CLA 2323 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Greek Underworld, Homeric Hymns, Triptolemus
13 May 2018
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CLA2323- Lecture 4- May 10, 2018
Today:
• Introducing TA Caelen Salisbury-White
• Midterm Exam is Tuesday- ol hat is oered the ed of toda’s leture ad tetook
readings)
• The goddess Demeter
• The Phoenicians of Lebanon
• The Greek Underworld and the after life – Buxton pg 206-213, 52,30, 72-73, 89-90, 158-159
• The boundary between gods and humans- Buxton pp 88-93*
• The thee of Ciilizatio s saager or order of haos
Midterm
• Part 1 short answer- small sentences
• Part 2- long answer- paragraph answers
• You will be given more questions then you need to answer for variety
• No m/c given, know your material
• Both lecture and READINGS are important- heavy emphasis on the textbook
• Spelling counts- use whatever system you want but spell correctly- points will be lost for
incorrect spelling
The goddess Demeter
• Covered on page 72-73
• Goddess of agriculture
• Teaches it to humans, teaches it through heroes, she teaches it to Triptolemos (hero), he is the
first farmer, he teaches it to other humans- he is a hero who is not military
• More specifically she is the goddess of grain- wheat and barley- wheat tastes better but it is
harder to grow- Greeks relied heavily on barley- no we mostly only drink barley (booze)
• In the text it says she is the goddess of corn (British for wheat) - however corn means wheat in
this case and not what we know as corn (maze)
• Beloved goddess of the countryside
• The boys name Demetrios is a derivative to the name Demeter- meaning belonging to Demeter
• The Homeric Hymn to Demeter- story is summarized in the textbook
• Demeter’s daughter is Persephone- she is a teenage girl (16 or so) – she is out with class mates
one day when the Earth opens up when Hades emerges on his chariot in which he then grabs
her and rides off back to the underworld with her – this was not known to others- no one knows
where Persephone went
• Demeter’s symbol is a torch- this is because she apparently carried the torch all around the
world day and night in search for her daughter- she comes to a town of Elevsis
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• Disguised as a human she falls to the steps of the king and the queen takes pity of her and offer
her work as a nanny for their baby- Demeter falls in love with the baby and decides to make him
immortal as a thanks- burns baby to burn away his mortal self- mom catches her and Demeter
shows her true form- a temple is built for her
• Demeter in her grief stops wandering and stops the crops from growing- the world is alarmed-
prays to Zeus- ho does’t like the order eig thro out of haos- so he makes the crops go
back- and he tells Hades to return her back
• “ie she has eate food of the uderorld she is oud to Hades food se akes the
man and wife) – thus an agreement has been made 8months of a year with her mother-
4months (winter) with her husband in the underworld
• While with her mother she is a hild, ith Hades ature oa
Phoinikes – The red people
• The red colour was significant
• Painting found in Egypt- depicts ship coming from Lebanon
• The red de eer died
• Creating bright colours and dye were a symbol of wealth because of the effort that went into
the creation
• Only the extremely wealthy (or royalty) could afford red and purple textiles- this is why until
recently those colours are associated with royalty
• Brilliant sea farers
• Gaddir- meaning the place with the wall
• Traded with Spain and the Greeks
• The Greeks came into contact with them by 900 B.C, often mingled on the island of Cyprus
(important one to know for the map quiz**)
• Cyprus today has a division of language of Turkish and Greek
• Worshipped their own gods- one of which is Astarte
• She was a queenly figure depicted as protective, high achieving, and sexual
• She had a human bf called Tammuz- it is dangerous to be a bf of a god- thus he died
• The women would ritually grieve his death as if he was their own son or bf- they would cry, rip
clothing, hair etc, throw flowers into river- Greeks decided to copycat
• Name for lord is Adon- the Greeks copied the story of Tammuz as a doomed human bf- they
even went as far as copying his title of Adon
This leads us to the story of Adon and Aphrodite
• Often associated with the island of Cyprus
• Story of her birth- emerges from the sea- birthed from the chopped of genitals (cut off by his
son Kronos )of Zeus grandfather (Ouranos) (however she has multiple father stories, debate on
whether she is daughter of Zeus or not ) she emerged from the sea onto the land of Cyprus
• She is often given the title the Cypriot Cyprus
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find more resources at oneclass.com
