Demeter
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2019-02-02

Demeter, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8230 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Agricultural_goddesses
#Chthonic_beings
#Demeter
#Fertility_goddesses
#Primordial_teachers
#Divine_women_of_Zeus
#Rape_of_Persephone
#Nature_goddesses
Demeter

In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Demeter (; Attic: "Dēmḗtēr", ; Doric: "Dāmā́tēr") is the goddess of the grain, agriculture, harvest, growth, and nourishment, who presided over grains and the fertility of the earth. Her cult titles include Sito (), "she of the Grain", as the giver of food or grain, and Thesmophoros (, "thesmos": divine order, unwritten law; , "phoros": bringer, bearer), "Law-Bringer", as a mark of the civilized existence of agricultural society.

Though Demeter is often described simply as the goddess of the harvest, she presided also over the sacred law, and the cycle of life and death. She and her daughter Persephone were the central figures of the Eleusinian Mysteries that predated the Olympian pantheon. In the Linear B Mycenean Greek tablets of c. 1400–1200 BC found at Pylos, the "two queens and the king" may be related with Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon. Her Roman equivalent is Ceres.

It is possible that Demeter appears in Linear A as "da-ma-te" on three documents (AR Zf 1 and 2, and KY Za 2), all three apparently dedicated in religious situations and all three bearing just the name ("i-da-ma-te" on AR Zf 1 and 2). It is unlikely that Demeter appears as "da-ma-te" in a Linear B (Mycenean Greek) inscription (PY En 609); the word , "da-ma-te", probably refers to "households". On the other hand, , "si-to-po-ti-ni-ja", "Potnia of the Grain", is regarded as referring to her Bronze Age predecessor or to one of her epithets.

Demeter's character as mother-goddess is identified in the second element of her name "meter" () derived from Proto-Indo-European "*méh₂tēr" (mother). In antiquity, different explanations were already proffered for the first element of her name. It is possible that "Da" (), a word w...