Athenian "Snake Goddess" Now Identified As Demeter, Not Athena

Athenian 'Snake Goddess' Gets New Identity

By Stephanie Pappas | LiveScience.com – 11 hrs ago

 

 

SEATTLE - A mysterious "snake goddess" painted on terracotta and discovered in Athens may actually be Demeter, the Greek goddess of the harvest.

Once linked to the worship of the dead, the goddess is flanked by two snakes on a slab of terracotta about the size of a piece of notebook paper. She has her hands up above her head, which has given her the nickname "the touchdown goddess" thanks to the resemblance of the pose to a referee's signal. The goddess is painted in red, yellow and blue-green on a tile, with only her head molded outward in three dimensions. This unusual piece of art was found amid a jumble of gravel and other terracotta fragments in 1932 in what was once the Athenian agora, or public square.

The catch, however, is that the snake goddess isn't originally from the agora. The gravel and figurine fragments were fill material, brought in from an unknown second location to build a path or road in the seventh century B.C.

"Not only is our snake goddess unidentified, but she's homeless," said study researcher Michael Laughy of Washington and Lee University in Virginia. "She got mixed up in that road gravel, presumably obtained near the site of her original shrine."

Forgotten offering

Along with the snake goddess plaque, the road fill contains small terracotta figurines, or votives, of humans, chariots, shields, loom weights, portions of spindles and pottery disks, most of which individually could fit in the palm of a hand. The terracotta figurines were used during this time period as offerings at the sanctuaries of gods and goddesses, Laughy told LiveScience after presenting his findings here at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America.

Normally, he said, the votive offerings were considered somewhat sacred, and once cleared from sanctuaries would be buried and left undisturbed in a pit. Thus, although it's typical to see artifacts out of place in Athens, which has been built over for thousands of years, it's strange to see votives used as road fill, Laughy said.

Tracing the source of this fill is a difficult task. Previously, archaeologists have assumed the figurines originated from the worship of the dead, linking the items found in Athens to ones found at a Bronze Age tomb outside the city. But the items at that tomb don't match all those found in the Athens agora, Laughy said.

Displaced goddess

More Likely, according to Laughy's analysis, the snake-flanked woman is both a representation of and an offering to a goddess. Votive deposits from the shrines of goddesses include pottery disks, terracotta horses, plaques and shields, as well as female figurines. These votives match the finds uncovered in Athens.

In particular, shrines devoted to Demeter and Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, show the closest matches to the types of figurines found, Laughy said.

Demeter is a strong candidate, as there was a shrine built in her name in the seventh century mere minutes-long walk from the Athens agora, he said. It's the only sanctuary where ancient Greeks are known to have left loom weights and spindle whorls, which are disks that weigh down spindles used for spinning thread and which are found in the Athens fill debris. What's more, Laughy said, the spot was graded in the seventh century, which could have produced a debris pile that was then carted away to make paths in the agora.

Finally, the goddess' serpentine companions also point to Demeter, who was particularly associated with snake iconography, Laughy said.

"Snakes and Demeter are happy together in imagery in the seventh century," he said.

Laughy warned that the evidence linking the snake goddess and Demeter is circumstantial. However, he said, the evidence is strong that the woman is not a figure associated with death, but a goddess. If she were Demeter, the snake goddess plaque would be one of the oldest images ever found of that particular deity.

Either way, the snake goddess is "striking," Laughy said. It's one of the earliest multicolor paintings found in Athens.

"It's an amazing piece of work," he said.

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She is a beautiful piece of work.  Maybe she is Athena.  Athena was long associated with serpents/snakes and in her archaic Greek depictions was often seen wearing a cape of serpents; later, she carried a shield made of serpent skin or denoted with serpents around it's border, and the hem of her gown or cloak was trimmed in serpents.  This figure seems to be dressed in a sort of shield-fronted gown.  Have I ever seen Demeter dressed like that?  Not that I recall.

