#hecate sculpture

[hacatestruth]

[lionofchaeronea]

Statuette of juniper wood from Ptolemaic Egypt, representing the triplicate goddess Hecate. Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

[susu030]

Inv.-Nr. 1922,  Museo Chiaramonti, Rome triple-bodied Hecate Roman copy (early third century) after an original of the Hellenistic period Ancient chthonic goddess, daughter of the Titan Perses and Asteria, originating from Caria; very diverse in her functions. She helps kings in the administration of justice, people in counselling and war, protects hunting and fishing, helps women in childbirth and raising children, protects gates and paths (often with haunting), therefore with a ghostly character and goddess of folk superstition, accompanied by the souls of the violently dead; according to Hesiod, she is directly descended from the Titans; she is related to the underworld and to magic; she is often depicted as a circular group of three female figures with their backs turned to the centre, each carrying a torch and accompanied by a dog;  howling dogs announced her nocturnal approach; patroness of magic and superstition until the Middle Ages; also represented in the great frieze of Pergamon

[thefoilguy]

Hecate Hardbroom from The Worst Witch - Aluminum Foil Sculpture

[daemonianymphe-official]

https://daemonianymphe.bandcamp.com/track/nocturnal-hecate

'Nocturnal Hecate' ©2007

[tylermileslockett]

Hekate is known as a protector of entryways, borders, and crossroads. She is also a Cthonic (underworld) goddess who exists on the peripheries of the pantheon, and teaches witches like Circe and Medea their magical crafts. Therefore, she has darker associations with death, the underworld, the moon, magic spells, and spirits.

In Hesiod’s Theogany, Hecate is the daughter of Titans Perses and Asteria. For defeating the giant Pergamon in the Gigantomauchy (epic battle between Olympians and Giants), Hekate is the only Titan to retain her powers under the rule of Zeus, who gives Hecate a share of earth, heaven and sea.

One of the most famous myths involving Hecate is Hades’ abduction of Demeter’s daughter, Persephone. Hekate assists Demeter in the underworld by leading the way with torchlight, and later becomes an attendant to Persephone. Hecate’s sacred animal ally is a black dog, said to be Hecuba, Queen of Troy, who was reincarnated by Hekate after suicide. Another sacred animal servant is the Polecat (weasel), who was the handmaiden Galinthias punished for a deception involving the birth of Hercules.

  Around the 5th century B.C.E. we see the first sculptural totem figures portraying Hekate in the triple body form surrounding a central column. These votive statues for the protection of travelers would be placed at crossroads with each figure facing a different path.

Hekate is associated with a variety of frightening Daimones (minor divinities or spirits which could be good or evil.) the Empusae was a shapeshifting specter with the body of a woman, and one leg of brass and the other of a donkey, with hopes of devouring a traveler. The Lamia was originally a vengeful Libyan serpentine woman who devoured children, but later was seen to take the form of attractive, voluptuous woman who would seduce a traveler and feast on their fresh blood. The Mormo was another phantom bogeyman said to be sent out by Hekate to nibble on misbehaving children. 

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions. Hope you like the final painting! Please share it if possible. Xoxo

[neptunianmars]

practices to bond with your deities

i'm most familiar with Greco-Roman deities so i'll use them for examples, but feel free to ask me about a specific deity! which Greco-Roman deity you should work according to your birth chart indications

communication

say "good morning" / "good night" - this is not only out of respect but developing a habit to include them more and more in day to day life

talk to them - whether you're expressing gratitude, praying, asking for advice, or even just talking to them about your day, this will show you are thinking about them and looking up to them. if you feel uncomfortable or can't talk out loud, a journal works just as well

write to them - speaking or journaling, writing is an art form they will appreciate. make journal entries to them, write them a poem or a song. it doesn't have be a fancy, even just phrases here and there will make a huge difference

document your experiences - after spending time with them, write down how it went. keep track of what they seem to like, what they tell you, even small details that don't seem to stick out because when you go back and look, they might stick out then or you might notice patterns

share your food - giving your deity a small portion of your food each time you eat is a way to communicate your honor and respect to them, and also learn what foods/drinks they enjoy

divination - this is more than just tarot cards! there's other forms of cartomancy, there's dowsing, numerology, etc. i personally use astrology <3

