Cult Of Demeter Research Articles

Statuettes of pregnant sows from Knidos. New light on the cult of Demeter

Four marble statuettes of pregnant swine were found in the sanctuary of Demeter at Knidos over 160 years ago, but have been largely overlooked in previous research, even though the connection between pigs and Demeter has long caught the attention of scholars, especially in relation to the piglets required for the celebration of her Eleusinian Mysteries. The statuettes raise several questions. Why make sculptures of pregnant sows? Who dedicated those offerings, and in what context? Are they related to the sacrifice of pregnant sows? And ultimately, why pregnant sows for Demeter? The article starts with a presentation of the four marble sows from the sanctuary of Demeter at Knidos, followed by a more general examination of the archaeological evidence for pig, piglet, and pregnant sow representations at Greek sanctuaries. I will then explore the epigraphical evidence for pregnant sow sacrifices, all of which is in connection with the cult of Demeter, and contextualize it with other sacrifices of pigs and piglets. I will complete this study with a brief overview of the zooarchaeological evidence for the sacrifice of pregnant sows. The collected evidence will be used to better understand the use of pregnant sows and their religious significance in the cult of Demeter.

From Resolving Stasis to Ruling Sicily: A Reading of Herodotus 7.153-167 in an Epinician Context

AbstractWhen the Greek embassy visits Sicily to convince Gelon to support their cause against the Persian threat, Herodotus begins the Sicilian logos with the story of a man named Telines, an ancestor of the Deinomenid tyrants, Gelon and Hieron. This paper first argues that by resolving the stasis in Gela and securing the civic priesthood of the chthonic goddesses for his descendants Telines prefigures Gelon’s rise to power as tyrant in Sicily. Next, it demonstrates that kingship and the priesthood of Demeter and Persephone are closely linked in Deinomenid ideology in epinician poetry, which provides a crucial backdrop for Herodotus’ portrayal of Gelon. Finally, the paper examines subtle references to the cult of Demeter and Persephone in Herodotus’ account and proposes that Herodotus’ descriptions of the Deinomenids offer a cautionary tale in support of practices that uphold the boundaries between inherited priesthoods and political power in fifth-century Athens.

РОЗКВІТ КУЛЬТУ ДЕМЕТРИ ЗА ЧАСІВ ПРАВЛІННЯ ДИНАСТІЇ СПАРТОКІДІВ НА БОСПОРІ

The article is devoted to the general characteristics of Demeter cult in the Bosporus, thread V – beginning III century BC. The author gives account of the main Bosporus sanctuaries of Demeter. During the excavation of cities and necropolis, a lot of terracotta of Demeter and Kore-Persephone was found. Apart from sacral complexes and coroplast products, epigraphic sources, graffiti, paintings and images of an ear on the coins evidence honouring the goddess of fertility in the Bosporus. The priority of ancient rules and traditions in the cult of Demeter was maintained in the course of this period.

The Cult of Demeter on Andros and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Abstract:It is argued that verse 491 of the

Cult, Continuity, and Social Memory: Mycenaean Eleusis and the Transition to the Early Iron Age

Religious continuity from the Mycenaean to the Geometric period is one of the thorniest issues in Greek archaeology. The problems created by the scantiness of the evidence are compounded by our own methodological pitfalls, especially the ambiguity of the term "continuity." The Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Eleusis is a controversial case of a major Greek sanctuary for which a Mycenaean ancestry has been claimed but seriously debated. In this article, the architectural, stratigraphic, and ceramic evidence related to the Mycenaean Megaron B is analyzed on the basis of the unpublished finds and excavation notebooks. The analysis shows that religious rituals took place in Megaron B starting in Late Helladic IIB/IIIA1; that although the settlement of Eleusis shrank after the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces, it continued to be inhabited; and that the Megaron B complex was still standing and plausibly in use when the cult of Demeter was introduced in the eighth century B.C.E. It is further argued that this complex functioned as a lieu de mémoire, a landmark that allowed the inhabitants of Eleusis to preserve the memory of the earlier sanctity of the site, and that it became the defining factor for the choice of location for the later cult of Demeter. Despite this preservation of memory, however, the essence of the cult underwent significant changes that speak against continuity of function. Additional figures can be found under this article's abstract on AJA Online.

Demeter in Hermione: Sacrifice and Ritual Polyvalence

This article offers a close reading of a ritual described by Pausanias (2.35.4-8) in which old women use sickles to slaughter heifers inside a temple of Demeter in Hermione. Following the contextualization of several of the rituals' elements within other Hermionian cults, other cults of Demeter, and Greek cultural values more generally, the author argues that the ritual was directed towards both agriculture and the proper maturation of maidens. The article also problematizes the category "sacrifice," suggesting that the broader "ritualized killing" enables us to make better sense of this and other rituals, and encourages more consciously polyvalent readings of ancient rituals.

