The namepoppy goddessis often used for a famous example of a distinctive type of large femaleterracotta figurineinMinoan art,presumably representing agoddess,but not thought to becult images,rathervotive offerings.It was discovered in a sanctuary of the Post-palace period (LM III,1400–1100 BC) atGazi, Crete,and is now in theHeraklion Archaeological Museum.[1]
The name comes from the shape of the terminals ofopium poppy seedheadsrising from thediademon the head. Other figures have different ornaments to the head, including many birds, and theHorns of Consecrationsymbol. They have a round "skirt",shaped like a vessel, and formed on thepotter's wheel,after which the upper body was hand-formed while the clay was still malleable. Some have feet peeping out from under their skirt. They always have raised hands, normally with palms pointing sideways or out, and there is often a hole at the top of the head, perhaps to help firing, while the openings at the ears may be intended to suggest readiness to hear prayers. Most are unpainted.[2]They relate to other, less stylized, types of Minoan clay goddess figures.[3]
In this period,Myceneaninfluence particularly on art was strong over the island, showing that Crete had become little more than a province of the Mycenean world after the Mycenean invasion in 1450 BC.Minoan potteryfigurines were found in public sanctuaries, not only in palace-sanctuaries, as is usual in earlier periods.[1]Clay figurines of the goddess with raised hands also were found in the shrine of double axes inKnossos,inGournia,inMyrtos,[4]and also in the sanctuaries ofGortysandPrinias.[1]On the heads of the figures there are various religious symbols, such as horns of consecration, diadems, birds, and the seeds ofopium poppies.The female figure known popularly as thepoppy goddessis perhaps a representation of the goddess as the bringer of sleep or death.[1]
The figurines found at Gazi, which are larger than any previously produced on Minoan Crete, are rendered in an extremely stylized manner. The bodies are rigid, the skirts simple cylinders, and the poses stereotyped.
Religious significance
editInterpreters speculate that the raised hands of the figurine who gazes toward the visitor indicate that it is a deity and that the gesture of the two upraised hands with open palms is anepiphanygesture of the goddess.[4]It is possible that the goddess is giving a greeting, or a blessing, or is praying, or it may symbolize her appearance in earth in human form.[1]
Poppies were mentioned in Greco-Roman myths as offerings to the dead.[5]Robert Gravesbelieved that a second meaning of the depiction and use of poppies in the Greco-Roman myths is the symbolism of the bright scarlet colour as signifying the promise of resurrection after death[6]and that the poppy was the emblem of the goddessDemeter.According toTheocritusfor the Greeks Demeter was a poppy goddess bearingsheavesand poppies in both hands (Idyllvii 157).[7]
Karl Kerenyiasserted that poppies were connected with a Cretan cult that was transmitted to theEleusinian MysteriesinClassical Greece:"It seems probable that the GreatMother Goddesswho bore the namesRheaand Demeter, brought the poppy with her from her Cretan cult toEleusisand it is almost certain that in the Cretan cult sphereopiumwas prepared from poppies. "[8]
British classicist and scholar,Jane Ellen Harrisonshared the view that the imagery of the gathered poppy reeds in the figurine's hands are associated with theMinoan/Cretan"Mother of the Gods".[9]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^abcdeJ.A. Sakellarakis.Herakleion Museum. Illustrated guide to the Museum.Ekdotike Athinon. Athens 1987. p. 91
- ^Hood, 108-109
- ^Hood, 106-107
- ^abWalter Burkert (1985).Greek religion,Harvard University Press. pp. 23, 30
- ^Nicholas J. Saunders,(2013)The Poppy: A Cultural History from Ancient Egypt to Flanders Fields to Afghanistan.
- ^Robert Graves.The Greek myths.24.15, p 96ISBN0-14-001026-2
- ^Kerenyi, 1976p.23
- ^Karl Kerenyi.Dionysos. Archetypal image of Indestructible life.part I iii.The Cretan core of Dionysos myth.Princeton University Press. 1976 p. 25
- ^Harrison, Jane Ellen (1928).Myths of Greece and Rome.pp. 60–61.
- Hood, Sinclair,The Arts in Prehistoric Greece,1978, Penguin (Penguin/Yale History of Art),ISBN0140561420
External links
edit- mekon (poppy):Theoi project