connect with their energy - doing activities that appeal to your deity regularly with strengthen your connection with them. for example, my deities are Diana/Artemis and Luna/Selene, so I spend a lot of time in nature, especially at night under the moonlight

honoring

research them in great detail - to get to know your deity, learn everything there is to know: names and epithets, symbols, attributes (plants trees, stones, animals, planets, week days, etc.) domains, family, popular stories and myths

cook a full meal - you can decide on a meal that is associated with them (like steak for Mars/Ares) but you don't have to, either way just dedicating time and energy to make an entire meal just for them will say a lot

altar - this is probably what you will hear the most, but don't feel heavy pressure. it doesn't have to be huge, fancy, or expensive; you can start out with literally just a candle and some leaves. slowly over time decorate and personalize it to your and your deity's liking

offerings - this is more than just sharing your food with them, it's actually giving something solely to them. have you ever been in the mood for a certain food even though you weren't hungry at all? that might be them hinting that they want it. gifts that you think they'd like or you felt called to get, including crafts you made yourself

share your worship - i want to say this is 100% not a necessity, so don't feel stressed if there is no one you can talk to about your deity work. i have no one to talk to about it, but i share freely on this blog and am trying to make friends online who i can share with! not only is sharing a way to show respect and love for them, but others can give you ideas of devotion and connection

creation/digital

going digital is a great way to worship and connect with your deity, especially if you cannot be open about it

make a playlist - include songs that remind you of them or that you'd think they'd like that involve their domains or stories/myths

art - literally any form of art they will appreciate. music like singing or songwriting, drawing, painting, sculpture, literature like reading books they'd like or writing stories, poems, songs, etc., dancing, theater or acting, or literally anything else. you can get specific, like learning an instrument for Apollo

exploring - exploring areas you think they'd like or just new areas in general. you might find points of interest they'd enjoy (like crossroads for Hecate), or see/hear their sacred animals, or find things that coincide with their stories/attributes/symbols

spending time with them through hobbies - the best way i can describe this is through examples: going to parties/celebrating for Bacchus/Dionysus, cleaning and taking care of your home for Vesta/Hestia, gardening for Ceres/Demeter or Proserpina/Persephone, taking care of the ocean for Neptune/Poseidon, the list goes on and on. anything that involves their domain

pinterest board - kinda self explanatory, making a pinterest board (or a physical picture board/wall if you prefer) with images of your deity and their symbols/attributes.

phone background - setting your phone background as an image or your deity is not only a sign of honor and respect, but will help you develop the habit of thinking of them regularly. can also spark conversation with others without being direct about your worship!

[that-ari-blogger]

That Which You Are Fighting For

Stray Gods is a story about change. It's a story about choices and consequences. And overwhelmingly at the start of the musical, the consequences are very clearly bad.

But this is also a story about family. About repairing relationships that have gone horribly wrong, or at least setting them on a less self-destructive path. The early songs establish what could happen when these relationships fall too far. And as a result, there is a sense of directionlessness. You know what you are running away from, but not what you are running towards.

Enter Asterion and Hecate, and the joyful disaster that is You Cast A Spell On Me. It's fun, it's awfully sung on purpose, and it is heartwarming, if you play your cards right. This song proves that there is a hope for the idols.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Cast A Spell is not eloquent or well sung. I need to get this out of the way because it is one this song's chief criticisms. The reason I want to address this is because this isn't a flaw, this is the entire point of the song. Yes, the song isn't going to be played at any karaoke parties, but a song's worth isn't limited to how well you can sing along to it.

First up, lets break down what this song is doing. This song is about a whirlwind romance between two nerds, and that isn't an obvious decision for the writers to make. The minotaur and the goddess of fate. Why these two?

I said that Stray Gods is about family, and so it draws upon myths with that theme in mind. The Minotaur is part of that. Possibly an original way of rationalising earthquakes (According to Matt Kaplain's Science Of Monsters, published in 2012), the minotaur's story picked up its most iconic form from the Roman Poet Ovid, a man known for having some strong views on authority. The story is very likely to have predated Ovid, but other than artwork, which is notoriously difficult to quote, Ovid is the earliest source I could find (If you have an earlier one, please let me know).

