Category: Other Page 129 of 182

The Mistress of Animals is a widespread motif in ancient art from the Mediterranean world and the Ancient Near East, showing a central human, or human-like, female figure who grasps two animals, one to each side. The oldest such depiction, the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük is a clay sculpture from Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey, made c 6,000 BC. This motif is more common in later Near Eastern and Mesopotamian art with a male figure, called the Master of Animals.

Although the connections between images and concepts in the various ancient cultures concerned remain very unclear, such images are often referred to as of Potnia Theron (Ἡ Πότνια Θηρῶν, “Mistress of Animals”), a term first used once by Homer (Iliad 21. 470) and often used to describe female divinities associated with animals.[1] The word Potnia, meaning mistress or lady, was a Mycenaean Greek word inherited by Classical Greek, with the same meaning, cognate to Sanskrit patnī.[2]

Source: Potnia Theron – Wikipedia

While hunting a stag Placidus saw a vision of a crucifix lodged between the stag’s antlers.[5] […]

In Armenia, Erewmanavank (“Convent of the Holy Apparition”) near Egin was said to be built on the actual location of the encounter of Placidus with the deer. The earliest surviving text detailing this is a manuscript from 1446, but the monastery is far older than that and probably a Byzantine foundation; J.-M. Thierry considers it to be a 10th-century foundation, perhaps by Greeks from Cappadocia. Although the monastery was destroyed during the Armenian Genocide, Thierry, in the 1980s, noted that a transmitted form of the legend still existed among local Muslim Kurds who talked of a “deer of light” appearing at the site.[14] […]

In Georgian mythology, Saint Eustace became associated with the hunting deity Apsat, patron of game animals.[26]

Source: Saint Eustace – Wikipedia

The Svan people of Georgia regard Apsat as one among a pantheon of hunting deities, said to be assistants of the deity Ber Shishvlish, the “Lord of the Bare Mountain”.[7] To the Svan, Apsat is the patron of fish and birds. In this capacity, he works with Dzhgyrag (the Svan name for St. George), who is associated with hunters and wolves, Cxek’ish angelwez (the Angel of the Forest) who is responsible for forest animals like bears and foxes, and the goddess Dali, the patron of hoofed mountain animals like goats.[2][7] […]

To the Ossetian people, Apsat is called Avsati or Æfsati, and he is regarded as the primary deity of the hunt.[8] He appears as such in the Ossetian epic called the Nart saga.[4] Ossetian hunters referred to game as Æfsati’s cattle (Ossetian: aefsatijy fos).[1] Hunters would make offerings and sing hymns begging his favor, and if successful in the hunt, would offer roasted organs such as the heart or the liver for thanks.[8] He is most commonly portrayed as elderly, bearded, and either one-eyed or blind.[4] It was said that he dwelt in a hut deep in the forest with his wife and daughters, and would occasionally permit huntsmen to marry his daughters.[8] Occasionally he was portrayed as a man with antlers or an animal with a white coat.[4]

Source: Apsat (mythology) – Wikipedia

During Hubert’s religious vision, the Hirsch (German: deer) is said to have lectured Hubertus into holding animals in higher regard and having compassion for them as God’s creatures with a value in their own right. For example, the hunter ought to only shoot when a humane, clean and quick kill is assured. He ought shoot only old stags past their prime breeding years and to relinquish a much anticipated shot on a trophy to instead euthanize a sick or injured animal that might appear on the scene.

Further, one ought never shoot a female with young in tow to assure the young deer have a mother to guide them to food during the winter. Such is the legacy of Hubert who still today is taught and held in high regard in the extensive and rigorous German and Austrian hunter education courses.

The legacy is also followed by the French chasse à courre masters, huntsmen and followers, who hunt deer, boar and roe on horseback and are the last direct heirs of Saint Hubert in Europe. Chasse à courre (riding to hounds) is currently enjoying a revival in France. The Hunts apply a specific set of ethics, rituals, rules and tactics dating back to the early Middle-Ages. Saint Hubert is venerated every year by the Hunts in formal ceremonies.

Source: Hubertus – Wikipedia

The Barnum effect, also called the Forer effect, or less commonly the Barnum-Forer effect, is a common psychological phenomenon whereby individuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically to them, that are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.[1] This effect can provide a partial explanation for the widespread acceptance of some paranormal beliefs and practices, such as astrology, fortune telling, aura reading, and some types of personality tests.[1][2]

Source: Barnum effect – Wikipedia

The subject of music within the quadrivium was originally the classical subject of harmonics, in particular the study of the proportions between the musical intervals created by the division of a monochord. A relationship to music as actually practised was not part of this study, but the framework of classical harmonics would substantially influence the content and structure of music theory as practised in both European and Islamic cultures.

Source: Quadrivium – Wikipedia

The trivium is the lower division of the seven liberal arts and comprises grammar, logic, and rhetoric.[1]

The trivium is implicit in De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (“On the Marriage of Philology and Mercury”) by Martianus Capella, but the term was not used until the Carolingian Renaissance, when it was coined in imitation of the earlier quadrivium.[2] Grammar, logic, and rhetoric were essential to a classical education, as explained in Plato’s dialogues. The three subjects together were denoted by the word trivium during the Middle Ages, but the tradition of first learning those three subjects was established in ancient Greece.

Source: Trivium – Wikipedia

In the theatre of Ancient Greece and classical drama, the skene was the structure at the back of a stage. The word skene means “tent” or “hut”, and it is thought that the original structure for these purposes was a tent or light building of wood and was a temporary structure.[1] It was initially a very light structure or just cloth hanging from a rope, but over the course of time the skene underwent fundamental changes. First it became a permanent building, whose roof could sometimes be used to make speeches, and as time passed it was raised up from the level of the orchestra, creating a proskenion, or “space in front of the skene”. The facade of the proskenion was behind the orchestra and provided a space for supporting stage scenery. During the Roman Period the skene had become a large and complex, elaborately decorated, stone building on several levels. Actors emerged from the skene and could use its steps and balconies to speak from. It was also where costumes were stored and to which the periaktoi (painted panels serving as the background) were connected.[2]

Source: Skene (theatre) – Wikipedia

An ekkyklêma (/ˌɛksɪˈkliːmə/; Greek: εκκύκλημα; “roll-out machine”) was a wheeled platform rolled out through a skênê in ancient Greek theatre. It was used to bring interior scenes out into the sight of the audience.[1] Some ancient sources suggest that it may have been revolved or turned.[2]

It is mainly used in tragedies for revealing dead bodies, such as Hippolytus’ dying body in the final scene of Euripides’ play of the same name, or the corpse of Eurydice draped over the household altar in Sophocles’ Antigone.[3] Other uses include the revelation in Sophocles’ Ajax of Ajax surrounded by the sheep he killed whilst under the delusion that they were Greeks.[4]

Source: Ekkyklema – Wikipedia