HISTORY ETHNOGRAPHY NATURE WINE-MAKING SITE MAP
Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
 
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The Sanctuary of Aphrodite

The Paphian Sanctuary never represented a temple of traditional Greek design, but a shrine of a type common in the Eastern Mediterranean: a large open enclosure, housing, besides numerous votive offerings and other religious monuments, only a fairly small sanctuary building. Roman coins depict the Paphian temple as a tripartite sanctuary which shows in its central hall a conical idol. Thetype of tripartite shrine has parallels in the architecture of Minoan Crete but occurs also in the Near East.


Reconstraction by J. Fisher von Erlach*, 1721 год

 

*Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (20 July 1656 - 5 April 1723) was probably the most influential Austrian architect of the Baroque period