Velchanos | |
---|---|
Tree | Oak |
Festivals | Velchania |
Parents | Mother Goddess |
Consort | Mother Goddess |
Equivalents | |
Greek equivalent | Zeus Adonis |
Roman equivalent | Jupiter |
Mesopotamian equivalent | Tammuz |
Velchanos is an ancient Minoan god associated with vegetation and worshipped in Crete. He was one of the main deities in the Minoan pantheon, alongside a Mother Goddess figure who appears to have been his mother and consort, with the two participating in an hieros gamos.
The cult of Velchanos was likely influenced by the Mesopotamian deity Dumuzid. Following the rise of Mycenaean Greece and contact with the Minoans, Velchanos' cult influenced that of Zeus, who was at times referred to by Greeks under the name Zeus Velchanos. Other possible influences include the Roman deity Vulcan.
According to Arthur Evans, a tree cult played one of the most important aspects of the Minoan religion in ancient Crete. In this cult, two deities were worshipped; one male and one female. [1] In this tree cult, while the Mother Goddess was viewed as a personification of tree-vegetation, the male god formed a "concrete image of the vegetation itself in the shape of a divine child or a youth", with the two forming a mother and child relationship. [2] Given the role of the hieros gamos between the two, it has been theorized that Velchanos was partially based on the Mesopotamian Dumuzid. [3]
The Minoans viewed Velchanos as less powerful than the goddess. [4]
At some point, the Mycenaean civilization came in contact with the Minoans and identified their own god Zeus with the Cretan god. [5] [6] This religious syncretism led to Zeus obtaining some of Velchanos' traits, with his mythology also being affected; henceforth, Zeus was stated to have been born in Crete and was often represented as a beardless youth. He was also venerated as Zeus Velchanos. [5]
In the 4th century BC, during the beginning of the Hellenistic era, Hagia Triada fell under the control of the polis of Phaistos and was reinstated as a place of worship. [7] [8] In this period, an aedicula was installed over a Minoan stoa in honor of Zeus Velchanos. In the same location, a bull protome was also found, built around the 2nd century BC, which is attributed to the shrine of Velchanos. [9] Velchanos appears to have been worshipped in Gortyna as well, as coins depicting him have been found. [10]
Velchanus' main festival, the Velchania, was likely celebrated in the Cretan poleis of Gortyna, Lyttos, [11] and Knossos. [12]
Coins from Phaistos depicted Zeus Velchanos with a cock in his lap. [13] These coins also depicted him with an oak tree. [14] He was also depicted with a bull. [15] At other times, Velchanos was depicted as an eagle. [16]
Given the similarities in naming, it has been suggested that Velchanos was an influence on Vulcan from Roman mythology. [17]
Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. His name is cognate with the first syllable of his Roman equivalent Jupiter.
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age culture which was centered on the island of Crete. Known for its monumental architecture and its energetic art, it is often regarded as the first civilization in Europe.
Britomartis was a Greek goddess of mountains and hunting, who was primarily worshipped on the island of Crete. She was sometimes believed to be an oread, or a mountain nymph, but she was often conflated or syncretized with Artemis and Aphaea, the "invisible" patroness of Aegina. She is also known as Dictynna or as a daughter of Dictynna.
Eileithyia or Ilithyia was the Greek goddess of childbirth and midwifery, and the daughter of Zeus and Hera. In the cave of Amnisos (Crete) she was related with the annual birth of the divine child, and her cult is connected with Enesidaon, who was the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon. It is possible that her cult is related with the cult of Eleusis. In his Seventh Nemean Ode, Pindar refers to her as the maid to or seated beside the Moirai (Fates) and responsible for the creation of offspring. Her son was Sosipolis, who was worshiped at Elis.
In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was the bull Pasiphaë fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur.
Labrys is, according to Plutarch, the Lydian word for the double-bitted axe. In Greek it was called πέλεκυς (pélekys). The plural of labrys is labryes (λάβρυες).
Phaistos ), also transliterated as Phaestos, Festos and Latin Phaestus, is a Bronze Age archaeological site at modern Faistos, a municipality in south central Crete. It is notable for the remains of a Minoan palace and the surrounding town.
