Demeter
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Transcript of Demeter
DEMETER-MYTHS of FERTILITY
►FEMALE GAIA (GE)=Mother Earth came from sexless CHAOS. From Gaia sprang the world: Sky, Mountains, Sea, and the Olympians and humans
►No single goddess of fertility (Artemis for wild life, Aphrodite for sexuality, Hera for family and marriage, Demeter goddess of grain and earth fertility)
HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER►Structure►Demeter-Persephone-abduction by
Hades►Return from the Underworld►Embedded Story of Demeter while
looking for her daughter►Metaneira, the queen, and Demophoon,
the son.
The Myth of Demeter and Persephone
► Abduction by Hades► Hecate and Helius► Demeter’s grief, anger and retaliation► Demeter comes to Eleusis and the
palace of Celeus.► The Maiden Well► Queen Metaneira► Iambe► Demeter breaks her fast.► Demeter Nurses Demphoön.
►Hades and Persephone and her eating of the pomegranate
► Demeter’s ecstatic reunion with Persephone► Demeter restores fertility and establishes the
Mysteries.
►The Interpretation of the Hymn► Death and rebirth of vegetation► Spiritual metaphor or allegory► Kore (“girl”)► Hades (Pluto or Dis among the Romans)
Interpretation of the Myth
►Allegorical Interpretation- seasons change►Family experience, the daughter’s marriage
(voluntarily takes the flower, symbol of marriage, separation from natal family)
►Symbolic interpretation►Loss from child, as so many children are lost
to war and disease. Lamentation rituals around this myth. Demeter is mater dolorosa.
►Myth of Demeter becomes the etiology for the presence of death. Thus the cult becomes an experience of afterlife.
Eleusinian Mysteries
►Eleusis, near Athens►Mystery < Mystes =the one who closes (the
eyes, mouth) Latin translation initiatus (thus, modern English to initiate)
►Origin of mysteries►Two families in Charge the EUMOLPIDS,
Eumolpos, the ancestor, mythical ruler of ELEUSIS received the mysteries from Demeter and the KERYKES (heralds), descendants of Eumolpus’ son KERYX (=herald)
►Eleusinian Mysteries► Special position of Athens► Initiates► Secrecy of rites► Mystery religions► Connection with Orpheus
Structure of Eleusinian Mysteries
►High Priest (Hierophant= he who reveals the hiera sacred things), always a Eumolpid
►From the family of the Kerykes, always the torchbearer and the herald.
►Priestess of Demeter, who, like the hierophant lived in the sanctuary
►Time of festival- FALL every year►The Hiera (=sacred things) removed from
TELESTERION and carried to Athens, Procession.
►All who could speak Greek (Except murderers) eligible for initiation including women and slaves)
►Rituals- Nine day interval► Fasting- Torches- Jests► Kykeon: drink of barley and water► Revelation of divinity► Stages of initiation► Lesser Mysteries: preliminary to initiation► Greater Mysteries: full initiation► Participation in the highest mysteries► Procession► Stages of Greater Mysteries► Dramatic enactment of myth► Revelation of sacred objects► Utterance of certain words► The Final revelation: the hiera
ARCHITECTURE OF TELESTERION
TELESTERION Temple of DemeterUnique in Architecture. Ordinary Greek
temple to be viewed from exterior, the interior was to hold the god’s statue
-THE TELESTERION was built to receive thousands of people under its roof
TRIPTOLEMUS
►One of the princes of Eleusis to whom Demeter taught her sacred rites. More important after the 5th century.
►He was said to have traveled over the world teaching the art of growing grain. Popular in art, supporting Athenian claims for cultural supremacy.
What were the Eleusinian Mysteries?
►Group experience►Personal experience (afterlife)►Ritual purity, fasting►Magical rite ensuring the growth of
grain►Political significance
Departure of Triptolemos Makron Painter, 490-480 BC. Attic red-figured skyphos. The eleusinian prince on the chariot. Persephone stands in front of with a torch and an oinochoe. Behind her nymph Eleusis, and behind Triptolemos, Demeter.
Demeter on the left (holding a staff in her left hand, authority emblem, more restrained)-Triptolemos-Kore
Relief 440 BC- Athens Archaeological Museum
Attic red-figured bell-krater. Hecate with torches leads Persephone accompanied by Hermes from the underworld while Demeter, holding a sceptre, waits. The moment of reunion. With Inscriptions to identify figures. C. 440 B.C. (41 cm)
Plaster cast: Height: 51cm. Copy of a fragment of marble relief. 425-400 BC. probably from the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous.
was purchased for Munich in 1853 now in Munich, Glyptothek/
Hellenistic Painting Abduction of Persephone by Hades (ca. 330), from Tomb I at Vergina (Pliny mentions such a painting, by
Nikomachos)