Notice too the give-away that this figure's roots are in the bird-goddess/eye-goddess tradition, just as Athena's -- look at the eyes of the figure on both sides of the plaque!  Those are classic bird-or-eye-goddess brows and eyes. 

I have to agree, though, with one of the comments at the end of the article, which noted that this figurine looks very Minoan or Cretan and may have been a depiction of Hekate (Hecate).  Well, we know that the Greeks, as did the ancient Egyptians, never let go entirely of the most ancient virgin/mother/crone goddesses; they just merged their identities into other goddesses as well as goddesses adopted from other countries that featured similar attributes. Another one of the comments noted similarities to Inanna.  Very possible.  I'm thinking of images of Astarte I've seen, with arms raised in the "touchdown" position, holding a serpent in each hand, surrounded by animals, sometimes depicted standing on the back of an onager or horse.  Astarte, Ishtar, Inanna, all the same female diety in slightly different guises.

Is that a bird of prey painted on her skirt (left side)? 

Interestingly, I find the proportions of the head and face of the figure on the more damaged (washed-out) side of the plaque to be more attractive than the more colorful side.  I find her prettier, too.  The ladies are not identical, the heads are slightly different sizes, the eyes, although styled the same, and the noses, are definitely different, and the hair on the more colorful rendition of the lady is wider and fuller., particularly across the forehead area.  When looking at the other image, I get a more "Egyptian" feeling; in looking at the more colorful rendition of the lady, she looks more Cretan to me. 

The body proportions are, of course, all wrong, almost as if the ladies were dressed in body armor, like the medieval knights of much later times.  Remember Athena's magic cloak and magic serpent shield...  Most interesting of all is that she was discovered in 1932.  And it's taken this long for someone to take a second look to try and figure out who she may be?  Geez! 

White Mares and Crop Circles

Epona is a Celtic horse goddess - a White Mare. A nice play of words could be made on Night Mare, and probably was, hmmm... Great Britain is known for the outlines of large white horses carved into underlying chalk deposits. Most of the horses aren't very old - at least, they cannot be classified as "ancient." There is one "white horse" that has drawn more than the usual attention by way of strang crop circle formations (for years). It's located near the Village of Alton Barnes in Wiltshire, England, on Milk Hill. This chalk horse outline is not ancient. It seems it was first created around the year 1812. Above is a photo of a current crop circle that appeared in a field lying below the Alton Barnes (or Milk Hill) white horse. The image is from Crop Circle Connector.com and was reported just a few days ago, on June 21, 2009. The first day of Summer. The photo was taken by Lucy Pringle. In this depiction, Epona reminds of an older goddess, The Mistress of Beasts, a/k/a Astarte a/k/a Artemis. In those older renditions of the Goddess, she is sometimes depicted as a tree (Tree of Life) flanked on either side by rampant deer-like creatures or other wild life, sometimes depicted as a Goddess or woman with a crown flanked by rampant wild beasts. This image of Epona is from Wikipedia and dates to the 4th century CE from Greek Macedonia, and depicts the Goddess Epona flanked by two pairs of horses. The four knights on the chessboard???

The Truth About Easter

Thanks to the internet, the truth about the spring festival of Easter is now widely disseminated, and around Easter every year there are a host of new articles on the ancient origins of this yearly celebration. Here is one: World Net Daily Exclusive The truth about Easter Posted: March 23, 20091:00 am Eastern By Richard Rives© 2009 The renowned Oxford English Dictionary informs us that the name "Easter" is derived from the name of a goddess whose festival was celebrated at the time of the vernal equinox. We are told that she was originally known as the dawn goddess – no doubt the origin of sunrise celebrations at the time of Easter. According to Venerable Bede, a seventh century Anglo Saxon theologian, the English word "Easter" is derived from the name of the pagan fertility goddess Eostra. He tells us that "the heathen Anglo-Saxons called the fourth month "Esturmonath" after their goddess Eostra – another name representing the spring fertility goddesses such as Astarte or Ashtaroth, the goddess who was introduced into the British Isles by the Druids. In all actuality, Easter is just another name for Beltis or Ishtar of the ancient Babylonians and can be traced all the way back to Hathor, the cow goddess of Egypt that was associated with the building of the golden calf at Mount Sinai. Rest of article.

The Goddess and the Palm Tree

From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." (Image: 12th century CE, Byzantine representation of Inanna, the Tree of Life -- a date palm) Palm Tree In the Babylonian myth of the primal garden, the palm tree was the Tree of Life, a dwelling-place of the Goddess Astarte. The Hebrew version of her name was Tamar, "Palm Tree."(1) Her male counterpart was Baal-Peor, or Phoenix, the god of Phoenicia whose name meant "Land of the Palm." As a phallic deity, Baal-Peor was symbolized by a palm tree between two large stones. Sexual orgies in the temple celebrated his union with the Goddess in Phoenicia and in Israel until priests of Yahweh killed the celebrants in the midst of their rites (Numbers 25:8): [Here's the story in the Bible, from the "Living Bible" translation: Numbers 25:1: While Israel was camped at Acacia, some of the young men began going to wild parties with the local Moabite girls. (2) These girls also invited them to attend the sacrifices to their gods, and soon the men were not only attending the feasts, but also bowing down and worshipping the idols. (3) Before long, all Israel was joining freely in the worship of Baal, the god of Moab; and the anger of the Lord was hot against his people. (4) He issued the following command to Moses: "Execute all the tribal leaders of Israel. Hang them up before the Lord in braod daylight, so that his fierce anger will turn away from the people." {such a kind, loving god, ahem...} 5) So Moses ordered the judges to execute all who had worshipped Baal. {If ALL of Israel was joining freely in the worship of Baal, who would be left to continue the nation of Israel after Moses had them all killed??? - What is being talked about here is the MEN of Israel, that is, dudes old enough to copulate.} (6) But one of the Israeli men insolently brought a Midianite girl into the camp, right before the eyes of Moses and all of the people, as they were weeping before the door of the Tabernacle. (7) When Phineas (son of Eleazor and grandson of Aaron the priest) saw this, he jumped up, grabbed a spear, (8) and rushed after the man into his tent, where he had taken the girl. He thrust the spear all the way through the man's body and into her stomach. So the plague was stopped, (9) but only after 24,000 people had already died. {Okay, so after ordering Moses to have his priests kill the Israelites because they had ALL SINNED, Yahweh changes his mind - without telling Moses - and decides to kill the Israelites more slowly, with a plague, and they were gathered around the Tabernacle praying for their lives as Yahweh was no doubt sitting on his throne up on Jupiter or wherever laughing his butt off; and then one Israelite dude decides to bring a girl into camp to screw in his tent, right under the eyes of everyone??? Yeah, right. If they were that stupid, it was better their genes were killed than passed on to children!

