The gate of the year

Fragments of krateriskoi (votive vases offered to the goddess Artemis), with paintings, dating to the V century B.C., discovered during the excavations in the Brauron sanctuary and now in the Archaeological Museum of Brauron, Vravrona, Greece.
At Brauron was located an important temple of Artemis, worshiped here with the epithet of Brauronia. Here the young Athenian girls, before marriage, participated in religious feasts which were held every four years in honour of the goddess. According to a passage by Aristophanes, it seems that the Athenian girls should spend an “initiatory” period in the sanctuary, during which time they were called “she-bears”: I “bore, at seven, the mystic casket; Was, at ten, our Lady’s miller [gleaning the grain for Artemis]; then the yellow Brauron bear; Next (a maiden tall and stately with a string of figs to wear) bore in pomp the holy Basket [as a canephora]” (Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 638-645, trans. by B. Bickley Rogers). According to Angelo Brelich’s hypothesis, the period the girls spent corresponded to an initiation ritual to enter adult life, during which they were “transformed” into bears. The saffron colour dress that the girls wore perhaps alluded to the yellowish colour of the bear fur, while the acquisition of animal shapes could be performed with masks and dances in which the bear movements were imitated. In the illustrated fragments one can see naked girls holding garlands of flowers in their hands, whereas others, wearing a short chiton, are dancing. Furthermore, at the centre of the bottom fragment it is visible part of the back of an animal, presumably a bear.

In the detail (figure below) it can be noted a human figure with an animal head, perhaps with a bear mask, while on her side a female individual is watching her own hand, in a similar way to that of Kallisto while transforming herself into a bear.
The girls age indicated by Aristophanes is in contradiction with that reported from other sources, but the only certain argument is that the ritual period of the she-bears should occur before marriage and as a condition to wedding. Brelich advances the hypothesis that originally the ritual segregation should concern all the Athenian girls, but that, in the Classic age, the usage was followed only by the more traditionalist families or that it had become the privilege of some female representatives only (Brelich, 1969).

[Source: G. Greco, “Riti e forme dell’iniziazione al femminile”, in Atene e Roma, LI, n.2-3 (2006)]




Human-Animal Transformation

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Fragments of krateriskoi (votive vases offered to the goddess Artemis), with paintings, dating to the V century B.C., discovered during the excavations in the Brauron sanctuary and now in the Archaeological Museum of Brauron, Vravrona, Greece. At Brauron was located an important temple of Artemis, worshiped here with the epithet of Brauronia. Here the young Athenian girls, before marriage, participated in religious feasts which were held every four years in honour of the goddess. According to a passage by Aristophanes, it seems that the Athenian girls should spend an “initiatory” period in the sanctuary, during which time they were called “she-bears”: I “bore, at seven, the mystic casket; Was, at ten, our Lady’s miller [gleaning the grain for Artemis]; then the yellow Brauron bear; Next (a maiden tall and stately with a string of figs to wear) bore in pomp the holy Basket [as a canephora]” (Aristophanes, Lysistrata, 638-645, trans. by B. Bickley Rogers). According to Angelo Brelich’s hypothesis, the period the girls spent corresponded to an initiation ritual to enter adult life, during which they were “transformed” into bears. The saffron colour dress that the girls wore perhaps alluded to the yellowish colour of the bear fur, while the acquisition of animal shapes could be performed with masks and dances in which the bear movements were imitated. In the illustrated fragments one can see naked girls holding garlands of flowers in their hands, whereas others, wearing a short chiton, are dancing. Furthermore, at the centre of the bottom fragment it is visible part of the back of an animal, presumably a bear. In the detail (figure below) it can be noted a human figure with an animal head, perhaps with a bear mask, while on her side a female individual is watching her own hand, in a similar way to that of Kallisto while transforming herself into a bear. The girls age indicated by Aristophanes is in contradiction with that reported from other sources, but the only certain argument is that the ritual period of the she-bears should occur before marriage and as a condition to wedding. Brelich advances the hypothesis that originally the ritual segregation should concern all the Athenian girls, but that, in the Classic age, the usage was followed only by the more traditionalist families or that it had become the privilege of some female representatives only (Brelich, 1969). [Source: G. Greco, “Riti e forme dell’iniziazione al femminile”, in Atene e Roma, LI, n.2-3 (2006)]