The ruins of the sanctuary were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980, due to their historical religious significance.

Archaeology has established that Cypriots venerated a fertility goddess before the arrival of the Greeks, and developed a cult that combined Aegean and eastern mainland aspects.

The remains of the vast sanctuary of Aphrodite are still discernible, its circumference marked by huge foundation walls.

Gustav Friedrich Hetsch, an architect of Copenhagen, has attempted to restore the building from the descriptions of coins as well as from archeological remains.

and spuriously ascribed to Homer in antiquity mention the sanctuary in Hymn 5 to Aphrodite: Strabo described it: Pausanias described the shrine: Tacitus described the altar and aniconic black stone worshipped at the sanctuary as the simulacrum of Venus: It was also referred to by Apuleius in The Golden Ass: