Ashmolean Museum to exhibit Cypriot antiquities in Aphrodite show

Oxford, United Kingdom. Antiquities from Cyprus will be exhibited outside the country for the first time in The Making of a Goddess, an exhibition opening at the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum in October.

The exhibition will run from October 8 to April 11 and examine Aphrodite’s origins, transformations and continuing influence.

Aphrodite’s journey

The Ashmolean said the exhibition brings together archaeology, sculpture, painting, contemporary art and fashion to trace Aphrodite’s journey from her earliest origins in the eastern Mediterranean through the ancient Greek and Roman worlds and Renaissance Europe to the present day.

The museum said Aphrodite’s story began in Cyprus, where she emerged as a goddess and where visitors and immigrants from the Greek Aegean first encountered her. It said myths about the goddess were told and retold by writers including Homer, Hesiod, Euripides, Ovid and Virgil.

Cypriot sanctuary

The exhibition will explore the cult of the goddess in ancient Cyprus and her evolution from older traditions of female deities worshipped across the eastern Mediterranean, including Astarte and Ishtar.

A recreation of an Aphrodite sanctuary, using loans from Cyprus and major international collections, will show how Aphrodite was worshipped across the island and how she was depicted in ancient Cypriot art.

Visitors will also see the earliest known representation of Aphrodite, a copper alloy figurine from the Ashmolean’s collection dating to around 1200 BCE.

Exhibition highlights

Other exhibits will include the Crouching Aphrodite from the Royal Collection, a Capitoline Venus on loan from the Louvre, Botticelli’s Venus from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, works by Yves Klein and Michelangelo Pistoletto, and a Loewe dress by Jonathan Anderson worn by Beyonce.

The exhibition is curated by Anha Ulbric, an expert on Cypriot archaeology. Ulbrich said Cyprus had been a focus of her work since studying archaeology, including the island’s ancient culture, religious traditions and Mediterranean connections.