of a Near Eastern court sanctuary that combined a large open temenos with a smaller, covered "holy-of-holies" for the sacred 'stone.' There is a reference made by Clement of Alexandria, who quoted a statement by Ptolemaeus, that in the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos both Cinyras and his descendents lie buried,"

In the ancient 'Greek world,' Palea Paphos was one of the most important pilgrimage centers due to its famous Sanctuary of Aphrodite, the goddess of love and fertility. The Paphian sanctuary represents the longest archeologically confirmed cult tradition known so far in Cyprus. Peculiar to Paphos was the aniconic worship of the Goddess Aphrodite who it is assumed was represented by the conical structure, a symbol it is said of fertility. This sanctuary is depicted on many Roman coins, good example, I show above. Cultic objects some representing the goddess in many different forms (not anthropomorphic in the early period) were left as votive offerings in shrines and sanctuaries.

This post attempts to throw more light on the symbolic meaning of the architecture and aniconic image of the temple, for I can’t accept what’s offered so far in hypotheses. A conical stone they say simply representing fertility.

The Roman coins showing the temple of Aphrodite at Paphos depict the Paphian temple as a tripartite sanctuary which shows in its central hall an aniconic image not a conical fertility stone. The three bays, each surmounted by dove; the aniconic form surmounted by an ornate top and flanked by stars. It is also described as a Conical cult xoanon of Aphrodite within central distyle tower; distyle porticoes flanking, each containing candelabra and with dove above; the entire structure set on low basis; semicircular fencing below forecourt. The Bronze coins of the Emperor Caracalla (A.D. 198-217) for example were issued by the Community (Koinon) of the Cypriots. (British Museum)

Although the worship of goddesses like Aphrodite seems to have formalized and transported west from the east, the name Aphrodite was identified with Cyprus and said to have come from the west. However there is a body that believes that the concept not necessarily the name was home grown. Homer referred to the goddess as the "Cyprian" as early as the 8th century BC, and she was called the "Paphian" in the 6th century BC. Inscriptions at Palea Paphos call her simply Wanassa, "the lady."

The Excavated Temple of Aphrodite stood on a knoll about 2km inland, overlooking the sea where the town of Palea-Paphos sprang up. According to Greek ancient tradition, the hero Kinyras was the first king and consort of the goddess Aphrodite when she emerged from the sea. The couple, that is the Priestess representing Kypris/Aphrodite simply Wanassa had beautiful daughters and one was named Myrrha, who was turned into a fragrant bush by her jealous mother for seducing her father. Then arboreal Adonis was born of its wood, (the Myrtle) and it was 'He' who symbolized Aphrodite's son, brother, lover, the agent that renewed the cycle.

On the coins what we see are the images of the most ancient Sanctuary of Aphrodite which were revived and continued to flourish in the Roman era. Several Roman emperors honored the shrine, and it was visited by Titus in 69 AD when the future emperor was on his way to Egypt. He consulted the oracle there, and was told that he had a great future. The sanctuary was actually rebuilt by the Romans after the earthquake of 76/77 AD, in a design that preserved the oriental sanctuary layout of the original.

This cult of Aphrodite survived at Palea-Paphos until the 4th century AD, when Emperor Theodosius outlawed paganism.

Any temple or totem or Gk. Kybarion is a house of god, a multi-purpose symbol, a treasure chest of knowledge about known facts gleaned intuitively with scientific observation, phenomena of the universe, the nature of our mind and the way it evolves, slowly leading to the state of full development or enlightenment, our full good potential. 
We notice the early Stupas, resting on a cubical brick foundation, pre-date by a thousand years the arrival of Buddha. Like the Tree of knowledge the 'Mound' it is placed vertically in the center representing I posit the flame, the hearth, the Holy Spirit, as affirmation of the reality and truth, the Axis Mundi of the Aphrodite Cult in its primordial form.
I believe that the Temple of Aphrodite and the central cone, through their form work with us on many different conscious and subconscious levels. Temples are energy generators and transformers. They take energy from nature and focus and redistribute it. To say that they had a great protective power for the community and authority would be an understatement. They are obviously filled with positive energy and they pacify and transform fear and the sources of negative energy. A still point, is a mind centered.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen

 ASHE-TARTE, ISHTAR, ASTARTE was a great goddess of the ancient Near East, She was the chief deity of Tyre, Sidon, and Elath, all ports vital to trade between East and West Mediterranean. There was also Ashe-rah-yam, which translates our 'Lady' of the sun+sea. In Byblos she was Baalat, which suggests she was Baal's, thus our dear lady, though her name does not indicate it, was said to be of the sea.  'Ashe' I propose is what represents the idea of 'absolute unity.' the SS that weaves on all symbols of health and prosperity. Astarte was linked with mother goddesses of neighboring cultures, in her roll as all engulfing, combined heavenly mother and earth mother combined. Above as Below in one.

A star within a circle indicated the planet Venus. Under the name of Aphrodite. On the island of Cyprus, before the fall of Troy, the name Cypris represented the Heavenly Earth Mother as did Sovereign Golden Aphrodite.