Misplaced Pages

#645354

101-548: The Harpy Tomb is a marble chamber from a pillar tomb that stands in the abandoned city of Xanthos , capital of ancient Lycia , a region of southwestern Anatolia in what is now Turkey. Built in the Persian Achaemenid Empire , and dating to approximately 480–470 BC, the chamber topped a tall pillar and was decorated with marble panels carved in bas-relief . The tomb was built for an Iranian prince or governor of Xanthus, perhaps Kybernis . The marble chamber

202-653: A Greek the scene might depict the worship of a hero; for a Persian, an audience before the Persian governor of Xanthus, faintly reminiscent of the audiences before the Great King in Persepolis. These portrayals of Persia on a small scale reflect in their physical dispositions the spiritual idea of maintaining promises of obedience to superiors; everyone expected from those below him what the granted those above him. Greek craftsmen appear to have done all this work for Persian patrons – with

303-499: A chorus composed of freed Titans. Possibly even earlier than Pindar and Aeschylus, two papyrus versions of a passage of Hesiods' Works and Days also mention Cronus being released by Zeus, and ruling over the heroes who go to the Isle of the Blessed; but other versions of Hesiod's text do not, and most editors judge these lines of text to be later interpolations. It is generally accepted that

404-545: A high standard of workmanship. The Harpy Tomb belongs to the Late Archaic Greek style. The Archaic Style introduced an element of realism that was developed to its fullest in the later Classical Style , but retained some of the formalism of the earlier Geometric Style in its rules of symmetry . Of the many tombs at Xanthos, the Harpy Tomb is unique in period and style. Other well-known sculptures from Xanthos include

505-540: A huge stone wrapped in baby's clothes which he swallowed thinking that it was another of Rhea's children. Zeus, now grown, forced Cronus (using some unspecified trickery of Gaia) to disgorge his other five children. Zeus then released his uncles the Cyclopes (apparently still imprisoned beneath the earth, along with the Hundred-Handers, where Uranus had originally confined them) who then provide Zeus with his great weapon,

606-565: A key role in an important part of Greek mythology, the succession myth. It told how the Titan Cronus , the youngest of the Titans, overthrew Uranus , and how in turn Zeus, by waging and winning a great ten-year war pitting the new gods against the old gods, called the Titanomachy ("Titan war"), overthrew Cronus and his fellow Titans, and was eventually established as the final and permanent ruler of

707-593: A later king of Lycia. Kybernis is proposed as a possible identity of the occupant of the tomb. Another view is that they are generalised scenes of judgement in Hades rather than earthly rulers. Consistent with this view is the interpretation of the south figure as Persephone , the Queen of the Underworld . The figures to the left and right of the opening may be the goddesses Demeter and Persephone respectively. The repeated use of

808-406: A miniaturized official before the Great King as at Persepolis, a boy offers a cock and a rhyton of wine to the enthroned governor. Common to Greeks, Lycians, and Persians , this ritual gesture of offering had a different significance for each. All saw the same thing and understood it differently – but not differently enough to be unaware that there were other ways of understanding what they saw. For

909-717: A result of this war, the vanquished Titans were banished from the upper world and held imprisoned under guard in Tartarus . Some Titans were apparently allowed to remain free. According to Hesiod , the Titan offspring of Uranus and Gaia were Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , Tethys , and Cronus . Eight of the Titan brothers and sisters married each other: Oceanus and Tethys, Coeus and Phoebe, Hyperion and Theia, and Cronus and Rhea. The other two Titan brothers married outside their immediate family. Iapetus married his niece Clymene ,

1010-544: A similar fashion, in the Iliad , Hera, upon swearing an oath by the underworld river Styx , "invoked by name all the gods below Tartarus, that are called Titans" as witnesses. They were the older gods, but not, apparently, as was once thought, the old gods of an indigenous group in Greece, historically displaced by the new gods of Greek invaders. Rather, they were a group of gods, whose mythology at least, seems to have been borrowed from

1111-464: A succession of kings in heaven: Anu (Sky), Kumarbi , and the storm-god Teshub , with many striking parallels to Hesiod's account of the Greek succession myth. Like Cronus, Kumarbi castrates the sky-god Anu, and takes over his kingship. And like Cronus, Kumarbi swallows gods (and a stone?), one of whom is the storm-god Teshub, who like the storm-god Zeus, is apparently victorious against Kumarbi and others in

SECTION 10

#1732852088646

1212-772: A thirteenth Titan, Dione , the mother of Aphrodite by Zeus. Plato's inclusion of Phorkys, apparently, as a Titan, and the mythographer Apollodorus 's inclusion of Dione , suggests an Orphic tradition in which the canonical twelve Titans consisted of Hesiod's twelve with Phorkys and Dione taking the place of Oceanus and Tethys. The Roman mythographer Hyginus , in his somewhat confused genealogy, after listing as offspring of Aether (Upper Sky) and Earth (Gaia), Ocean [Oceanus], Themis, Tartarus, and Pontus, next lists "the Titans", followed by two of Hesiod's Hundred-Handers : Briareus and Gyges, one of Hesiod's three Cyclopes : Steropes, then continues his list with Atlas, Hyperion and Polus, Saturn [Cronus], Ops [Rhea], Moneta , Dione, and

