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Nekyia
In ancient Greek cult-practice and literature, a ''nekyia'' or ''nekya'' ( grc, νέκυια, νεκυία; νεκύα ) is a "rite by which ghosts were called up and questioned about the future," i.e., necromancy. A ''nekyia'' is not necessarily the same thing as a ''katabasis''. While they both afford the opportunity to converse with the dead, only a ''katabasis'' is the actual, physical journey to the underworld undertaken by several heroes in Greek and Roman myth. In common parlance, however, the term "nekyia" is often used to subsume both types of event, so that by Late Antiquity for example " Olympiodorus ... claimed that three latonicmyths were classified as nekyia (an underworld story, as in Homer's ''Odyssey'' book 11)". Questioning ghosts A number of sites in Greece and Italy were dedicated wholly or in part to this practice. "The Underworld communicated with the earth by direct channels. These were caverns whose depths were unplumbed, like that of Heraclea Pontic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katabasis
A katabasis or catabasis ( grc, κατάβασις, from "down" and "go") is a journey to the underworld. Its original sense is usually associated with Greek mythology and Classical mythology more broadly, where the protagonist visits the Greek underworld, also known as Hades. The term is also used in a broad sense of any journey to the realm of the dead in other mythological and religious traditions. A katabasis is similar to a '' nekyia'' or necromancy, where someone experiences a vision of the underworld or its inhabitants; a ''nekyia'' does not generally involve a physical visit, however. One of the most famous examples is that of Odysseus, who performs something on the border of a ''nekyia'' and a katabasis in book 11 of ''The Odyssey''; he visits the border of the realms before calling the dead to him using a blood ritual, with it being disputed whether he was at the highest realm of the underworld or the lowest edge of the living world where he performed this. Overvi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hades
Hades (; grc-gre, ᾍδης, Háidēs; ), in the ancient Greek religion and myth, is the god of the dead and the king of the underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea, although this also made him the last son to be regurgitated by his father. He and his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon, defeated their father's generation of gods, the Titans, and claimed rulership over the cosmos. Hades received the underworld, Zeus the sky, and Poseidon the sea, with the solid earth, long the province of Gaia, available to all three concurrently. In artistic depictions, Hades is typically portrayed holding a bident and wearing his helm with Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, standing to his side. The Etruscan god Aita and the Roman gods Dis Pater and Orcus were eventually taken as equivalent to Hades and merged into Pluto, a Latinisation of Plouton ( grc-gre, , Ploútōn), itself a euphemistic title often given ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Iliad'', the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage. The ''Odyssey'' was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship of the poem was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johann Heinrich Füssli 063
Johann, typically a male given name, is the German form of ''Iohannes'', which is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Iōánnēs'' (), itself derived from Hebrew name ''Yochanan'' () in turn from its extended form (), meaning "Yahweh is Gracious" or "Yahweh is Merciful". Its English language equivalent is John. It is uncommon as a surname. People People with the name Johann include: A–K * Johann Adam Hiller (1728–1804), German composer * Johann Adam Reincken (1643–1722), Dutch/German organist * Johann Adam Remele (died 1740), German court painter * Johann Adolf I, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels (1649–1697) * Johann Adolph Hasse (1699-1783), German Composer * Johann Altfuldisch (1911—1947), German Nazi SS concentration camp officer executed for war crimes * Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654–1704), German Orientalist * Johann Baptist Wanhal (1739–1813), Czech composer * Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656–1723), Austrian architect * Johann Bernoulli (1667–1748), Sw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libation Bearers
The ''Oresteia'' ( grc, Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra, the murder of Clytemnestra by Orestes, the trial of Orestes, the end of the curse on the House of Atreus and the pacification of the Erinyes. The trilogy—consisting of ''Agamemnon'' (), ''The Libation Bearers'' (), and '' The Eumenides'' ()—also shows how the Greek gods interacted with the characters and influenced their decisions pertaining to events and disputes. The only extant example of an ancient Greek theatre trilogy, the ''Oresteia'' won first prize at the Dionysia festival in 458 BCE. The principal themes of the trilogy include the contrast between revenge and justice, as well as the transition from personal vendetta to organized litigation. ''Oresteia'' originally included a satyr play, ''Proteus'' (), following the tragic trilogy, but all except a single line of ''Proteus'' has been lost. ''Agam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Teiresias
