Korybantes

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Korybantes

The Korybantes (Ancient Greek

Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
: ) were the crested dancers who worshiped the Phrygian goddess Cybele

Cybele

Cybele , was the Phrygian deification of the Earth Mother. As with Greek Gaia , or her Minoan civilization equivalent Rhea , Cybele embodies the fertile Earth, a goddess of caverns and mountains, walls and fortresses, nature, wild animals ....
with drumming and dancing. They are also called the Kurbantes in Phrygia

Phrygia

In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now modern-day Turkey. The Phrygians initially lived in the Southern Balkans; according to Herodotus, under the name of Bryges, changing it to Phruges after their final migration to Anatolia, via the Hellespont....
, and Corybants in an older English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
transcription. The Kuretes were the nine dancers who venerate Rhea

Rhea (mythology)

This page is about the Greek mythological figure. For the bird, see Rhea .Rhea was the Titan daughter of Ouranos , the sky, and Gaia , the earth, in Classical Greece mythology....
, the Cretan

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
counterpart of Cybele.

These male dancers in armor, kept time to a drum and the rhythmic stamping of their feet.

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The Korybantes (Ancient Greek

Ancient greek language

#REDIRECT Ancient Greek...
: ) were the crested dancers who worshiped the Phrygian goddess Cybele

Cybele

Phrygia

English language

Rhea (mythology)

This page is about the Greek mythological figure. For the bird, see Rhea .Rhea was the Titan daughter of Ouranos , the sky, and Gaia , the earth, in Classical Greece mythology....
, the Cretan

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands and the List of islands in the Mediterranean largest island in the Mediterranean Sea at 8,336 km? ....
counterpart of Cybele.

Corybantian Dance From Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities (saltatio Article)

These male dancers in armor, kept time to a drum and the rhythmic stamping of their feet. Dance, according to Greek thought, was one of the civilizing activities, like wine-making or music. The dance in armor (the "Pyrrhic dance" or Pyrriche (???????)) was a male coming-of-age initiation ritual linked to a warrior victory celebration. The French

France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
classicist Henri Jeanmaire has shown that both the Kouretes (?????te?) and Cretan Zeus (called "the greatest kouros" in Cretan hymns) were intimately connected with the transition of young men into manhood in Cretan cities (in Couroi et Courètes: essai sur l'éducation spartiate et sur les rites d'adolescence dans l'antiquité hellénique, Lille, 1939).

The Phrygian

Phrygian

Phrygian can refer to:*A person from Phrygia*Phrygian cap once characteristic of the region* Phrygian language*Phrygian mode in music* Phrygian Valley, a historic location in northwestern Turkey...
Korybantes were often confused with other ecstatic male confraternities, such as the Idaean Dactyls

Dactyl (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Dactyls were the archaic race of small phallus male beings associated with the Mother Goddess, whether as Cybele or Rhea ....
or the Cretan Kouretes, spirit-youths (kouroi) who acted as guardians of the infant Zeus

Zeus

Zeus in Greek mythology is the king of the gods, the ruler of Mount Olympus and the god of the sky father and List of thunder gods. His symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull , and oak....
. In the Greek telling of Zeus's birth, the Kouretes' ritual clashing spears and shields were interpreted as intended to drown out the infant god's cries, and prevent his discovery by his father Cronus

Cronus

Cronus or Kronos, , was the leader and the youngest of the first generation of Titan , divine descendants of Gaia , the earth, and Uranus , the sky....
. Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso was a Roman Empire poet known as Ovid to the English language-speaking world, who wrote about love, seduction, and Roman mythology transformation....
in Metamorphoses says they were born from rainwater, Ouranos fertilizing Gaia

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
, which might connect them with the Pelasgian Hyades

Hyades (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Hyades , are a sisterhood of nymphs that bring rain. They do not appear in Roman mythology, where Pluvius is an epithet of Jupiter , as "he who sends rain"....
. Korybantes or Kouretes also presided over the infancy of Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
, another god who was born as a babe, and of Zagreus

Zagreus

In Greek mythology, Zagreus was identified with the god Dionysus and was worshipped by followers of Orphism who believed him to be an ancient god of the Minoans....
, a Cretan child of Zeus. The wild ecstasy of their cult can be compared to the female Maenads who followed Dionysus.

The scholar Jane Ellen Harrison

Jane Ellen Harrison

Jane Ellen Harrison was a ground-breaking United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland classics scholar, linguistics and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology....
wrote that besides being guardians, nurturers, and initiators of the infant Zeus, the Kouretes were primitive magicians and seers. She also wrote that they were metal workers and that metallurgy was considered an almost magical art. There were several "tribes" of Korybantes, including the Cabeiri

Cabeiri

In Greek mythology, the Cabeiri, were a group of enigmatic chthonic deities. They were worshiped in a mystery cult closely associated with that of Hephaestus, centered in the north Aegean islands of Lemnos and possibly Samothrace ?at the Samothrace temple complex? and at Thebes, Greece....
, the Korybantes Euboioi, the Korybantes Samothrakioi. Hoplodamos and his Gigantes

Gigantes

In Greek mythology, the Gigantes or, commonly, Giants, were a race of giants, children of Gaia or Gaea, who were fertilized by the blood of Uranus_, after being castration by his son Cronus....
were counted among Korybantes, and Titan

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
Anytos

Anytos

In Greek mythology, Anytos was one of the offspring of the titan . He is thought to have remained neutral in the titanomachy as he was not cast in Tartaros....
was considered a Kourete.

Sources

Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison

Jane Ellen Harrison was a ground-breaking United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland classics scholar, linguistics and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology....
. Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912.

Korybantes

Sources

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