Potnia Theron ("Mistress of the Animals") is an ancient title of the
Minoan Goddess, an aspect of her power that was assumed by
Artemis among others in the
Olympian hierarchy that was later introduced in mainland Greece. "In particular, it seems as if an ancient
Great Goddess, especially
qua Mistress of the Animals, has been individualized in Greece in various ways, as
Hera,
Artemis,
Aphrodite,
Demeter, and
Athena,"
Walter Burkert allows, but adds "The idea of a Master or Mistress of the Animals who must be won over to the side of the hunters is widespread and very possibly Paleolithic in origin; in the official religion of the Greeks this survives at little more than the level of folklore." (Burkert 1985, p. 154, 172)
Potnia is the feminine form of
potis, i.e. lord, master or husband.
When Homer mentions a
potnia theron (
Iliad xxi.470), it is
Artemis he means, and the formula appears already tried-and-true. But in the
Homeric Hymn to
Aphrodite, she is followed across the sacred slopes of
Phrygian Mount Ida— ordinarily the haunt of
Cybele, the Mountain Mother — by fawning wolves, lions, bears and panthers. Under her spell they couple in their lairs.
A famous Minoan seal impression unearthed by Sir
Arthur Evans shows a nameless goddess brandishing a spear and standing upon a representation of a mountain, flanked by lions in just the same position they occupy in the Lion Gate at
Mycenae. Horned altars of the type still to be seen in
Cyprus stand behind her, and a son/consort/king/worshipper raises his hands in adoration (illustrated by
Joseph Campbell 1964, fig. 12). Whatever Minoans may have actually called her, this is one form of
Potnia, the Mistress. A similar
Bronze Age goddess was worshipped throughout the
Aegean basin and in the
Ancient Near East, where the origin of a Mistress of the Animals seems to lie. Possible connections with an even earlier, Neolithic
Mother Goddess are vague.
Potnia was a Mycenaean word inherited by
Classical Greek, with the same meaning, which has an exact parallel in
Sanskrit patnī.
Not every aspect of the Mistress can be identified with
Potnia theron or with the Olympian descendants of this aspect of the Goddess, Artemis and others. Among the Mycenaean tablets inscribed in
Linear B at
Pylos,
John Chadwick identified one bearing the phrase
a-ta-na-po-ti-ni-ja: "No Greek scholar could read the first word without dividing it
Athana potnia 'Mistress
Athena,' almost echoing the Homeric form:
potni(a) Athenaie," he wrote (Chadwick 1976). In the Mycenaean tablets at Pylos,
potnia is almost always accompanied by an
epithet, characterizing a particular place or function of the Mistress. Chadwick,
Karl Kerenyi and others assert that these
Potniai were associated by the classical Greeks with
Demeter and her daughter
Persephone, who became the queen of
Hades. At Pylos, tablets identify the "Two Queens and
Poseidon" and the "Two Queens and the King" (Campbell 1964), with "Poseidon" (archaic
Potidaon) an apt cognate of
potis (see above).
The goddess identified simply as
Orthia in inscriptions at her sanctuary near
Sparta (
illustration) was conflated with Artemis under the influence of Olympian culture, as
Artemis Orthia. The
cult image at her shrine was an ancient wooden image, a
xoan.
References
See also
The Minoan civilization was a bronze age civilization which arose on Crete, an island in the Aegean Sea. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant on Crete.
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Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος
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Twelve Olympians, also known as the Dodekatheon (Greek: Δωδεκάθεον
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mother goddess is a goddess, often portrayed as the Earth Mother, who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. As such, not all goddesses should be viewed as manifestations of the mother goddess.
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In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hera, (Greek Ήρα, IPA pronunciation [ˈhiːrə]; or Here (
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Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος
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Pandemos redirects here. For the genus of metalmark butterflies, see Pandemos (butterfly).
