On the Way to Arcadia (PDF) - Rolf Gross

The Great Stele from Eleusis
The Great Stele from Eleusis
Of all the objects in the Archaeological Museum in Athens I love the great votive stele from
Eleusis. It shows the Goddesses, Demeter to the left and Kore-Persephone to the right of the
young Triptolemos, into whose hand Demeter is laying a grain of corn. Above his head
Persephone holds the pomegranate. In her left Demeter carries a "column", her Sacred Tree,
and Kore holds the Torch of Light. The stele radiates a serenity that few other Greek images
possess.
I always thought that the numinosity of the number Three was a patriarchal Indo-European
invention, a symbol for the male sex. It now turns out that the Trinity was originally female,
and that it is much older than the Indo-European migrations. It stood for the Triad of the Great
Goddess, the three transformational aspects of Woman: virgin, mother, and old crone.
The differentiation of the Goddess into the three anthropomorphic aspects of Kore, Demeter,
and Hecate is surely a male translation of the later Hellenic era. Before that no systematic
religion existed, there was only one Great Goddess, with many animal manifestations. Even in
classical representations of the fifth century BC Demeter and Kore, mother and daughter, often
look so much alike, that they can only be distinguished by their attributes. Demeter holds an
ear of grain and Kore a pomegranate, symbols of maturity and budding fertility. But at the
same time, the red pomegranate was a symbol of death: those who eat of it, who love and
produce seed will die, are claimed by Hades. Just as Kore, having eaten of the pomegranate