Hieros gamos, hieros (ἱερός) meaning "holy" or "sacred" and gamos (γάμος) meaning "marriage," or Hierogamy, is a sacred marriage that plays out between gods, especially when enacted in a symbolic ritual where human participants represent the deities.
Gortyn, Gortys or Gortyna is a municipality, and an archaeological site, on the Mediterranean island of Crete 45 km (28 mi) away from the island's capital, Heraklion. The seat of the municipality is the village Agioi Deka. Gortyn was the Roman capital of Creta et Cyrenaica. The area was first inhabited around 7000 BC.
Gortyna was a town of ancient Crete which appears in the Homeric poems under the form of Γορτύν; but afterwards became usually Gortyna (Γόρτυνα). According to Stephanus of Byzantium it was originally called Larissa (Λάρισσα) and Cremnia or Kremnia (Κρήμνια).
Psychro Cave is an ancient Minoan sacred cave in Lasithi plateau in the Lasithi district of eastern Crete. Psychro is associated with the Diktaean Cave, one of the putative sites of the birth of Zeus. Other legends place Zeus' birthplace as Idaean Cave on Mount Ida. According to Hesiod, Theogony, Rhea gave birth to Zeus in Lyctus and hid him in a cave of Mount Aegaeon. Since the late nineteenth century the cave above the modern village of Psychro has been identified with Diktaean Cave, although there are other candidates, especially a cave above Palaikastro on Mount Petsofas.
Hagia Triada is a Minoan archaeological site in Crete. The site includes the remains of an extensive settlement as well as a large structure known as the Royal Villa. It is located in the Mesara Plain near the Palace of Phaistos, with which it appears to have had close political and economic ties. Excavations at Hagia Triada have provided crucial evidence concerning Minoan everyday life. Notable finds include the Hagia Triada sarcophagus, the "Harvester Vase", and the largest cache of Linear A tablets found at any Minoan site.
Cretan hieroglyphs are a hieroglyphic writing system used in early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. They predate Linear A by about a century, but the two writing systems continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. As of 2024, they are undeciphered.
The Heraklion Archaeological Museum is a museum located in Heraklion on Crete. It is one of the largest museums in Greece and the best in the world for Minoan art, as it contains by far the most important and complete collection of artefacts of the Minoan civilization of Crete. It is normally referred to scholarship in English as "AMH", a form still sometimes used by the museum in itself.
Two Minoan snake goddess figurines were excavated in 1903 in the Minoan palace at Knossos in the Greek island of Crete. The decades-long excavation programme led by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans greatly expanded knowledge and awareness of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization, but Evans has subsequently been criticised for overstatements and excessively speculative ideas, both in terms of his "restoration" of specific objects, including the most famous of these figures, and the ideas about the Minoans he drew from the archaeology. The figures are now on display at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum (AMH).
Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete. In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence of such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings. Minoan religion is considered to have been closely related to Near Eastern ancient religions, and its central deity is generally agreed to have been a goddess, although a number of deities are now generally thought to have been worshipped. Prominent Minoan sacred symbols include the bull and the horns of consecration, the labrys double-headed axe, and possibly the serpent.
The Italian School of Archaeology at Athens is one of the 19 foreign archaeological institutes headquartered in Athens, Greece, with branch offices in Crete, Limnos and Rome.
Federico Halbherr was an Italian archaeologist and epigrapher, known for his excavations on Crete. In particular, he is known for his excavations of the Minoan palace at Phaistos and the Minoan town of Hagia Triada. A contemporary, friend, and advisor of Arthur Evans, he began excavating at Phaistos before Evans began excavating at Knossos. Some of his work was funded by the Archaeological Institute of America.
The Hagia Triada Sarcophagus is a late Minoan 137 cm (54 in)-long limestone sarcophagus, dated to around 1400 BC or some decades later, excavated from a chamber tomb at Hagia Triada, Crete in 1903 and now on display at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum (AMH) in Crete, Greece.
The name poppy goddess is often used for a famous example of a distinctive type of large female terracotta figurine in Minoan art, presumably representing a goddess, but not thought to be cult images, rather votive offerings. It was discovered in a sanctuary of the Post-palace period at Gazi, Crete, and is now in the Heraklion Archaeological Museum.