The gate of the year

Figure on the left:

Terracotta statuette of a Centaur, dating back to the VII century B.C., made in Boeotia and now in the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens.
The Centaurs were beings with a therianthropic aspect: generally the upper part of their body was human while the lower part was horse-like; in some later representations they appear as entire human beings, to whom the rear part of a horse was juxtaposed. With the Satyrs and the Nymphs, they participated to the processions of Dionysus and were part of the mythical figures inhabiting the woodlands and mountains. In Homer, they are called “dwellers of the mountains” (oreskóos, Iliad, I, 268) and “hairy animals” (Iliad, II, 743). According to Apollodorus, they were “wild, without social organization and with an unpredictable behaviour” (Schnapp, 1981). However, the Centaurs were also regarded as the inventors of the hunt and of medicine, characteristics that were attributed to the Wild Men until the Middle Ages. In particular, the Centaur Chiron appears as a benevolent personage, who was teacher of Asclepius, who became the healer god of medicine, and of several heroes, among whom Peleus, and the latter’s son Achilles.

[Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dandiffendale/7847108300/]

Figure on the right:

Statue in stone of a Centaur, from Vulci, dating to 550 B.C., now in the Museo di Villa Giulia, Rome. The Centaurs are figures that probably go back to a very ancient phase of Greek history. Their part-animal and part-human nature expresses their function as marginal figures, inhabiting the regions on the border of the human world. Their contiguity with liminality make them able to transmigrate between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The body of a horse recalls an animal with chthonian characteristics, attribute of Poseidon, master of the Underworld, and of Hades, Ruler of the Dead. Like other figures pertaining to mythical cultures which showed a link with the world of the dead, the Centaurs suffered, with the advent of Christianity, a process of demonization, so much so that we find them in Dante’s Hell, were they guard the damned soaked in the Phlegethon (the river of blood) (Inferno, XII, 46-99).

[Source: http://library.artstor.org/library/]




Human-Animal Transformation

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Figure on the left: Terracotta statuette of a Centaur, dating back to the VII century B.C., made in Boeotia and now in the Goulandris Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens. The Centaurs were beings with a therianthropic aspect: generally the upper part of their body was human while the lower part was horse-like; in some later representations they appear as entire human beings, to whom the rear part of a horse was juxtaposed. With the Satyrs and the Nymphs, they participated to the processions of Dionysus and were part of the mythical figures inhabiting the woodlands and mountains. In Homer, they are called “dwellers of the mountains” (oreskóos, Iliad, I, 268) and “hairy animals” (Iliad, II, 743). According to Apollodorus, they were “wild, without social organization and with an unpredictable behaviour” (Schnapp, 1981). However, the Centaurs were also regarded as the inventors of the hunt and of medicine, characteristics that were attributed to the Wild Men until the Middle Ages. In particular, the Centaur Chiron appears as a benevolent personage, who was teacher of Asclepius, who became the healer god of medicine, and of several heroes, among whom Peleus, and the latter’s son Achilles. [Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/dandiffendale/7847108300/] Figure on the right: Statue in stone of a Centaur, from Vulci, dating to 550 B.C., now in the Museo di Villa Giulia, Rome. The Centaurs are figures that probably go back to a very ancient phase of Greek history. Their part-animal and part-human nature expresses their function as marginal figures, inhabiting the regions on the border of the human world. Their contiguity with liminality make them able to transmigrate between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The body of a horse recalls an animal with chthonian characteristics, attribute of Poseidon, master of the Underworld, and of Hades, Ruler of the Dead. Like other figures pertaining to mythical cultures which showed a link with the world of the dead, the Centaurs suffered, with the advent of Christianity, a process of demonization, so much so that we find them in Dante’s Hell, were they guard the damned soaked in the Phlegethon (the river of blood) (Inferno, XII, 46-99). [Source: http://library.artstor.org/library/]