In any case, the story goes that king Minos of Crete prayed to Poseidon for a beautiful bull to consolidate his power as king, in exchange he would sacrifice the bull to Poseidon. Poseidon agreed, but when the time came for the bull to be sacrificed, Minos bailed on the deal. This lead to Poseidon conspiring with Aphrodite to make Minos' wife, Pasiphae, to fall in love with the bull. I will skip the next part of this, to keep things PG. But the footage refocuses, and Pasiphae has given birth to a son, named Asterion, that's our minotaur. This minotaur, however, has a penchant for eating people, so Minos imprisons it in the labyrinth and sacrifices people to it once every few years.

You still following me?

So the minotaur is a child of a truly weird and messed up family, and with the Stray Gods decision to skip over the cannibalisation bit (with the exception of notorious bell-end Theseus), it becomes a family who cast him into the labyrinth for no fault of his own. That theme of messed up family dynamics is here in full swing.

Hecate doesn't have a concrete origine, in mythology or in history. There are theories that she was originally an epithet (regional form) of Artemis, although this doesn't really hold up, and there are theories that she originated in Egypt or Anatolia. It is unclear, and that fits for a goddess of magic and mystery.

She is also sometimes represented as one of three goddesses, according to Pausanias this is because of a sculpture that is now absent, but it's a visual that has stuck around. It's why she has those three faces on the front of her outfit.

Another thing to note are that Wikipedia notes her as a household deity alongside Zeus and Apollo, although the citation for this is dubious, so I would advise taking this with a grain of salt.

In any case, Hecate is mysterious, at least in our modern age. Compare that to the Minotaur, which is iconic, and you have a unique pairing. This is what I am getting at. These two are so incredibly different from each other, in a romance that is so storybook it is bordering on cliche, that it contrasts with the rest of the story. If you can help these two get their happy ever after, what can you do for the rest of the cast?

Next, let's talk about the lyric writing and the singing. Because in my opinion, they are terrible, and I love that. This is a world where you can magically make people start singing, and this song points out that not everyone you do this to will be able to sing well, or improvise lyrics, for that matter.

And this is meant to juxtapose with the rest of the cast. Athena's songs are eloquent and perfectly imperfect (I do not mean this as a compliment), Aphrodite's vocals are filled with pain and regret, and Apollo and Persephone's music is rich with passion and anger. Contrast this with Asterion and Hecate. Hecate isn't bad, by any stretch of the imagination, but her music isn't elaborate. It's simple, direct, and effective. Asterion meanwhile stutters and stammers, its cute and heartfelt, but its not powerful. Asterion isn't a singer.

The reason why is simple. This is a metaphor for one of the main struggles of the rest of the cast. They are stuck in pomp and ceremony, in fantastical displays, in lies and deceptions, and here is a pair of characters who don't really care about that. Sure, Hecate is quirky and has the whole Dr Manhattan thing going on with her sense of time. But its deliberately simple to foil off the Olympians and their flaws.

And that's kind of what this song is doing. While everyone else is singing the same songs over and over again, Asterion makes a choice, sings something new, and gets consequences that are beneficial. Not all choices lead to death and sadness, sometimes you need to take a risk.

If you want to fix your life, you need to first get over yourself and start actually making choices.

Previous - Next

[kuukorppi]

GHOULS AS CHILDREN OF THE GREEK GODS ✨

Worked on this together with @deadskink . This is purely self indulgent as we are super excited about the new Percy Jackson tv show. Enjoy!

Dewdrop: child of Poseidon. Too proud to admit that though and tells everyone he’s a child of Ares

Swiss: child of Hecate. The goddess of magic, witchcraft, crossroads, spirits, necromancy and the moon

Phantom: child of Hades. Easy, he’s a spooky guy. Hades, king of the underworld and god of the dead

Aether: child of Nyx, the impersonification of night and darkness. Feared by even Zeus. (Come on canonically Nyx had a son named Aither)

Rain: child of Thetis. Goddess of the sea and the leader of 50 nereids. Posessed a gift of prophecy. (Mother of Achilles btw)

Aurora: child of Soteria, the goddess of spirit, of safety and salvation, deliverance and preservation from harm

Cirrus: child of Aither, the god of the sky. Primordial god of light and the bright blue ether of the heavens

Cumulus: child of Aeolus, the divine keeper of the winds, god of storms

Mountain: child of Demeter, goddess of the harvest

Sunshine: child of Hephaestus, the god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes

Ifrit: child of Hestia, goddess of hearth, home and hospitality (i know she’s a virgin goddess but we’ll ignore that for the sake of this)

