The Paphian Sanctuary never represented a temple of traditional Greek design, but a shrine of a type common in the Eastern Mediterranean: a large open enclosure, housing, besides numerous votive offerings and other religious monuments, only a fairly small sanctuary building. Roman coins depict the Paphian temple as a tripartite sanctuary which shows in its central hall a conical idol. Thetype of tripartite shrine has parallels in the architecture of Minoan Crete but occurs also in the Near East.

*Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (20 July 1656 - 5 April 1723) was probably the most influential Austrian architect of the Baroque period