Medea's crocus

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Medea brews a magic potion to restore aged Aeson, father of Jason, to youth. Where drops from the cauldron fall on earth, flowers spring up. 

Later botanical lore identifies them as poisonous meadow saffron (Colchicum autumnale)...

Apparently, the claim that the flower that grew out of the drops of Medea's magic potion was Colchicum (meadow saffron/autumn crocus), actually predates Ovid.

In the Alexipharmaca (probably 2nd century BC), Nicander describes a poisonous plant as:

"the hateful fire of Colchian Medea, the famous meadow-saffron"

The Greek passage identifies the plant as ἐφήμερον (ephemeron), and explicitly associates it with Medea of Colchis. Modern scholarship identifies this ephemeron with a Colchicum species.

This is significant because it means that Medea's poisonous Colchian plant = Colchicum was already an established association before Ovid.

What is very interesting is that Medea's "saffron crocus" is not a saffron crocus at all. It is actually not a crocus at all...

Even thought it looks almost identical to the "saffron crocus", and it flowers in the autumn, just like "saffron crocus"...

The two plants are sufficiently similar that they have repeatedly been confused historically. The "Colchicum autumnale" acquired the names "autumn crocus" and "meadow saffron" precisely because of its resemblance to Crocus and its saffron-like appearance...

This is very important, because we don't really know what Greek ephemeron meant, and whether the ancient Medea plant could have been "saffron crocus that flowers in the autumn" or "something that looks like saffron crocus that flowers in the autumn"...

Why is this important? Cause: 

"Medea brewed a magic potion to restore aged Aeson, father of Jason, to youth. Where drops from the cauldron fell on earth, flowers sprang up"...

Remember, saffron crocus is a plant calendar marker for a start of the rain season on Crete. 

Why?

Cause right after the first rains (Oct/Nov), the wild saffron crocuses appear all over the island...

It is the Autumn Rain that rejuvenates nature in Crete and makes Saffron Crocuses grow...

You can read more about the symbolism of saffron crocuses in my posts Saffron and Origin of saffron...

This is why crocus plant was linked to "The Goddess" of fertility in Minoan culture...Here she is depicted on her throne being given Saffron as sacrifice...By a blue (water) monkey...I will talk about this more soon...

I talked about this in many of my posts, like "Minoan flying goddess with griffin" where I talk about the link between the Minoan "Goddess" (Winter/Spring - Cool/Wet/Fertile Earth) and Griffins, as part of the analysis of this Minoan gold signature ring depicting a flying griffon and goddess, from cemetery at Archanes, Phourni, in Crete, 1700-1450 BC....

Saffron Crocus was linked to another calendar marker for Oct/Nov: Ibex goat. Ibex mating season starts in Oct/Nov, right when "The Goddess" drips her "rejuvenation potion" (rain) on the almost dead, parched earth, which causes Saffron Crocuses to sprout (and the earth to get rejuvenated)...

I talk about this in several of my posts. Like this one, "Male female Minoan bowl" about this 16th century BC Minoan vessel found on Thera, Akrotiri, depicting (according to the museum curators) on one side wild goats and saffron crocuses and on the other side dolphins and sea grass...

Ibex goat was of course also linked to "The Goddess"...

I talk about this link between Saffron Crocuses, Ibex Goats and "The Goddess" (Cool/Wet/Fertile Earth) in several of my posts: Goat riding thunder god, Sanctuary rhyton, Minoan bull sacrifice...

Crocus was also linked to swallows, another animal calendar marker for the beginning of the rain season on Crete. On Crete rain starts when swallows leave for Africa...

I talk about this in my post "Mesa Mouliana vessel" about this strainer found in room 3 of the Xeste 3 house in Akrotiri. It is decorated with swallows flying over flowering saffron crocuses...

Where am I going with all of this. Medea was a witch...

An illustration titled "A witch of about the middle of the fifteenth century" from Sir Walter Scott's 1830 book, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft. Riding ahead of a storm...

According to folk belief, #witches, unlike fairies, are unable to shed tears. Tears were an offence to the devil who would do whatever was possible to prevent witches from crying. Recorded in Medieval witch hunter guide MALLEUS MALEFICARIUM 1486

Very interesting...I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that weather (rain/storm) magic was the main female (witches) magic? 

Witches tears = rain?

The main "Evil Magic" witches were accused of was weather magic used to cause cold, wet, stormy weather. 

Two witches conjuring a hailstorm. Did you know that the sudden climate change which resulted in the medieval mini ice age was blamed on the weather controlling witches and was the excuse for the subsequent witch-hunt? 

I talked about this in my post De lamiis et pythonicis mulieribus...

