Persephone

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Persephone

In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Persephone (; Kore or Cora) was the embodiment of the Earth's fertility at the same time that she was the Queen of the Underworld

Greek underworld

The Greek underworld is a general term used to describe the various realms of Greek mythology which were believed to lie beneath the earth or beyond the horizon....
, the kore (or young maiden), and the parthenogenic

Parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is an asexual form of reproduction found in females where growth and development of embryos or seeds occurs without fertilization by a male....
daughter of Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
and, in later Classical myths, a daughter of Demeter and Zeus

Zeus

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
when he becomes the deity that governs the underworld.

The figure of Persephone is well-known today.

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In Greek mythology

Greek mythology

Greek underworld

Parthenogenesis

Parthenogenesis is an asexual form of reproduction found in females where growth and development of embryos or seeds occurs without fertilization by a male....
daughter of Demeter

Demeter

Zeus

Hades

Maiden

Maiden may refer to:* Maiden or maid, a female virgin or any young female* Maidenhead or maidenhood, virginity* Maiden name, the family name carried by a woman before marriage: see married and maiden names...
, a mother's grief over her abduction, and great joy after her daughter is returned. It is also cited frequently as a paradigm of myths that explain natural processes, with the descent and return of the goddess bringing about the change of seasons.

In Greek art, Persephone is invariably portrayed robed. She may be carrying a sheaf of grain and smiling demurely with the "Archaic smile

Archaic smile

The Archaic smile was used by Greek Archaic sculptors, especially in the second quarter of the sixth century BCE, possibly to suggest that their subject was alive, and infused with a sense of well-being....
" of the Kore

Kore (sculpture)

Kore is the name given to a type of ancient Greek sculpture of the Archaic period in Greece.There are multiple theories on who they represent, and as to whether they represent mortals or deities - one theory is that they represent Persephone the daughter in the triad of the Mother Goddess cults or votary figures to attend the maiden godde...
of Antenor

Antenor

Antenor was an Athens sculptor, of the latter part of the 6th century BC. He was named after the Greek mythology figure also called Antenor . He was the creator of the joint statues of the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton, set up by the Athenians on the expulsion of Hippias ....
.

"Persephone" (Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
: ?e?sef???, Persephone) is her name in the Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek

Ionic Greek was a sub-dialect of the Attic-Ionic dialectal group of Ancient Greek .Ionic dialect appears to have spread originally from the Greek mainland across the Aegean at the time of the Dorian invasions, around the 11th Century B.C....
of epic

Epic poetry

An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation....
literature. The Homeric form of her name is Persephoneia (?e?sef??e?a, Persephoneia). In other dialects she was known under various other names: Persephassa (?e?sef?ssa), Persephatta (?e?sef?tta), or simply [Kore] (????, Kore, "girl, maiden" ) (when worshipped in the context of "Demeter and Kore"). Plato

Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
calls her Pherepapha (Fe??pafa) in his Cratylus

Cratylus (dialogue)

Cratylus is the name of a dialogue by Plato. Most modern scholars agree that it was written mostly during Plato's so-called middle period....
, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion".

The Romans

Rome

Rome is the capital city of Italy and Lazio, and is Italy's largest and most populous city, with 2,724,347 residents in an urban area of some ....
first heard of her from the Aeolian

Aeolians

The Aeolians were one of the three ancient Ancient Greece tribes. The name comes from the fact that they were considered to be descended from Aeolus ....
and Dorian cities of Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia

Magna Graecia is the name of the area in Southern Italy and Sicily that was Colonies in antiquity#Greek colonies by Greek settlers in the eighth century BC, who brought with them the lasting imprint of their Hellenic civilization....
, who used the dialectal variant Proserpine (???se?p???, Proserpine). Hence, in Roman mythology

Roman mythology

Roman mythology, or more appropriately, Latin mythology, refers to the mythology beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Rome....
she was called Proserpina

Proserpina

Proserpina is an ancient Roman goddess whose story is the basis of a Mythology of Springtime. Her Greek mythology goddess' equivalent is Persephone....
, and as such became an emblematic figure of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
. At Locri

Locri

Locri is a town and comune in the province of Reggio Calabria, Calabria, southern Italy. The name derives from the ancient Greek "Locris" ....
, perhaps uniquely, Persephone was the protector of marriage, a role usually assumed by Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
; in the iconography of votive plaques

