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Post by joustos on Apr 17, 2018 23:03:20 GMT
Now that Italy is being ruined and destroyed by illegal African Blacks and Muslims (who want to get rid of everything that is offensive to them, such as the national flag, the religious Crosses, and the very see of Catholicism [which is not being imposed upon them]), I, as a native Italian, like to reminisce about the vanishing Italian culture and to share it with those who might be interested in it. The concept of culture is a very broad one, as it comprises material artifacts, art-works, linguistic works (esthetic, religious, legal, etc.), political institutions, and customs of everyday life. I will come back to this thread from time to time, as I explore what is available on the internet, rather than presenting a brief and abstract view all at once.
The following U-tube gives a glimpse of Italy as it is still existing, and of some festivals (as at Siena and at Venice). I will be going in some details later on.
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Post by joustos on May 1, 2018 20:14:16 GMT
The Romans built roads and entire cities wherever they went, as in northern Africa, in Palestine, and in Costantinople (as the city was called after Byzantium and before it became Istambul); the church of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) is a standing monument of Roam architecture. Little is left of the houses of common people, except in Pompeii, a Graeco-Roman city that was covered by the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Villas_of_Pompeii
To notice that various subjects were painted on the interior walls of houses, that statues were commonplaces, and that floors were paved with mosaics (some of which have been removed and taken to museums). Pompeii must have been like a living museum, which had theaters and even shops where one could buy already baked bread and other foods. Before moving on in time, I will linger for a moment on the (Greek) Eleusinian mysteries or rites which were being practiced in Pompeii. (Meanwhile, click on the "Villa of Mysteries".)
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Post by joustos on May 6, 2018 15:31:30 GMT
Culture includes practices of religion and of (let us say) magic. Religion is a mental relationship to some god, as when some animals are sacrificed to a god, prayers or supplications are directed to some god, etc., whether to appease an angry god, or to ask for a favor (such as the healing of a sick person). Empedokles, the philosopher of Acragas (in Magna-Graecian Sicily) remarked that singing is done around the altar of a god in order to please the god. (The various religious practices are called rites or rituals, and there can be a well formalized liturgy, as in the case of the Christian Orthodox and Catholic religion -- which used to be one and the same.) The other relationship ["magic"] is unclear, not formalized, and not as universal, in the world and in history, as religion. As a matter of fact, some ethnologists totally separate magic from religion, as "magic" supposedly becomes effective by some special power in the magician or sourcerer rather than by the power of some assisting god, ... or by some power in Nature which somehow a magician harnasses. Perhaps there are two types of magic, as some magicians invoke the assistance of some god. In the Greek world, the Oracles [to get information....] were usually associated with a god, such as Apollo, therefore called "the god of prophesy". Delphi, in Greece, was he most famous Oracle. In Italy, the Oracle of Cuma (Kyme), near Naples, was associated with underground caves which still have waterfalls and voice-like sounds, but we do not know whether any god was invoked. Another type of magic was supposed to occur in the "mysteries" [secret rites] which were practiced at the nearby Pompeii, and specifically in the Villa [mansion+garden] which has now been called "the Villa of Mysteries". The famous Mysteries at Eleusis, near Athens, in Greece. had various buildings and, specifically, the Telesterion or hall where the "mystics" (or women initiated into the Mysteries) gathered after coming from Athens along the Sacred Road (now in disrepair), chanting and calling on Iakkhos, a rain-god older than Zeus or from the Middle East, where agriculture was born. [Here there is a very long story which I have investigated for years and partially wrote in a web-blog in 2008 (now defunct).] Room 5 of the Villa of Mysteries, a Triclinium or Dining-hall, is the Pompeiian Telesterion, as I figured out from the frieze, the painted scenes all around the room. <<< back in a moment >>>
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Post by joustos on May 6, 2018 16:36:30 GMT
Room 5 of the Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii has what has been called a "Dionysiac frieze" because, indeed, some of the paintings have to do with Dionysos (the son of Zeus and a human woman, wherefore, he is a semi-god). Various writers have spoken of representations of the Dionysian cult, but nobody has revealed anything about this cult. Anyway, most of the paintings remain wholly obscure, which I call and called "the Eleusinian [Eleusinian-like] mysteries. So we have a combination of Eleusinian and Dionysian mysteries -- a syncretism in this Telesterion: the mystics or "initiates" are both female and male. Of Dionysus we know, from historical sources, that he instituted the rite of homophagia (eating of row meat) and of wine-drinking. So, he is even identified with Bakkhos (the god or maker of wine). The pictures of the simply Eleusinian mysteries have to do with bread (which is made out of barley or wheat grains). As mythologists have always explained, Demeter is the goddess that produced vegetation or, specifically, the grain vegetation. This offspring is called the Maiden [Kore; Cora]. The Greeks personified their gods and goddesses. So, it happened that Hades (or Pluto) abducted the Maiden, wherefore the Grieving Demeter went around the world looking for the lost child, eventually was told where she was (and she was called Persephone, as the queen of the Underworld), and made an agreement with Zeus, that every year [at springtime, of course], she could come back to earth for a few months. Most of the pictures in the Telesterion are of Kore/Persephone. The very last picture shows Persephone enthroned and alone, as if waiting for her time to come back to earth. In "Art and Archeology" the sequence of the pictures is rather confusing.
