Sculpted neo attic sarcophagus representing Orpheus among the beasts, in the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, inv. 1246. Second quarter of the 3rd c. AD.
Grave stele with scene of Endymion and Selene (detail). Pettau-Ptuj, Yugoslavia.
Preferred Citation: Koortbojian, Michael. Myth, Meaning, and Memory on Roman Sarcophagi. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1995 1995. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4199n900/
''Orpheus's Monument stands in front of the town tower in the middle of Slovenian Square (Slovenski trg) in Ptuj. This narrow, five metre high monolith of Pohorje marble is the symbol of the town, its former pillory and the oldest public monument in Slovenia preserved at its original location.
The white monolith was erected in memory of Marcus Aurelus Vera, the mayor of Petovio in the second century. It is decorated with depictions from Orpheus's story. On the wider front plate there is the traditional ornamentation known from the schemes of temple fronts. Above the triangular front there is a decorative ending with lions' heads and figural masques, lower there is the chiselled Orpheus playing among the animals. Below the inscription tablet are added reliefs, attached to Evridika's salvation from the underground. Reliefs with images of animals are on the narrower parts of the stone as well. In the Middle Ages the monument on its pedestal was used as a pillory, a pillar of shame on which wrongdoers were chained in iron rings.''
''A város főterén a Várostorony előtt áll az Orpheusz-kő, mely eredetileg egy római faragott márvány kőtábla a II. század első feléből, feltehetőleg Marcus Valerius Verus helyi előkelőség síremléke lehetett. Az 5m magas és 2m széles márvány kőtábla a finom domborművéről kapta a nevét, mely a vadállatokat zenéjével megszelídítő Orpheuszt ábrázolja. A középkorban egészen 1848-ig pellengérként használták, ma a város jelképe.''
''A Dráva partján fekvő , középkori jellegét megőrző igen hangulatos kisváros. Már az újkőkorszakban és a bronzkorban lakott terület volt, melyet régészeti leletek bizonyítanak, a hallstatti és a La Tène-i korból is maradtak fent tárgyi emlékek. A rómaiak is hamar felismerték a hely stratégiai fontosságát, a Kr. e. 70 körül íródott Tacitus Annalesében Poetuvium vagy Petuvium néven említik, mint az Aquileiából Pannóniába vezető út fontos állomása, az út az itteni gázlón kelt át a Dráván. A II. században városi rangot kapott, unicípium lett Colonia Ulpia Poetovensis néven. Fontos szerepet játszott a barbár betörések elleni római védelmi rendszerben.''
''Worship of body is blended with the Christian tradition. Figures of Orpheus and Christ were compared already in the Middle Ages, apocrypha claim that Jesus descended to the inferno, Orpheus appears as a good shepherd in paintings, and both of them died as a result of violence.''
http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/04_3/tecsy16.htm
Técsy, Edit
Institut zur Erforschung und Förderung österreichischer und internationaler Literaturprozesse
Técsy, Edit: Since 2002 PhD student in Literary Sciences, University of Szeged, Department of Contemporary Hungarian Literature. Since 2002 PhD student in Literary Sciences, University of Szeged. 2002: M.A. in Hungarian language and literature. 1997-2002: student of the University of Szeged (Hungarian language and literature and Classic-Philology).
Symbology: The Egg Morgana (C) Wiccan Rede * Spring 1985
''Other Orphic motifs (found for example on alabaster bowls) include the serpent, another symbol closely connected with the egg, for example in the figure of the serpent Ouroboros, the serpent who bites its own tail. The Ouroboros, like the egg, forms a sphere or circular shape - the symbol of original perfection, i.e. before the division or splitting of creation. Neumann: "Circle, sphere and round are all aspects of the self-contained, which is without beginning and end; in its preworldly perfection it is prior to any process, eternal, for in its roundness there is no before and no after, no time; and there is no above and no below, no space., All this can only come with the coming of the light of consciousness, which is not yet present; now all is under sway of the unmanifest godhead, whose symbol is therefore the circle.''
