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Author Topic: Demeter or Artemis Perasia?  (Read 1355 times)

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Offline moonmoth

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Demeter or Artemis Perasia?
« on: November 24, 2006, 04:43:47 am »
One of the joys of collecting ancient coins is that I can have coins depicting characters from the stories I read as a child.  This one, an AE19 from Anazarbos in Cilicia, shows on its obverse Persephone.  I liked the story of Persephone, her kidnap by Hades, the sorrow of her mother and the desolation that resulted, and the pomegranate seeds she should not have eaten.  (And there's a terrific pre-Raphaelite painting by Rosetti, of Proserpine eating the pomegranate, which I have a poster of: http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/main/courses/classics150/museum150/persephone/Proserpine%20(Rosetti,%201864).htm
)

In front of Persephone are corn and poppy, symbolising that when she comes to the upper earth in spring, her mother is happy and the crops grow.

But who is on the reverse?  The dealer I bought it from identified this figure as Demeter, and with the torch and the connection with Persephone, that makes sense.  But I found this one on Coin Archives:

[DEAD LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]

The same coin, only a year earlier, and there, she is identified as Artemis Perasia, an interesting deity who would appear to make sense on a coin from Cilicia.  

Which is right?  (And is that really the elusive polos she is wearing?)

"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline slokind

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Re: Demeter or Artemis Perasia?
« Reply #1 on: November 24, 2006, 02:03:33 pm »
First, Cilician iconic types are not quite like most Greek iconic types, and though the polos is not elusive (like kouros it is an ancient word that is used as a technical term, and I have repeatedly posted the wooden statuette of Hera from Samos to illustrate it), this headdress differs from what is called a polos, in any useful usage, being rather conical, not cylindrical.  Since we do not know what they called their goddess, we can only say that of the two on this coin she seems to be the elder, more matronly, goddess of the two, the other the 'corn maiden' (U.S. grain girl), so that as a pair they either are, or are like, Demeter and Persephone, both deities with identities much wider (and you might say deeper) than the Eleusinian narrative.  Or else, they are a Demeter look-alike and an Artemis that herself looks like a Demeter.  And it is not only in Cilicia where there are forms of Artemis that look rather like Demeter.  I think that to ask which name and epithet is 'right' and which 'wrong' is not an appropriate approach to this question.  Rather, keep searching (there may be no real answer, however, since any religious texts that the Cilician cities had were not copied in monasteries that survived all the historical cleansings, if indeed there were anything like an Homeric Hymn in Cilicia.  I hate recommending something that demands so much scholarly control and updating on our part, but I'd look in the indexes of all seven volumes of A. B. Cook's "Zeus", if I were you, just to see if there's anything there.  Don't be misled by the title; precious little of that work is specifically about Zeus.  Even if there is a whole paragraph in the Kleine Pauly, it may only define the School of research that its author adheres to so would be only the beginning for research.
Pat L.
On the Greek peninsula, Persephone, as a girl, is usually unveiled, but at Locri (e.g.) as consort of Hades she is veiled...

Offline moonmoth

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Re: Demeter or Artemis Perasia?
« Reply #2 on: November 24, 2006, 02:54:25 pm »
Thanks, Pat.  It seems that the skills used to identify Roman coin types are only a primer for the wider world of Hellenic types.

I referred to the polos as "elusive" because it is named incorrectly in many, many coin attributions, almost as many as "modius."  I have seen the wonderful example you posted, so I know you know what one is, but almost everyone else seem to have found something different and given it that name.  As with this one!

So, then, I can't really call these Demeter and Persephone, but they might represent similar mythic types, and perhaps the same sort of story was told about them.  Which needs research!  I'll put that on my list.  I will have some time for this next year.

"Corn maiden" sounds like a girl with wheat or barley woven in her hair, whereas "grain girl" sounds like someone in charge of a silo.  But that's just my Euro-centric view ...
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

 

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