Aphrodite

True Love is found when you are truly yourself, in all your power and humaness. Aphrodite is attracted to those who dare to be themselves and live life to the fullest. She delights in sharing Her sensuous blessings with all who are open to adventure, self-love and sensual pleasures. She is the heart's Venus.

http://www.spiralgoddess.com/Aphrodite.html

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Astarte was worshiped in Egypt and Ugarit and among the Hittites, as well as in Canaan. Her Akkadian counterpart was Ishtar. Later she became assimilated with the Egyptian deities Isis and Hathor (a goddess of the sky and of women), and in the Greco-Roman world with Aphrodite, Artemis, and Juno, all aspects of the Great Mother. -britannica.com

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astarte
‘Ashtart, also known as Astarte, Hebrew or Phoenician עשתרת, Ugaritic ‘ttrt (also ‘Attart or ‘Athtart), Akkadian dAs-tar-tú (also Astartu), Greek Άστάρτη (Astártê), was a major northwest-Semitic goddess, cognate in name, origin, and functions with the east-Semitic goddess Ishtar.

‘Ashtart was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. Her symbols were the lion, the horse, the sphinx, the dove, and a star within a circle indicating the planet Venus.

Astarte, or Ashtoret in Hebrew, was the principal goddess of the Phoenicians, representing the productive power of nature. She was a lunar goddess and was adopted by the Egyptians as a daughter of Ra or Ptah.

In Jewish mythology, she is referred to as Ashtoreth, supposedly interpreted as a female demon of lust in Hebrew monotheism. This interpretation is also inherited by Christianity.

In Christian demonology, Ashtoreth is connected to Friday, and visually represented as a young woman with a cow's horns on her head (sometimes with a cow's tail too).

The cult of Astarte was one of the main competitors to the early Hebrew monotheism.

There is a serious basis for the opinion that the Greek goddess Aphrodite (especially Aphrodite Urania) is just another name for Astarte. Herodotus wrote that the cult of Aphrodite originated in Phoenicia and came to Greeks from there. He also wrote about the world's largest temple of Aphrodite, in one of the Phoenician cities.

Connection to planet Venus is another similarity to the Aphrodite cult, apparently from the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar. Doves sacrificed is another.

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http://www.hfac.uh.edu/mcl/classics/Aphr/Aphr.html
Hesiod derives Aphrodite by false etymology from the Greek word aphros, *foam," but the name must in reality be a distortion of the name of the Eastern goddess of fertility variously called Inanna, Ishtar, or Astarte. The goddess evidently came to Greece through Cvprus, a frequent point of transmission of Eastern culture to the West. At Paphos, in southwestern Cyprus, she was worshiped as early as the twelfth century B.C.E. in the form of a polished conical stone. Her cult was also important on the island of Cythera, south of the Peloponnesus, where Phoenicians had a settlement; here, as in many parts of the Mediterranean, they processed purple dye from a shellfish. Other important temples were built to her in Eryx in western Sicily, also a Phoenician colony, and in Corinth, a gathering place for seafarers of various nationalities

Aphrodite is painted in more magnificent colours in the early hymn which tells how she sought out the herdsman Anchises on Mount Ida to become mother of Aeneas (said to be the founder of Italy). Here she assumes traits of the Phrygian goddess Kybele, the Mother of the Mountain, a form of the Anatolian Great Goddess who is also equated with Aphrodite elsewhere.

The appeal to the Aeneas tradition in Rome, made especially by Julius Caesar, gave impetus to a cult of Venus Genetrix, but as a result it was more the Phrygian Mother than the Greek Aphrodite who came to be worshipped. Caesar's family did most to promote Venus to the first rank of Olympian deities at Rome. He dedicated a temple to Venus in his new Forum lulium in 46 B.C.E., and Hadrian (emperor C.E. 117-138) dedicated a temple to Venus and Roma in 135, one of the largest temples in the city.

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http://www.arthistory.sbc.edu/imageswomen/papers/lombardiaphrodite/aphrodite.html
"It is believed that Aphrodite was brought from Phoenecia to Greece by way of Cyprus. Phoenecian colonists were known to bring her worship to Cyprus, Cythera, and other islands along with their purple cloth dyes. This is reinforced in literature, as Aphrodite's mythical 'home' is Cyprus. A monumental temple to Aphrodite also stands in Paphos on that island."

The Urania birth story associates Aphrodite with the creation of the world and establishes her as one of the oldest divinities. As Aphrodite was born from the act that separated Heaven and Earth and created the world in between, she is present from the very beginning of time.

Although Aphrodite was a very old goddess imported from other lands, surrounded by the active Greek gods she was forced into a diminished role. As Harrison noted, she is in Homer "a departmental goddess, having for her sphere one human passion. The earlier forms of divinities are of larger import, they tend to be gods of all work." (Baring, 357) However, in art Aphrodite is often depicted in her older and more respectable form.

Aphrodite was often pictured sitting or riding on a variety of animals, particularly birds such as swans or geese.This association with the sky reinforces the existence of Aphrodite Urania, the heavenly goddess who also patroned animals. In addition, such images also support Aphrodite as the Queen of Heaven, with an important place in the natural world.


Aphrodite's charms came from her magic cestus, an embroidered girdle that, in both gods and men, aroused passion for the wearer.

Perhaps the most celebrated of Aphrodite's affairs was her relationship with Ares, the god of war. Although such a union may at first seem incongruous, it is actually a match of two divinities of the same nature. Aphrodite, the beautiful maiden who attracts the attention of the most powerful of the gods only to decline him, refuses to be controlled by her marriage to Hephaestus--she will not be denied freedom in the area of her dominion. Likewise Ares, an alternately rageful and cowardly god, can never be predicted in his actions.

Aphrodite's rebellious nature is reinforced by the creation of many children by her liason with Ares. In addition, Phobos and Deimos, Anteros, and Harmonia were even passed off as the offspring of Hephaestus.

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http://inanna.virtualave.net/neareast.html
In depth narrative of the early deities with similar traits