JAAKKO ARONEN DRAGON CULTS AND NUMFH DRAKAINA IN IGUR 974 aus: Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 111 (1996) 125–132
''Perates practised some kind of dragon worship.13 A pictorial representation of a dragon cult is provided by an alabaster bowl depicting a circle of naked worshippers and in the middle a great serpent. The nudity and the Orphic verses engraved on the object point once more to an esoteric (initiatory?) milieu.14 It may be that some Christian legends referring to the destruction of a dragon cult echo real cults with dragon imagery.15''
13 Turcan (n. 3), 256–258 [Cf. R. Turcan, Les cultes orientaux dans le monde romain, Paris 1989, 13 (“la médiation de tous ces cultes était hellénophone”).]
14 The bowl is discussed by H. Leisegang, in: J. Campbell (ed.), The Mysteries. Eranos-Jahrbuch. Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, Princeton UP 1978, 194–196.
''The Gnostic Succotash: Orphic ceremonial bowl showing sixteen naked adepts, eight men and eight women, in a circle with their feet touching. ("The Sanctum of the Winged Serpent," Orphic bowl, 200-300 CE, in Joseph Campbell, Creative Mythology, p. 96.)''
The riddle of an ancient alabaster bowl of unknown origin is the intriguing subject of Hans Leisegang's essay, “The Mystery of the Serpent”. Elucidating its cryptic message, he vividly reconstructs a cultic scene of the jealously hidden Orphic mysteries. As he examines and re-arranges its fragmentary, disconnected and incorrectly written inscriptio.
The Mysteries: papers from the Eranos yearbooks Írta: Julius Baum, Joseph Campbell - 1979 - Social Science - 476 oldal Hans Leisegang The Mystery of the Serpent The alabaster bowl which is the starting point of the following inquiry and discussion belonged to a private ...
alabástrom (gör. alabasztron): a gipsz szemcsés-kristályos tömeges változata. - Színe fehér, sárgás, rózsaszínű v. világoskékes árnyalatú. Áttetsző v. átlátszatlan. Neve vsz. az ókori egyiptomi város gör-ös Alabasztron nevéből származik, ahol bányászták, v. a belőle készített karcsú, fületlen korsóktól, melyekben többnyire kenetet, illatszert tartottak (vö. Mk 14,3 és Lk 7,37). Kémiai összetétele víztartalmú kalciumszulfát: Ca(SO4)2H2O. - Az ókor óta edények és dísztárgyak készítésére használják. - A betániai Simon házában Jézushoz lépő assz. ~ edényből öntötte a Mester fejére a drága illatos olajat (Mt 26,7). O.F.
Az alabástrom eredetileg görög eredetű szó. Nem más, mint a gipszkő egy finom szemcsés változata. Kristályszerkezete: monoklin. Ékszerek területén elég ritkán használják, inkább dísztárgyakat készítenek belőle. Jól festhető, mert az anyaga a gipszhez hasonlóan erősen porózus.
''A small alabaster bowl dated back to the 3th-5th cent.A.C. from Syria or Asia Minor[13] shows the adoration of the snake coiled around an egg or an omphalos-stone. The men and women participating in the cult are naked. Most of them are putting their right hand on the breast, a gesture which, acc to Leisegang, is characteristic of the mysteries of Sabazios or Hekate. Some of them are raising the left hand to the classical gesture of adoration. Lifting the right hand as a sign of adoration is very common, but the left hand only when it is the gods of the underworld who are hailed. The snake is emitting light, a corona of saw-toothed beams are coming out of it together with a wreath of flames. Leisegang compares with the god Aion from Modena, a male figure with a snake coiling around his body ascending to rest its head on the top of the world egg. The god is standing inside a hatched egg. Macrobios says that the Phoenicians pictured the world “that is heaven”(mundum id est caelum) as a snake which, in a giant cycle, is biting its own tail[14].
In my opinion it is likely that the "egg" is the world mountain surrounded by the snake. Because it is said in an inscription: “… you bend yourself in a circle on the infinitely wide Olympos”. Leisegang has no comment on the purpose of the bowl. It must have contained a fluid becoming one with the primordial waters out of which the world mountain rose. A fluid, which, by this symbolism, became a very strong rejuvenating drink. The snake is the sacred symbol of amorphous totality before creation. It is said in the text that goes with the bowl: “Earth and heaven were only one form”.
