Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

IX] Anodos of Earth-Mother 419
are painted a tree, leaf-sprays and a tortoise. From the top of
the mound rises a tree. In the midst rises up the figure of a
woman. It is a grave-mound, an omphalos-sanctuary, and she
who is the spirit of the earth incarnate rises up to bring and be
new life. The tree that springs from the mound is, like the cone,
a symbol and vehicle of life. Probably it marked the earlier stage
Fig. 124.
in which the earth as mother was all-sufficing. On another Anodos
vase 1 the uprising woman is inscribed (Phe)rophatta, but in most
instances of the type she is nameless, she is the Earth-Kore reborn
in spring. On the Pherophatta vase Hermes Psychopompos, he
who summoned the Keres from the pithos, stands near with
uplifted rhabdos. On the vase in Fig. 124 the Earth-Mother
clearly rises from an artificial mound, and this is doubtless a
grave. On yet another vase, a black-figured lekythos 2 , she rises,
not out of a mound but within the precinct of a sanctuary marked
by two columns, and from her head are branching trees. The
grave is a sanctuary.
On the Pherophatta vase we have clearly the influence of
1 Krater, Albertinurn Mus.' Dresden. Jahrb. d. Inst. 1893, p. 166.
2 Bibliotheque Nat. Paris, Cat. 298, Milliet et Girandon, PI. liie.
27—2