Goddesses and Gods Love and Sexuality

There are countless deities associated with love and/or sexuality in every culture throughout history, here are some..

Aphrodite: In Greek mythology, Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty and sexual rapture. According to Hesiod, she was born when Uranus (the father of the gods) was castrated by his son Cronus . Cronus threw the severed genitals into the ocean which began to churn and foam about them. From the aphros ("sea foam") arose Aphrodite, and the sea carried her to either Cyprus or Cythera. Hence she is often referred to as Kypris and Cytherea. Homer calls her a daughter of Zeus and Dione. After her birth, Zeus was afraid that the gods would fight over Aphrodite's hand in marriage so he married her off to the smith god Hephaestus the steadiest of the gods. He could hardly believe his good luck and used all his skills to make the most lavish jewels for her. He made her a girdle of finely wrought gold and wove magic into the filigree work. That was not very wise of him, for when she wore her magic girdle no one could resist her, and she was all too irresistible already.

 She loved gaiety and glamour and was not at all pleased at being the wife of sooty, hard-working Hephaestus. Aphrodite loved and was loved by many gods and mortals. Among her mortal lovers, the most famous was perhaps Adonis . Some of her sons are Eros, Anteros, Hymenaios and Aeneas (with her Trojan lover Anchises. She is accompanied by the Graces. Her festival is the Aphrodisiac which was celebrated in various centers of Greece and especially in Athens and Corinth. Her priestesses were not prostitutes but women who represented the goddess and sexual intercourse with them was considered just one of the methods of worship. Aphrodite was originally an old-Asian goddess, similar to the Mesopotamian Ishtar and the Syro-Palestinian goddess Ashtart. Her attributes are a.o. the dolphin, the dove, the swan, the pomegranate and the lime tree. In Roman mythology Venus is the goddess of love and beauty and Cupid is love's messenger...

For many Halloween is a time for fun and dressing up, but for others it has a greater significance - some believe it to be a time for tradition and celebration while others perceive it assomething altogether more sinister."Witches, beware.

Mummies, be gone. Halloween may be a celebration of all things creepy and macabre, but a growing number of US communities are shunning traditional ghoulish festivities, seen by some as tainted by associationwith paganism and the occult."

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A massive altar dedicated to an eastern cult deity has emerged during excavations of a Roman fort in northern England.

Weighing 1.5 tons, the four-foot high ornately carved stone relic, was unearthed at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, which was built by order of the Emperor Hadrian between 122-30 A.D.

The Romans built the defensive wall across the north of Britain from Carlisle to Newcastle-on-Tyne, to keep out invading armies from what is now Scotland.

What should have been part of the rampart mound near to the north gate of the fort has turned out to be an amazing religious shrine," said archaeologist Andrew Birley.

A jar and a shallow dish is depicted on one side of the altar, while the other side shows a god-like figure standing on the back of a bull, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle axe in the other.

Romans called this god Juppiter Dolichenus, but it was originally an ancient weather god, known to the Semitic peoples of the Middle East as Hadad and to the Hittites as Teshab.

It was in its war-like representation that the Anatolian god Juppiter of Doliche became a favorite deity among Roman soldiers.

Indeed, an inscription indicates that the altar was dedicated to the Dolichenus god by "Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls."

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A Roman mosaic floor filled with scenes depicting pagan rites and oriental gods has emerged from the ground of a Catholic church in Italy, archaeologists announced. The mosaic pavement, which measures 13 square meters (140 square feet) and dates to the fourth century A.D., was unearthed at a depth of about 4 meters (13 feet) below the the ground's surface during archaeological investigations in the crypt of the Cathedral of Reggio Emilia, in central-northern Italy."The size and design of themosaic pavement suggest that it formed the floor of a huge room.

We believe this was the residence of a wealthy Roman," Renata Curina, the archaeologist in charge of the dig, told Discovery News. The fact that depictions of pagan gods had lain for hundreds of years just a few meters under the cathedral doesn't come too much as a surprise, according to the archaeologist."The church was built on top of preexisting building structures. This is rather normal in Reggio Emilia. We can see that little care was taken of the mosaic floor, since pillars are built on top of it," Curina said. Made up of small tesserae -- tiny tiles -- of different materials, which include colored stones, glass cameos and golden leaves, the intricate mosaic floor features geometric designs of circles and squares with little figuresof dancers, flowers and birds such as magpies and peacocks. What makes the mosaic unique, however, are three large mythological scenes. "So far all scenes show naked figures. We are still trying to figure out their meaning. I believe that more clues might come to light as we continue to dig," Curina said. The scenes are rather unusual. One shows a naked man falling into someone's arms, another displays two naked figures -- a man and a woman -- wearing jewels. The woman holds a just caught fish, while the man holds two live ducks. Another extraordinary scene shows a naked man wearing an ivy crown and holding a lotus flower in his right hand. In his left hand, the mysterious character holds a lituus. This is a crooked cane which in ancient Rome was used by the augurs as a cultinstrument.......