| gold bee pendant |
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| Mallia, Crete circa 2000 BCE |
"Bees, like all insects that spin cocoons or weave webs, serve
as images of the miraculous interconnectedness of life. The intricate cellular structure that secretes the golden essence
of life is an image of the network of invisible nature that relates all things to each other in an ordered harmonious pattern.
Perhaps this is the meaning of the tale in which the infant Zeus is fed on honey in Crete, and why honey was the nectar
of the gods. Furthermore, the busy bee, following the impulsion of its nature to pollinate the flowers and gather
their nectar to be transformend into honey, was an example of the continual activity required of human beings to gather the
crops and transform them into food. The queen bee, whom all the others serve during their brief lives, was, in teh Neolithic,
an epiphany of the Goddess herself.
 Gold seal ring, c. 1450 BC. From a tomb at Isopata, near Knossos
>>>>
For a watchful eye, the relationship between the queen bee and the
Goddess and her priestesses, dressed as bees must have seemed irristable, and in Minoan Crete 4,000 years later the Goddess
and her priestesses, dressed as bees, are shown dancing together on a golden seal found buried with the
dead. In Crete also the bee signified the
life that comes from death, as did the scarab in Egypt. Probably for this reason,
the gold ring seal was placed in a tomb. Here the bee goddess, the figure in
the center descending to earth among snakes and lilies, is being worshipped by her priestesses, who, characteristically, take
the same form as she does, all raising their ‘hands’ in the typical gesture of epiphany. Honey was used to embalm and preserve the bodies of the dead.
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| Some of the great jars, or pithoi, found at Knossos were used to store honey. |
Honey also played a central part in the New Year rituals of the Minoans. The Cretan New Year began at the summer solstice, when the heat was at its greatest, and 20 July was the
day when the great star Sirius rose in conjunction with the Sun, as it did also in Sumeria and Egypt. In these two other countries Sirius was explicitly the star of the goddess (Innana in Sumeria, and Isis
in Egypt), and Minoan temple-palaces in Crete were orientated to this star. The
rising of Sirius ended a 40-day ritual during which honey was gathered from the hives of the bees in the darkness of the caves
and the woods. The honey was then fermented into mead and drunk as an intoxicating
liquor, accompanying the ecstatic rites that may have celebrated the return of the daughter of the goddess as the beginning
of the new year – as, perhaps in the seal of the double axe.
| Goddess of Regeneration |
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| Bilcze Zlote, Ukraine, Late Cucuteni, 4000 to 3500 BC |
All these rites are present in the classical Greek myths of Dionysos, himself originating in Crete and called the Bull
God. A bull was sacrificed with the rising of the star Sirius, and the bees were seen as the resurrected form of the dead
bull and also as the souls of the dead. This festival for the rising of Sirius that initiated the New Year was thereby raised
to the level of a myth of 'zoe' (indestructible life):the awakening of bees from a dead animal
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| Knosis Crete 1500 BCE |
<<<The importance
of bee-keeping to the Minoans is documented in the Linear A hieroglyphs, where there are already drawings of actual beehives,
testifying to a long history probably going back to the Neolithic era. The onyx gem from Knossos shows the Bee Goddess bearing
upon her head the bull’s horns with the double axe inside their curve. The
dogs – later the dogs of the underworld belonging to Hecate and Artemis – are winged and flying so close to the
goddess that their wings, at first glance, appear as hers.
This intense drama of epiphany suggests that, as well as these connotations, the humming of the bee was actually heard as
the voice of the goddess, the soundof creation.Virgil, for instance, describing the noise of howling and clashing made to
attract swarming bees, says:They clash the cymbals of the Great-Mother.
The tombs at Mycenae were shaped as beehives, as was the omphalos at Delphi in Classical Greece, where Apollo ruled with
his chief oracular priestess, the Pythia, who was called the Delphic Bee.
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| "tholos" tomb 1500 BC. |
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| OMPHALOS STONE at Delphi, Greece |
In the Greek Homeric Hymn to Hermes written down in the eighth century
BC, the god Apollo speaks of three female seers as three bees or bee-maidens, who like himself, practiced divination:
There are some Fates sisters born,
maidens hree of them, adorned with swift wings.
Their heads are sprinkled over ith white barley meal,
wind they make their homes under the cliffs of Parnassus.
They taught divination
far off from me, the art I used to practise
round my cattle while
still a boy.
These sacred bee-maidens with their gift of
prophecy, were to be Apollo’s gift to Hermes, the god who alone could lead the souls of the dead out of life and sometimes
back again. The etymology of the word ‘fate’ in Greek offers a fascinating
example of how the genius of the Minoan vision entered the Greek language, often visibly, as well as informing its stories
of goddesses and gods. The Greek word for ‘fate’, ‘death’
and ‘goddess of death’ is e ker (feminine); the word for’heart’ and ‘breast’ is
to ker (neuter); while the word for ‘honeycomb’ is to kerion (neuter). The common root ker links the ideas fo the honeycomb, goddess, death, fate and the human heart,
a nexus of meanings that is illumined if we know that the goddess was once imagined as a bee.
Text from The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution
of an Image by Anne Baring & Jules Cashford
Birds of the Muses "Bees have an ancient reputation as
the bringers of order, and their hives served as models for organizing temples in many Mediterranean cultures. Priestesses
at Cybele's temples in Asia Minor, Greece, and Rome were called Melissai or Melissae, the Greek and Latin
words for bees. These priestesses were often prophets or oracles who entered an ecstatic trance enduced by preparations
that included ingesting honey. (The Greek word for this state of transfigured consciousness is enthusiasmos
-- 'within is a god" -- the root of our word enthusiasm.)
