300 golden bees were found in the tomb of Childeric, What would have been the symbolic significance of this?

Question

Childeric was an eighth - century King of the Merovingians...

Thank you everyone, I have really enjoyed reading the information about the golden bees and other things connected.
My heart sank when I read the treasure had been melted down, and only three bees remained. I suppose that has been the fate of many such treasures in the past.

Thank you so much for answering my question, Excellent!

Answer 1

The bee is a sign of industry, creativity, wealth, diligence and eloquence. The Egyptians used it as a symbol of regal power. In armory, it is used to represent well-governed industry. The Emperor Napoleon gave the bee considerable importance in the French armory by adopting it as his personal badge. They also appeared on the mantle and pavilion around the armorial bearings of the empire, as well as on his coronation mantle. The bee is undoubtedly the most popular insect found in heraldry, and even the beehive occurs often as a crest.

Answer 2

There has always been a lot of myth and legend surrounding bees. An old superstition in the UK says that you must always tell the bees, if you have beehives, of a death in the family. Here is something about bees connected with the Merovingians:

http://www.geocities.com/laverite_99/Bees.html

And something more about bee superstitions:

http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/animal/animalb.htm#BEE
http://www.gandolf.com/cornwall/superstitions/TellingBeesAboutDeath.shtml

Answer 3

The bee was chosen as a symbol of immortality and resurrection not of the king himself, but of the whole of France, or more simply perhaps he liked honey!

Answer 4

Plentiness.

Answer 5

In addition to the above answer.

Childeric's tomb was discovered in 1653 (May 27) by a mason doing repairs in the church of Saint-Brice in Tournai, a city in modern Belgium, where numerous precious objects were found, including a richly ornamented sword, a torse-like bracelet, jewels of gold and cloisonné enamel with garnets, gold coins, a gold bull's head and a ring with the inscription CHILDERICI REGIS ("of Childeric the king"), which identified the tomb. Some 300 golden bees were also found.

Archduke Leopold William, governor of the Southern Netherlands (today's Belgium), had the find published in Latin, and the treasure went first to the Habsburgs in Vienna, then as a gift to Louis XIV, who was not impressed with them and stored them in the royal library, which became the Bibliothèque Nationale de France during the Revolution.

Napoleon was more impressed with Childeric's bees when he was looking for a heraldic symbol to trump the Bourbon fleur-de-lys. He settled on Childeric's bees as symbols of the French Empire.

On the night of November 5-6, 1831, the treasure of Childeric was among 80 kilos of treasure stolen from the Library and melted down for the gold. A few pieces were retrieved where they had been hidden in the Seine, including two of the bees. The record of the treasure, however, now exists only in the fine engravings made at the time of its discovery, and in some reproductions made for the Habsburgs.

The Merovingian dynasty owes its name to the semi-legendary Merovech, (Latinised as Meroveus or Merovius), leader of the Salian Franks.

Salian Mythology comprises the polytheïstic beliefs of the Salian Franks, originating from their Germanic homelands north of the Lower Rhine and taken with them in their expanse into France. Paganism is supposed to have flourished among the Salian Franks until the conversion of Clovis to Christianity, after which paganism withered slowly.

The modern knowledge of ancient Germanic beliefs is sufficient to assume similarities between the continental and Scandinavian counterparts, although some degree of local variation has been observed - worship was especially devoted to fertility gods.

In contrast to many other Germanic tribes no Merovingians claims are known to be descended from Wodan. Instead, the tradition of a cart pulled by bulls seems to be present from the early Merovingians on. The bulls that pulled the cart were taken as special animals, and according to Salian law the theft of those animals would impose a high sanction.

In the grave of Childeric was found the head of a bull, craftily made out of gold. This may have represented the persistence of a very old fertility ritual, attached to the sacred person of the Merovingian king linked to a fertility goddess Nerthus riding a chariot drawn along by cows.

This goddess is generally held to be a Roman misinterpretation of Freyr, itself strongly associated to a god carrying the similar name Njord. This Nerthus, whose worship was connected to a lake where the service was accompanied with human sacrifices, is thought to be the origin of the Merovingian story about the conception of Merovech, after whom the dynasty would be named, telling of the Frankish king Chlodeo taking a summer bathe with his wife, when she was attacked by some sort of sea beast, thus it was unknown if Meroveus was conceived out of Chlodeo, or the Beast. The Frank kings riding through the country on their chariot pulled by bulls could then be imagined re-enacting the blessing journey of their divine ancestor.

The Salian Franks, had a special dedication to the worship of Yngvi, synonym to Freyr, whose cult can still be discerned in the time of Clovis. Gregory of Tours - through the mouth of Clothild, the wife of Clovis - obviously confuse the Frankish fertility god with the Roman Saturn in a tirade against their pagan gods, naming this god first

I think that it is related to ancient Greek beliefs however. The name a several individuals within mythology -"Merope" seems to mean "honey-faced" in Ancient Greek, thus "eloquent" in Classical times, but surely at an earlier level her "face" was a bee-mask. Cretan bee-masked priestesses appear on Minoan seals. One of the mythographers recalled the tradition that "Merope" was the "bee-eater" in the old Minoan tongue, before the Hellenes came to the Aegean.

This item is quite typical of Merovingian art. Jean-Jacques Chifflet, physician to the governor of the Low Countries at the time of the tombs discovery (1653), was commissioned to write an account of the discovery, and guessed that the objects had decorated a royal mantle, were bees, and were also the antecedents of the French fleurs-de-lys. This theory was hotly disputed at the time, but it nevertheless led Napoleon to his choice.

Byzantine coinage was in use in Francia before Theudebert I began minting his own money at the start of his reign. He was the first to issue distinctly Merovingian coinage. The solidus (To this day, sou is used as slang for money in France) and triens were minted in Francia between 534 and 679. The denarius (or denier) appeared later, in the name of Childeric II and various non-royals around 673–675.

So Childeric would have been familia with Greek art an symbolism, he may have choosen the bee as a symbol for his father Merovech, because of the simalarity of the name to the 'goddess' Merope.

Answer 6

honey