What I want to know is why the priests did not carry out Yahweh's orders to kill ALL of Israel immediately after the order was issued? Did their arms get tired? And is Moabite the same as Midianite? Moses MARRIED a Midianite woman himself!} (10, 11) Then the Lord said to Moses, "Phineas (son of Eleazar and grandson of Aaron the priest) {I guess the Lord had to let Moses know just who the good guy was in case Moses didn't understand which Phineas killed the bad guy and his gal} has turned away my anger for he was angry with my anger, and would not tolerate the worship of any God but me. So I have stopped destroying all Israel as I had intended. (12, 13) Now because of what he has done - because of his zeal for his God, and because he has made atonement for the people of Israel for what he did - I promise that he and his priests shall be priests forever." (14) The name of the man who was killed with the Midianite girl was Zimri, son of Salu, a leader of the tribe of Simeon. (15) The girl's name was Corbi, daughter of Zur, a Midianite prince. (Emphasis added). [Summary: Yahweh got his BLOOD SACRIFICE of both an Israelite prince and a Midianite princess, and thus his blood lust was temporarily satisfied. This is classic substitute king sacrifice, in this case, the "king" being Moses, who was raised in the Egyptian rites. Being a relatively new Hebrew religion, the priests added the "bad girl" into the blood sacrifice because she represented a much older tradition of the Temptress Goddess, which was a great threat to the upstart god Yahweh's authority, and therefore she had to be diminished in some way. What better way than to kill her off with a "spear" (phallic symbol) through her "stomach" (a euphenism for her female parts) while she was copulating with the sacrificial male victim, who himself was a substitute for the very same god that ordered his death?] Still, the feminine connotations of the palm tree remained. The Goddess was often embodied in a Mother-palm, giving the food of life in the form of coconut milk or dates. A complicated biblical myth shows Tamar the Palm-tree as the mother of a slain "firstborn of Judah;" and as a veiled sacred harlot decorated with the signet, staff, and bracelets of the nation of Judah; and as a widow (Crone) to whom offerings of goats were made; and as an idol "by the wayside," whom priests of Yahweh wanted to burn (Genesis 38). She gave birth to the rival twins Pharez and Zarah, Hebrew counterparts of Osiris and Set. The spirit of the palm tree was still the Great Mother in the tradition of early Christians, who gave the title of Holy Palm (Ta-Mari) to the virgin Mary.(2) Yet Egyptians continued to call a man's penis his "palm tree."(3) Notes: (1) Graves, W.G., 197. (2) Hughes, 55. (3) Book of the Dead, 518. Compare Ta-Mari to this Walker entry on Ta-Mera: "Land of Waters," an old name of Egypt. Mera or Mara was an archaic name for the Goddess of the primordial sea [thus, for instance, all those "Mares" {"sea of"} names on the face of the Moon and Mars - named by male scientists, by the way, lol!] In Egypt she was even coupled with the sun god as an androgynous deity, Meri-Ra. Among the meanings of Mera were such female symbols as a water-course, ditch, pit, sea, and lovingness.(1) Notes: (1) Budge, E.I., 76. ********************************************************************** Just why is it that female horses are called MARES, and in xiang qi (Chinese chess) the horse is called "ma?" It couldn't have anything to do with "sea horses," could it? And I'm not talking about those cute little critters one keeps in an aquarium. Staunton's model for his knight was reputedly the horses of the Elgin Marbles stolen from the Greek Parthenon. But we all know where the Greeks got their inspiration from...

Lily

From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." Lily The flower of Lilith, Sumero-Babylonian Goddess of creation; the lilu or "lotus" of her genital magic. The lily often represented the virgin aspect of the Triple Goddess, while the rose represented her maternal aspect. The lily was sacred to Astarte, who was also Lilith; northern Europeans called her Ostara or Eostre, the Goddess of "Easter" lilies.(1) Because of its pagan associations with virgin motherhood, the lily was used to symbolize impregnantion of the virgin Mary. Some authorities claimed the lily in Gabriel's hand filtered God's semen which entered Mary's body through her ear.(2) [Huh?] Mary's cult also inherited the lily of the Blessed Virgin Juno, who conceived her savior-son Mars with her own magic lily, without any male aid.(3) This myth reflected an early belief in the self-fertilizing power of the yoni (vulva), which the lily symbolized and Juno personified. Her name descended from the pre-Roman Uni, a Triple Goddess represented by the three-lobed lily or fleur-de-lis, her name stemming from the Sanskrit yoni, source of the Uni-verse. In 656 A.D., the 10th Council of Toledo officially adopted the holy day of Juno's miraculous conception of Mars into the Christian canon, renaming it the Festival of the Mother of God, or Lady Day, insisting that it commemorated Mary's miraculous conception of Jesus with the aid of a lily.(4) Christian artists showed the angel Gabriel holding out to Mary a scepter surmounted by a fleur-de-lis on a lily stalk. A scroll usually issued from Gabriel's mouth, with the words Ave Maria gratia plena, the seminal "Word," which made Mary "full." Aphrodite's dove, that other yonic symbol, hovered above the scene.(5) Celtic and Gallo-Roman tribes called the virgin mother Lily Maid. Her yonic emblem appeared not only as the French fleu-de-lis but also as the Irish shamrock, which was not originally Irish but a sacred symbol among Indus Valley people some 6000 years before the Christian era. Christianized France identified the Lily Maid with the virgin Mary, but she was never completely dissociated from the pagan image of Juno. Among the people, Lady Day was known as Notre Dame de Mars.(6) The Easter lily was the medieval pas-flower, from Latin passus, to step or pass over, cognate of pascha, the Passover. The lily was also called Pash-flower, Paschal flower, Pasque flower, or Passion flower. Pagans understood that it represented the spring passion of the god, like Heracles, for union in love-death with the Virgin Queen of Heaven, Hera-Hebe, or Juno, or Venus, all of whom claimed the lily. When Hera's milk spurted from her breasts to form the Milky Way, the drops that fell to the ground became lilies.(7) Sometimes, the Easter flower was not a white lily but a scarlet or purple anemone, emblem of Adonis's passion and called identical with his bride Venus.(8) Notes: (1) H. Smith, 201. (2) Simmons, 103. (3) Larousse, 202. (4) Brewster, 146. (5) Cavendish, V.H.H., 68. (6) Brewster, 146. (7) Guthrie, 71. (8) Agrippa, 103.

