Calendar Entry #31: Panathanaia

We continue our journey through the Cauldrons Calendar feast/festival/holidays.

 

Panathanaia or Panathanaea is the spiritual celebration of last week's Sunoika (Synoecia).  When the political side of Athens and Attica were united we saw the national holiday of Sunoika celebrated.  Prior to the unification of Athens, the Athenian festival of Athenaea, founded by Erechtheus, was celebrated annually in honour of Athena, the patron goddess of the city.  At the time that Theseus is said to have unified Athens, he also expanded the reach of the festival, from one based in the city, to one that was celebrated by the entire country.  Athenaea became Panathenaea. 

 

Panathenaea had Greater and Lesser festival observances.  The Lesser one occurred each year which was a shorter festival than its Greater counterpart.  This festival was based around ritual and sacrificial rites that would have been in the normal manner that the cult of Athena practiced.  Such rites included a parade of sorts where the state robe of Athena (peplus) was taken through the streets to adorn a carved figure of the Goddess.  This ceremony would have been duplicated in other centres, although to a lesser extent as the peplus was quite expensive. 

 

The Greater Panathanaea was celebrated every four years and had chariot races and gymnastic sports as well as other athletic type sports.  It is said that Peisistratus was hoping to make the festival an Ionian rival to the Dorian Olympia festival - where our modern Olympic games has its roots.  One major difference between the two 'games' were that Panathanaea was chrematites (monetary) whereas the Olympia was stefanites (wreath-bearing) because the winning athletes in the Panathanaea received expensive prizes.

 

Mosaic floor depicting various athletes wearing wreaths.
From the Museum of Olympia. - Tkoletsis

While many of the rites from the Lesser festival were carried out, although on a grander scale, during this Greater festival celebration the whole empire came together to join in a shared sacrifice, usually of bulls.  Each town/colony/state would send a representative and a sacrificial animal.  On the day of the feast there was a grand prossession of priests, assistants and representatives, as well as the calvary.  During the time of Pericles, a musical contest was added to the festival. 

 

Much like the festival of Skira, this was also one of the festivals where women were able to leave the house to take an active part in the public festivities .  This was also the only time that men were supposed to be allowed to carry their weapons in the streets. 

Calendar Entry #29: Sunoika

Sunoika otherwise known as Synoikia, Synoecia or Synoecesia is the name of a festival at the roots of the word synoecism. 

synoecism

a joining together of several towns to form a single community, as in ancient Greece. — synoecy, n. — synoecious, adj.

This was done in Ancient Greece where Athens proper was unified with the country towns and villages of Attica under one government.  The festival of Synoecia is a celebration of the political union of Athens and Attica, but is distinctly separate from Panathanaia which is the religious festival - held next Sunday. I wont go into Synoecia as it is more of a secular, national holiday like Waitangi Day or Queen's Birthday. 

Calendar Entry #16: Ipip Festival and Dipolieia

We continue our journey through the Cauldrons Calendar feast/festival/holidays.

Ipip Festival
 

Tawaret also known as Ipet

Months, in ancient Egypt, were named for feasts that were celebrated during or at the beginning of the next month.  The month of Ipip (Ipt-hmt) is the third month in Shomu and is named after the Ipip festival. The fourth month of Shomu (the summer season) is Mesore and has just begun.  With Ipip occurring at the beginning of Mesore, it's name was taken for the the name of the preceding month.

The Ipip Festival has been mentioned in many sources, from an account by a jeweller in Saqqara to documents pertaining to Deir el-Medina, to papyri dating to the third year of Ramesses X.  During the late New Kingdom the festival was celebrated in the temple of Karnak and the oracle text of Nesamun from the late 20th Dynasty said that Amon of Karnak appeared during the feast's procession.  However, aside from this mention, and despite the festival being referred to in many different ancient sources, the actual rituals and other details about the Ipip festival are largely unknown.

Ipip was another name for the hippopotamus goddess Ipet.  She was a fertility goddess from Thebes and at times equated to the goddess Mut.  She may have been a focus, but again there are no actual references to her that have survived.

 

Dipolieia  (and Bouphonia)

Buphonia, bulls circling an altar. 
Attic black-figure oenochoe (wine jug)
by a Gela painter 510-480 BC

Dipolieia is a religious festival held in ancient Greece in honour of Zeus.  (Di - Zeus, Polieus - of the city).  One of the main features of this festival, as observed by the Greek traveller Pausanias, is the Bouphonia (which at times has also been another name for Dipolieia).

