Αφαίας

This is the only ancient Greek temple I've visited, together with its entry in Banister Fletcher's seminal work, 'A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method'; the seventeenth edition of this volume was an 18th birthday present from my God Mother - worth browsing for its illustrations alone, but it is the ultimate work on the history of architecture.

Aphaia was a Greek goddess who was worshipped almost exclusively at a single sanctuary on the island of Aegina in the Saronic Gulf. She originated as early as the 14th century BC as a local deity associated with fertility & the agricultural cycle. Under Athenian hegemony, however, she came to be identified with the goddesses Athena & Artemis.