The Goddess Astarte

From Barbara G. Walker's "A Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets." Astarte Lady of Byblos, one of the oldest forms of the Great Goddess in the Middle East, identified with Egypt's Hathor, Mycenae's Demeter, Cyprus's Aphrodite. Her shrine at Byblos dated back to the Neolithic and flourished throughout the Bronze Age.(1) She was the same creating-preserving-and-destroying Goddess worshipped by all Indo-European cultures, and still typified by Kali as the symbol of Nature. Astarte was the "true sovereign of the world," tirelessly creating and destroying, eliminating the old and generating the new.(2) Sidonian kings could not rule without her permission. Each king styled himself first and foremost "Priest of Astarte." Sumerian cylinder seals from Lagash, ca. 2300 B.C., showed the Goddess in a pose identical with Kali's love-and-death sacremental posture, squatting on top of her consort's body.(3) To the Arabs the Goddess was Athar, "Venus in the Morning." In Aramaic she was Attar-Samayin, "Morning Star of Heaven," uniting two sexes in herself, like Lucifer the Morning Star and Diana Lucifera. Her Hurrian name ws Attart, or sometimes Ishara, another form of Ishtar, "the Star."(4) To Canaanite, she was Celestial Ruler, Mistress of Kingship, mother of all baalim (gods.)(5). Astarte ruled all the spirits of the dead who lived in heaven wearing bodies of light, visible from earth as stars. Hence, she was known as Astroarche, "Queen of the Stars."(6) She was the mother of all souls in heaven, the Moon surrounded by her star-children, to whom she gave their "astral" (starry) bodies. Occultists still speak of the astral body as an invisible double, having forgotten the word's original connotation of starlight.(7) Astarte-Ashtoreth was transformed into a devil by Christian writers, who automatically assumed that any deity mentioned in the Bible other than Yahweh was one of the denizens of hell. She was also masculinized. One finds in books of the 15th and 16th centuries a demon Ashtoreth or Astaroth, a "duke" or "prince" of hell.(8) Milton knew better; he spoke of "Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns."(9) Scholars who really understood the mystery of Astarte recognized in her one of the ancient protypes of the virgin Mary. In Syria and Egypt her sacred dramas celebrated the rebirth of the solar god from the celestial Virgin each 25th of December. A newborn child was exhibited, while the cry went up that the Virgin had brought forth. Frazer says, "No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the Hezvely Virgin or simply the Heavely Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte."(10) Notes: (1) Encyc. Brit., "Byblos." (2) Massa, 101. (3) Campbell, Or. M., 42. (4) Albright, 196, 228. (5) Stone, 164. (6) Lindsay, O.A., 327. (7) Cavendish, P.E., 44. (8) de Givry, 132. (9) Cavendish, P.E., 237. (10) Frazer, G.B., 416.

Happy Easter!