[haggishlyhagging]

The farther back we go in our search for the origins and meaning of the Moon Goddess the nearer do we come to the animal concept. Hecate was once, in the dim past, the three-headed Hound of the Moon; Artemis was a Bear; Isis was Hathor the Cow Goddess; Cybele was once a Lioness or a lion-headed goddess. She sits on a lion throne and rides in a chariot drawn by lions; and Atargatis, Queen of Heaven, is shown riding a lion, her head surrounded by rays. In the later centuries of the Egyptian worship of Osiris it was said that Apis, the Bull, was the spirit of Osiris. This saying gives a direct clue to the evolution of the religious thought.

First the moon deity was an animal, then the spirit of the god is an animal. Later the god or goddess is attended by animals. Later still these animal attendants were replaced by human beings who wore animal masks, performed animal dances, and were called by animal names. We are told, for instance, that little Athenian girls danced as bears to Artemis of Brauronia, the Bear-Goddess, while Bear-men attended the Celtic moon goddess, who was once manifested in bear form.

The bear, indeed, represents the fierce and terrible aspect of the Goddess herself, which not only creates but also destroys life. Later the two aspects of the Goddess become partially differentiated and separated, so that in the famous sculpture of "The Mourning Aphrodite of Lebanon," the animal, in this case a boar instead of a bear, is killing the youthful Adonis, while Aphrodite laments in deepest grief. Yet the boar is also Aphrodite, herself.

The animal attendants and animal emblems surrounding the goddess in her shrines must have constantly reminded the worshippers of later days, of those wilder aspects of her nature from which she had in part evolved. Her animals she still kept near her, for she could not be comprehended except in the light of her past.

The psychological meaning of this gradual change in form is clear. In extremely early days, before civilization had progressed very far, feminine instinct was perceived as entirely animal. Then the fierceness of the mother's care for her young and the voracity of her lust for the male in the mating season were the most obvious and dominant characteristics of beast and woman alike. As civilization progressed, however, women began to develop something nearer akin to the emotion which we call love, and the goddess of women rose gradually above her animal nature. She was represented now as woman but with the fierceness of her feminine instinct not far away. She rides her lion, gives birth to her animals, wears her headdress of cow horns and is attended by her beasts, while she herself transcends in some measure the fierce animal passions which these things represent.

This situation is not far removed from the condition of our own civilization today. Our women have learned human manners and emotions—pity, consideration, love; but not far beneath the surface, slumbering in unconsciousness, the old primitive form of feminine instinct lurks, ready to spring up again and perhaps even to reassert its power over consciousness in any really critical situation.

-M. Esther Harding, Woman’s Mysteries: Ancient and Modern

[hacatestruth]

[meret118]

A half-century ago, a girl and brother ran away to New York City from their suburban Connecticut home. And the Metropolitan Museum of Art hasn’t been the same since.

If visions of Claudia and Jamie bathing—and collecting lunch money—in the Met’s Fountain of Muses bring up fond childhood memories of your own, you’re among the legions of readers who grew up loving E.L. Konigsburg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The classic children’s book turns 50 in 2017, and the tale of the Kincaid siblings spending their days wandering about the paintings, sculptures and antiquities, and their nights sleeping in antique beds handcrafted for royalty, is as popular as ever. The 1968 Newbery Medal winner has never been out of print.

(The same year, her debut novel Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth received the Newbery runner-up honor; Konigsburg is the only author to ever achieve the dual literary feat.)

-----

I wish I'd known about these as a child. They sound delightful.

[kathrynalicemc]

Arcano Cousins + Olympians AU? 👀

Dayamanti Arcano | Hephaestus

The Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.

Dafne Arcano | Hecate

The goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, light, ghosts, necromancy, and the moon.

Dielle Arcano | Demeter

The Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over crops, grains, food, and the fertility of the earth.

Siv Arcano-Thorne | Dionysus

The god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.

Mikael Arcano-Thorne | Hermes

The ancient Greek god of trade, wealth, luck, fertility, animal husbandry, sleep, language, thieves, and travel.

Lennox Arcano-Thorne | Nyx

The Greek Goddess and personification of the night, the daughter of Chaos and the mother of numerous primordial powers, including Sleep, Death, the Fates, Nemesis, and Old Age.