Aphrodite (Greek:
Ἀφροδίτη; Latin:
Venus..... Click the link for more information. Dêmêtêr /də'miː.tɚ/ (Greek: Δημήτηρ
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ATHENA is an antimatter research project that is taking place at the AD Ring at CERN. In 2002, it was the first experiment to produce 50,000 low-energy antihydrogen atoms, as reported in the journal Nature[1].
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Walter Burkert (born Neuendettelsau, Bavaria, February 2, 1931), a scholar of Greek mythology and cult, is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States.
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iLiad is an electronic handheld device, or e-book device, which can be used for document reading and editing. Like the Sony Reader, the iLiad makes use of an electronic paper display.
Description
Main specifications:
..... Click the link for more information. Artemis (Greek: (nominative) Ἄρτεμις, (genitive) Ἀρτέμιδος
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The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same dactylic hexameter as the Iliad and Odyssey and are couched in the same dialect.
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Pandemos redirects here. For the genus of metalmark butterflies, see Pandemos (butterfly).
Aphrodite (Greek:
Ἀφροδίτη; Latin:
Venus..... Click the link for more information. Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named "Mount of the Goddess." Both are associated with the Mother Goddess in the deepest layers of pre-Greek myth: Mount Ida, Crete, and Mount Ida, Turkey, known as Phrygian Ida in Classical times.
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Cybele (Greek: Κυβέλη) was a deification of the Earth Mother who was worshipped in Anatolia from Neolithic times. Like Gaia (the "Earth") or her Minoan equivalent Rhea, Cybele embodies the fertile earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and
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Sir Arthur John Evans (Born July 8 1851 in Nash Mills, England and died July 11 1941) was a British archaeologist most famous for unearthing the palace of Knossos on the Greek island of Crete.
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State Party Greece
Type Cultural
Criteria i, ii, iii, iv, vi
Reference 941
Region Europe and North America
Inscription History
Inscription 1999 (23rd Session)
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Motto
none
Anthem
Ύμνος εις την Ελευθερίαν
Imnos is tin Eleftherian
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Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell circa 1984
Born: March 26 1904(1904--)
White Plains, New York
Died: September 31 1987 (aged 83)
Honolulu, Hawaii
Occupation: Scholar
Nationality: American
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The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) consists of techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ore, and then alloying those metals in
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For the ship Aegean Sea, see .
The
Aegean Sea (pronounced
[i:ˈdʒi:ən/span>]], Greek: ..... Click the link for more information. The terms ancient Near East or ancient Orient encompass the early civilizations predating classical antiquity in the region roughly corresponding to that described by the modern term Middle East (Egypt, Iraq, Turkey), during the time roughly spanning the Bronze Age
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mother goddess is a goddess, often portrayed as the Earth Mother, who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. As such, not all goddesses should be viewed as manifestations of the mother goddess.
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Ancient Greek refers to the second stage in the history of the Greek language[1] as it existed during the Archaic (9th–6th centuries BC) and Classical (5th–4th centuries BC) periods in Greece.
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Sanskrit}}} | style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Writing system: | colspan="2" style="padding-left: 0.5em;" | Devanāgarī and several other Brāhmī-based scripts ! colspan="3" style="text-align: center; color: black; background-color: lawngreen;"|Official
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Linear BUnicode range U+10000–U+1007F syllabic signs
U+10080–U+100FF logograms
ISO 15924
LinbNote: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.
This article is about the ancient syllabary.
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Coordinates: Time zone: EET/EEST (UTC+2/3)
Elevation (center): 3 m (0 ft)
GovernmentCountry: Greece..... Click the link for more information. John Chadwick (21 May 1920 – 24 November 1998) was an English linguist and classical scholar most famous for his role in deciphering Linear B, along with Michael Ventris.
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ATHENA is an antimatter research project that is taking place at the AD Ring at CERN. In 2002, it was the first experiment to produce 50,000 low-energy antihydrogen atoms, as reported in the journal Nature[1].
..... Click the link for more information.