Why is the pomegrante a symbol of the goddesses Hera,Persephone and Aphrodite?

Answer 1

Pomegranates and symbolism

Exodus chapter 28:33-34 directed that images of pomegranates be woven onto the borders of Hebrew priestly robes. 1 Kings chapter 7:13-22 describes pomegranates depicted in the temple King Solomon built in Jerusalem. Jewish tradition teaches that the pomegranate is a symbol for righteousness, because it is said to have 613 seeds which corresponds with the 613 mitzvot or commandments of the Torah. For this reason and others many Jews eat pomegranates on Rosh Hashanah.
The wild pomegranate did not grow natively in the Aegean area in Neolithic times. It originated in the Iranian east and came to the Aegean world along the same cultural pathways that brought the goddess whom the Anatolians worshipped as Cybele and the Mesopotamias as Ishtar. The myth of Persephone, the dark goddess of the Underworld also prominently features the pomegranate.

In one version of Greek mythology, Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken off to live in the underworld as his wife. Her mother, Demeter, (goddess of the Harvest), went into mourning for her lost daughter and thus all green things ceased to grow. Zeus could not leave the Earth to die, so he commanded Hades to return Persephone. It was the rule of the Fates that anyone who consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Persphone had no food, however, Hades tricked her into eating six pomegranate seeds while she was still his prisoner and so, because of this, she was condemned to spend six months in the Underworld every year. During these six months, when Persephone is sitting on the throne of the Underworld next to her husband Hades, her mother Demeter mourns and no longer gives fertility to the earth. This became an ancient Greek explanation for the seasons.

The pomegranate also evoked the presence of the Aegean Triple Goddess who evolved into the Olympian Hera, who is sometimes represented offering the pomegranate, as in the Polykleitos' cult image of the Argive Heraion (see below). According to Carl A. P. Ruck and Danny Staples, the chambered pomegranate is also a surrogate for the poppy's narcotic capsule, with its comparable shape and chambered interior.[6] On a Mycenaean seal illustrated in Joseph Campbell's Occidental Mythology 1964, figure 19, the seated Goddess of the double-headed axe (the labrys) offers three poppy pods in her right hand and supports her breast with her left. She embodies both aspects of the dual goddess, life-giving and death-dealing at once. Is that why Persephone found the pomegranate waiting, when she sojourned in the dark realm? The Titan Orion was represented as "marrying" Side, a name that in Boeotia means "pomegranate", thus consecrating the primal hunter to the Goddess. Other Greek dialects call the pomegranate rhoa; its possible connection with the name of the earth goddess Rhea, inexplicable in Greek, proved suggestive for the mythographer Karl Kerenyi, who suggested that the consonance might ultimately derive from a deeper, pre-Indo-European language layer.
In the sixth century BCE, Polykleitos took ivory and gold to sculpt the seated Argive Hera in her temple. She held a scepter in one hand and offered a pomegranate, like a royal orb, in the other. "About the pomegranate I must say nothing," whispered the traveller Pausanias in the second century AD, "for its story is something of a mystery." Indeed, in the Orion story we hear that Hera cast pomegranate-Side into dim Erebus — "for daring to rival Hera's beauty", which forms the probable point of connection with the older Osiris/Isis story. Since the ancient Egyptians identified the Orion constellation in the sky as Sah the "soul of Osiris", the identification of this section of the myth seems relatively complete. Hera wears, not a wreath nor a tiara nor a diadem, but clearly the calyx of the pomegranate that has become her serrated crown.[7] In some artistic depictions, the pomegranate is found in the hand of Mary, mother of Jesus.
In modern times the pomegranate still hold strong symbolic meanings for the Greeks. On imporant days in the Greek Orthodox calendar, such as the Presentation of the Virgin Mary and on Christmas Day, it is traditional to have at the dinner table "polysporia", also known by their ancient name "panspermia" in some regions of Greece. In ancient times they were offered to Demeter[citation needed] and to the other gods for fertile land, for the spirits of the dead and in honor of compassionate Dionysus. In modern times they symbolic meaning is assumed by Jesus and his mother Mary. Pomegranates are also prominent at Greek weddings and funerals. When Greeks commemorate their dead, they make "kollyva" as offerings that consist of boiled wheat, mixed with sugar and decorated with pomegranate. It is also traditional in Greece to break a pomegranate on the ground at weddings, on New Years and when one buys a new home for a house guest to bring as a first gift a pomegranate which is placed under/near the ikonostasi, (home altar), of the house, as it is a symbol of abundance, fertility and good luck. Pomegranate decorations for the home are very common in Greece and sold in most homegoods stores. [4]

Answer 2

It's a symbol of Persephone because of the Hades myth. The connection is probably that as a harvest goddess (associated with her mother, Demeter), the seeds represented fertility and pomegranates have a ton of little seeds (I think they're technically arils since they're not hard like, say, apple seeds.) So, six seeds for "winter", the dormant time, and six for "summer", the fertile time for Greece (yeah, their seasons are a little different.) Six months underground in the cold with Demeter mourning and nothing growing, six months with her grateful mother who made everything bloom. Pomegranates are a popular fruit in Greece and the surrounding areas (I think the best ones come from Iran.)

As far as Hera and Aphrodite--I don't know of any connection to those two. Now, Hera and Aphrodite are associated with apples--the golden apple that Eris threw into a party "for the fairest." Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena vied for the prize, leading to Paris picking Aphrodite and starting the Trojan War. But I don't know offhand about any pomegranates for those two.

Answer 3

They are all essentially fertility goddesses, and I'd imagine the luscious pomegranate is a symbol for that. Although, there is a case for those goddesses being one and the same, singly it breaks down like this: Hera is the goddess of childbirth; Persephone is a goddess of the spring rebirth (everything dies on Earth when she goes down to Hades for 6 months, then comes to life again whe she returns), and Aphrodite is the goddess of love and sex, and sometimes life.

Answer 4

OK, I know about the Persephone connection..She was given to the lord of the underground, Demeter her mother was so grief stricken that she turned everything cold and no plants would grow(winter), but Demeter made a deal that she could have her daughter back IF she,Peri, ate nothing while she had been underground, if she had, then she would have to return for that a month for each bite(get the idea), she ate 6 pomegranate seeds..so we have 6 months of winter now..I don't know about the other two connections

Answer 5

i don't understand a ..pomegrante? maybe a pomegranate - it's a symbol of femininity because it's juicy and fragile.

Answer 6

Persephone Goddess Symbol