In Greek mythology, Tiresias (; grc, Τειρεσίας, Teiresías) was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance and for being transformed into a woman for seven years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the nymph Chariclo. Tiresias participated fully in seven generations in Thebes, beginning as advisor to Cadmus himself. Mythology Eighteen allusions to mythic Tiresias, noted by Luc Brisson, fall into three groups: the first recounts Tiresias' sex-change episode and later his encounter with Zeus and Hera; the second group recounts his blinding by Athena; the third, all but lost, seems to have recounted the misadventures of Tiresias. Blindness and gift of prophecy Like other oracles, how Tiresias obtained his information varied: sometimes, he would receive visions; other times he would listen for the songs of birds, or ask for a description of visions and pictures appearing within the smoke of burnt offerings or entrails, and so interpret them. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hieronymous Bosch
Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/ Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oak wood, mainly contains fantastic illustrations of religious concepts and narratives. Within his lifetime his work was collected in the Netherlands, Austria, and Spain, and widely copied, especially his macabre and nightmarish depictions of hell. Little is known of Bosch's life, though there are some records. He spent most of it in the town of 's-Hertogenbosch, where he was born in his grandfather's house. The roots of his forefathers are in Nijmegen and Aachen (which is visible in his surname: Van Aken). His pessimistic fantastical style cast a wide influence on northern art of the 16th century, with Pieter Bruegel the Elder being his best-known follower. Today, Bosch is seen as a hugely individualistic painter with deep insight into hum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.The remnant of a commemorative inscription, dated to the 3rd century BC, lists four, possibly eight, dramatic poets (probably including Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas) who had won tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus had. Thespis was traditionally regarded the inventor of tragedy. According to another tradition, tragedy was established in Athens in the late 530s BC, but that may simply reflect an absence of records. Major innovations in dramatic form, credited to Aeschylus by Aristot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Persians
''The Persians'' ( grc, Πέρσαι, ''Persai'', Latinised as ''Persae'') is an Greek tragedy, ancient Greek tragedy written during the Classical Greece, Classical period of Ancient Greece by the Greek tragedian Aeschylus. It is the second and only surviving part of a now otherwise lost trilogy that won the first prize at the dramatic competitions in Athens' City Dionysia festival in 472 BC, with Pericles serving as ''choregos''. Place in Aeschylus' work The first play in the trilogy, called ''Phineus'', presumably dealt with Jason and the Argonauts' rescue of King Phineus from the torture that the monstrous harpies inflicted at the behest of Zeus. The subject of the third play, ''Glaucus'', was either a mythical Corinthian king who was devoured by his horses because he angered the goddess Aphrodite (see Glaucus (son of Sisyphus)) or else a Boeotian farmer who ate a magical herb that transformed him into a sea deity with the gift of prophecy (see Glaucus). In ''The Persians'', Xe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucian Of Samosata
Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed superstition, religious practices, and belief in the paranormal. Although his native language was probably Syriac, all of his extant works are written entirely in ancient Greek (mostly in the Attic Greek dialect popular during the Second Sophistic period). Everything that is known about Lucian's life comes from his own writings, which are often difficult to interpret because of his extensive use of sarcasm. According to his oration ''The Dream'', he was the son of a lower middle class family from the city of Samosata along the banks of the Euphrates in the remote Roman province of Syria. As a young man, he was apprenticed to his uncle to become a sculptor, but, after a failed attempt at sculpting, he ran away to pursue an education in Ionia. He m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychopompus
Psychopomps (from the Greek word , , literally meaning the 'guide of souls') are supernatural creatures, spirits, entities, angels, demons or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply to guide them. Appearing frequently on funerary art, psychopomps have been depicted at different times and in different cultures as anthropomorphic entities, horses, deer, dogs, whip-poor-wills, ravens, crows, vultures, owls, sparrows, and cuckoos. In the case of birds, these are often seen in huge masses, waiting outside the home of the dying. Overview Ancient religion Classical examples of a psychopomp are the ancient Egyptian god Anubis, the deity Yama in Hinduism, the Greek ferryman Charon, the goddess Hecate, and god Hermes, the Roman god Mercury, the Norse Valkyries, the Aztec Xolotl, Slavic Morana and the Etruscan Vanth. Modern religion Heibai Wuchang, literally "B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