1313-399: A throne, holding in his right hand a pomegranate flower and being offered a cock by a smaller standing figure. Behind the small standing figure is a male holding in his left hand a staff and advancing with a dog. Behind the seated figure are two advancing females, the first holding in her left hand a pomegranate. It is thought the carvings on the monument were originally brightly painted. At

1414-463: A war of the gods. Other Hittite texts contain allusions to "former gods" ( karuilies siunes ), precisely what Hesiod called the Titans, theoi proteroi . Like the Titans, these Hittite karuilies siunes , were twelve (usually) in number and end up confined in the underworld by the storm-god Teshub, imprisoned by gates they cannot open. In Hurrian, the Hittite's karuilies siunes were known as

1515-591: A welcome volunteer, on the side of Zeus; and it is by reason of my counsel that the cavernous gloom of Tartarus now hides ancient Cronus and his allies within it. The mythographer Apollodorus , gives a similar account of the succession myth to Hesiod's, but with a few significant differences. According to Apollodorus, there were thirteen original Titans, adding the Titaness Dione to Hesiod's list. The Titans (instead of being Uranus' firstborn as in Hesiod) were born after

1616-483: Is 7 feet (2.1 m) in length and 3 feet 3 inches (1.0 m) in height. It was originally set upon a large oblong stone pedestal, 17 feet (5.2 m) high, making it an example of a pillar tomb . The top of the pillar has a hollowed out chamber creating a space inside the tomb 7 feet 6 inches (2.3 m) tall from the bottom of the hollow to the top of the reliefs. All four sides are carved with similar relief panels in one of which (the south side)

1717-406: Is a cow suckling its calf. This design is also seen on coins from the reign of Sppndaza (475 to 469 BC). On the right of the opening three female figures advance towards the seated figures. The second advancing female holds in her right hand a fruit and in her left a pomegranate flower. The third holds in her raised right hand an object, possibly an egg. On the east side is a male figure seated on

1818-410: Is a small opening to allow a body to be placed in the tomb. This aperture may originally have been closed with a stele . The tomb is roofed with what appear to be three large slabs, one above the other. In fact, the capstone is one single piece, weighing 15 to 20 tons, carved to give the appearance of three layers. Each false slab overlaps the ones below to form an entablature . All the parts, except

1919-544: Is carved in the Greek Archaic style. Along with much other material in Xanthos it is heavily influenced by Greek art, but there are also indications of non-Greek influence in the carvings. The reliefs are reminiscent of reliefs at Persepolis . The monument takes its name from the four carved female winged figures, resembling Harpies . The identities of the carved figures and the meaning of the scenes depicted are uncertain, but it

2020-636: Is found in Lycia from an early date. The Lycian alphabet is derived from Rhodian Greek, with borrowings from other alphabets, possibly Phoenician . The country was conquered by Harpagus in 540 BC, who was acting for the Persians. Lycia's culture was influenced by its annexation into the Persian Empire, but also by its neighbours, the Ionian Greeks . The influence of Greek culture increased after Xerxes ' army

2121-403: Is generally now agreed that the winged creatures are not Harpies. The Lycians absorbed much of Greek mythology into their own culture and the scenes may represent Greek deities, but it is also possible they are unknown Lycian deities. An alternative interpretation is that they represent scenes of judgement in the afterlife and scenes of supplication to Lycian rulers. The carvings were removed from

SECTION 20

#1732852088646

2222-695: Is round about them", and further, that Zeus "thrust Cronos down to dwell beneath earth and the unresting sea." Brief mentions of the Titanomachy and the imprisonment of the Titans in Tartarus also occur in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo and Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound . In the Hymn , Hera, angry at Zeus, calls upon the "Titan gods who dwell beneath the earth about great Tartarus, and from whom are sprung both gods and men". In Prometheus Bound , Prometheus (the son of

2323-450: Is uncertain. Hesiod in the Theogony gives a double etymology, deriving it from titaino [to strain] and tisis [vengeance], saying that Uranus gave them the name Titans: "in reproach, for he said that they strained and did presumptuously a fearful deed, and that vengeance for it would come afterwards". But modern scholars doubt Hesiod's etymology. Jane Ellen Harrison asserts that

2424-585: The Classical period onwards, when Lycian architecture and sculpture were very much in the Classical Greek style. But the Lycians had a distinct culture of their own, and their religious and funerary rites can be distinguished from the Greek. The Lycian language , although it is Indo-European , isn't closely related to Greek and was instead more closely related to Hittite and most probably directly descended from

2525-566: The Dead Gods ( Dingiruggû ), the Banished Gods ( ilāni darsūti ), and the Defeated (or Bound) Gods ( ilāni kamûti ). In Orphic literature, the Titans play an important role in what is often considered to be the central myth of Orphism , the sparagmos , that is the dismemberment of Dionysus , who in this context is often given the title Zagreus . As pieced together from various ancient sources,