I also talked about this in these two articles, Weather stones and The last megalithic ritual in Europe about the use of "weather stones" among Slavs. Like in Belarus, where women (Yin, dark, wet, cold) raise Dabog's stone during drought to get cool and wet weather...The last megalithic ritual in Europe? And could it be that (at least some) standing stones were raised as weather stones during past sudden climate changes?   

May Day Eve is across Northern and Central Europe known as Walpurgis Night, the night when everyone is trying to "ward off, scare, witches". Why? 

Maybe this has something to do with the old calendar which divided year into winter and summer...And the fact that "The Witch" here is "The Winter Earth"...

Which is why we "burn" (effigies of) "The Witch" (fire of the late spring/summer sun destroys the cold of winter/early spring earth)...

I talk abou this in my post Walpurgis night...

Slavs have preserved the true nature of this ritual, because they don't burn "The Witch". They burn "Marzana" (Frost Goddess, Winter Earth) or "Morana" (Goddess of Death)...

Slavs equated The Goddess of Death, Morana (mor=death) with The Winter Earth, Marzana (marz=frost). She is ceremonially burned (warmed) or drowned (thawed) or both (to be sure to be sure 🙂) during Slavic spring festivals...

This painging called "Maslenitsa" by Simon Kozhin depicts exactly that, people celebrating the burning (ending) of Winter Witch (by the spring sun)...  

Here are some articles in which I talk about this ritual and related customs and beliefs in Slavic, Germanic, Celtic Europe: Gryla, Party, Bannock, To kill a witch, Baba's day, Living stone, Baba - cold, winter...

Slovenians preserved the actual origin of "The Witch"...

Originally people believed that it was Mother Earth that controlled the Yin half of the climate (Dark/Cold/Wet) half...

This bedrock outcrop near the village of Rodik in Slovenia is known locally as "Baba" (Grandmother)... Locals believed that "Baba" controls the (bad) weather: Baba’s urine turns to rain, her fart to wind, and when she raises her skirt, the weather gets nice...🙂

Bedrock is in the Balkans known as "živi kamen, živa stena" (living stone, living rock) because it is believed to be still part of the living body of the Mother Earth which gives birth to all life...

I talk about it in my post Living stone...

This pic is a great illustration of this fact...

Mother Earth has been symbolically linked with women for who knows how long...

They both give birth to living things.

They both produce life giving liquid (water/milk).

Which is why (dark/wet/cold weather and fertility) magic became female magic...

The knowledge how to perform this magic was passed from mother to daughter...

Originally it was all the old women that preserved and performed the weather magic...

In Serbian we have these words: nevesta (ne vešta) = not skilful (knowledgable, wise) = maiden, vešta (the skilful one, married woman, the one who "knows") and veštica (the witch, the old woman, the one who knows everything, the preserver of sacred knowledge)...

And this is how "The Witches" were born...

I talked about this in my post The skillful one and Wrach...

So, as I said, my question is how old is the Medea myth? And where did it originate...And what does it actually mean? 

Particularly when you read this bit: 

"She stirred it all [the cauldron] with a long-dry branch of a fruitful olive, mixing the depths with the surface. Look! The ancient staff turned in the hot cauldron, first grew green again, then in a short time sprouted leaves, and was, suddenly, heavily loaded with olives."

Remember this blog post Shaking the olive tree in which I talked about Olive tree as being The Tree of Life of the Minoans? 

And how it was associated with The Goddess, Winter (in case of Crete Rain, Rejuvenation Season) Mother Earth, The Witch, because olives are ripe and start falling off trees in Oct/Nov, when the rain starts falling...

And how it was associated with The Goat of Rain (Ibex goats start mating in Oct/Nov, start of the rain season)... 

And how it was associated with Saffron Crocuses (they start flowering in Oct/Nov, start of the rain season)...

The fact that the witches staff, made of dead olive, turns green and full of ripe olives when put into her rejuvenation potion, I think, just confirms my interpretation, which I presented in this article, that the Medea's myth is actually very old and probably doesn't originate in Colchis but most likely originates on Crete...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Three Minoan flowers

In this paper, Marcia Nugent talks about "3 flowers as 3 Minoan calendar markers for 3 seasons":

1. Madonna lily = Spring

2. Sea daffodil = Summer

3. Saffron crocus = Autumn

She is right about the flowers, but wrong about the seasons...Here's why:

Madonna lily starts blooming on Crete in Apr/May. This is the beginning of summer (summer solstice is "mid summer")...So Madonna lily is the flower calendar marker for summer, not spring...

