Transcript Demeter (Haley D.)

Demeter
By: Haley Duffie
Δημήτηρ (Dēmētēr) Demeter
• The goddess of agriculture, horticulture, grain
and harvest. Demeter is a daughter of Cronus
and Rhea and sister of Zeus, by whom she
bore Persephone. She was depicted as a
mature woman, often crowned and holding
sheafs of wheat and a torch. Her symbols are
the Cornucopia (horn of plenty), wheat-ears,
the winged serpent and the lotus staff. Her
sacred animals are pigs and snakes.
Demeter
• According to the Athenian rhetorician Isocrates,
Demeter's greatest gifts to humankind were
agriculture, particularly of cereals, and the Mysteries
which give the initiate higher hopes in this life and the
afterlife. These two gifts were intimately connected in
Demeter's myths and mystery cults. In Homer's
Odyssey she is the blond-haired goddess who separates
the chaff from the grain. In Hesiod, prayers to ZeusChthonios (chthonic Zeus) and Demeter help the crops
grow full and strong. Demeter's emblem is the poppy, a
bright red flower that grows among the barley
Demeter’s Character
• Her character as mother-goddess is identified
in the second element of her name meter
(μήτηρ) derived from Proto-Indo-European
*méh₂tēr (mother).In antiquity, different
explanations were already proffered for the
first element of her name
The mother of earth, Demeter
• It is possible that Da (Δᾶ) (which became Attic
De (Δῆ)), is the Doric form of Ge (Γῆ), "earth";
the old name of the chthonic earth-goddess
and Demeter is "Mother-Earth". This root also
appears in the Linear B inscription E-ne-si-dao-ne, "earth-shaker", as an aspect of the god
Poseidon. However, the dā element is not so
simply equated with "earth" according to John
Chadwick.
Demeter
• Demeter's virgin daughter Persephone was
abducted to the underworld by Hades.
Demeter searched for her ceaselessly,
preoccupied with her loss and her grief. The
seasons halted; living things ceased their
growth, then began to die
Demeter Story
• Demeter was the Greek goddess of grain, the harvest, and possibly
the grape and hence wine. Hades, god of the underworld,
abducted her daughter Persephone. Demeter asked Zeus, a brother
of Hades, to return Persephone. When Zeus refused, Demeter
withheld the harvest from man until Zeus relented. He agreed to
allow Persephone’s return if she had not eaten while with Hades.
However, since Persephone had eaten 6 pomegranate seeds in the
underworld, Zeus determined that she would spend 6 months with
her mother and 6 months with Hades. This is the mythic origin of
the six months of spring and summer when Persephone walks the
earth with her mother and the 6 months of fall and winter when
Persephone must return to the underworld. The pomegranate is
still for many a potent symbol of death and renewal. The Elysian
Mysteries were public celebrations of the myth of Demeter and
Persephone.