2626-486: The Horse Tomb , were left in situ because they were so large that they could only be handled if first sawn into pieces. This Fellows would have done, but the stone-sawyers arrived from Malta with Graves so late in the season that they immediately succumbed to malaria and the task was abandoned. Nevertheless, 80 tons of material were put on board. Pillar tomb A pillar tomb is a type of monumental grave wherein

2727-609: The Lion Tomb , Pillar of the Wrestlers, and the pillars at Isinda and Trysa are all distinctly Greek in style with little eastern symbolism. Pillar tombs are the earliest form of tomb found in Lycia and go back to the sixth century BC, first appearing c. 540 BC. The pillar tombs appear to be reserved for leading dynasts. House tombs and sarcophagi appear from the mid-5th century BC onwards. Xanthos has 43 monumental tombs of which 17 are sculptured and 35 are pillar tombs, usually to

2828-568: The Near East (see "Near East origins," below). These imported gods gave context and provided a backstory for the Olympian gods, explaining where these Greek Olympian gods had come from, and how they had come to occupy their position of supremacy in the cosmos. The Titans were the previous generation, and family of gods, whom the Olympians had to overthrow, and banish from the upper world, in order to become

2929-494: The Titanides ( αἱ Τῑτᾱνῐ́δες , hai Tītānídes ) or Titanesses — Theia , Rhea , Themis , Mnemosyne , Phoebe , and Tethys . After Cronus mated with his older sister Rhea, she bore the first generation of Olympians: the six siblings Zeus , Hades , Poseidon , Hestia , Demeter , and Hera . Certain descendants of the Titans, such as Prometheus , Atlas , Helios , and Leto , are sometimes also called Titans. The Titans were

3030-695: The "gods of down under" ( enna durenna ) and the Hittites identified these gods with the Anunnaki , the Babylonian gods of the underworld, whose defeat and imprisonment by the storm-god Marduk , in the Babylonian poem Enûma Eliš (late second millennium BC or earlier), parallels the defeat and imprisonment of the Titans. Other collectivities of gods, perhaps associated with the Mesopotamian Anunnaki, include

3131-756: The British Museum to bring back artefacts after they learned of his 1838 exploration of the region. Until then, Lycian culture was virtually unknown in Western Europe. The tomb was (and still is, minus its reliefs) located in the Acropolis of Xanthos. Fellows received permission in October 1841 from the Ottoman Sultan to remove stone artefacts from the region. A Royal Navy ship, HMS Beacon commanded by Captain Graves ,

Harpy Tomb - Misplaced Pages Continue

3232-472: The Eating of Flesh , Plutarch writes of "stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood". While, according to the early 4th century AD Christian apologist Arnobius , and the 5th century AD Greek epic poet Nonnus , it is as punishment for their murder of Dionysus that

3333-789: The Greek succession myth was imported from the Near East , and that along with this imported myth came stories of a group of former ruling gods, who had been defeated and displaced, and who became identified, by the Greeks, as the Titans. Features of Hesiod's account of the Titans can be seen in the stories of the Hurrians , the Hittites , the Babylonians , and other Near Eastern cultures. The Hurro - Hittite text Song of Kumarbi (also called Kingship in Heaven ), written five hundred years before Hesiod, tells of

3434-419: The Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes in Tartarus. Although Hesiod does not say how Zeus was eventually able to free his siblings, according to Apollodorus, Zeus was aided by Oceanus' daughter Metis , who gave Cronus an emetic which forced him to disgorge his children that he had swallowed. According to Apollodorus, in the tenth year of the ensuing war, Zeus learned from Gaia, that he would be victorious if he had

3535-558: The Hundred-Handers and the Cyclopes as allies. So Zeus slew their warder Campe (a detail not found in Hesiod) and released them, and in addition to giving Zeus his thunderbolt (as in Hesiod), the Cyclopes also gave Poseidon his trident , and Hades a helmet, and "with these weapons the gods overcame the Titans, shut them up in Tartarus, and appointed the Hundred-handers their guards". The Roman mythographer Hyginus , in his Fabulae , gives an unusual (and perhaps confused) account of

3636-416: The Lycians actively encouraged this synthesis in order to promote themselves as part of the Greek family. Another story from Greek mythology concerns the origin of the name of the country. According to the myth, Lycia is named after Lycus , the son of Pandion , king of Athens. Prior to Lycus becoming their leader, the Lycians were known as Termilae. Lycus was later to help remove the usurper Metion from

3737-534: The Sun), would seem to be the result of cosmological necessity, for how could a world encircling river, or the Sun, be confined in Tartarus? As for other male offspring of the Titans, some seem to have participated in the Titanomachy, and were punished as a result, and others did not, or at least (like Helios) remained free. Three of Iapetus' sons, Atlas , Menoetius , and Prometheus are specifically connected by ancient sources with