The Telestorion is a rectangular room, which we should "read" from left to right: www.art-and-archeology.com/timelines/rome/empire/vm/villaofthemysteries.html
ON THE WALL, AT OUR LEFT: There is a little doorway, good for the mystics to enter one at a time. The very first picture is of a woman who has just entered the Telesterion. The next picture or episode is of a woman who is holding scrolls, while a child is reading a scroll. This could be an account of Demeter and Kore, or even, in Greek, part of "The Homeric Hymn to Demeter" (which has been translated into English). To proceed: A young lady is carrying sliced bread on a tray. This is taken to the "Officiant" of the rite, who is sitting, with her back to us. On her right, another young lady or assistant, is pouring water on her fingers, before she touches the bread (which is sacred and will be distributed to the mystics in the room. The Officiant may represent Demeter, who is the source of the sacred bread. Next: the player of the lyre. He is an Orphic rhapsodist, as the lyre is the typical instrument of Orpheus, who taught that a human is a body (from the earth; mortal) + a soul (from the stars; immortal).So, the introduction of the rhapsodist is an introduction to the theme of immortality, which will become more significant as we move on. Then the rhapsodist or an old man is holding a crater with wine for a young man to drink. This is a Dionysiac scene, since wine represents the divine blood of Dionysos, and he who drinks of it becomes as immortal as Dionysus. The mask which hangs on the painted wall is unmistakeably that of Silenus, the teacher of Dionysus and of his "cult". The ritual of eating Demeter's bread and drinking Dionysus' blood -- to become immortal -- is going to be adopted by the Christian Orthodox and Catholic "eucharist" for the Greek writers of the Gospels made Jesus say at his last supper: Eat, this is my body; drink, this is my blood...
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Post by joustos on May 6, 2018 18:22:44 GMT
Scene between the two old men (or the rhapsodists): This scene is based on some Orphic sayings. A mystic is like a kid that has fallen in a vat of milk, ... who has drunk the liquid of salvation [from death]. An actual kid (young goat) is depicted sucking milk from a human breast. // At the same time, incongruously, we see the afflicted wandering Demeter.
Part of the wall which faces us as we stand at the main entrance has been lost, but there is enough to see a sitting man [Dionysus] and a young lady [Kore] who, like a bacchante, has a tyrsos (the pine-topped staff) that used to be carried by the followers of Thracian or Phrygian Dionysos. The scene represents a "hieros gamos", the sacred marriage between Kore (Demeter's daughter) and Dionysus -- or the union of the two ancient mysteries.
The next picture is of the young lady opening and taking our something from a chest, such as the chest with "sacred things" which used to be carried annually from Athens to Eleusis. No mystic was allowed to ever reveal its contents, but somebody said that it contained a sculptural phallus. Because of the infraction of the rule of secrecy, Nemesis (divine Punishment), the winged goddess, appears next to her. (This may have been a metaphor for a prelude to a real marriage or mating.) She cowers by her mother and, finally, naked, she performs a dance of liberation, as she knows she must depart from this world.
What follows is not a picture, but a large window, which used to be simply a hole in the wall through which Hades could come and abduct Kore. After the window, there is the episode of Kore's toilet: she is being prepared to be qheen Persephone. An attendant is doing her hair, while a putto or cupid holds up a bronze mirror on which we see the reflection of her face. Next, at the corner of the wall which has the main (big) entrance, another putto complements the one who is holding the mirror. The very last picture, of enthroned Persephone, is to our left of the same wall.
Conclusion: One who imitates the life of an immortal, as by a theatrical re-enactment, becomes immortal. This is the "magic" of the Eleusinian rites. Also, the embodiment (assimilation) of something immortal makes one immortal. Many good pictures are no longer available on the internet. I don't know if this URL works or if it provides better pictures:
www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/RV/villa%20mysteries%20p31.htm
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