Curse Tablets from Mytilene

SINCE 1983 the Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens has been investigating, under the direction of Hector and Caroline Williams, the acropolis of the town of Mytilene.1 Among the discoveries was a sanctuary that flourished from the archaic period through the Hellenistic, with terracotta kernoi and hydrophoroi, all typical of a cult of Demeter, some three hundred lamps used only once, and hundreds of bones of piglets.2 At the foot of the altar, among much pottery of the fourth and the third centuries B.C., lay three inscribed lead curse tablets (I and III: Williams and Williams 1990: 185; II: id. 1988: 139, P1. 10), the only examples yet from Lesbos. We publish them here with the encouragement of the Professors Williams, whom we warmly thank for the privilege. Curse tablets (defixiones, KaOCTdSLot) are usually small inscribed sheets of lead meant to bring supernatural forces against unwilling victims.3 They are found chiefly either in graves, where they direct against persons named in their texts the ghosts or the miasma of the dead, or in wells or chthonic sanctuaries, where they enlist underworld forces. Sanctuaries of Demeter at Selinous (Dubois 1989: 33-40, fifth century B.c.; cf. Jameson et al. 1993: 125-131), Rhodes (Zervoudaki 1973: 622, fourth century B.C.?), Knidos (DTAud 1-13, second century B.C.?), Corinth (Bookides and Stroud 1987: 30-31, second century A.D.?), and a sanctuary, probably of Demeter, at Morgantina (SEG XXVI 927-933, second century B.c.) have in all yielded some forty curse tablets. That at Mytilene, with its three, is to be added to this list.4

Demeter on a Knossian ring-inscription

In a recent issue of this Journal (XCV, 1975, pp. 231–2), R. F. Willetts reviews the excellent publication of J. N. Coldstream, Knossos, the Sanctuary of Demeter (BSA, Suppl. Pap. 8, 1973). He draws attention to a boustrophedon inscription on a silver ring bezel, which he transcribes, after Coldstream:The reading seems to support Willetts' own views on the cult of Demeter as a Mother-Goddess in Crete.May I express some doubts about the actual reading of the dedication? I recently had the opportunity of examining the Knossos ring in the Heraklion Museum, by courtesy of the Director, Dr Alexiou, and of his Assistant, A. Lebesi. Magnifying techniques and contrasted lighting were available in the now well-equipped laboratory of the Museum. It appears that the lettering of the inscription is not exactly what Coldstream believed, although his photograph and facsimile are fairly accurate. First, the supposed digamma is a true alpha, with parallel strokes, as often occurs on archaic stones: the figure is quite similar to the other alphas of the text if you read it in the proper sense, i.e. as the first letter of the second direct line. Secondly, the last sigma of the retrograde line, with its two short angular strokes at sharp angles at each end of the hasta, seems most unlikely. There is actually a kind of cross-hatching on the surface, which is rather deceiving, but upon it you can distinguish the three bars of a delta, a very clear, although small and slightly debased one. The hasta forms one of these bars, and one other is the upper stroke of the so-called sigma.

Demeter and Dionysos on Acrocorinth

In Volume lxix of this Journal I published a paper with the unfortunate title ‘Boeotian Haloa’. Unfortunate because the group of vases with which it was concerned, which had been accepted as Boeotian ever since Wide first studied them in 1901, were shown by the American excavations in the Potters' Quarter at Corinth to be in fact Corinthian. That being so all speculations based on Wide's assumption of Boeotian origin, and particularly the supposed connexion of the vases with the cult of Demeter at Mykalessos, had to be dropped.

Boeotian Haloa

Reading University has recently acquired two fresh examples of the group of small vases with outline drawing first discussed by Wide, who tentatively connected them with Mykalessos. One is a kylix, formerly in the possession of Mr. John Fothergill and most generously presented by him to the University, showing Herakles with his club (Figs, 1 and 2b). The second is a pyxis, damaged somewhat in an air raid of 1945, with a subject on the lid that is less easy to recognise (Figs. 2a and 3). Reading has also a third vase, belonging to this series but standing rather apart from the rest. It is a kylix of the same kind as the first, but decorated inside with a rosebud between sprays (Fig. 4). These three vases with Wide's original five and one other kylix published in the Russian Compte Rendu de la Commission Impériale Archéologique 1901 (1903) p. 131 Fig. 229 (reproduced here in Fig. 5) bring the total of vases of this class up to nine. Nothing is known of the provenance of any of the three vases in Reading and the kylix in Russia is published in a list of chance finds and acquisitions in the government of Cherson with no information as to how it was acquired.Wide associated his group with the cult of Demeter of Mykalessos whose temple, according to Pausanias, was shut every night and opened again by Herakles.