''Clergymen of every denomination have vied in fervor in condemning all dancing as of the devil, yet strangely the only passages they can find to use from early Christian writings never condemn it outright. The favorites are St. Augustine's dictum: "Melius est enim arare quam saltare" ("It is better to plow than to dance")24 and Chrysostom's, "Where there is dancing, there is the devil also," but the churchmen who quote it never finish what Chrysostom has to say, as he continues, "God gave us feet . . . not to cavort shamefully . . . but that we may some day join in the dance of the angels!"25 To which angelic dancing the great Basil also refers as part of the Christian tradition: "What is more blessed than to imitate the dance of the angels here on earth?"26 Ritual dancing was condemned by the fathers not because it was new, but because it was old in the church—it smacked of the old Jewish heritage. Both Augustine and Chrysostom condemn the old Jewish dancing as part of the Sabbath rejoicing.27''
24. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos (Expositions on the Psalms) III, 2, in PL 37:1172; quoted differently along with other texts on the same subject, by Gougaud, "Danse," 250.
25. John Chrysostom, Commentarius in Sanctum Matthaeum Evangelistam (Commentary on Matthew) 48, in PG 58:491, and Gougaud, "Danse," 248.
26. Basil the Great, Epistolae (Letters) I, 2, in PG 32:225—26.
27. Augustine, Expositions on the Psalms 91, in PL 37:1171—81; Chrysostom, Contra Judaeos et Gentiles, quod Christus Sit Deus (Against the Jews and the Gentiles that Christ Is God), in PG 48:845—46.
''The Acts of John describes the circle as being in motion, a sort of dance, and earlier texts than the Nicaean version add a cosmic touch to the formula:
I would pipe: Dance all of you. I would mourn: mourn all of you!21 One Ogdoad sings praises with us. Amen. The number 12 dances on high. Amen. All that which is above participates in the circle. Amen." [Or—(alternate version)] "He that danceth not knoweth not what is being done. Amen. . . ." "Now if you follow my dance See yourself in Me who am speaking, and when you have seen what I do, keep silence about my mysteries."22
21. Pulver, "Jesus' Round Dance and Crucifixion," 186, notes that mourning here denotes that the initiate is expected to suffer after the manner of the leader. The word for "mourn" in Matthew 11:17 is koptomai, literally, to inflict wounds upon oneself.
22. Variants in Montague R. James, Apocrypha Anecdota, second series, Texts and Studies 5:1 (Cambridge: University Press, 1897), 3:10—16.
Charis (grace) (leads) dances in the chorus: I wish to pipe (Play the flute)dance all of you! Amen.
I wish to mourn, all of you mourn (lit. kopsastheinflict blows [cuts] upon yourselves). Amen."
And after having led us in other things in the circle (chorus), beloved, the Lord went out. And we went forth like lost wanderers or like people in a dream, fleeing our several ways.3''
3. Texts of this part of the Acts of John, taken from a number of sources, may be found in Mansi, Sacrorum Conciliorum Acta; Leclercq, "Agape," 787—92; ANT 253—70; NTA 2:227—32.
The Early Christian Prayer Circle Hugh W. Nibley Provo, Utah: Maxwell InstituteThe views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
''The special object of Leisegang's study, an alabaster Orphic bowl depicting a prayer circle, bears an inscription beginning with "an invocation of the celestial force which moves the outermost sphere, encompassing all the other spheres of heaven";135 the third line reads, "' . . . because thou movest in a circle,'" and "exhorts the readers to invoke the divine cosmic power, the sun which rules the infinite cosmic space over the heaven of fixed stars . . . [carrying] the reader's thoughts back to the primordial age before the birth of the cosmos."136 For the rites in the circle "take place in the supercelestial space beyond the starry heavens."137 Leisegang concludes that the many pagan versions of the thing "all bear witness to the mysteries, to the diverse yet always interrelated forms of the original Orphic-Dionysian cult . . . that extended deep into the Christian world."138 His final word is that "all these rites were in some way related, though today the nature of the connection can only be surmised."139 They go much farther back than the Orphic-Dionysian tradition, however, since the old Babylonian hymn of creation, the Enuma Elish, tells how at the Creation God drew "the universal figure," the quartered circle, which is repeated at every level of existence,140 with the idea that whatever is done on one level or world is done in heaven also.141''