3838-463: The Titan Iapetus ) refers to the Titanomachy, and his part in it: When first the heavenly powers were moved to wrath, and mutual dissension was stirred up among them—some bent on casting Cronus from his seat so Zeus, in truth, might reign; others, eager for the contrary end, that Zeus might never win mastery over the gods—it was then that I, although advising them for the best, was unable to persuade

3939-485: The Titaness Tethys . Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound , has Oceanus free to visit his nephew Prometheus sometime after the war. Like Oceanus, Helios, the Titan son of Hyperion, certainly remained free to drive his sun-chariot daily across the sky, taking an active part in events subsequent to the Titanomachy. The freedom of Oceanus, along with Helios (Sun), and perhaps Hyperion (to the extent that he also represented

4040-427: The Titanomachy, but Prometheus does remain free, in the Theogony , for his deception of Zeus at Mecone and his subsequent theft of fire , for which transgressions Prometheus was famously punished by Zeus by being chained to a rock where an eagle came to eat his "immortal liver" every day, which then grew back every night. However Aeschylus 's Prometheus Bound (as mentioned above) does have Prometheus say that he

4141-438: The Titanomachy, their war with the Olympians. As a group, they have no further role in conventional Greek myth, nor do they play any part in Greek cult. As individuals, few of the Titans have any separate identity. Aside from Cronus, the only other figure Homer mentions by name as being a Titan is Iapetus. Some Titans seem only to serve a genealogical function, providing parents for more important offspring: Coeus and Phoebe as

Harpy Tomb - Misplaced Pages Continue

4242-457: The Titanomachy. According to Hyginus the Titanomachy came about because of a dispute between Jupiter and Juno (the Roman equivalents of Zeus and Hera). Juno, Jupiter's jealous wife, was angry at her husband, on account of Jupiter's son Epaphus by Io (one of her husband's many lovers). Because of this Juno incited the Titans to rebel against Jupiter and restore Saturn (Cronus) to the kingship of

4343-758: The Titans Oceanus and Tethys, Cronus and Rhea, Themis, and Mnemosyne (i.e. the river gods, the Oceanids, the Olympians, the Horae, the Moirai, and the Muses) are not normally considered to be Titans, descendants of the other Titans, notably: Leto, Helios, Atlas, and Prometheus, are themselves sometimes referred to as Titans. Passages in a section of the Iliad called the Deception of Zeus suggest

4444-406: The Titans end up imprisoned by Zeus in Tartarus. The only ancient source to explicitly connect the sparagmos and the anthropogony is the 6th century AD Neoplatonist Olympiodorus , who writes that, according to Orpheus, after the Titans had dismembered and eaten Dionysus, "Zeus, angered by the deed, blasts them with his thunderbolts, and from the sublimate of the vapors that rise from them comes

4545-514: The Titans in a revolt against Zeus (Jupiter). The Theogony has Menoetius struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt and cast into Erebus "because of his mad presumption and exceeding pride". Whether Hesiod was using Erebus as another name for Tartarus (as was sometimes done), or meant that Menoetius's punishment was because of his participation in the Titanomachy is unclear, and no other early source mentions this event, however Apollodorus says that it was. Hesiod does not mention Prometheus in connection with

4646-489: The Titans, children of Heaven and Earth; but they, disdaining counsels of craft, in the pride of their strength thought to gain the mastery without a struggle and by force. ... That it was not by brute strength nor through violence, but by guile that those who should gain the upper hand were destined to prevail. And though I argued all this to them, they did not pay any attention to my words. With all that before me, it seemed best that, joining with my mother, I should place myself,

4747-577: The Titans, defeating them and throwing them into Tartarus , with the Hundred-Handers as their guards. Only brief references to the Titans and the succession myth are found in Homer . In the Iliad , Homer tells us that "the gods ... that are called Titans" reside in Tartarus. Specifically, Homer says that "Iapetus and Cronos ... have joy neither in the rays of Helios Hyperion [the Sun] nor in any breeze, but deep Tartarus

4848-404: The basis for an Orphic doctrine of the divinity of man." However, when and to what extent there existed any Orphic tradition which included these elements is the subject of open debate. The 2nd century AD biographer and essayist Plutarch makes a connection between the sparagmos and the punishment of the Titans, but makes no mention of the anthropogony, or Orpheus, or Orphism. In his essay On

4949-440: The blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys , whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner. Prometheus Lyomenos , an undated lost play by Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 455 BC), had

5050-420: The carvings that definitely suggest a non-Greek origin. The female faces have full lips and large eyes that are typically Lycian. The reliefs show seated figures receiving gifts from standing figures. At the left and right edges on the north and south sides are winged female creatures with bird bodies (the "Harpies"). The winged creatures are carrying away small childlike figures. Between the winged creatures on

5151-476: The celestial personifications Helios (Sun), Selene (Moon), and Eos (Dawn). From Iapetus and Clymene came Atlas , Menoetius , Prometheus , and Epimetheus . From Cronus and Rhea came the Olympians: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon , and Zeus. By Zeus, Themis bore the three Horae (Hours), and the three Moirai (Fates), and Mnemosyne bore the nine Muses . While the descendants of