Bees, familiars of the goddess since Catal Huyuk, appear frequently in classical
mythology. They are called the "Birds of the Muses" and are attracted to the heavenly fragrances of flowers, from which
they make the divine nectar, honey. Honey is antibacterial, and its mildly laxative properties and sweet taste made
it a primary ingredient in ancient medicines. It was widely believed to be a source of divine nourishment. In
the myths of the ancient world, honey often nourished a divine child raised in secret by a goddess in the depth of caves.
"(greatfully quoted from When the Drummers were Women by Layne Redmond)
The precise identity of the Bee Goddess remains a great mystery. Nevertheless,
she is a very strong spirit for these times of great transition. Signs of her worship are evident
in the Mediterranean cultures of around 3,000 years ago at the temples of Artemis. She is one of the oldest
and most popular aspects of the Divine Feminine. Born on the Greek Island of Delos, Artemis was sister of
Apollo and daughter to Zeus and Leto. When she was a young girl, her father, Zeus, asked her what was her dream? She
answered that she wished to never have to marry a man and to always be free to roam in the wild forest. Artemis was
known as a patron of young virgins, and a powerful protectress of the natural world of fertility. As with other early
Goddesses, ceremonies to invoke Artemis were held in groves of trees, at places of special rock outcroppings, at sacred
sites along rivers or at quiet springs. Ironically, Artemis's blessings were evenutally
cultivated at exquisite temple sites constructed throughout the Mediterranean region.
| temple of Artemis of Ephesus |
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| one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world |
| Artemis of Ephesus |
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| Bees appear on her legs & waist |
Perhaps Artemis is the Queen Bee, who
lays thousands of eggs everyday within the bee colony? The tiny Bee eggs develop into the
Bees that pollinate the blossoms which grow into fruit. The Queen Bee reminds us of the Goddess who is a highly
revered, sacred feminine aspect of Mother Earth.
| Artemis temple at Jerash |
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| situated in modern day Jordan |
ARTEMIS of Ephesia.. . .
. Her enigmatic image draws us to contemplate. "Many ideas circluate comcerning the
nature of the protuberances on her upper torso ranging from palm-dates, acorns, eggplant, ostrich-eggs,
bags to hold amulets, zodiacal signs, bunches of grapes, magical flames of a virgin's cloak, bulls' testicals. Some
theorize that the protuberances represent a cornucopia-like sheep skin bag called a kursa,
which contained fat, grain, wine, maturation, longevity, and progeny, or even the severed breasts of the Amazonians." (Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations written
by Karen Tate)
| Artemis temple at Sardis |
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| located in modern day Turkey |
Artemis was and is to be known as one of the most powerful mistresses of
magic. She's allowing us to feed our imaginations with many possibilities, all of which are symbols of fertility that
can suit our needs. Goddesses are known to be shape shifters. The breast-like objects growing out of Artemis'
chest look very much like bees eggs!
"The priestesses of historical descendents of the ancient Bee
Goddess -- Demeter, Rhea, Cyble -- were called Melissae, the ancient Latin word for bees. The Bible mentions a ruler and prophetess
of ancient Israel called Deborah, the "Queen Bee", her priestesses were known as Deborahs as well. Some say that the
priestesses of the moon goddess were called bees because 'it was believed that all honey came from the moon, the hive whose
bees were the stars.'
Melissa, the goddess as Queen Bee, taught mortals how to ferment
honey into mead. In the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the Melissai feed on honey and are inspired "to speak
the truth". These traditions made the omphalos the place of sacred utterance -- the oracular power associated with the
buzzing of bees and the buzzing vibration of life. . . . .
| Omphalos at Delphi, Greece |
|
| /\ read about Delphi |
The Omphalos is shaped like a bee hive.
Paphos, Greece, the site of Aphrodite's tomb, was known as the navel of theEarth. The Greek word for navel -- omphalos
-- also refers to the sacred stone found in temples or shrines. Symbolically, the omphalos brought together a number
of important spiritual concepts. The heart-seat of the great Earth Motehr ws the very center of the navel of the world.
The navel cord connects the fetus with outer and inner worlds, and is the source of nourishment until it is time for birth.
Similiarly, Aphrodite's temple was the place where initiates were nourished and birthed into higher planes of consciousness.
| Goddess wearing a beehive as a tiara |
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| Hacilar,ancient Turkey circa 8000 BCE |
Queen Bee. The Anatolian goddess is often shown wearing a beehive as a tiara, most frequently
at Hacilar. This is the introduction of a motif that would flourish in historical times. Of all the insects represented
in the ancient world, bees are foremost in ritual and symbolic meaning. The Goddess's tiara announces her status as
a queen bee and suggests that she streams with honey, a much-revered substance in ancient times.
They, too, represent birth, death, and
reincarnation. Bees have an acute sense of time. They appear to use their internal circadian clocks in conjunction with
the Sun's position in the sky to navigate. Because their time memory is so advanced, they can be trained to appear at
certain times of the day for feedings. An individual bee within the hive an communicate the location and richness of
a newly discovered food source by dancing and drumming with its wings. The queen bee, deep in the hive, lays up to two
thouand eggs a day, but only a fw male drone mate with the queen -- and just once, since the sexual act ends in his death.
All these properties are echoed in historical rituals and mythologies.
At the Arana Cave near Valencia, Spain, Paleolithic painting survives of two men taking honey from a rock wall. In later
cultures, honey was poured over thresholds and temple foundations, offered to Goddesses and Gods, and used in medicines and
burials. ("When the Drummers were Women" by Layne Redmond)
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