Credits: Social Media
Aphrodite tattoo meanings explored as ink trends on TikTok
Ink is in, and users on TikTok have been discussing the meanings behind getting various personages in tattoo form is Aphrodite next?
Weve previously explored TikTokers views relating to what it might mean to have the likeness of Disneys Maleficent or a classic illustration of Rapunzel tattooed on the body.
Meanwhile, the #aphroditetattoo hashtag has accrued hundreds of thousands of views on the video-sharing platform.
And as it continues to build momentum, social media users and tattoo fans alike may be curious about the signals one sends by getting an Aphrodite tattoo.
Who is Aphrodite and why does she make for popular tattoo fodder?
Aphrodite is a goddess of ancient Greece. Much like the Roman goddess Venus, Aphrodites major symbols include myrtles and roses.
In a nutshell, shes the goddess of love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion and procreation. Venuss list is slightly different, erring more on the side of fertility, prosperity and victory. But theyre very similar to each other, and the things they represent are pretty universal: love, beauty, desire.
The primary centers of Aphrodites cult were Cythera, Cyprus, Corinth and Athens, the latter being the Greek capital.
Aphrodites forebears, or equivalents in earlier pantheons, are Ashtart, a Levantine goddess worshipped by the Canaanites and Phoenicians from the Bronze Age to classical antiquity, and Inanna, a Mesopotamian/Akkadian goddess of love, war and fertility associated with beauty, divine justice and political power.�Read more about them at the links provided.
What is the meaning of an Aphrodite tattoo?
Most representations of Aphrodite picture her without clothes. Sometimes part of her body will be covered by linens, or a sheet.
Her visage often goes hand in hand with roses one of her key symbols �or shells. And as a tattoo design, Aphrodite symbolizes pleasure, desire, beauty, love and power. She knew her own beauty and could use it to her advantage.
People often associate her with feminine power or female beauty. The name Aphrodite, by one account, directly translates to foam-arisen, a reference to her birth from the foam of Uranus severed loins.
She was born an adult, and is immeasurably desirable. So a tattoo of Aphrodite can mean any of these things: a symbol of attraction, of feminine strength, of pleasure and power, or simply of striding into adulthood and leaving youth behind.
The many forms of the goddess of love
There are two main accounts regarding the birth of Aphrodite, which lend her quite different qualities.
In Hesiods epic poem Theogony, Aphrodite is born, as mentioned above, from the foam produced by Uranus severed reproductive organs.
But in Homers Iliad, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione. And in his Symposium, Plato says these origins actually belong to separate versions of the same being.
Aphrodite Urania is a transcendent and heavenly Aphrodite. Meanwhile Aphrodite Pandemos has to do with earthly, sensual pleasures.
So the meaning of your Aphrodite tattoo depends on which of her traits you emphasize
Aphrodite also features prominently in the poetic writings of Sappho. So a tattoo of the Greek goddess might make reference to the lyric poet.
Shes also a key figure in modern Neopagan religions such as the Church of Aphrodite, Wicca and Hellenismos. This is a connection some people might want to make with a tattoo of Aphrodite the potential for adding various secondary meanings is vast.
If you opt for a tattooed version of Aphrodite that is more like Aphrodite Urania, the meaning you convey would have more to do with the spiritual, heavily, transcendent or even celestial qualities of love.
On the other hand, if you choose to present her in her Pandemos form, its meaning would be more earthly, more of the people.