SECTION 50

#1732852088646

5252-637: The central feature is a single, prominent pillar or column , often made of stone. A number of world cultures incorporated pillars into tomb structures. Examples of such edifices are found in Lycia in Anatolia (e.g., the Harpy Tomb at Xanthos ), and the medieval Muslim Swahili culture of the Swahili Coast (e.g., tombs at Malindi and Mnarani ), which were originally built of coral rag , and later of stone. In

5353-406: The child. The Titans whiten their faces with gypsum, and distracting the infant Dionysus with various toys, including a mirror, they seized Dionysus and tore (or cut) him to pieces. The pieces were then boiled, roasted and partially eaten, by the Titans. But Athena managed to save Dionysus' heart, by which Zeus was able to contrive his rebirth from Semele. Commonly presented as a part of the myth of

5454-428: The children she birthed. This he did with the first five: Hestia , Demeter , Hera , Hades , Poseidon (in that order), to Rhea's great sorrow. However, when Rhea was pregnant with Zeus, Rhea begged her parents Gaia and Uranus to help her save Zeus. So they sent Rhea to Lyctus on Crete to bear Zeus, and Gaia took the newborn Zeus to raise, hiding him deep in a cave beneath Mount Aigaion. Meanwhile, Rhea gave Cronus

5555-491: The cosmos. According to the standard version of the succession myth, given in Hesiod's Theogony , Uranus initially produced eighteen children with Gaia: the twelve Titans, the three Cyclopes , and the three Hecatoncheires (Hundred-Handers), but hating them, he hid them away somewhere inside Gaia. Angry and in distress, Gaia fashioned a sickle made of adamant and urged her children to punish their father. Only her son Cronus

5656-416: The country rapid Hellenisation took place in Lycia, and its culture became subsumed in the Greek. Lycia features heavily in Greek mythology. The Titan goddess Leto fled to Lycia after giving birth, or in order to give birth, to Apollo and Artemis . The Lycians play a part in the Iliad , under their leader Sarpedon , as allies of Troy . Bellerophon killed the fire-breathing monster Chimera which

5757-479: The daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, while Crius married his half-sister Eurybia , the daughter of Gaia and Pontus . The two remaining Titan sisters, Themis and Mnemosyne, became wives of their nephew Zeus . From Oceanus and Tethys came the three thousand river gods , and three thousand Oceanid nymphs. From Coeus and Phoebe came Leto , another wife of Zeus, and Asteria . From Crius and Eurybia came Astraeus , Pallas , and Perses . From Hyperion and Theia came

5858-420: The dismembered Dionysus Zagreus, is an Orphic anthropogony, that is an Orphic account of the origin of human beings. According to this widely held view, as punishment for their crime, Zeus struck the Titans with his thunderbolt , and from the remains of the destroyed Titans humankind was born, which resulted in a human inheritance of ancestral guilt, for this original sin of the Titans, and by some accounts "formed

5959-451: The earlier Lion Tomb and the later Tomb of Payava and Nereid Monument . The tomb was built in Xanthos in the Persian Achaemenid Empire (present-day Antalya Province , Turkey), for an Iranian prince or governor of the city. The Harpy Tomb is in the Acropolis of Xanthos to the north of where the Roman theatre now stands and on its west side. It would have originally stood on the edge of

6060-497: The exception of objects found in graves and seal rings (impressions of many of which were found at Dascylion ), which are of Persian manufacture. The seated figures are thought to be Lycian gods or deified ancestors. Among the possible identities for the seated figures on the north and south sides are Harpagus , the Median general who became the founder of the Lycian dynasty, and Kybernis ,

6161-430: The farthest part of huge earth. They cannot get out, for Poseidon has set bronze gates upon it, and a wall is extended on both sides. However, besides Cronus, exactly which of the other Titans were supposed to have been imprisoned in Tartarus is unclear. The only original Titan, mentioned by name, as being confined with Cronus in Tartarus, is Iapetus . But, not all the Titans were imprisoned there. Certainly Oceanus ,

SECTION 60

#1732852088646

6262-554: The former gods: the generation of gods preceding the Olympians . They were overthrown as part of the Greek succession myth, which tells how Cronus seized power from his father Uranus and ruled the cosmos with his fellow Titans before being in turn defeated and replaced as the ruling pantheon of gods by Zeus and the Olympians in a ten-year war called "the Titanomachy " ( Ancient Greek : ἡ Τῑτᾱνομαχίᾱ , romanized :  hē Tītānomakhíā , lit.   'a battle of Titans'). As

6363-410: The gods. Jupiter, with the help of Minerva ( Athena ), Apollo , and Diana ( Artemis ), put down the rebellion, and hurled the Titans (as in other accounts) down to Tartarus. After being overthrown in the Titanomachy, Cronus and his fellow vanquished Titans were cast into Tartarus: That is where the Titan gods are hidden under murky gloom by the plans of the cloud-gatherer Zeus, in a dank place, at

