1. DEMETER-MYTHS of FERTILITY
FEMALE GAIA (GE)=Mother Earth came from sexless CHAOS. From Gaia sprang the world: Sky, Mountains, Sea, and the Olympians and humans
No single goddess of fertility (Artemis for wild life, Aphrodite for sexuality, Hera for family and marriage, Demeter goddess of grain and earth fertility)

2. HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER
Structure
Demeter-Persephone-abduction by Hades
Return from the Underworld
Embedded Story of Demeter while looking for her daughter
Metaneira, the queen, and Demophoon, the son.

3. The Myth of Demeter and Persephone
Abduction by Hades
Hecate and Helius
Demeter’s grief, anger and retaliation
Demeter comes to Eleusis and the palace of Celeus.
The Maiden Well
Queen Metaneira
Iambe
Demeter breaks her fast.
Demeter Nurses Demphoön.

4. Hades and Persephone and her eating of the pomegranate
Demeter’s ecstatic reunion with Persephone
Demeter restores fertility and establishes the Mysteries.
The Interpretation of the Hymn
Death and rebirth of vegetation
Spiritual metaphor or allegory
Kore (“girl”)
Hades (Pluto or Dis among the Romans)

5. Interpretation of the Myth
Allegorical Interpretation- seasons change
Family experience, the daughter’s marriage (voluntarily takes the flower, symbol of marriage, separation from natal family)
Symbolic interpretation
Loss from child, as so many children are lost to war and disease. Lamentation rituals around this myth. Demeter is mater dolorosa.
Myth of Demeter becomes the etiology for the presence of death. Thus the cult becomes an experience of afterlife.

6. Eleusinian Mysteries Eleusis, near Athens
Mystery < Mystes =the one who closes (the eyes, mouth) Latin translation initiatus (thus, modern English to initiate)
Origin of mysteries
Two families in Charge the EUMOLPIDS, Eumolpos, the ancestor, mythical ruler of ELEUSIS received the mysteries from Demeter and the KERYKES (heralds), descendants of Eumolpus’ son KERYX (=herald)

7. Eleusinian Mysteries
Special position of Athens
Initiates
Secrecy of rites
Mystery religions
Connection with Orpheus

8. Structure of Eleusinian Mysteries
High Priest (Hierophant= he who reveals the hiera sacred things), always a Eumolpid
From the family of the Kerykes, always the torchbearer and the herald.
Priestess of Demeter, who, like the hierophant lived in the sanctuary
Time of festival- FALL every year
The Hiera (=sacred things) removed from TELESTERION and carried to Athens, Procession.
All who could speak Greek (Except murderers) eligible for initiation including women and slaves)

9. Rituals- Nine day interval
Fasting- Torches- Jests
Kykeon: drink of barley and water
Revelation of divinity
Stages of initiation
Lesser Mysteries: preliminary to initiation
Greater Mysteries: full initiation
Participation in the highest mysteries
Procession
Stages of Greater Mysteries
Dramatic enactment of myth
Revelation of sacred objects
Utterance of certain words
The Final revelation: the hiera

10. ELEUSIS

11. ARCHITECTURE OF TELESTERION
TELESTERION Temple of Demeter
Unique in Architecture. Ordinary Greek temple to be viewed from exterior, the interior was to hold the god’s statue
-THE TELESTERION was built to receive thousands of people under its roof

12. MAPS OF telesterion at Eleusis

13. TRIPTOLEMUS
One of the princes of Eleusis to whom Demeter taught her sacred rites. More important after the 5th century.
He was said to have traveled over the world teaching the art of growing grain. Popular in art, supporting Athenian claims for cultural supremacy.

14. What were the Eleusinian Mysteries?
Group experience
Personal experience (afterlife)
Ritual purity, fasting
Magical rite ensuring the growth of grain
Political significance

15. Demeter

16. Demeter and Persephone
Demeter and Kore, archaic relief

17. Departure of Triptolemos Makron Painter, 490-480 BC
Departure of Triptolemos Makron Painter, BC. Attic red-figured skyphos. The eleusinian prince on the chariot. Persephone stands in front of with a torch and an oinochoe. Behind her nymph Eleusis, and behind Triptolemos, Demeter.

18. Detail of previous- departure of Triptolemos, red figure skyphos,Makron painter

19. Hades and Persephone
Archaic relief

20. Museo Archaeologico Nazionale, Reggio Calabria, Italy. 480-450 BC

21. Demeter on the left (holding a staff in her left hand, authority emblem, more restrained)-Triptolemos-Kore Relief 440 BC- Athens Archaeological Museum

23. Attic red-figured bell-krater
Attic red-figured bell-krater. Hecate with torches leads Persephone accompanied by Hermes from the underworld while Demeter, holding a sceptre, waits. The moment of reunion. With Inscriptions to identify figures. C. 440 B.C. (41 cm)
Demeter Jar

24. Demeter mosaic
Mos

25. Demeter head of statue

26. Demeter classical relief
Demeter relief classical

27. Plaster cast: Height: 51cm. Copy of a fragment of marble relief
Plaster cast: Height: 51cm. Copy of a fragment of marble relief BC. probably from the Temple of Nemesis at Rhamnous. was purchased for Munich in 1853 now in Munich, Glyptothek/

28. Demeter, Kore and Triptolemos, Museum of Arts, Providence Rhode Island

29. Demeter gives grain to Triptolemus, Harvard Museum, Polygnotos group

30. Demeter classical

31. Demeter, late Roman statue

32. Hellenistic Painting Abduction of Persephone by Hades (ca
Hellenistic Painting Abduction of Persephone by Hades (ca. 330), from Tomb I at Vergina (Pliny mentions such a painting, by Nikomachos)

33. Demeter Later Art Representations

34. Pluto and Proserpina (French Manuscript, 15th century)

35. The Abduction of Persephone, by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640)

36. Bernini 1621

37. Proserpina Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Proserpina Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( ). Oil on canvas, Prerahaelites

38. The Return of Persephone by Frederic Leighton Victorian circa 1890-1

39. Abduction of Persephone- Benton- American painter, early 20th century Museum of Art, Kansas Missouri