The real meaning of Easter. From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" Easter Springtime sacrifical festival named for the Saxon Goddess Eostre, or Ostara, a northern form of Astarte. Her sacred month was Eastre-monath, the Moon of Eostre.(1) Saxon poets apparently knew Eoester was the same Goddess as India's Great Mother Kali. Beowulf spoke of "Ganges' waters, whose flood waves ride down into an unknown sea near Eostre's far home."(2) The Easter Bunny was older than Christianity; it was the Moon-hare sacred to the Goddess in both eastern and western nations. Recalling the myths of Hathor-Astarte who laid the Golden Egg of the sun, Germans used to say the hare would lay eggs for good children on Easter Eve.(3) (See Cat.) Like all the church's "movable feasts," Easter shows its pagan origin in a dating system based on the old lunar calendar. It is fixed as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, formerly the "pregnant" phase of Eostre passing into the fertile season. The Christian festival wasn't call Easter until the Goddess's name was given to it in the laste Middle Ages.(4) (See Menstrual Calendar.) The Irish kept Easter on a different date from that of the Roman church, probably the original date of the festival of Eostre, until the Roman calendar was imposed on them in 632 A.D. Nevertheless, the Columban foundation and their colonies in Britain kept the old date for another fifty years.(5) The Persians began their solar New Year at the spring equinox, and up to the middle of the 18th century they still followed the old custom of presenting each other with colored eggs on the occasion.(6) [See post on Persian New Year]. Eggs were always symbols of rebirth, which is why Easter eggs were usually colored red - the life-color - especially in eastern Europe. Russians used to lay red Easter eggs on graves to serve as resurrection charms.(7) In Bohemia, Christ was duly honored on Easter Sunday and his pagan rival on Easter Monday [which would actually be the third day after death on "Good Friday"], which was the Moon-day opposed to the Sun-day. Village girls like ancient priestesses sacrificed the Lord of Death and threw him into water, singing, "Death swims in the water, spring comes to visit us, with eggs that are red, with yellow pancakes, we carried Death out of the village, we are carrying Summer into the village."(8) Another remnant of the pagan sacred drama was the image of the god buried in his tomb, then withdrawn and said to live again. The church instituted such a custom early in the Middle Ages, apparently in hopes of a reportable miracle. A small sepulchral building having been erected and the consecrated host placed within, a priest was set to watch it from Good Friday to Easter Sunday. Then the host was taken out and displayed, and the congreagatin was told Christ was risen.(9) A curious 16th-century Easter custom was known as "creeping to the cross with eggs and apples," a significant use of the ancient female symbols of birth and death, beginning and ruition, the opening and closing of cycles. The Ceremonial of the Kings of England ordered carpets to be laid in the church, for the comfort of the king, queen, and courteriers was they crept down the aisle on hands and knees.(1) The penitential implication of the creeping ceremony is clear enough, but the female-symbolic foodstuffs are a bit mysterious. Germany applied to Easter the same title formerly given to the season of the sacred king's love-death, Hoch-Zeit, "the High Time." In English too, Easter used to be called "the Hye-Tide."(11) From these titles came the colloquial description of any festival holiday as "a high old time." Notes: (1) Knight, D.W.P., 157. (2) Goodrich, 18. (3) de Lys, 117. (4) H. Smith, 201. (5) de Paor, 70. (6) Hazlitt, 201. (7) Gaster, 603. (8) Frazer, G.B., 362. (9) Hazlitt, 281. (10) Hazlitt, 153. (11) Hazlitt, 316.

The Goddess Anahita

Related to some information contained in the post below, about the traditional (i.e., pre-Islamic) Persian celebration of the New Year. From Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets:"

Anahid
This and its variations Anahita and Anitis were the Persian and Armenian names for Venus, the star of Ishtar and Astarte, Mother Goddess of the Zend-Avesta; ruler of waters, stars, and Fate. The Mithraic Mysteries, though strongly male-oriented, retained Anahita as the necessary female principle of creation.(1)

Notes:
(1) Cumont, M.M., 180.