The Bouphonia (ox murdering) is a ritual that involves the slaying of an ox, that had desecrated the altar of Zeus. Porphyry of Tyre, a Neoplatonic philosopher, described it as a bronze table rather than what would traditionally be an altar.  This suggests that the ritual may have had roots in Mycenaean culture because Mycenaean altars were usually tables of offerings; tables are common in representations of bull offerings in Mycenaean and Minoan art. There is a theory that at some time in the ancient past an unfortunate ox happened upon such a Mycenaean table and started munching on the grains that had been set there as an offering.  An incensed bystander or perhaps a priest, slayed the ox for its sacrilege.

For the Bouphonia, the altar/offering table was set with 'sacred grains' or cakes or both.  A group of oxen were ushered into the Acropolis, near the altar.  (Excavations have found a small temple with an open air precinct, for the oxen to be coaxed into, that has a small central structure where the Dipolieia sacrifice most probably took place).   The first unfortunate ox to eat from the altar was slain with a double axe (a bronze relic much like the table) by a cult official from the Thaulonidae clan called the bouphonos.  The bouphonos (ox murderer) would drop the axe and flee.  The ox was then butchered and eaten in a sacrificial feast.

After feasting comes the second part of Dipolieia, the ritual trial for the murder of the ox as the slaughter of a labouring ox was forbidden.  A judicial assembly was held in the Prytaneum and all who had taken part, in some form, in the slaying of the ox were summoned to appear.   Each laid the blame for the murder upon another.  The water-bearers, who purified the axe were accused.  They passed the guilt to the sharpener of the axe, who cast it upon the person who felled the ox.  That person passed blame to the axe itself.  The axe, unable to speak in it's own defence, was found guilty and thrown into the sea.

Afterwards the hide of the slain beast was stuffed with straw and set to give the appearance of still being alive.

Calendar Entry #15: Ceremony of Horus & Skira

We continue our journey through the Cauldrons Calendar feast/festival/holidays.


Ceremony of Horus the Beloved

Statute of Isis Suckling Horus; Bronze

Karnak Late Period (664-332 B.C.)

Egyptian Museum, Cairo

The name Horus is a sort of catch-all for many deities (I'm not going to mention them all).  One of the most famous would be Harseisis also called Heru-sa-Aset or Horus-son-of-Isis.  It was he who was conceived after the death and resurrection of his father, Osiris.  Heru became the patron of Lower Egypt owed in part to his battles with his uncle Set, in an attempt to not only avenge his father's murder, but to protect the people of Egypt and become the rightful ruler.  

 

There are many myths regarding how the Upper and Lower Kingdoms were united.  One, found in the Chester Beatty Papyrus I is the mythological story of “The Contendings of Horus and Seth” which describes the victory Heru had over Set (who was patron of the Upper Kingdom), as to who would take over Osiris' throne.   Some scholars point to this victory as being the basis of a Father-Son line of kingship succession rather than the King's brother taking over upon his death.  

 

A relief of Horus and Geb from tomb
KV14 in the Valley of the Kings.
kairoinfo4u

 

An older form of Horus, is that of Haroeris, Heru-ur or Horus the Elder.  Heru-ur was worshipped in pre-Dynastic Upper Egypt.  He was a creator god, the falcon who flew at the beginning of time.  In this form, he is the brother of Osiris and Set, the second born of Geb and Nut's five children.   Heru-ur was the consort of Hathor, and it is in this form, that I suspect this ceremony refers to. 

 

This month, although not specifically mentioned by name on the Cauldrons' Calendar, features the Festival of the Beautiful Reunion.  This is a long festival where Hathor journeys from Dendera to Edfu to marry Horus, her beloved.  I'll cover this soon, it is coming up, so do watch out for it. 

 

What today's ceremony entails, I have been unable to uncover.  I could say that it is some sort of preparation for his upcoming nuptials, but that would be baseless speculation.  If anyone has anything more concrete then please comment.     

 

 

Skira

Erechtheum

Skira is a three day long festival in the calendar of ancient Athens, which marks the end of the old year.  It was such an important celebration that, in Athens, the last month of the year was called Skirophorion, after the festival.  Skirophorion was the month of the final harvest of grain, so Skira was also a major agricultural festival.

 

To open the festival the priests of the Erechtheum (Erechtheus doubled as Poseidon in Athens - Poseidon Erechtheus) and Helios and the priestesses of Athena jointly took part in a procession beneath a canopy out of Athens to Skiron near Eleusis.  Plutarch stated that one of the three 'sacred plowings'  took place at Skiron, so it has been suggested that the end of the procession had some agricultural significance.

 

For the men, Skira meant they had to fast during the day, playing dice games to while away the time.  For women it was something different.  Skira, being about dissolution, seemed to flip social order.  This was one of the few days women were allowed to leave the women's quarters and gather in public.  They sacrificed and feasted and denied their husbands sex.  Some sources state that they ate large quantities of garlic to keep the men away.  Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata (411 BCE), portrays the women as using the freedom of Skira to plot to stop male domination.  

