Conquer Club

Dukasaur wrote:I bought a banana today.

AK_iceman wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:I bought a banana today.

For what purpose?

Quirk wrote:BPotW

Even to modern eyes, the terracotta statuettes are bizarre. Found in 1896 in the remains of a 5th-century BCE temple at the ancient Greek city of Priene, each figurine is different, but all feature a woman’s face, bedecked with an elaborate hairdo, situated directly atop a pair of chubby, childlike legs. In place of a chin, there is the well-defined cleft of a hairless vulva. But for one of the German archeologists working on the dig, the figures looked familiar. He quickly concluded that they were images of Baubo, a mythological character—some say goddess—whose main claim to fame was flashing her genitals to cheer up the agricultural goddess Demeter. “Surely we are dealing with a creation from the context of the grotesque-obscene aspects of the Demeter cult,” he declared.

(...) scholars differ widely in their interpretations of Baubo-related texts and artifacts. Did her name mean “belly,” “cave,” or “vulva”? Was she a goddess of fertility, sexuality, or mirth? Or was she even a goddess at all? And when it comes to those weird statuettes from Priene, there’s no agreement about who they are or what they represent, even though they were found in the remains of a temple dedicated to Demeter, the ancient goddess of grain and agriculture, with whom Baubo is so closely associated.

Adding to the confusion, there are many versions of Baubo’s story, which basically goes like this. According to Greek mythology, one day, Demeter’s daughter, Persephone (also known as Kore), was out picking flowers when she was raped and abducted by Hades, god of the underworld. The furious Demeter gave chase, forgetting her responsibilities in the world above ground. As a result, grain didn’t grow—the land laid fallow—and many died of starvation due to famine. Disguised as an old woman dressed in black, Demeter came to the city of Eleusis, where she rested by a well, mourning the loss of her daughter. There, she was found by Baubo, a nurse or servant in the Eleusinian ruler’s household. Baubo offered the goddess a cup of wine but Demeter refused it. Baubo offered sympathy but was rebuffed again. Then Baubo did a thing that even today would get you noticed—she lifted up her skirt and showed off her private parts. The gesture made Demeter laugh, and then the goddess ate and drank. In some retellings, Baubo is accompanied by another servant, Iambe, who tells dirty jokes in an effort to make Demeter laugh, but it’s almost always Baubo’s flashing that gets the job done. (Sometimes, Baubo and Iambe are the same person. Sometimes she goes by the name of Hecate or Isis. As I said, it’s confusing.)