Aphrodite Ourania of the Bosporus: the great goddess of a frontier Pantheon

When coming to new places, Greek colonists usually brought with them their ancestral gods. In contrast, the pantheon of the Cimmerian Bosporus differed substantially from that of the metropoleis of the Bosporan cities, Miletus and Teos. In fact, the interaction between Greeks and local Iranian- speaking peoples CScythians, Sindians and Maeotians), which started in the late seventh century BC, made this frontier area a melting pot of Greek and indigenous cultures. Local Iranian beliefs, mythology and cults had a consi- derable impact on the Bosporan religion. Indigenous cults influenced the shaping of the Bosporan pantheon, and especially the emergence and evolu- tion of the cult of Aphrodite Ourania.
From the beginning of its colonization by the Greeks to the end of the ancient epoch Aphrodite Ourania was the Great Goddess of the Bosporus. In the first centuries AD she was the tutelary goddess of the Bosporus, the guardian of its kings and their subjects, grantor of power and victory in battle, the supreme cosmic deity of this world and the protectress 6f the dead in the nether world, and a great fertility-goddess, reigning the vegetal and animal kingdoms.