APHRODISIAS
Named after the goddess Aphrodite, whose cult-like status became synonymous
with the celebration of sensual love and exquisite femininity the ancient
city of Aphrodisias, became renowned throughout Asia Minor as a centre
of medicine and philosophy but, above all, of sculpture and the arts.
Buried by a series of earthquakes during late antiquity and abandoned by the survivors after attacks by the Arabs, the once splendid city was largely forgotten by the world until excavations by the late Professor Kenan Erim of New York University, started in the early 1960s with financial support from the National Geographic, revealed an unparalleled cache of sculpture carved from the nearby white marble quarries; these appear to have been the motherlode of much of the statuary of the Roman age. Signatures on statues found at the extensive site corresponding with other found throughout the Roman world, from Spain to the Danube , pointing to a distinctive and influential school of sculpture. |
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