Pinax

In the culture of ancient Greece and Magna Graecia, a pinax or a "board", denotes a votive tablet of painted wood, terracotta, marble or bronze that served as a votive deposit deposited in a sanctuary or as a memorial affixed within a burial chamber....
at Locri, her abduction and marriage to Hades served as an emblem of the marital state, children at Locri were dedicated to Proserpina, and maidens about to be wed brought their peplos
Peplos

A peplos is a body-length Ancient Greece garment worn by women in the years before 500 BC. The peplos is a tubular cloth, essentially, folded inside-out from the top about halfway down, so that what was the top of the tube is now at the waist and the bottom of the tube is about ankle-length....
to be blessed. In a Classical period text ascribed to Empedocles

Empedocles

Empedocles was a Hellenic civilization pre-Socratic philosopher and a citizen of Agrigentum, a Greek colony in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for being the origin of the cosmogenesis theory of the four classical elements....
, c. 490–430 BC, describing a correspondence between four deities and the classical elements, the name Nestis for water apparently refers to Persephone. "Now hear the fourfold roots of everything: enlivening Hera, Hades, shining Zeus. And Nestis, moistening mortal springs with tears".

Of the four deities of Empedocles's elements, it is the name of Persephone alone that is taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition against words, objects, actions, or discussions that are considered undesirable or offensive by a group, culture, society, or community....
— Nestis is a euphemistic cult title— for she was also the terrible [Queen of the Dead], whose name was not safe to speak aloud, who was euphemistically

Euphemism

A euphemism is a substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener, or in the case of #Doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker....
named simply as "Kore" or "the Maiden", a vestige of her archaic role as the deity ruling the underworld.

The Queen of the Underworld

There is an archaic role for Persephone as the dread queen of the Underworld, whose very name it was forbidden to speak. In the Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Hellenic civilization epic poetrys attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer....
, commonly dated circa 800 to 600 BC, when Odysseus

Odysseus

Odysseus or Ulysses , in Greek mythology , was a legendary Greeks king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....
goes to the Underworld, he refers to her as the Iron Queen. Her central myth, for all its emotional familiarity, was also the tacit context of the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis

Eleusinian Mysteries

The Eleusinian Mysteries were initiation ceremony held every year for the Cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance....
, which promised immortality to their awe-struck participants—an immortality in her world beneath the soil, feasting with the heroes who dined beneath her dread gaze.

The Abduction Myth

In the later Olympian pantheon of Classical Greece, Persephone is given a father: according to Hesiod

Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Theogony, Persephone was the daughter produced by the union of Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
and 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....
: "And he [Zeus] came to the bed of bountiful Demeter, who bore white-armed Persephone, stolen by Hades from her mother's side".

Unlike every other offspring of an Olympian pairing of deities, Persephone has no stable position at Olympus. Persephone used to live far away from the other deities, a goddess within Nature herself before the days of planting seeds and nurturing plants. In the Olympian telling, the gods Hermes

Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
, Ares

Ares

In Greek mythology, Ares is the son of Zeus and Hera. Though often referred to as the Twelve Olympians God of warfare, he is more accurately the god of bloodlust, or slaughter personified: "Ares is apparently an ancient abstract noun meaning throng of battle, war."...
, Apollo

Apollo

In Greek mythology and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and many-sided of the Twelve Olympians. The ideal of the kouros , Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more....
, and Hephaestus

Hephaestus

Hephaestus was a Greek god whose Roman equivalent was Vulcan . He was the god of technology, blacksmiths, craftsmen, artisans, sculpture, metals, metallurgy, Fire and volcanoes....
, had all wooed Persephone; but Demeter rejected all their gifts and hid her daughter away from the company of the Olympian deities. Thus, Persephone lived a peaceful life before she became the goddess

Goddess

A goddess is a female deity. Often deities are part of a polytheism system that includes several deities in a pantheon .Common associations of goddesses are the Earth goddess, the Mother Goddess, Love goddess, and the hearth goddess, reflecting historical gender roles....
of the underworld, which, according to Olympian mythographers, did not occur until Hades

Hades

Nymph

In Greek mythology, a nymph is any member of a large class of mythological entities in human form. They were typically associated with a particular location or landform....
s—, Athena

Athena

In Greek mythology, Athena is the shrewd companion of Hero and the goddess of Hero endeavour. She is the virgin patron of Athens, which built the Parthenon to worship her....
, and Artemis

Artemis

In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth/virginity/fertility, the hunt and was often depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.....
, the Homeric hymn

Homeric Hymns

The thirty-three anonymous Homeric Hymns celebrating individual gods are a collection of ancient Greek language hymns, "Homeric" in the sense that they employ the same epic meter? dactylic hexameter? as the Iliad and Odyssey, use many similar formulas and are couched in the same dialect....
says—, or Leucippe

