The gate of the year

Painting on a vase produced in Attica, dating to about 450 B.C., now in the British Museum, London. The image represents Dionysus in ecstasy, in the act of dismembering a panther. The dismemberment (sparagmós) of a victim was a constituent of the Dionysian ritual. In this case, the god is represented performing the act that was executed by his worshipers. The panther was an animal frequently associated with Dionysus (Detienne 1977), who indeed wear on his shoulders this animal’s skin, as to signify the possibility of the god to transform himself into animal shape. In various mythical tales, indeed, Dionysus turns into a lion, a bull, a panther, and in the shape of a plant, too, mainly in that of the vine plant (Stella 1956, p. 365). The god and the animal immolated by him come to be identified, just as the participants to the cult ended up with becoming absorbed into the divinity himself, eating the raw meat of the sacrificed animals.

[Fonte: http://wps.ablongman.com/long_powell_cm_7/212/54495/13950740.cw/content/ index.html]




Ritual Folly

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Painting on a vase produced in Attica, dating to about 450 B.C., now in the British Museum, London. The image represents Dionysus in ecstasy, in the act of dismembering a panther. The dismemberment (sparagmós) of a victim was a constituent of the Dionysian ritual. In this case, the god is represented performing the act that was executed by his worshipers. The panther was an animal frequently associated with Dionysus (Detienne 1977), who indeed wear on his shoulders this animal’s skin, as to signify the possibility of the god to transform himself into animal shape. In various mythical tales, indeed, Dionysus turns into a lion, a bull, a panther, and in the shape of a plant, too, mainly in that of the vine plant (Stella 1956, p. 365). The god and the animal immolated by him come to be identified, just as the participants to the cult ended up with becoming absorbed into the divinity himself, eating the raw meat of the sacrificed animals. [Fonte: http://wps.ablongman.com/long_powell_cm_7/212/54495/13950740.cw/content/ index.html]