I talked about it in my post "Minoan spring fresco", in which I explained why this Minoan fresco from the Akrotiri Site at Thera (Santorini), dated to 1550 – 1500 BC, should be called "Beginning of summer" fresco and not "Spring Fresco" 🙂...  

Sea daffodil start blooming on Crete in Jul/Aug. This is the beginning of autumn (autumn equinox marks the middle of autumn)...So Sea daffodil is the flower calendar marker for autumn, not summer...

I talked about it in my post "Minoan griffin fresco", about this detail of the griffin fresco (reproduction) from the throne room, palace of Knossos, Crete, dated to 1700-1450 BC, in which I explained why I think that the flowers depicted around the lying griffin are sea daffodils...

Saffron crocus starts blooming on Crete in Oct/Nov. This is the beginning of winter (winter solstice is "mid winter")....So Saffron crocus is the flower calendar marker for winter, not autumn...

I talked about saffron in several of my posts, "Saffron", "Origin of saffron", "Pan goat of rain", "Crocus fairy", in which I also talk about the famous Minoan "Saffron gatherers" fresco. In them I also talk about the origin of saffron crocus...And why saffron crocus was the sacred plant on Minoan Crete...And why it was linked with Ibex goats...And mother goddess...

Knowing this, here is the fixed flower-season diagram

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...

Male - Female Minoan bowl

A 16th cent. BC Minoan vessel found on Thera, Akrotiri, depicting (according to the museum curators) on one side wild goats and saffron crocuses and on the other side dolphins and sea grass...

According to the museum curators:

The vessel was found in the so-called "House of the Ladies", a building of both residential and ritual character...We think that the vessel had (possibly) ritual meaning and use, but we don't know what meaning and what use...

Maybe I can help here. This vessel is a ritual calendar, depicting a division of a solar year into cool/wet half of the year (goat) and hot/dry half of the year (dolphin)...

Why goat and dolphin? The beginning of the hot dry season coincides with the beginning of the mating of the dolphins (Apr/May) and the beginning of the cool wet season coincides with the beginning of the mating of the wild goats (Oct/Nov)...

I actually talked about this in detail in my post "Horned animal attacked by a dolphin" that analysis this strange Minoan seal...

Hot dry season Apr/May - Oct/Nov (Dolphin season) is also the sailing season...Extremely important if you were a Minoan...

I talked about this in my post "Minoan dolphin fresco" about the famous Minoan "dolphins fresco" from Knossos, Crete, dated to 1500BC...

What about crocuses? Well, wild Cretan crocus, the ancestor of all the saffron crocuses, starts flowering in Oct/Nov...

At the beginning of rain season, when wild Cretan Ibex goats start to mate...

Talked about this in my posts "Saffron" and "Origin of saffron"...

Which is why crocus was The Flower of The Goddess of Fertility...2nd millennium BC faience (glazed ceramic) models of female garments decorated with crocuses excavated by Arthur Evans during the excavations of the the Temple Repositories at Knossos...

This is the famous Minoan Hagia Triada Sarcophagus, a late Minoan limestone sarcophagus, dated to around 1400 BC. 

On it, we see a priestess presiding over a bull sacrifice wearing a skirt decorated with crocus flowers...

I talk about this in my posts "Agia Triada sarcophagus" and "Minoan bull sacrifice"...

BTW, Apr/May, the beginning of the sailing season in the Eastern Mediterranean is marked with a Bull, Taurus...This is because Apr/May was the time when wild Eurasian cattle calving season used to start...I talked about the "Old Taurus" in many of my posts...

I talked about the symbolic division of the Minoan year into Goat and Bull halves in this post "Theseus ring", about Winter (Ibex) and Summer (Bull) Minoan rings. Article about the opposite goat - bull symbolism in Minoan art. 

This 14th-13th c. BC larnax (a container for human remains), found in Mycenaean Tanagra cemetery, but created under strong Minoan influence, depicts:

The top part: Ibex goat (ritual?) hunt

The bottom part: Auroch bull (ritual?) leaping

Why?

This is typical Cretan climate chart:

Top: Ibex goat, symbol of cool, wet half of the year. Ibex goat animal calendar marker for Oct/Nov, start of the Ibex mating season

Bottom: Auroch bull, symbol of hot, dry half of the year. Auroch bull animal calendar marker for Apr/May, start of the Auroch calving season

Ritual ibex goat hunt marks the start of the cool wet half of the year and the end of the sailing season?

Ritual bull leaping marks the start of the hot dry half of the year and the start of the sailing season?

You can find more interesting things about this in my post "Goat riding thundergod"...

Because sailing was male dominated activity and saffron gathering and processing was female dominated activity, we could say that the Thera vessel is divided into male (Bull/Dolphin) and female (Goat/Saffron) halves...