Leucippe

In Greek mythology, Leucippe is the name of the following individuals:*One of the Minyades, three sisters who were driven by Dionysus to kill Hippasus , the son of Leucippe...
, or Oceanids— in a field in Enna

Enna

Enna is a city located in the center of Sicily in the province of Enna, towering above the surrounding countryside. It has earned a few nicknames, such as "belvedere" or the "ombelico" of Sicily....
when Hades came to abduct her, bursting through a cleft in the earth. Later, the nymphs were changed by Demeter into the Siren

Siren

In Greek mythology, the Sirens were three dangerous bird-women, portrayed as seductresses, who lived on an island called Sirenum scopuli. In some later, rationalized traditions the literal geography of the "flowery" island of Anthemoessa, or Anthemusa, is fixed: sometimes on Cape Pelorum and at others in the Sirenusian islands near Paestum...
s for not having interfered. Life came to a standstill as the devastated Demeter

Demeter

File:Demeter in horse chariot w daughter kore 83d40m wikiC Tempio Y di Selinunte sec VIa.JPGDemeter , in Greek mythology, is the Goddess of cereal and fertility, the pure....
, goddess of the Earth

Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
, searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Helios

Helios

Helios is the god of sun.In Greek mythology the sun was personified as Helios . Homer often calls him simply Titan or Hyperion , while Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn separate him as a son of the Titans Hyperion and Theia or Euryphaessa and brother of the goddesses Selene, the moon, and Eos, the dawn....
, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened.

Fredericleighton Thereturnofperspephone(1891)

Finally, Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return Persephone. Before she was released to Hermes

Hermes

Pomegranate

The pomegranate is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or small tree growing to between five and eight metres tall. The pomegranate is native to the region from Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been cultivated and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean Basin region and the Caucasus since ancient times....
seeds, (seven, eight, or perhaps four according to the telling) which forced her to return to the underworld for a season each year. In some versions, Ascalaphus

Ascalaphus

In Greek mythology, two people share the name Ascalaphus .#Son of Acheron and Orphne. He told the other gods that Persephone had eaten a pomegranate in Hades....
informed the other deities that Persephone had eaten the pomegranate seeds. When Demeter and her daughter were united, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for some months each year, when Persephone returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm. This is an origin story

Origin myth

An origin myth is a myth that purports to describe the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the creation myth, which describes the creation of the world....
to explain the seasons.

In an earlier version, Hecate

Hecate

Hecate Hekate , or Hekat was originally a goddess of the wilderness and childbirth, naturalized early in Mycenaean Greece or in Thrace, but originating among the Carians of Anatolia, the region where most theophoric names invoking Hecate, such as Hecataeus or Hecatomnus, progenitor of Mausollus, are attested, and where Hekate re...
rescued Persephone. On an Attic red-figured

Red-figure pottery

Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Pottery of ancient Greece. It developed in Athens around 530 BC and remained in use until the late 3rd century BC....
bell krater

Krater

A krater was a vase used to mix wine and water. At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. They were quite large, so they were not easily portable when filled....
of ca 440 BCE in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile, New York City in New York City, USA....
, Persephone is rising as if up stairs from a cleft in the earth, while Hermes stands aside; Hecate, holding two torches, looks back as she leads her to the enthroned Demeter.

In the earliest known version the dreaded goddess, Persephone, was herself Queen of the Underworld (Burkert or Kerenyi).

In some versions, Demeter forbids the earth to produce; in others she is so busy looking for Persephone that she neglects the earth, or her duties as the Earth which she represents, and in some the depth of her despair causes nothing to grow.

This myth also can be interpreted as an allegory of ancient Greek marriage rituals. The Classical Greeks felt that marriage

Marriage

Marriage is a social, spirituality, or law union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock....
was a sort of abduction of the bride by the groom from the bride's family, and this myth may have explained the origins of the marriage ritual. The more popular etiological

Etiology

Etiology is the study of Causality. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek , aitiologia, "giving a reason for" .The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in philosophy, physics, psy...
explanation of the seasons may have been a later interpretation.

