Galatea (mythology) called Metharme ("change"), to mark the innovation." "Pygmalion" is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name "Pumayyaton": see Pygmalion of Tyre. Galatea is a dairy farming community in Bay of Plenty, New Zealand Galatea (mythology) Galatea (; ; "she who is milk-white") is a name popularly applied to the statue carved of ivory by Pygmalion of Cyprus, which then came to life in Greek mythology. In modern English the name usually alludes to that story. Galatea is also the name of Polyphemus's object of desire in Theocritus's "Idylls VI" and "XI" and is linked with Polyphemus again in the
Pygmalion of Tyre of kings given in Menander/Josephus. It was argued, based on philological considerations, that the name as given in the Assyrian text could be matched to a Phoenician "Ba‘al-‘azor" and the Greek "Baal-Eser/Balazeros", a name corresponding to two kings in Menander’s list. The first "Balazeros" was a son of Hiram I, contemporary of David and Solomon, so this was too early, but the second name referred to the grandfather of Pygmalion and was therefore in the right date range. Pygmalion’s dates are derived from Josephus’s "Against Apion" i.18, where Josephus quotes the Phoenician historian Menander as follows: Pygmalion . . .