Reflecting the division of the Cretan year into female (Wet, Cool, Yin, Sowing - Creating life, No Sailing, Peace) and male (Dry, Hot, Yang, Harvesting - Destroying life, Sailing, War) halves...

That's it. What do you think?

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, which are at the root of all our mythologies, start here…Then check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am way way behind...

Origin of saffron

During the excavations of the the Temple Repositories at Knossos, among many early 2nd millennium BC faience (glazed ceramic) objects, Arthur Evans unearthed ceramic crocuses and models of female garments decorated with crocuses...

I found this image in the "Bronze Age Flower Power: The Minoan Use and Social Significance of Saffron and Crocus Flowers". Really cool article...

In it the author, Rachel Dewan, states that: "...If Evans’ interpretation of the faience models as votive offerings is correct, than here again is evidence for significant links between women, textiles, crocuses, and the divine..."

In the conclusion of her article, Rachel Dewan says: "It is clear from the iconographic evidence that crocuses and saffron were regarded as more than mere crops by the inhabitants of  the Bronze Age Aegean...

As a functional ingredient within the dyeing and perfuming industries, an effective medical treatment, a meaningful cultural symbol most likely used in cultic activities, and a profitable commodity, the plant was revered by the Minoans...

The  numerous correlations between this valuable plant and Minoan females, seen both in iconographic representations  and  archaeological finds, suggests that saffron was held in particularly high esteem by women who embraced it as a symbol of female identity and culture...

By the Mycenaean period, saffron’s value and versatility were well-established, and its detailed recording in Linear B documents reflects its status as a treasured commodity worthy of palatial attention...Saffron ideogram on tablets from Knossos highlighted in yellow...

Interestingly, however, crocus imagery became a rare motif in Mycenaean art throughout the Aegean, suggesting that the plant lost some of  its symbolism in this later period, even as its economic importance remained..."

So there are two unanswered questions here:

1. Why was crocus revered by Minoans before the Mycenaean conquest?

2. Why was crocus not revered by Mycenaeans?

The answers to the first of these questions is: because of climate. The climate in Crete which shaped Minoan mythology...

The climate in Crete is divided into two seasons: 

The dry and hot season May-Sep...

The wet and cool season Oct-Apr...

This is temperature and precipitation chart for Knossos (Modern Heraklion) area of Crete...

The end of the dry season is the moment of prayer in Crete...The rivers and wells are dry...The soil is dry and cracked...Everyone is looking at the sky, waiting for the arrival of the first rain clouds...

And then the Cretan Ibex goat mating season starts, and the first rains arrive...The land turns green. The wells and riverbeds start filling up. The life returns... 

Which is why Ibex goat was venerated as the goat of rain by Minoans. I talked about this in my article "Goat riding thunder gods"...

And right after the first rains, the wild flowers appear everywhere. Including saffron crocuses which flower in November - December...They were picked by Minoan women, as depicted on these Minoan frescoes...

I talked about this in my article "Saffron"...

These flowers were picked because of their vivid crimson stigmas...About 400 hours of labour is needed to produce just one kilogram of saffron...Which is why saffron was worth its weight in gold...Still is by the way...

We know this because saffron was the only spice to be measured by weight, in the same small, intricate values used for gold, suggests that it was considered to be a valuable commodity, carefully monitored by the palace...

The appearance of the saffron ideogram (CROC) on 59 whole or partial Linear B tablets is indicative of its economic importance. It was a valuable commodity...The reason for this is because it was used in the production of luxury goods...

Because of its extremely strong color, saffron was  used to die clothes yellow, the color which was from Eastern Mediterranean to Mesopotamia considered to be the color of divinity and royalty...

Because of its aroma and color, saffron was used as a food spice and as a compound in cosmetics, like cremes, body paint, and perfumes...

Because of its medicinal properties, saffron was used in preparation of medicines. As a matter of fact it was in the past one of the most famous medicinal plants...Amongst medicinal plants known in the Near East and Mediterranean, saffron has the largest number of applications...

Here is the interesting bit: the spice’s most common ancient reference is as a pain-reliever for menstrual cramps and childbirth. Saffron can act as an abortive in high doses, and may have functioned as an early form of birth control...

A women's plant...

Rachel Dewan quotes Robert Arnott who notes the prominent role that herbal healing would have played within the ancient Aegean, particularly amongst ancient midwives and female healers. I talked about the old midwife cult in my article about Balkan village midwives "Baba's day"... 

Rachel Dewan then says that "The fact that women, rather than men, are shown in scenes involving crocuses and saffron has led many scholars to suggest that the Minoans were aware of the gynecological benefits of saffron, and thus exploited the plant’s medicinal properties..."

