|
Ariadne "Ruled by priestess-queens for two millennia, it was in Crete, for the last time in recorded history [that] a spirit of harmony between men and women as joyful,equal participants in life [pervades]," says Eisler. Minoan culture was a Goddess-worshiping inheritance from Egypt, later passed on to Mycenaean Greece and Philistine Canaan. Ariadne, the High Fruitful Mother, is a lunar fertility Goddess whose athletic prowess evolved into huntress Diana and many-breasted Ephesian Artemis. Serpents, symbolic of rebirth, were ritually handled by her oracle-giving priestesses, whose bare-breasted costumes suggest the sacred role of sexuality in the culture. Trances and ecstatic dance celebrated the annual rebirth of Ariadne's son-lover Dionysos (Deo Knossos). The sudden end of Crete's peaceful matrilineal Golden Age through flood and earthquake gave rise to the Atlantis legend. (Image will be terracotta color, not hand-painted as shown)
|