6464-413: The great world encircling river, seems to have remained free, and in fact, seems not to have fought on the Titans' side at all. In Hesiod, Oceanus sends his daughter Styx , with her children Zelus (Envy), Nike (Victory), Kratos (Power), and Bia (Force), to fight on Zeus' side against the Titans, while in the Iliad , Hera says that, during the Titanomachy, she was cared for by Oceanus and his wife

6565-402: The historic town of Hannassa in southern Somalia , ruins of houses with archways and courtyards have been found along with pillar tombs, including a rare octagonal one. Port Dunford , situated nearby, also contains a number of ancient ruins, including several pillar tombs. Prior to its collapse, one of these structures' pillars stood 11 metres (36 ft) high from the ground, making it

6666-510: The marketplace. The original pillar is still in place; Fellows took only the sculptures, which have been replaced with cement casts of the originals. The tomb is the only Late Archaic tomb in Xanthos to have survived the extensive redevelopment of the acropolis in the Roman period , and was left standing as an isolated historical artefact. Many other Lycian tombs survive in Xanthos, but there are no others from this particular period. The space inside

6767-599: The matter from which men are created." Olympiodorus goes on to conclude that, because the Titans had eaten his flesh, we their descendants, are a part of Dionysus. Some 19th- and 20th-century scholars, including Jane Ellen Harrison , have argued that an initiatory or shamanic ritual underlies the myth of the dismemberment and cannibalism of Dionysus by the Titans. Martin Litchfield West also asserts this in relation to shamanistic initiatory rites of early Greek religious practices. The etymology of Τiτᾶνες ( Titanes )

6868-519: The name of the monument. A better match is to the Sirens but many sources doubt either of these claims. The small figures they are carrying away may represent the souls of the dead. Another suggestion for the small figures are that they are the daughters of the hero Pandareus who were carried away to become the Furies . The sculpted reliefs were taken to England by Charles Fellows , who had been commissioned by

6969-587: The nine Muses . Leto, who gives birth to the Olympians Apollo and Artemis , takes an active part on the side of the Trojans in the Iliad , and is also involved in the story of the giant Tityos . Tethys, presumably along with her husband Oceanus, took no part in the war, and, as mentioned above, provided safe refuge for Hera during the war. Rhea remains free and active after the war: appearing at Leto's delivery of Apollo, as Zeus' messenger to Demeter announcing

7070-417: The north side is a seated figure receiving a helmet from a standing warrior; under the chair is a bear. Under the winged creature on the right is a kneeling female supplicant. Between the winged creatures on the south side is a seated figure of uncertain sex receiving a dove from a standing female. The seated figure is holding a pomegranate in the left hand and an unidentified object (possibly fruit or an egg) in

7171-404: The original pomegranate on Cyprus. It is not a suitable gift for an intellectual goddess such as Athena . The pomegranate can have an overtly sexual meaning; Demeter complains that her daughter Persophone was "forced to eat the seed of a pomegranate" in the underworld, by which it is understood that she was raped. The winged creatures are likely not Harpies, but this misidentification has stuck in

7272-484: The parents of Leto , the mother, by Zeus, of the Olympians Apollo and Artemis ; Hyperion and Theia as the parents of Helios , Selene and Eos ; Iapetus as the father of Atlas and Prometheus ; and Crius as the father of three sons Astraeus , Pallas , and Perses , who themselves seem only to exist to provide fathers for more important figures such as the Anemoi (Winds), Nike (Victory), and Hecate . The Titans play

7373-435: The parents of Oceanus and Tethys, and Oceanus and Tethys as the parents of Cronus and Rhea "and all that go with them", plus Phorcys . In his Cratylus , Plato quotes Orpheus as saying that Oceanus and Tethys were "the first to marry", possibly also reflecting an Orphic theogony in which Oceanus and Tethys, rather than Uranus and Gaia, were the primeval parents. To Hesiod's twelve Titans, the mythographer Apollodorus , adds

7474-442: The pomegranate in the symbolism is not accidental. Not just in Lycia, but throughout Asia Minor, the Greek world, and Palestine, the pomegranate was widely recognised as a symbol of fructification and procreation. Conversely, it is also a symbol of change and death. This symbolism can be helpful in identifying the deities in the reliefs. The pomegranate is a suitable gift for a goddess of sexuality such as Aphrodite who herself planted

7575-541: The possibility that Homer knew of a tradition in which Oceanus and Tethys (rather than Uranus and Gaia, as in Hesiod) were the parents of the Titans. Twice Homer has Hera describe the pair as "Oceanus, from whom the gods are sprung, and mother Tethys", while in the same passage Hypnos describes Oceanus as "from whom they all are sprung". Plato , in his Timaeus , provides a genealogy (probably Orphic) which perhaps reflected an attempt to reconcile this apparent divergence between Homer and Hesiod, with Uranus and Gaia as

