Women in Greek Religion

Crete

Fresco Close-up
Sarcophagus:    Side 1 Side 2 The rituals
snake goddess
snake goddess
seal ring

Athena
Worship of Athena:  Panathenaea Parthenon Frieze
Peplos Procession Peplos Presentation
Weavers

Worship of Demeter: Thesmophoria Demeter? Persephone? Priestess? Pnyx Woman going to worship

Married women control the center of civic life for three days.

The Adonia:

rooftop garden plants set out to die in August.  Mature women mourn the death of the plants.

Artemisia

Girls danced as "little bears" in Brauron.  Initiation into maidenhood.

Dionysia:

Queen Archon and the opening of wine jars, "marriage" with Dionysus.

Women and death
Women and Prophecy

Delphi

The temple
The Pythia

Bacchanalia

Myth of the Minyades:  resisting Dionysus.

From Euripides' Bacchae
The run through the mountains
Sparagmos

The Lenaia-- festival to Dionysus

Bacchante (Maenad)

Death of Aktaion (Actaeon)

Death of Pentheus

Notes on Women in Religion