The tenth-century Byzantine

Byzantine

The word Byzantine may refer to:Topics directly related to the Byzantine Empire* A citizen of Byzantine Empire, or native Greeks during the Middle Ages ....
encyclopedia Suda
Suda

The Suda or Souda is a massive 10th century Byzantine Empire Medieval Greek historical encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world. It is an Encyclopedia lexicon with 30,000 entries, many drawing from ancient sources that have since been lost, and often derived from medieval Christian compilers....
, s.v. "Macaria

Macaria

In Greek mythology, Macaria was one of the Heracleidae, children of Heracles. She was in Heracleidae , a play by Euripides. She and her brothers and sisters hid from Eursytheus in Athens, Greece, ruled by King Demophon....
", introduces a goddess of a blessed afterlife

Afterlife

The afterlife is the concept of a continued existence for the soul, spirit or mind of a being after biological death. The major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics....
assured to Orphic mystery initiates. This Macaria is asserted to be the daughter of Hades

Hades

Persephone, the Iron Queen

In one version of the myth, Persephone, as Queen of Hades, only mercifully relinquished a subject once; because the music of Orpheus

Orpheus

Orpheus was a legendary figure, probably from Thracian origin, venerated by the Greeks and Thracians of the Classical age as a chief among poets and musicians, and the perfector of the lyre invented by Hermes....
was so hauntingly sad, she allowed Orpheus to bring his wife Eurydice

Eurydice

In Greek mythology, Eurydice was an oak nymph or a sweet maiden. She was the wife of Orpheus. Orpheus loved her dearly; on their wedding day, Orpheus played songs filled with happiness as his bride danced through the meadow....
back to the land of the living, as long as she walked behind him and he never tried to look at her face until they reached the surface. Orpheus agreed, but failed, looking back at the very end to make sure his wife was following, and he lost Eurydice forever.

Persephone also figures in the story of Adonis

Adonis

Adonis is a figure of West Semitic origin, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who enters Greek mythology in Hellenistic culture....
, the Syrian consort of Aphrodite

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
. When Adonis was born, Aphrodite took him under her wing, seducing him with the help of Helene

Helene (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Helene may refer to:*Helen of Troy*A friend of Aphrodite's. Helene helped her seduce Adonis.*A daughter of Tityrus and an Amazons. She fought Achilles and died after he seriously wounded her....
, her friend, and was entranced by his unearthly beauty. She gave him to Persephone to watch over, but Persephone also was amazed at his beauty and refused to give him back. The argument between the two goddesses was settled, either by Calliope

Calliope

File:Calliope.jpgIn Greek mythology, Calliope was the muse of heroic poetry, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, and is now best known as Homer's muse, the inspiration for the Iliad and the Odyssey....
, or by Zeus

Zeus

Aphrodite

Aphrodite is the classical Greek mythology goddess of love, sex, and beauty. According to Greek oral poet Hesiod, she was born when Uranus was castrated by his son Cronus....
, four months with Persephone and four months of the year on his own. This later myth placed a god into the position of a goddess in the cycle of the seasons.

When Hades pursued a nymph named Minthe

Minthe

In Greek mythology, Minthe was a naiad associated with the river Cocytus. She was dazzled by Hades' golden chariot and was about to be seduced by him had not Queen Persephone intervened and metamorphosed Minthe into the pungently sweet-smelling mentha, which some call hedyosmus....
, Persephone turned her into a mint

Mentha

Mentha is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the Family Lamiaceae . Species within Mentha have a cosmopolitan distribution distribution across Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and North America....
plant.

Persephone was the object of Pirithous

Pirithous

In Greek mythology, Pirithous - ?e??????? was the King of the Lapiths in Thessaly and husband of Hippodamia , at whose wedding the famous Centauromachy occurred....
' affections. In a late myth, Pirithous and Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
, his friend, pledged to marry daughters of Zeus

Zeus

Helen

In Greek mythology, Helen , better known as Helen of Sparta later Helen of Troy, was the daughter of Zeus and Leda , wife of King Menelaus of Sparta and sister of Castor and Pollux, Castor and Pollux and Clytemnestra....
and together they kidnapped her and decided to hold onto her until she was old enough to marry. Pirithous chose Persephone. They left Helen with Theseus' mother, Aethra

Aethra

In Greek mythology, Aethra or Aithra was a name applied to three individuals:...
, and traveled to the underworld, domain of Persephone and her husband, Hades

Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
. Hades pretended to offer them hospitality and set a feast; as soon as the pair sat down, snakes coiled around their feet and held them there. Edith Hamilton called it a "Chair of Forgetfulness" that they sat upon. It also should be noted that Heracles

Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....
was able to save Theseus from this fate when he was in the Underworld, but Hades forced Pirithous to remain seated forever.

Persephone and her mother Demeter were often referred to as aspects of the same Earth goddess, and were called "the Demeters" or simply "the goddesses".

Persephone in modern scholarship

Persephone before the Greeks?