 

There was a also race during this festival to the shrine of Dionysos, where the participants were young men carrying vine branches.  The victor would receive a drink made of wine, honey, cheese, grain and olive oil - all the fruits Athena had been asked to bless. 

 

I'm not entirely sure that's a drink I would have wanted to win... or at least, taste.   

Calendar Entry #12: Matariki & Arrephoria

We continue our journey through the Cauldrons Calendar feast/festival/holidays.

Matariki

Pleiades star cluster - NASA

Matariki is the Maori name for the group of stars also known as the Pleiades star cluster or The Seven Sisters.  It is also what is referred to as the traditional Maori New Year.  The new year is marked by the rise of Matariki and lasts for up to 3 days after the new moon has risen following Matariki becoming visible.
 

Traditionally how bright Matariki was visibly determined how well the year's crops would be.  If the stars were clear and bright, the season would be warmer and the crops more productive.  If they were hazy, the year would be less productive. 

Matariki is a time to celebrate concepts and activities related to unity, gatherings, harvesting and planting, paying tributes to ancestors, honouring earth based deities and looking ahead to the future.

Arrephoria

Acropolis at night

Arrephoria is a festival in Athens.  During this festival the Arrephoroi (two young girls between 7-11 years of age) were dressed in white and carried 'unspoken things' (or more likely things that were hidden from their view) from the top of the Acropolis to the garden of Aphrodite (at the Acropolis' base).  This is where it is suggested by scholars that this festival may have been confused in Classical and Hellenistic times with one to Erse, the Goddess of Dew.  In his book Greek Religion, Walter Burkert suggests that the girls carried dew, although not only in honour of Erse.  The underground passage they went through on their journey to the garden of Aphrodite passed an ancient spring which is where they could have obtained the 'dew' they carried.  He suggests that the festival also commemorates two daughters of Cecrops, both named for dew (or new growth) who fell from the Acropolis.

It is also believed that the Arrephoria was more likely a ritual completion of the old before the beginning of the new year (which was just after mid-summer in Athens - June in the Northern hemisphere).

In the present, this day would be a time to begin to complete unfinished projects, to remove what is no longer needed and making room for the new. 

Calendar Entry #3: Yom Ha'atzmaut & Thargelia

We continue our journey through the Cauldrons Calendar feast/festival/holidays.  

 

Yom Ha'atzmaut 

Yom Ha'atzmaut is Israel's Independence Day and it celebrates the declaration of the state of Israel by The Jewish Leadership led by the then future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, on 14 May 1948.   It occurs annually on or around the 5th of Iyar.  Iyar is the 8th month of the civil year and the 2nd month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar.   

Due to the custom of beginning celebrations at sundown on the previous day, it was decided in 2004 that if the 5th of Iyar is a Monday, then the holiday will move to the Tuesday.  Therefore, while Yom Ha'atzmaut should be set for Monday, it is actually observed and celebrated on Tuesday 10 May this year.

Thargelia

Thargelia is an Athenian festival to celebrate the birthdays of Artemis and Apollo, held on the 6th and 7th of Thargelion.  Now unfortunately my research has shown that the actual timing of this would put the dates later in May, around the 20th and 21st or the 24th and 25th depending on where you look.

The festival is mainly for Apollo, and is basically an agricultural festival where first fruits were offered to Apollo, but it was also a time when the city of Athens, or rather its inhabitants, underwent a cathartic rite of purification.

On the first day of the festival two men (there are some references that state a man and a woman) were chosen to represent the men and women of Athens.  They were usually criminals or outcasts or deemed the ugliest.  They took on the role of the pharmakos (scapegoat) and after being fed, dressed/decorated in figs and led through the city (there are some reports that say they were beaten with green sticks during this procession) they were then cast out or exiled.   It is said that during times of great strife (such as a plague or famine), the pharmakos were actually put to death.  Accounts vary, but they were either burnt on a funeral pyre with their ashes scattered at sea, stoned to death or thrown into the sea alive.  The sacrifice of the pharmakos (either in being expelled from the city or in death) was meant to purify the residents of Athens of their communal guilt.

The second day of the festival was a much more celebratory affair.  There were offerings of thanks to Apollo, a procession, and an agon or competition of sorts, where the winner was awarded a tripod that he had to dedicate in the temple of Apollo.  This was also the day that families would undertake the solemn registration of adopted children, where the children were officially given the genos and phratria of their adoptive parents.  From what I've read, although not extensively, it looks to be sort of like hapu and iwi, or clan and tribe of the family.  I'm not 100% on that so if you've studied Classics and can clarify the terms, then please do.  :)