The exhibition in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim (Germany) aims to illustrate the great variety of ancient material culture in Cyprus, the Island of Aphrodite (Venus) the Goddess of Love. Cyprus culture spans several millenniums and reaches from the earliest remains of the Neolithic Age to the end of the Roman Rule. Various objects from the secular and religious life reveal that Cyprus has always been a crossroads for contacts between the Orient (Levant) and Occidental Europe. The Island attracted many foreign ‘quests’, a.o. Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians, Greeks, who left their marks. Enriched by local culture the legendary birthplace of Aphrodite developed an unique cultural identity and archeological treasure chamber. The exhibition focuses on the archaic period and classical periods (750-325 BC), when Cyprus played a prominent role in the origins of European culture, which was essentially shaped as a result of the interaction and exchange between East and West in the first thousand years BC.
