Cup of Nestor

Cup of Nestor from Mycenae

"There was also a cup of rare workmanship which the old man had brought with him from home, studded with bosses of gold; it had four handles, on each of which there were two golden doves feeding, and it had two feet to stand on." - Iliad, book 11.

Dove was sacred to Demeter. Terracotta statuette of Demeter enthroned with a turtle-dove. The cult image of the harvest goddess was likely venerated in a sanctuary. From Sicily, 5th century BC. Milan Archaeological Museum.

The reason for that is that nesting season of doves overlaps with the grain harvest season. I talked about this in my post "Demeter with dove"...

Dove was also sacred to Inanna/Ishtar. 1800-1600 BC pottery cup, Syria. The rounded body tapering to a flat base, with 26 bird heads. Similar objects were interpreted as votive objects dedicated to Ishtar/Inanna, who was also linked to grain and doves. I talked about this in my post "Inanna and dove"...

The start of the nesting season of doves which overlaps with the start of grain harvest also overlaps with the heliacal rising of Pleiades...

Which is why according to the Greek mythology, the Pleiades are the seven daughters of Atlas, whom Zeus transformed first into doves, and then into stars...

I talked about this in my post "Pleiades"...

How what does any of this have to do with the Cup of Nestor from Mycenae? Did you know that Asherah, Levantinge version of Inanna/Ishtar/Demeter was linked to "high places". These were holy grounds of sort, but no one  knows what they were really...And Asherah pole stood in the middle of these "high places". Like the central pole on a threshing floor?

I talked about this in my post "Sacred marriage on the threshing floor"...BTW, this is what Homer says about Demeter, the goddess of grain harvest, and threshing floors:

"And even as the wind carries chaff about the sacred threshing-floors / of men that are winnowing, when fair-haired Demeter / amid the driving blasts of wind separates the grain from the chaff"...

You can find this quote in "A Compendium of Similes in the Iliad and Odyssey"...Which is why Eugene Vanderpool in "ΕΠΙ ΠΡΟϒΧΟΝΤΙ ΚΟΛΩΝΩΙ: The Sacred Threshing Floor at Eleusis" proposes that threshing floors were sacred to Demeter and were in fact her temples..

And did you know that doves were linked to Asherah too...

Why am I talking about Asherah? Asherah was Levantine Ishtar and Ishtar was linked with lions...The reason for this is that Inanna/Ishtar was actually deified Sirius, which rises in the morning before the sun in Leo (Jul/Aug),...Which is why Ishtar stands on a lion (with sun above the lion) and is known as "The Lioness of heaven"...I talked about this in detail in my post "Inanna and Sukaletuda"...

And what does this have to do with Mycenaean dove cup? Well, was the cup dedicated to Demeter or to Asherah/Ishtar/Inanna? Remember the Ishtar/Innana dove cups? 

This stands above the main gate in Mycenae: A pole between two lions...Asherah/Ishtar/Inanna pole?

Threshing floor pole? BTW, Jul/Aug, Leo is when grain harvest ends in Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean...

So was Mycenaean Demeter actually Asherah/Ishtar/Inanna? I think so...They are one and the same goddess, The Mother of Grain...I talked about the mother of grain in many of my posts...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...