Some modern scholars have argued that the cult of Persephone was a continuation of Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic period was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 Before the Christian Era in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age....
or Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 27th century BC to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greece culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete....
goddess-worship. Among classicists, this thesis has been argued by Gunther Zuntz (Zuntz 1973) and cautiously included by Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert , a scholar of Greek mythology and Cult , is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States....
in his definitive Greek Religion.

More daringly, the mythologist Karl Kerenyi

Karl Kerényi

One of the founders of modern studies in Greek mythology, K?roly Ker?nyi was born in Temesv?r, Hungary , and then lived in Hungary....
has identified Persephone with the nameless "mistress of the labyrinth

Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos....
" at Knossos

Knossos

Knossos , also known as the Knossos Palace is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political center of the Minoan civilization and culture....
from the Bronze Age Minoan civilization on Crete

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? ....
that flourished from 1700 BC.

On the other hand, the hypothesis of an Aegean cult of the Earth Mother has come under some criticism in recent years. For more on both sides of the controversy, see Mother Goddess

Mother goddess

A mother goddess is a term used to refer to any goddess associated with motherhood, fertility, creation or the bountiful embodiment of the Earth....
.

Life-death-rebirth

Inspired by James Frazer

James Frazer

Sir James George Frazer , was a Scotland social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion....
, 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....
, and modern mythologers, some scholars have labeled Persephone a life-death-rebirth deity

Life-death-rebirth deity

The category life-death-rebirth deity also known as a "dying-and-rising" or "Resurrection" deity is a convenient means of classifying the many divinities in world mythology or religion who are born, suffer death, an eclipse, or other death-like experience, pass a phase in the underworld among the dead, and are subsequently reborn, in either a...
.

Consorts and children assigned in Classical myths

Heracles
Heracles

In Greek mythology, Heracles or Herakles meaning "glory of Hera", or "Glorious through Hera" Alcides or Alcaeus " was a hero, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus....

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....
(Some say that Heracles is the father of Zagreus by Persephone but it is usually said that Zeus is his father)

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....

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....
(according to one tradition. See Orphic mysteries) (although sometimes thought of as son of Demeter and not Persephone)

Hades
Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....

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....
(according to one tradition, under the name Zeus Katachthonios)
Melinoe
Melinoe

Melinoe was the ancient Greek mythology goddess of ghosts, and propitiation-offerings made to the deceased. She wandered the earth every night with a train of ghosts, scaring anyone in their path....
(according to one tradition)
Macaria
Macaria

In Greek mythology, Macaria was one of the Heracleidae, children of Heracles. She was in Heracleidae , a play by Euripides. She and her brothers and sisters hid from Eursytheus in Athens, Greece, ruled by King Demophon....

Adonis
Adonis

Adonis is a figure of West Semitic origin, where he is a central cult figure in various mystery religions, who enters Greek mythology in Hellenistic culture....
(according to one tradition, though this is sometimes thought of as a misinterpretation of Aidoneus, an alternate name of Hades
Hades

Hades refers both to the ancient Greek underworld, the abode of Hades, and to the god of the underworld. Hades in Homer referred just to the god; the genitive case , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades"....
)
Hermes
Hermes

Hermes is the messenger of the gods in Greek mythology. An Twelve Olympians, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of thieves and road travelers, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures, of invention, of general commerce, and of the cunni...
(according to one tradition)

The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica account of the myth

"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Pluto, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Pluto to let Persephone go. However, before he let her go Pluto made her eat the seed of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him forever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Pluto beneath the earth.... As wife of Pluto, she sent spectre

Keres (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Ceres were female death-spirits. The Keres were daughters of Nyx , and as such the sisters of Fate , Doom , Death and Sleep , Strife , Old Age , Divine Retribution , Charon , and other personifications....
s, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men."

Persephone in astronomy

Persephone
399 Persephone

399 Persephone is a typical Asteroid belt asteroid.It was discovered by Max Wolf on February 23, 1895 in Heidelberg....
is the name of a Main belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets....
asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
with a diameter of 49.1 km, discovered by Max Wolf

Max Wolf

Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf was a German astronomer, a pioneer of astrophotography.He was born in Heidelberg, Germany. In 1888 he was awarded a Ph.D....
in 1895 in Heidelberg.

Persephone

The Queen of the Underworld

The Abduction Myth

Persephone, the Iron Queen

Persephone in modern scholarship

Persephone before the Greeks?

Life-death-rebirth

Consorts and children assigned in Classical myths

The 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica account of the myth

Persephone in astronomy

See also

External links