The gate of the year

The armed dances

Clay relief from Myrina, in Asia Minor, dating to the Augustan age (31 B.C.-14 A.D.), now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The scene shows the dance of the Kuretes, beside the goddess Rhea suckling the infant Zeus. The Kuretes were regarded as warrior-priests of the island of Crete, to whom was entrusted the newborn Zeus by her mother, who tried to conceal him from the fierceness of his father, Cronus, who devoured all his children. Dancing around the cave and resonating their weapons, the Kuretes shrouded with their noise the cries of the baby, thus guaranteeing his safety. The dance of the Kuretes was the mythical pattern for the armed dances which were performed in several festivities, most prominent among them the Panathenaia, in honor of Athena. The term employed to describe various forms of armed dances was that of “Pyrrhic dances”, which possibly derives from pyrros (“bright red”), a color characterizing the costume of the dancers at Plataea and Sparta (Séchan, 1930, p.93).
The armed dances were performed in Crete by the young epheboi (adolescent boys), in a kind of initiatory ritual which marked their admittance into adult age and contained references to fertility and physical strength. In Athens, during the Panathenaia, the dances commemorated Athena’s victory over the Giants and celebrated the restoration of social and cosmic order. Armed dances, particularly the sword dance, are still present in the traditional culture of several European countries; they are executed still in Germany, in France, in Great Britain, in the Basque Country, in the Balkans and in Italy (Bonato, 2006).

[Source: http://www.theartwolf.com/portfolios/artists.php?g2_itemId=3637]




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The armed dances Clay relief from Myrina, in Asia Minor, dating to the Augustan age (31 B.C.-14 A.D.), now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The scene shows the dance of the Kuretes, beside the goddess Rhea suckling the infant Zeus. The Kuretes were regarded as warrior-priests of the island of Crete, to whom was entrusted the newborn Zeus by her mother, who tried to conceal him from the fierceness of his father, Cronus, who devoured all his children. Dancing around the cave and resonating their weapons, the Kuretes shrouded with their noise the cries of the baby, thus guaranteeing his safety. The dance of the Kuretes was the mythical pattern for the armed dances which were performed in several festivities, most prominent among them the Panathenaia, in honor of Athena. The term employed to describe various forms of armed dances was that of “Pyrrhic dances”, which possibly derives from pyrros (“bright red”), a color characterizing the costume of the dancers at Plataea and Sparta (Séchan, 1930, p.93). The armed dances were performed in Crete by the young epheboi (adolescent boys), in a kind of initiatory ritual which marked their admittance into adult age and contained references to fertility and physical strength. In Athens, during the Panathenaia, the dances commemorated Athena’s victory over the Giants and celebrated the restoration of social and cosmic order. Armed dances, particularly the sword dance, are still present in the traditional culture of several European countries; they are executed still in Germany, in France, in Great Britain, in the Basque Country, in the Balkans and in Italy (Bonato, 2006). [Source: http://www.theartwolf.com/portfolios/artists.php?g2_itemId=3637]