135. Leisegang, "The Mystery of the Serpent," 201; cf. 241.
136. Ibid., 211, 215.
137. Ibid., 233.
138. Ibid., 259.
139. Ibid., 240.
140. Enuma Elish 1:60—80; 6:51—73 (esp. 69, 73); 4:136—46. Cf. translations by Speiser, in James Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 60—72, and Alexander Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942). See Heidel, The Babylonian Genesis, 43, n. 96 for further bibliography.
141. Enuma Elish 6:113. It is the circle of time divided into 12 lunar positions, 5:1—4, 9—14.
The Derveni papyrus: cosmology, theology, and interpretation - Google Books eredmény Írta: Gábor Betegh - 2004 - Literary Collections - 441 oldal ... It is noteworthy that one part of the fragment appears with three other Orphic texts on an alabaster bowl dated to the third century AD.8' Furthermore, ...
The Roman myths of Ovid and Virgil Orpheus withm David and Moses pagan prophet prefigured the arrival of Christ. Son of God or the Father Orpheus began, Christ completed. funerary art catacombs Proclus, Moses
''Orpheus Lost: The Middle Ages The Roman myths of Ovid and Virgil are powerful and remain with us to this day. Before the Roman retellings of the Orpheus myth, however, there existed a sacred tradition with deep roots in Greek religion. The myth of Orpheus became absorbed into the emerging Christian tradition as seen in Roman funerary art and theological comparisons of Orpheus with David and Moses. In the early Christian tradition, Orpheus was re-envisioned as a pagan prophet who prefigured the arrival of Christ. As Augustine later wrote, Orpheus was said to have “predicted or spoken truth of the Son of God or the Father.” What Orpheus began, Christ completed. Later in the Middle Ages, the myth of Orpheus would be re-told in the form of moral allegories. During this period, written knowledge of the sacred, mystical, and theological teachings of the Orphic tradition was lost. During the third to sixth centuries, Orphic motifs blended with depictions of Christ in funerary art as seen in the Roman catacombs. Funerary artists looking for established models to serve the new Christian faith’s need for images of Christ as a leader of souls through the underworld could use the figure of Orpheus. In these Proclus, refer to Orpheus in order to illustrate that the Greek religious tradition was borrowed from Moses in Egypt, showing that its source of divine inspiration was the same as in the Judeo-Christian tradition. To these writers, Orpheus’s teachings represent an early form of monotheism borrowed from Judaic sources. After the 5th century, explicit linkages of Christ and Orpheus begin to recede. In the early Middle Ages, the myth of Orpheus is told as an allegory, and Orpheus himself is seen in negative light in which his paganism, musical ability, and moral pursuits are linked. In works such as the Ovide Moralisé, classical myths are recast as moral allegories to reconcile them with Christian doctrine. In the later Middle Ages, Orpheus was transformed into a handsome knight or prince who sings songs of romantic love, brings Eurydice back to life, and always earns a happy ending. In the 11th century, Orpheus is presented as romantic lover in three different poems. The 14th century produced two long poems in English with Orpheus as a princely hero: Henryson’s Orpheus and Eurydice, and the anonymous Sir Orfeo. Orpheus is presented as the most loyal of lovers, a minstrel, and possessing the magical and astrological powers of a wizard. These medieval romantic writers tell of Orpheus bringing Eurydice back to life through spells or through the power of love. For instance, the romantic poem, Sir Orfeo, includes elements of Celtic otherworld mythology, fairies, and jeweled castles. It bears slight resemblance to the Orpheus of Ovid and Virgil and conforms closely to the medieval romantic genre of the time. It contains a blending of classic mythology, secular romance, Christian morals, and Celtic fairy tales. A modern translation of Sir Orfeo was completed by J. R. R. Tolkien and published posthumously in the book Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.''
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