Demeter, Fertility, and the Sacred Pig

Demeter and her daughter Persephone were honored every spring and fall at the Eleusinian Mysteries, held in Eleusis, a town near Athens. According to a 2018 exhibit in the Acropolis Museum, reported here, "Every prospective pilgrim had to sacrifice a piglet in honor of Demeter." It is likely that the piglets were sacrificed on "the second day of the celebration, since the pilgrims returned from the sea where they themselves and the sacrificed animals had a purifying bath." According to the exhibit catalogue, "piglet sacrifice in honor of the goddess Demeter was a common practice in the whole ancient world, both in ancient Greece and in the colonies."

I've been pondering pigs lately, specifically in relation to the Goddess. Are the Jewish and Muslim pork bans related to Goddess worship? Insert shrug emoji here.

In an article from the University of Michigan Museum of Art and Archaeology, about a bronze coin from Eleusis, the author writes, "The sacrifice was followed by a purification ceremony. Bundles of branches, perhaps like the ones [on which the pigs stand on the coins], were swung to the rhythm of music (Burkert 1985, 287). Each mystes was escorted by a mystagogos, who led him into the sanctuary. Clinton (1993, 113 and fig. 114) argues that pits in front of a large architectural structure, supported by a roof held up by interior columns, were used as megara, into which the piglets were thrown; when excavated, two of the pits were found to contain animal bones. In a second festival called the Thesmophoria, at the same place but held months later, women called bailers went down into these pits, fetched up the rotten remains of the piglets, and piled them onto altars. After these ceremonies, local inhabitants took the remains to mix with their grain seed before sowing, in order to render it more fertile."

Eleusinian Demeter Coins (Front side: Demeter in winged snake chariot - Back side: pig) original painting, prints, and merch available in shop or through RedBubble or Fine Art America.

Researchers argue about the rites today because the participants were sworn to secrecy so effectively that much of the Mysteries remain mysterious.

However, according to the World History Encyclopedia, "Virtually every important thinker and writer in antiquity, everyone who was 'anyone' was an initiate of the Mysteries." Plutarch writes to his wife on the death of his daughter, "because of these sacred and faithful promises given in the mysteries...we hold it firmly for an undoubted truth that our soul is incorruptible and immortal." He writes that at the moment of death, "a light moves to meet you, pure meadows receive you, songs and dances and holy apparitions." Cicero writes, "Nothing is higher than these mysteries...they have not only shown us how to live joyfully but they have taught us how to die with a better hope." Historian Waverly Fitzgerald writes, "It was said of those who were initiated as Eleusis that they no longer feared death and it seems that this myth confirms the cyclical view of life central to pagan spirituality: that death is part of the cycle of life and is always followed by rebirth." With the help of sacred pigs.

The Mysteries were important enough that the sacred route to Eleusis was the one and only maintained road in central Greece, and Eleusis was the only town in Attica with the right to mint coins...depicting the sacred pig.

Mmmmm...bacon.

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