Ancient Egyptians regarded the pomegranate as a symbol of prosperity and ambition. According to the
Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest medical writings from around 1500 BC, Egyptians used the pomegranate for treatment of
tapeworm and other infections.
[57]
Although the pomegranate was mentioned in the
Ancient Greek history prior to the founding of
Ancient Rome, the Greeks were familiar with the fruit far before it was introduced to
Ancient Rome via Carthage.
[58] In the Ancient Greek mythology, the pomegranate was also known as the "fruit of the dead".
[57]
The wild pomegranate did not occur in the Aegean area in
Neolithic times. It originated in eastern
Iran and came to the Aegean world along the same cultural pathways that brought the goddess whom the
Anatolians worshipped as
Cybele and the
Mesopotamians as
Ishtar.
[citation needed]
The myth of
Persephone, the goddess of the
Underworld, also prominently features the pomegranate. In one version of
Greek mythology, Persephone was kidnapped by
Hades and taken off to live in the underworld as his wife. Her mother,
Demeter (goddess of the Harvest), went into mourning for her lost daughter and thus all green things ceased to grow.
Zeus, the highest ranking of the Greek gods, could not allow the Earth to die, so he commanded Hades to return Persephone. It was the rule of the
Fates that anyone who consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persephone had no food, but Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner and so, because of this, she was condemned to spend six months in the Underworld every year. During these six months, when Persephone is sitting on the throne of the Underworld next to her husband Hades, her mother Demeter mourns and no longer gives fertility to the earth. This became an ancient Greek explanation for the seasons.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting
Persephona depicts Persephone holding the fatal fruit. It should be noted that the number of seeds that Persephone ate varies, depending on which version of the story is told. The number of seeds she is said to have eaten ranges from three to seven, which accounts for just one barren season if it is just three or four seeds, or two barren seasons (half the year) if she ate six or seven seeds.
[citation needed]
The pomegranate also evoked the presence of the Aegean
Triple Goddess who evolved into the Olympian
Hera, who is sometimes represented offering the pomegranate, as in the Polykleitos'
cult image of the Argive
Heraion (see below).
[citation needed] According to
Carl A. P. Ruck and
Danny Staples, the chambered pomegranate is also a surrogate for the poppy's
narcotic capsule, with its comparable shape and chambered interior.
[59] On a Mycenaean seal illustrated in
Joseph Campbell's
Occidental Mythology 1964, figure 19, the seated Goddess of the double-headed axe (the
labrys) offers three poppy pods in her right hand and supports her breast with her left. She embodies both aspects of the dual goddess, life-giving and death-dealing at once. The Titan
Orion was represented as "marrying"
Side, a name that in Boeotia means "pomegranate", thus consecrating the primal hunter to the Goddess. Other Greek dialects call the pomegranate
rhoa; its possible connection with the name of the earth goddess
Rhea, inexplicable in Greek, proved suggestive for the mythographer
Karl Kerenyi, who suggested that the consonance might ultimately derive from a deeper,
pre-Indo-European language layer.
[citation needed]
In the 6th century BC,
Polycleitus took ivory and gold to sculpt the seated
Argive Hera in her temple. She held a scepter in one hand and offered a pomegranate, like a 'royal
orb', in the other.
[60] "About the pomegranate I must say nothing," whispered the traveller
Pausanias in the 2nd century, "for its story is somewhat of a holy mystery."
[60] In the Orion story Hera cast pomegranate-
Side (an ancient city in Antalya) into dim
Erebus — "for daring to rival Hera's beauty", which forms the probable point of connection with the older Osiris/Isis story.
[citation needed] Since the ancient Egyptians identified the
Orion constellation in the sky as Sah the "soul of
Osiris", the identification of this section of the myth seems relatively complete.
[original research?] Hera wears, not a wreath nor a tiara nor a diadem, but clearly the
calyx of the pomegranate that has become her serrated crown.
[citation needed] The pomegranate has a calyx shaped like a crown. In Jewish tradition it has been seen as the original "design" for the proper crown.
[61] In some artistic depictions, the pomegranate is found in the hand of
Mary, mother of Jesus.
[citation needed]
A pomegranate is displayed on
coins from the ancient city of Side, Pamphylia.
[62]
Within the sanctuary of Hera at
Foce del Sele, Magna Graecia, is a chapel devoted to the
Madonna del Granato, "Our Lady of the Pomegranate", "who by virtue of her epithet and the attribute of a pomegranate must be the Christian successor of the ancient Greek goddess Hera", observes the excavator of the
Heraion of Samos, Helmut Kyrieleis.
[63]
In modern times the pomegranate still holds strong symbolic meanings for the Greeks. On important days in the
Greek Orthodox calendar, such as the
Presentation of the Virgin Mary and on
Christmas Day, it is traditional to have at the dinner table
"polysporia", also known by their ancient name "
panspermia," in some regions of Greece. In ancient times they were offered to
Demeter[citation needed] and to the other gods for fertile land, for the spirits of the dead and in honor of compassionate
Dionysus.
[citation needed] When one buys a new home, it is conventional for a house guest to bring as a first gift a pomegranate, which is placed under/near the
ikonostasi (home altar) of the house, as a symbol of abundance, fertility and good luck.
[citation needed] Pomegranates are also prominent at Greek weddings and funerals.
[citation needed]
When Greeks commemorate their dead, they make
kollyva as offerings, which consist of boiled wheat, mixed with sugar and decorated with pomegranate.
[citation needed] It is also traditional in Greece to break a pomegranate on the ground at weddings and on New Years.
[citation needed] Pomegranate decorations for the home are very common in Greece and sold in most home goods stores.
[64]
sumber dari: en.wikipedia.org
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