7676-567: The reconstructed story, usually given by modern scholars, goes as follows. Zeus had intercourse with Persephone in the form of a serpent, producing Dionysus. He is taken to Mount Ida where (like the infant Zeus) he is guarded by the dancing Curetes . Zeus intended Dionysus to be his successor as ruler of the cosmos, but a jealous Hera incited the Titans—;who apparently unlike in Hesiod and Homer, were not imprisoned in Tartarus—;to kill

7777-651: The related Luwian language. Several groups speaking Hittite-related languages continued to exist in Asia Minor for many centuries after the Hittite Empire had passed into history. Lycia occupied a strategic position between Europe and the Near East. The Greek and Persian worlds met in Lycia, and the Lycians were heavily influenced by both. At one period Persian influence would dominate and at another, Greek, resulting in Lycian culture being an amalgam of both. Greek influence

7878-577: The reliefs are now on display. According to Melanie Michailidis, though bearing a "Greek appearance", the Harpy Tomb, the Nereid Monument and the Tomb of Payava were built according main Zoroastrian criteria "by being composed of thick stone, raised on plinths off the ground, and having single windowless chambers". Lycian culture was at one time viewed as a branch of Greek culture by scholars, especially from

7979-409: The right hand. On the west side are two females seated on thrones and facing each other. Their breasts are large and the nipples and areolae can be seen through their thin clothing. The one on the right holds in her right hand a flower and in her left a pomegranate. The one on the left holds in her right hand a phiale . The opening for insertion of the body is in front of this figure. Above the opening

8080-407: The ruling pantheon of Greek gods. For Hesiod, possibly in order to match the twelve Olympian gods, there were twelve Titans: six males and six females, with some of Hesiod's names perhaps being mere poetic inventions, so as to arrive at the right number. In Hesiod's Theogony , apart from Cronus, the Titans play no part at all in the overthrow of Uranus, and we only hear of their collective action in

8181-493: The sculptured reliefs, are made from local grey-blue limestone. The tomb, along with many other artefacts from Lycia of the period, is in the Greek Archaic style. If the dating is accurate (480–470 BC) the Archaic style continued in Lycia for some time after it had become unfashionable in Greece. The sculptures may have been carved by Ionian Greek craftsmen, if not they are heavily influenced by them. There are some features of

8282-452: The sculptures of the Harpy Tomb the capstone, which may have weighed as much as twenty tons and was resting on the sculptured sides, had to be lifted off, causing the sides of the tomb to fall in. Fellows, who had left the sailors to carry out this task in their own way, remarked "but the sculptured parts did not receive more injury than they probably would have done from a more scientific operation". The sculptures of another monument at Xanthos,

8383-428: The settlement concerning Persephone , bringing Pelops back to life. While in Hesiod's Theogony , and Homer's Iliad , Cronus and the other Titans are confined to Tartarus—apparently forever —another tradition, as indicated by later sources, seems to have had Cronus, or other of the Titans, being eventually set free. Pindar , in one of his poems (462 BC), says that, although Atlas still "strains against

8484-570: The tallest of its kind in the region. Titan (mythology) In Greek mythology , the Titans ( Ancient Greek : οἱ Τῑτᾶνες , hoi Tītânes , singular : ὁ Τῑτᾱ́ν, -ήν , ho Tītân ) were the pre-Olympian gods. According to the Theogony of Hesiod , they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), with six male Titans— Oceanus , Coeus , Crius , Hyperion , Iapetus , and Cronus —and six female Titans, called

8585-555: The three Furies : Alecto , Megaera , and Tisiphone . The geographer Pausanias , mentions seeing the image of a man in armor, who was supposed to be the Titan Anytos , who was said to have raised the Arcadian Despoina . The Titans, as a group, represent a pre-Olympian order. Hesiod uses the expression "the former gods" ( theoi proteroi ) in reference to the Titans. They were the banished gods, who were no longer part of

8686-422: The three Hundred-Handers and the three Cyclopes , and while Uranus imprisoned these first six of his offspring, he apparently left the Titans free. Not just Cronus, but all the Titans, except Oceanus, attacked Uranus. After Cronus castrated Uranus, the Titans freed the Hundred-Handers and Cyclopes (unlike in Hesiod, where they apparently remained imprisoned), and made Cronus their sovereign, who then reimprisoned

8787-427: The throne of Athens. The real origin of the name, however, would appear to be a derivation of Lukka , the name of the country found in Hittite records. Lycian architecture and sculpture depicts skills similar to the Greeks, but to the Greeks, the Lycians, along with other non-Greek peoples of southwestern Anatolia, were often viewed as barbarians. From c. 550 BC, Greek pottery is found in quantity in Lycia;

8888-421: The thunderbolt, which had been hidden by Gaia. A great war was begun, the Titanomachy , for control of the cosmos. The Titans fought from Mount Othrys , while the Olympians fought from Mount Olympus . In the tenth year of that great war, following Gaia's counsel, Zeus released the Hundred-Handers, who joined the war against the Titans, helping Zeus to gain the upper hand. Zeus cast the fury of his thunderbolt at

