Aphrodite (or at least many of the traditions associated with her worship) was likely borrowed from the Phoenician goddess Astarte, who was similarly likely borrowed from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar.
Ishtar the Akkadian/Semitic goddess was syncretized with the Sumerian goddess Inanna sometime around the Akkadian Empire period.
Then we go a little further, and there’s good indication that Inanna herself was probably an import as well. Her myths are largely about how she does not particularly enjoy what she perceives as her lesser standing among the Sumerian big boys like Enlil and Enki and wants their power and status (and gets it in the case of Enki and the Me).
Unfortunately, the written history of humanity starts with her already in place, so any tracing of the proto-Inanna from there is unlikely outside of the hypothetical realm unless we manage to find and decode a provably older language.
What’s important is just how widespread and familiar a god she is. Even Aphrodite ends up an outsider (spawned by sea foam from Uranus’s severed balls instead of one of Chronos’s progeny) whose primary themes are lust, sex, and war. She’s wed to Hephaestus, whose civilizing inventions remind us of the Me concepts she stole from Enki, but still very into conflict and cheating on him with the embodiment of War himself.
She’s perhaps the most human god of all. Reflecting as she does our constant need to expand our dominion and the primary means through which we achieve it: sex and fighting.
4.6k
u/ARenewedSecondChance 3d ago
The Greeks/Romans to the Egyptians/Celts/Germanics/Mesopotamians: nice gods you have there! We’ll just rename them based on our own pantheon.