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This is one in a series of posts about finding the MMP deities in Minoan art. Find the whole series here.
Today we're going to focus on the Melissae. In MMP, we view them as bee-spirit goddesses who care for the spirits of the dead. As such, the bee and beehive are the most obvious symbols we associate with them. For instance, there's the famous Malia bee pendant:
...It's autumn where I live in the southeastern US, which means harvest time. Here, the concept of harvest is simple: From late summer through the autumn, all the harvests happen together - fields of grain, vineyards full of grapes, fruit in the orchards, vegetables in the garden. That's because I live in the northern temperate zone, with the four-season setup so many of us learned about in elementary school: spring, summer, autumn, winter.
But in the Mediterranean, it's different.
...This is one in a series of posts about finding the MMP gods and goddesses in Minoan art. Find the full list of blog posts in this series here.
Today we're looking for the bull-god Zagreus in Minoan art. In MMP, we consider Zagreus to be an aspect of our god Tauros Asterion. So obviously, we're going to look for images of bulls. But what kinds of images? When we go looking for Tauros Asterion in Minoan art, we seek out naturalistic/realistic images of bulls. When we're in search of the Minotaur (another aspect of Tauros Asterion), we look for shape-shifting depictions of half-man, half-bull creatures. So how do we know when we've found Zagreus?
...This is one in a series about finding the MMP gods and goddesses in Minoan art. Find the list of the full series here.
The Snake Goddess is perhaps the most iconic representative of Minoan culture and religion. Show a person a Snake Goddess figurine, and it's a pretty sure bet they'll think of the Minoans. But did you know that there are only a handful of these figurines, and no other representations of the Snake Goddess in the frescoes or the seals?
...This is one in a series about the deities in the pantheon of Modern Minoan Paganism (MMP). You can find the full list of posts in this series here.
Today we're going to focus on the Horned Ones: the Minoan gods and goddesses who take the form of horned animals - cattle, goats, and deer - and where we can find them in Minoan art. They come in god/goddess pairs: the Minotaur and Europa, the Minocapros and Amalthea, the Minelathos and Britomartis.
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I feel a little bit like an elementary school teacher: OK, everyone, we're going to learn to read Minoan art!
We're all a bit past elementary school, but learning to understand the iconography of any ancient culture is a big step toward understanding their religion and worldview. Iconography is the set of symbols (icons) that have meaning in religious art. They're pictures, but in a sense, we can "read" them and they'll tell us their story. Archaeologists and historians of religion have pieced together the basics, and we've fleshed it out just a bit more in MMP using dance ethnography and shared gnosis.
...You've probably heard the story of Persephone's abduction to the Underworld by Hades and her mother Demeter's frantic search for her. But what if the original story was a little different from that? Instead of the young goddess being taken against her will and needing to be rescued, what if she descended to the Underworld of her own free will, to aid and guard the spirits of the dead during the fallow season when she wasn't needed in the World Above? And what if her mother didn't frantically search to find her, but simply went to where she already knew her daughter was, in order to let her know it was time to ascend from the Underworld?
The Persephone-and-Demeter story was enshrined in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which were so popular they survived from classical times several centuries into the Christian era. It's possible that the Eleusinian Mysteries began in the pre-Greek era, perhaps in Minoan Crete and/or mainland Greece among the people who lived there before the arrival of the Indo-European Mycenaeans (check out Karl Kerenyi's book Dionysos for some interesting theories along these lines).
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