goddess revered throughout Cyprus since LC II was, in fact, an early form of Aphrodite" (p. 177).
In chap. 7, "Cyprus between Occident and Orient," Budin concludes, however, that Early Iron Age Crete was importing material from Cyprus and therefore probably imported Aphrodite as well-she thus explains the appearance of the contemporary sanctuary to Aphrodite and Ares at Olous.
Chap. 8, "Levantine Contributions to Aphrodite," lists a number of Levantine cult sites and goddesses that could have influenced the development of Aphrodite in Cyprus: Inanna/Istar, a goddess of sex, love, and violence; Ishara, who is similar but also a bride; Aserah/Athiret, the queen of the Ugaritic pantheon, mother, and sea goddess; Astart, the beautiful and nubile hunter; and the elusive, nude Qudsu. She concludes-"[i]n a stroke of simplicity"-that Istar and Ishara "are the most blatantly sexual" and that the bird-faced figurines of Alalakh, apparently representing Istar and/or Ishara, imply the worship of Aphroditein-the-making at least as early as LC II.
Chap. 9, "The Phoenician Question," then suggests that it was the Phoenicians who introduced the Paphian as Astart to the Aegean in the Early Iron Age. Though Astart was not a sex goddess, she in the East and Aphrodite in the West were seen as compatible, and Budin discusses how that came to be (pp. 251-71). When the Phoenicians refounded Kition in the eleventh century, they probably made Astart the city's deity (p. 264). At Amathus, the Phoenicians encountered "an Eteo-Cypriot population" whose local goddess was represented by GUA figurines. With this goddess, then, the Phoenician Astart mixed to become the "[o]ne 'Goddess of Cyprus' . . . simultaneously identified as the Paphian, Astart, and eventually by the Greek settlers as Aphrodite." In the mid-ninth century a new series of goddess figurines blends "Levantine, Cypriot, and Aegean styles. They mix the nudity typical of the Levantine iconography with the upraised arms of the Cretan style and the jewelry and facial characteristics prevalent in Cyprus since the Chalcolithic Age" (figs. 9e-g).
Chap. 10, "Aphrodite Becomes Greek," summarizes the book. In the Late Bronze Age, the Levantine goddesses Ishara and, to a lesser extent, Istar contributed the qualities of sex and love to the local Cypriot goddess. At the end of the