Statuette of Aphrodite with Dove and Ivy Wreath
Taranto, allegedly from Canosa (Puglia)
3rd cent. BC.,
Museum All Saints Schaffhausen,
In the narrative art the dove refers as aphrodisiac logos on an erotic atmosphere, such as on a late classical Etruscan mirror.
In classical antiquity, the dove was considered as the embodiment of typically female characteristics, and in particular the white dove was considered a sacred bird of the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite or their Italian versions Turan in Etruria and Venus in the Roman Empire. The connection of the dove with a love goddess existed in the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Levant. The bird was the Mesopotamian Ishtar and Astarte West Semitic variant holy.
Photo: Jürg Fausch, Schaffhausen.