Athenian red-figure skyphos (wine cup) dated to 5th BC, currently in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston depicting: "Goddess emerging from the ground between two [dancing/prancing] Pans"...
Which goddess?
I would suggest Persephone. Here's why:
Abduction of Persephone by Hades. Fresco from, Vergina, 340 BC, Macedonia, Greece. Based on the animal and plant calendar markers found in the story about the abduction of Persephone, which I presented in my post "Abduction of Persephone", this abduction took place in Oct/Nov...
This is interesting because it is at the precise moment when Persephone (the grain seed) is abducted and taken to the "underworld", in Oct/Nov, that winter grains, barley and wheat, were sown in Ancient Greece...
Here comes one of my favourite bits of the legend of the abduction of Persephone.
"Demeter, when she found her daughter had disappeared, disguised herself as an old woman and with lighted torched in her hands roamed the Earth looking for her daughter..."
How long was she doing this? Well the Homeric Hymn of Demeter says:
"Thereafter, for nine days did the Lady Demeter wander all over the earth, holding torches ablaze in her hands."
On the tenth day, Hekate came to Demeter and told her that Helios (the sun) knows where her daughter was...
Why nine days?
If we see Persephone as grain seed, then she indeed spend only 9 days in The Underworld, Under The Ground...
This diagram shows the life cycle of the winter grains (wheat and barley). You can see that after sowing, the seed germinates and sprouts within 10 days...After 10 days the first grain leafs appear above the ground...
Is this why the Homeric Hymn to Demeter is so precise about number of days Demeter was looking for her daughter? I think so...
Anyway, just before Persephone was released from the underworld, Hades tricked her, giving her some pomegranate seeds to eat. And because she had tasted "food in The Underworld", she was obliged to return to underworld every year...
The pomegranate picking season starts in Oct/Nov and lasts until January, basically spanning the whole of winter. It is no wonder then that pomegranate is considered a symbol of Winter and Christmas in Greece...
So if Hades did give Persephone pomegranate to eat, he could only have given it to her in Oct/Nov, after she has spend 9 days in the underworld...
Guess what else happens in Oct/Nov, at the time when Persephone emerges from the underworld, her lips still sticky with pomegranate (fertility symbol) juice?
The mating season of Ibex goats starts. Matins season during which bucks "dance/prance", actually fight for females...
Ibex mating (dancing/prancing) season spans the whole of winter...This is why goat is the symbol of winter.
An illustration by Yuri Vasnetsov from 1956 entitled "Goat". It depicts the scene from Slavic folklore in which goat (of winter) brings spring (basket with flowers) and summer (baby goat).
You can read more about goat (calendar marker) in European folklore and mythology in my post "Goat in European culture"...
Back to our skyphos....The two dancing/prancing panes flanking the emerging goddess have goat heads...Sooo...Is this what is depicted on this vase? Grain sprouting from the ground in Oct/Nov, during goat mating season? I think so...But there is more...
This is the other side of the same skyphos. On it we see the same goddess, this time fully out of the ground, holding a skyphos and a thyrsus, holy staff of Dionysus, flanked by two Panes, this time with human heads and horse tails, one of whom also holds a thyrsus...
The fact that it is horse Panes and not goat Panes that flank fully emerged, moving goddess, indicate that here we are looking at Summer Persephone, Demeter, the harvested grain...
Actually I would even suggest that we are looking at threshed and winnowed grain...
According to Hesiod in Ancient Greece, grain harvest was done in Apr/May/Jun, and threshing and winnowing was done in Jun/Jul around the time of the summer solstice...I talked about this in my post "Hesiod on grain"...
Guess what starts in Apr/May (start of grain harvest in Ancient Greece) and peaks in Jun/Jul (end of grain winnowing in Ancient Greece)? Horse matings season, during which stallions "dance/prance", actually fight for females...
The horse fertility is governed by the sunlight and peaks on summer solstice.
Hence solar horses all over Eurasia...
Articles about solar horse (equid):
Iran "Water carrier equid", "Dioscuri plate from Iran"
Mesopotamia "Shamash playing with the solar horse", "Sun god from Tell Brak"
India "Hayagriva"
China "Longma", "Three legged crow", "Mythical beast from Xian"
Levant "Alexamenos graffito", "Goddess on a horse", "Unicorn"
Europe "Archaic rider", "Beotian solar pyxis", "Pegasus and chimera", "King John", "The horseman"
Which is why horses are an animal calendar marker for summer, and summer solstice. Horse is hidden among zodiac symbols as The Devine Horse Twins...Dioscuri...
The peak of the horse dancing/prancing, Summer Solstice, is the time when giant fennel, a wild flowering plant that can grow up to 2.5 meters tall, flowers in Greece, producing huge number of large bright yellow globular "sun like" flowers...
Giant fennel whose stalk is used as a shaft of Thyrsus, the sacred staff of Dionysus. I talked about this in my post "Thyrsus"...
Thyrsus carried by both moving Persephone (winnowing grain seed) and dancing/prancing horse Panes who flank her...
Isn't this interesting? So is this what the other side of the skyphos depicts? Moving Persephone (grain being winnowed) holding thyrsus (giant fennels) while dancing/prancing (mating) horses Panes are flanking her, in Jun/Jul...I think so...
That's it. 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...
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