The Sword Dance of the KuretesHere is the next mythological interesting coin. I know its conservation is not exceeding
good F or so but in EF this
type is hardly affordable. It is said this
type is
rare, only about a Dozen known!
Thracia, Mesambria,
Gordian II. and
Tranquillina, AD 241-244
AE 27, 12.71g
obv. AVT KM ANT
GORDIANOC AL
CEB / TRANKVLLIN
Confronted busts of
Gordian III, draped and laureate, r., and
Tranquillina, draped
and diademed, l.
rev. MECAM - BRIANWN
Two Kuretes, helmeted, in short
Chiton and shoes, performing the Pyrrhic dance.
Standing turned away, but looking at each another, holding each a round
shield above their
head and beating with short swords against it.
SNG Fitzwilliam 1560
This coin leads us to the great Creation Myths of the Olympic gods. Like many others
Zeus was the son of Rhea and
Kronos. Because
Kronos frightened to be displaced by
his children he was gorging them. When he must spew them out because Rhea has given him a
stone wrapped up in a napkin to gorge she escaped with the little
Zeus to
Crete where she hides him in a cave of the Ida Mountains. To mask the crying of the infant to
Kronos, the Kuretes were performing a clanking weapon dance in front of the cave with shields and swords. So
Zeus was saved. Where the Kuretes came and who they are is not absolute clear. Sometimes it is said they are autochthon, sometimes the children of Rhea or of the Idaic Daktyles. Usually they were 2 or 3 Kuretes but sometimes 9, 10 or at least 52!
In historic times the cult of the Kuretes was known in whole
Greece in connection with the cult of Rhea. Its ceremonies are mainly the perfomance of the Pyrrhic Dance (greek pyrrhiche) by priests to the companionship of hymns and flute musique. This should simulate the original deeds of the Kuretes.
A problem is arising from the fact that this dance has a strong simularity to the dances of the Korybantes. These are known as attendants of the Great Mother Kybele. In the beginning these two were strictly differentiated; the dance of the Korybantes was much more orgiastic, the dance of the Kuretes more moderate. But with the diffusion of the Kybele cult to
Greece both are mixed together. Therefore it is difficult to discriminate between the various names under which these deities appear. A plausible theory from Georg Kaibel, Göttingen 1901, is seeing the Kuretes together with the Korybantes, the Kabires, the Idaic Daktyles and Telchines only as names for the same entities at different times and different places. Kabel suggests that they have a phallic meaning too and that they were in the beginning primitive
fertility deities which have sunk to an indeterminate and subordinate position due to the development and formalization of the greek religion. So in historic times they have survived only as half divine, half demonic beings which were worshipped only in connection to the various forms of the great Goddess of Nature.
Background:
Kuretes = '
Youth, young warrior', a demonized collective of a primitive 'Männerbund' with hoplitic and artistic-orchestral orientation in the region of
Greece and
Asia Minor, as armed attendance of the Anatolic Mothergoddess a male equivalent to the Amazones. On
Crete companions of the Minoic Birth-Godess Diktynna, Parhedroi of the Mother of Mountains Rhea, obstetrician of
Zeus Kretagenes, they protect as Parastatai the holy
act of birth by the
apotropaic noise of their ritual weapon dances. The dict. Hymnos of
Zeus appreciate them expressly in this function. It is allowed to equalize them with the 'daimones', which the Cretic
Zeus as 'megistos kouros' leads on
his procession through Dikte. This is suitable to the fact that the Kuretes on
Crete are regarded as protectors of rural
fertility and culture and
act in this character as oath gods of Cretic city contracts. In contrast to this the epitheta 'philopaigmones', 'orchesteres' and 'chalkaspides' indicate the martial-ecstatic moment of the Pyrrhiche or Prylis (to Lykic prulija = war) and refer, like the bronze cymbal of Ida, to the cult milieu of a
military strong Cretic-Minoic Youth-God which could be found in Kadmos or
Herakles too. The ecstasis is a bridge to the demonic flute players and cult dancers of the Anatolic Kybele, the Korybantes, and other essential equal mythic-demonic groups like Anakes, Daktyles, Dioskures or Kabires with initiation and expiation character.
As an addition a pic of the Ideon Andron Cave at the foot of the Psiloritis on
Crete which is said to be one of the caves where
Zeus was hidden.
http://www.crete.tournet.gr/Ideon_Andron_H_hle-si-1120-de.jspSources:
Immisch, Kureten (in Roschers Lexikon)
von Ranke -Graves,
Greek MythologyDer kleine
Pauly, Kureten
Hederich, Curetes
Kerenyi, Die Mythologie der Griechen
Best regards