Iphigenia redux

----- Original Message -----

From: Rex H. McTyeire

 

Mark Odegard:  Your input on Labyrinth, horse's, dogs and the teasing IE indicators noted with intense interest.  Plugging in Iphi puzzles and "bull" + Artemis influence in Anatolia ,Crete and Greece: I was looking for support for the Pelasgic wave at the EBA cusp..but concede the evidence here may be equally northern but pre-Pelasgic, as well as Pre EBA (I.E. Neolithic).  Is it possible that these influences via Taurian or N/NE Pontic impact on the Tyrrhenian influence John keeps insisting on?  I have to rethink Italy as Tyrrhenian center, and consider N/NE Pontic: with Italian Tyrrhenia as resilient vestige of Neolithic North Eastern influence.  John? 

My thoughts on a major cult center located in the Crimea have solidified. We tend to underestimate the power of religion, and how a cult center can influence even an intrusive people's views. We know of the great cult centers of Dodona and Delphi; we know Odhinn had a very major center located where Uppsala cathedral, only gothic cathedral in Scandinavia, now stands. There is that oasis out in the western desert of Egypt (the name escapes me as I write -- Silwa?) which Alexander visited. There is Jerusalem too. Such centers have developed even in modern times, as with Lourdes -- even non-Catholics visit the shrine seeking a 'cure'.

 

Pagan cults with hereditary priestess-hoods are well-attested (the daughter of the current priestess becomes the next priestess). In Myceanean Greece, the king was king only by virtue his wife: his son-in-law would be the next king. His wife was very often the priestess.

 

We also have to remember that the distinction between the goddess herself was oftentimes vague, at least to our modern sensibilities. When Sabine posted about the Homer's lustral bathtub on Ageanet, I did some lookups on the word, but never managed to post it. But, whenever you look at the text (all but one are from Homer, and all but one of these are from the Odyssey), the goddess -- or her representative -- is present. Nausicaa was the goddess's representative! Athena herself is there when Oddysseus takes his bath (along with Penelope's old serving maid).

 

Patriarchal IEs or no, the goddess had her powers. When our standard-model steppe nomads came into contact with goddess-cults, they were influenced. They did not really change their views on the position of women, but they clearly recognized the 'holiness' of the situation. The goddess and her representative were respected, even revered. Some of the nastiest of nasty modern-day male chauvinist pigs are fervent devotees of the BVM ('Blessed Virgin Mary').

 

I think it is fair to say a VERY major cult center of Artemis was located in the Crimea, a center with deeply ancient roots. It is also probably fair to say this center had widespread connections. In my earlier post, I mentioned the Greek city which, for 1000 years, sent priestesses of Artemis to Troy -- not at the behest of the Trojans, but because this is what the goddess herself apparently wanted. A '' branch temple " of a major cult by definition has transported the cult from one locale to another; the idea that they also transported hereditary priestesses too is not the least bit out of line. Such connections between temples can persist for a very long time. The modern analogue is 'apostolic succession' as regards bishops.

 

As you all know, I'm fascinated by Leda's offspring. The Laconian/Spartan recension of the underlying IE myth is the standard one. Iphigenia is either Helen's daughter or Clytemnestra's daughter. With the former, the Divine Twins are her uncles (and the sequence of events, as we have them, makes more sense with this being the case). We are close to at least one (and probably a conflation of several ) of the various versions of the Divine IE Celestial Family mingled with some non-IE ideas.

 

Who is Iphigenia? The daughter of Lady Sun and Lord Moon? Of Sky Father and Lady Sun? Is she the actual goddess? Is she the IE Artemis, with her uncles being the twin stallions of of the chariot of her mother, the sun? Was Helen originally just a sun-maiden or was she the sun herself? Such questions!

 

Aside from my speculations, we need to pay attention to north-south religious influences. The ancient literature clearly indicates the importance of Crimean/Tauridian Artemis. The mythological references, vague as they are, clearly point to religious connections with the north shore of the Black Sea. The proto-Greeks brought their religion with them, and the suggestion is they kept alive, in some degree and for a very long time, the religious connections, the 'apostolic succession' of their religion.

 

Mark.