The Goddess in the arts of antiquity

When we view the artworks which have survived the millennia, we tend to project back to those times our modern ideas of what art is, and of what an artist is. We escape this error of interpretation when we realise that the arts of ancient times were almost entirely concerned with religion. In I500BC, the sculptor carved in order to portray the Goddess; the painter painted frescoes and pottery to tell the story of the Goddess, and the poets and musicians worked to invoke the Goddess. With this in mind, we can begin to interpret the signs and symbolism of those times.

 

 
In the graphics above, which are portrayals of the Goddess (or her priestesses) from widely different times and places, she wears a gown decorated with the same motif. The persistence of this motif is an indication that its meaning was of  importance to the ancients, and it can be our key to understanding the whole of the Goddess myth. This motif is a small cross, sometimes with a small circle in each of it's four sectors. The same symbol occurs in the four-spoked wheels of the ceremonial cart used in the annual rite in the grove. It also occurs on the discs held in Hermes' bag. The meaning of this symbol is the four seasons, and shows that the goddess represents the world that is revisited each year by the sun. The ancients thought of the sun as being the goddess' lover, and that each year the old lover was killed and replaced by a new lover, a new summer. They therefore believed that the goddess was extremely attractive and beautiful, but that she could also seem cruel and faithless.

The Spiral Stairway to Heaven

The spiral is one of the most widespread of the Goddess symbols. It appears in American Indian; Asian, African, Australian and European art, often as a coiled snake. In Greek art, it is seen on the capitals of Ionic columns. It has multiple references as a symbol. It is the coiled python protecting its eggs; it can be an unfurling thyrrsis frond, but these meanings disguise a higher symbolism found in astronomy. To the patient observer of the stars, the heavens are seen to wheel overhead, turning about an axis which points to the north polar stars. At the top of this axis, a circle of stars revolve slowly about a fixed point, the celestial pole, which was believed to be near the location of heaven. At the bottom of the axis was the Omphalos, the circular altar of the Goddess' temple. The universe of stars turning about the axis were said to form a spiral path, a stairway, on which souls ascended to heaven.

The occultists say 'as above, so below', and the spiral in the skies was was mirrored on earth in the form of a spiral path up a sacred mountain. Pilgrims would climb these mountains and traffic with the goddess' human representatives along the way. Mount Helicon ( helix = spiral, and Helice is a name of the goddess), was an example of a sacred mountain. In later times similar pilgrimages occurred on flatter ground, as at Ephesis and at other places. The tower of Babel also, can be seen as conforming to this spiral model.

The notion of the sacred mountain is still with us , as is the idea of having mysteries revealed to us along the way. Pilgrims still visit Tibet in China; Mt Fuji in Japan, and a mountain in East Java.
 

 

We discuss more goddess symbols elsewhere in The Fallen Temple