Indicating that maybe this plant was sacred to Minoan women precisely because of its obstetrical-gynecological medical application...And I do agree that this is part of the reason why saffron crocus was sacred to the Minoan women...

But I also believe that the saffron crocus acquired religious significance because of when it flowered: right after the first rains...

The plant directly connected with feminine beauty and fertility flowered at the moment when Mother Earth's beauty and fertility was restored by her first "period": the first trickle of water in dry riverbeds after the first winter rains...You could make a religion out of it...

Now what about the decline of the crocus veneration under Mycenaeans...

To answer this question we have to look at the saffron crocus plant itself...The saffron crocus plant grown commercially today is Crocus Sativus...

But this is not the crocus flower picked by Minoans...They picked this: Crocus Cartwrightianus, the wild ancestor of the Crocus Sativus...

If we look at the natural distribution of this wild saffron Crocus Cartwrightianus we can see that it is found in Crete, Cyclades islands and Attica...

Now the Crocus Sativus is a triploid with 24 chromosomes. This makes the plant sterile due to its inability to pair chromosomes during meiosis. Which means that it has to be propagated by corms...And transplanted from place to place by humans...

The ancestor of the Crocus Sativus, which is unknown in the wild is Crocus Cartwrightianus.

Now today I came across the article "Saffron (Crocus sativus) is an autotriploid that evolved in Attica (Greece) from wild Crocus Cartwrightianus".

In this interesting article we read that: "...From Minoan frescos it is clear that more than 3600  years ago humans already harvested and used wild saffron in the southern Aegean...

The first clear indication for the cultivation of triploid saffron can be found in Historia Plantarum (350 BCE–287 BCE) where Theophrastus described the plant as being propagated by corms...

Our GBS (genotyping-by-sequencing) data point to the small Greek region around Athens as the place where Crocus Sativus evolved. We assume that sometime in between 1600 BCE and 350 BCE a triploid Crocus Cartwrightianus cytotype originated in Attica and was selected by humans...

They must have realized that they have a highly aromatic and stable type at hands that keeps the valuable properties of saffron through time and (vegetative) generations..."

Now "between 1600 BCE and 350 BCE" is a huuuuge time period...Can we narrow down the time when the domestication of Crocus Sativus happened? Well I think we can...

Something extremely important happened "between 1600 BCE and 350 BCE". The eruption of Thera, which according to archaeological data occurred in c. 1500 BC. It and the tsunami that followed caused cataclysmic destruction and the decline of the Minoan civilization of Crete...

This turn of events gave the opportunity to the Mycenaeans to spread their influence throughout the Aegean. Around c. 1450 BC, they were in control of Crete itself, including Knossos, and colonized several other Aegean islands, reaching as far as Rhodes...

I would here argue that the domestication of Crocus Sativus, if it happened in Attica, definitely didn't happen before the Mycenaean conquest of Minoan territories...Because I don't think that Mycenaeans knew what the source of saffron was before that...

Here is my theory: The wild Crocus Cartwrightianus was before Minoans endemic to Crete and this was the only place where it was originally found...

Minoans brought it to their colonies on Cycladic islands where they planted it, grew it and harvested it for saffron...The substance worth its weight in gold...

What I think is that Minoans probably kept the whole thing as a sacred secret...Partially because if you keep the source of your product secret you make sure no one else can take over your market by stealing few plants and planting them in their back garden...

But also because for Minoans saffron crocus was not just valuable. It was sacred...You wouldn't want some foreign devils laying their filthy barbaric eyes or hands on your sacred plant...

Then Thera exploded and Mycenaeans invaded Crete...Mycenaeans of course knew about saffron and now they were able to get their hands on the plant that saffron was extracted from...And of course they brought it to their mainland home and planted it in their back garden...

I believe that this is when Crocus Cartwrightianus left Minoan territory for the first time and was for the first time planted in Attica...

The plant was originally grown and harvested as a "wild plant"...Just like it was on Crete... Eventually at some point "between 1450 BCE and 350 BCE" somewhere in Attica someone came across the mutated Crocus Cartwrightianus and hey presto, Crocus Sativus...

Mycenaeans only saw economic importance of saffron crocus...As a male dominated warrior society, to Mycenaeans, the whole link between feminine beauty and fertility and the beauty and fertility of the Mother Earth was alien, unimportant and most likely laughable...

This was part of the Minoan culture and religion which they hated and probably actively eradicated...Which is why after the arrival of Mycenaeans, saffron crocus disappears from divine images and remains only in profane accounting tables...

That's it...What do you think?