Page "Amathus" Paragraph 2

The pre-history of Amathus mixes myth and archaeology.

Though there was no Bronze Age city on the site, archaeology has detected human activity that is evident from the earliest Iron Age, circa 1100 BC.

The city's legendary founder was Cinyras, linked with the birth of Adonis, who called the city after his mother Amathous.

According to a version of the Ariadne legend noted by Plutarch, Theseus abandoned Ariadne at Amathousa, where she died giving birth to her child and was buried in a sacred tomb.

According to Plutarch's source, Amathousians called the sacred grove where her shrine was situated the Wood of Aphrodite Ariadne.

More purely Hellenic myth would have Amathus settled instead by one of the sons of Heracles, thus accounting for the fact that he was worshiped there.