Glossary Religion and cult
Great Goddess
A modern name for the chief goddess of Palaepaphos, and for a single prehistoric mother goddess that many scholars now doubt.
At Palaepaphos the goddess of the great sanctuary was called 'the Paphian' or 'the Lady' (Wanassa) in Cypriot inscriptions, and Greeks knew her as Aphrodite. Archaeologists often speak of the Sanctuary of the Great Goddess there.
Older writers projected her back into prehistory, reading Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age figurines of women as images of one Great Goddess of fertility. Recent work treats this as an assumption: no early figurine can be shown to depict a deity. See Neolithic and picrolite figurines.
Related terms
- Astarte
A Phoenician goddess associated with love, fertility and war, worshipped in Iron Age Cyprus at Kition, Tamassos and elsewhere.
- Cult image
The statue or object that stood for a god in a sanctuary and received worship, as distinct from the offerings brought to it.
- Syncretism
The merging or equating of gods from different cultures, so that one deity is worshipped under two names or with combined features.