Mystery Religions Demeter Great Goddess —

Mystery Religions

Demeter Great Goddess (? )-- life-creating renewal of plant and animal life

Eleusinian Mysteries ( 1500 BCE - 4 th Century CE)

Eleusinian Mysteries • Three times blessed are those mortals who behold those rites [at Eleusis] before going down to the house of Hades. They alone have true life there; to the rest, everything is misery. (Sophocles)

• mystai

Temple of Isis ( 1764 -65)

Isis, Nile River • Seth • Osiris • Horus

Isis, Osiris, Nile River • Isis (sistrum, situla, ankh)

• sistrum

• Numerius Popidius Ampliatus son of Numerius paid for the temple of Isis to be rebuilt…. . To repay his generosity the town council accepted him into their order free of charge, although he was only six years old.

` • • • F=Purgatorium G=Assembly room H=Teaching room I= Living quarters A= Tuscan Portico

Tuscan Order

` s

Harpocrates

Anubis

` s

Isis and Io

Isis cult statue?

Norbanus ( one of two)

CIL X 814=ILS 5198 • ( Portrait of Giaus Norbanus Sorex, actor of second parts; the presidents of the Fortunate Augustan Suburban County district ( set this up). Space given by decree of the decurions.

Herculaneum • Sunrise/ mid-afternoon

Dionysus/Bacchus • Kantharos • thyrsus

Story of Dionysos • Dionysus/Bacchus • Semele • Ariadne (Theseus)

****Bacchantes**** • Dionysus leads his thiasos-- Satyrs, Sileni and Bacchae

Satyr/Silenus

Maenads (Bacchae)

Villa of the Mysteries

Megalographia

Pedimental sculpture ( Dionysos and Ariadne? )

Foreign Cults –Sabazius, Lakshmi • II. 1. 12 I, 8. 17. 5

CIL IV 8417 Whoever is in love, let him come; I wish to break the ribs of Venus With sticks and maim the goddess’s loins; If she can perforate my tender heart, Why can I not break her head with a stick?

Judaism • CIL IV 8010= CIJ 562 Hebrew inscription –Sold by Kar […], Jesus, Shadani (ham/) son (? ) of Lenananth , to Vergaz… what is beneath the baths. CIL IV 6990 Felix slave of Judaicus.

Old Testament Reference • IX. i. 26, Street of Abundance • SODOM[A] GOMORA

Judaism • Vespasian and Titus ( destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in 70 CE)

Solomon (? )

Other evidence • Kosher garum • Also names : Martha, Maria

Christianity ( House of the Bicentenary)

• Inscription with word Christian (House of the Christian inscription (VII. 11) New Testament ref. to Puteoli Christians

CIL IV 8623 ( Pater Noster? )