Afrodyta w Akko-Ptolemais

Abstract

The cult of Aphrodite is attested at Acre-Ptolemais in Roman times, but it goes probably back to the Hellenistic period. Acre was a city of ancient Phoenicia, depending from Tyre. It did not belong to Israel in Antiquity, when it was the best seaport of Canaan. Besides, it was located on an important coastal road from Egypt to Syria, Anatolia, and Mesopotamia. The city was renamed Ptolemais by Ptolemy II and this name was in use until the 7th century A.D. Ptolemais had a most stirring and tragic history, becoming a royal see under the Seleucids, who probably introduced the cult of Aphrodite, identified with Astarte. She was a patroness of the town, as shown not only by local coins with the effigy of the goddess, but also by her statue decorating the thermae of Acre. They were frequented by Roman veterans, whose colony was established at Ptolemais by Claudius and Nero, but even by Jews, among them rabbis like Gamaliel II, the head of the Yabneh council from ca. 80 to ca. 105 A.D. The statue of the naked goddess, recognizable on the coins, belonged to the iconographic type of the so-called “Venus of the Medici” at Florence, like the statue found at Tell al-Qadp i (Tel Dan). The location of her sanctuary at Acre is uncertain, but it might have been Tell Fuhhar (Tel Akko) or a site in the latter’s vicinity, where remains of a Hellenistic shrine have been discovered.