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In Greek tradition, Demeter is the second child of the Titans Rhea and Cronus, and sister to Hestia, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. Like her other siblings except Zeus, she was swallowed by her father as an infant and rescued by Zeus. Through her brother Zeus, she became the mother of Persephone, a fertility goddess and resurrection deity.
In Greek mythology, Persephone, daughter of Demeter (goddess of the harvest), was abducted by Hades (god of the dead), and taken to the underworld as his queen. The myth goes on to describe Demeter as so distraught that no crops would grow and the "entire human race [would] have perished of cruel, biting hunger if Zeus had not been concerned" (Larousse 152).
The word was inherited in classical Greek with the same meaning. A related Greek word is despoina ("Des-potnia" from PIE *dems-potnia meaning "mistress of the house"). [5] An alternative etymology of the goddess Demeter comes through Potnia and Despoina ("Dems-meter", from PIE *dems-méh₂tēr, meaning "mother of the house"). [6]
In Greek mythology, the primordial deities are the first generation of gods and goddesses.These deities represented the fundamental forces and physical foundations of the world and were generally not actively worshipped, as they, for the most part, were not given human characteristics; they were instead personifications of places or abstract concepts.
A votive plaque known as the Ninnion Tablet depicting elements of the Eleusinian Mysteries, discovered in the sanctuary at Eleusis (mid-4th century BC). The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια, romanized: Eleusínia Mystḗria) were initiations held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at the Panhellenic Sanctuary of Eleusis in ancient Greece.
Fragment of a Hellenistic relief (1st century BC–1st century AD) depicting the twelve Olympians carrying their attributes in procession; from left to right: Hestia (scepter), Hermes (winged cap and staff), Aphrodite (veiled), Ares (helmet and spear), Demeter (scepter and wheat sheaf), Hephaestus (staff), Hera (scepter), Poseidon (trident), Athena (owl and helmet), Zeus (thunderbolt and staff ...
Rhea or Rheia (/ ˈ r iː ə /; [1] Ancient Greek: Ῥέα or Ῥεία [r̥ěː.aː]) is a mother goddess in ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Titan daughter of the earth goddess Gaia and the sky god Uranus, himself a son of Gaia.
Gaia is the ancestral mother—sometimes parthenogenic—of all life. She is the mother of Uranus (Sky), from whose sexual union she bore the Titans (themselves parents of many of the Olympian gods), the Cyclopes, and the Giants, as well as of Pontus (Sea), from whose union she bore the primordial sea gods.