8989-489: The time of Fellows' discovery of the monument, the remains of blue paint were found in the backgrounds of the reliefs. Traces of red paint have also been found on other parts. [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] The reliefs on the tomb show "a Greek–Lycian version of the audiences depicted at Persepolis ". Leo Raditsa, in the Cambridge History of Iran adds; Instead of

9090-585: The tomb in the 19th century by archaeologist Charles Fellows and taken to England. Fellows visited Lycia in 1838 and reported finding the remains of a culture that until then was virtually unknown to Europeans. After obtaining permission from the Turkish authorities to remove stone artefacts from the region, Fellows collected a large amount of material from Xanthos under commission from the British Museum in London, where

9191-434: The tomb was later occupied by an early Christian hermit. Fellows noted that the backs of the reliefs still bore the remains of the hermit's religious paintings and monograms. Fellows speculates that this man was a disciple of Simeon Stylites (390–459 AD), one of the eponymously named Christian ascetics known as stylites , who lived on the top of tall columns. The tomb is a large square of carved marble panels. Each side

9292-531: The upper world. Rather they were the gods who dwelt underground in Tartarus , and as such, they may have been thought of as "gods of the underworld", who were the antithesis of, and in opposition to, the Olympians, the gods of the heavens. Hesiod called the Titans "earth-born" ( chthonic ), and in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo , Hera prays to the Titans "who dwell beneath the earth", calling on them to aid her against Zeus, just as if they were chthonic spirits. In

9393-455: The walls of operational military fortresses. A further delay was caused by a disagreement with Graves. It transpired that the ship had not brought suitable tackle for lifting the heavier pieces. Fellows wanted Graves to return to Malta immediately to fetch the necessary equipment, but Graves requested further orders from his superiors before doing so, which took some time to arrive. The Beacon did not finally return until March 1842. To remove

9494-423: The war. In the Theogony both Atlas and Menoetius received punishments from Zeus, but Hesiod does not say for what crime exactly they were punished. Atlas was famously punished by Zeus, by being forced to hold up the sky on his shoulders, but none of the early sources for this story (Hesiod, Homer, Pindar , and Aeschylus ) say that his punishment was as a result of the war. According to Hyginus however, Atlas led

9595-452: The weight of the sky ... Zeus freed the Titans", and in another poem (476 BC), Pindar has Cronus, in fact, ruling in the Isles of the Blessed , a land where the Greek heroes reside in the afterlife: Those who have persevered three times, on either side, to keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow Zeus' road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of

9696-662: The word "Titan" comes from the Greek τίτανος, signifying white "earth, clay, or gypsum", and that the Titans were "white clay men", or men covered by white clay or gypsum dust in their rituals. The planet Saturn is named for the Roman equivalent of the Titan Cronus. Saturn's largest moon, Titan , is named after the Titans generally, and the other moons of Saturn are named after individual Titans, specifically Tethys , Phoebe , Rhea , Hyperion , and Iapetus . Astronomer William Henry Pickering claimed to have discovered another moon of Saturn which he named Themis , but this discovery

9797-484: Was an ally of Zeus during the Titanomachy. The female Titans, to the extent that they are mentioned at all, appear also to have been allowed to remain free. Three of these, according to the Theogony , become wives of Zeus : Themis , Mnemosyne , and Leto , the daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe . Themis gives birth to the three Horae (Hours), and the three Moirai (Fates), and Mnemosyne gives birth to

9898-511: Was defeated at the Battle of Plataea by Greek forces in 479 BC. Kybernis , for whom the Harpy Tomb is thought to have been built, may have died as a consequence of wounds he received in the defeat of Xerxes, either at Plataea or the naval battle of Salamis . He was succeeded by Kuprlli, and then Kheriga, who took an Iranian name and appeared to be pro-Persian. After Alexander the Great 's conquest of

9999-412: Was ravaging Lycia. These stories may well not have originally been part of Lycian mythology, but may have been borrowed from the Greek. The Greek goddess Leto, for example, may have been equated with the Lycian mother goddess. Having incorporated Leto into their pantheon, the rest of the Greek stories followed naturally. Certainly, the temple to Leto was of some importance in Xanthos. It would appear that

10100-535: Was tasked with recovering and transporting the items identified by Fellows. The ship sailed from Malta on 30 October but did not arrive on site until 26 December, delayed largely by unanticipated and protracted negotiations with the Turkish authorities. Fellows' documents did not give him the permissions he thought they did (he had not had them translated), and some of the British Government's requests were seen as unreasonable, such as removing stones from

10201-558: Was willing. So Gaia hid Cronus in "ambush", gave him an adamantine sickle, and when Uranus came to lie with Gaia, Cronus reached out and castrated his father. This enabled the Titans to be born and Cronus to assume supreme command of the cosmos, with the Titans as his subordinates. Cronus, having now taken over control of the cosmos from Uranus, wanted to ensure that he maintained control. Uranus and Gaia had prophesied to Cronus that one of Cronus' own children would overthrow him, so when Cronus married Rhea, he made sure to swallow each of

#645354