Most of these are self explanatory but others are just random vibes. Like Lennox as Nyx. I picked it more for the aesthetic as she would be prob more like Hades or something. Same with Siv, I picked Dionysus because she’s just here for a good time.

[worldburnrp]

JULY 14TH, NYC

THE BROOKLYN MUSEUM PRESENTS

THE ODYSSEY OF GODS AND MEN  — A GREEK ART & HISTORY GALA AND FUNDRAISER 

The Brooklyn Museum opens its doors this Friday night to an illustrious gala — held under the dome at their Sculpture Gallery, which is precisely what it says on the tin: a large, white-marbled room where countless Greek statues watch your every move.  But the exposure comes with a good cause: to raise funds for the museum’s growing Greek fund, for further research, restoration, exploration, and upkeep of the countless pieces of Greek art found at the museum and those still to be discovered and brought through these doors. The public ranges from those who can donate a fiver — to five million. And yes, those who just needed an excuse to wear a fancy dress, too.  Inside the halls, ethereal music is played, the most breath-taking sculptures are brought out of the dark room and into display, and small performances of Greek mythology are sprinkled throughout.  Welcome, to tonight’s Odyssey.

IC INFORMATION:

SETTING: The Brooklyn Museum.The event starts at7:30pm, in the cusp of sunset shifting into nighttime. The fundraiser is held mainly at the grand Sculpture Gallery, though characters may explore beyond it. Keep in mind, some areas may be closed for the purposes of the event.

DRESS CODE: The dress code is gala — think long dresses, tuxedos, your most expensive fabrics — inspired by Greek Mythology: Gods and Men. Character’s interpretations of this vary up to each person’s personality. It’s likely however to lean more into loose creative freedom, than costumey. 

OOC INFORMATION:

IC, THE EVENT TAKES PLACE ON THE NIGHT OF JULY 14TH. OOC, the end date will be determined soon.

Members are encouraged to pause non-event threads during this event, but not required. We understand certain threads and interactions are important for character and plot development, so we leave that up to your personal judgement. We ask that, should pre-event threads continue, that they don’t overtake event ones.

It is a requirement, however, that no new threads outside of the event are started until the event wraps. 

WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO PLOT with your fellow players any plots and/or conflicts that may happen. For heavier conflicts, please do make sure to message the main about it first.

As always, should there be any questions or need of assistance with any plots, please feel free to contact the admins and we’ll be happy to help you.

OUTFIT CHALLENGE:

CREATIVE OUTFIT & NARRATIVE HEADCANON: What outfit is your character wearing? Why have they decided to attend? Answer all or any of these through a post of your liking. <3

If choosing a specific mythology figure to be inspired by, your character may claim one from the list below. Characters taking a looser route and not driving specific inspiration don’t need to go through this step. 

INSTRUCTIONS:

— To claim a mythology figure, just message the main blog and say their name + character you’re claiming it for. Once the admins respond with confirmation, the figure is yours! — If you have multiple characters, please be mindful of your fellow players, and please choose one figure for one character, and allow for others to have a chance to claim theirs before claiming more. — Figures are AVAILABLE unless CROSSED OUT.

APHRODITE — APOLLO — ARES — ARTEMIS — ATHENA — CERBERUS — CIRCE — DEMETER — DIONE — DIONYSUS — ERIS — FATES (0/3) — MUSES (3/9) — HADES — HEBE — HECATE — HERMES — HEPAESTUS — HESTIA — HERA — HERMES — PERSEPHONE — POSEIDON — ZEUS — CHRONUS — EROS — EREBUS — GAIA — NEMESIS — NYX — THEMIS — ACHILLES — ODYSSEUS  — HERACLES — PSYCHE

*

QUOTES CHALLENGE: 

For this challenge, characters may claim quotes as written by Homer.

Whatever route you take, is up to you — SO LONG AS THE GIVEN QUOTE IS TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION.The quote does not need to be spoken or explicitly a part of the thread, but can be if you wish. 

You can use the quote of your choice for open starters, or closed starters. You have 24 hours to use your quote after claiming it, or it becomes available again.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT is the name of the game. We encourage you to have your character enter the scene one way, and leave with somewhat of a changed perspective. This can be as subtle, or as intense as you see fit.

INSTRUCTIONS: 

— To claim a quote, just message the main blog and say the quote number + character you’re claiming it for. Once the admins respond with confirmation, the quote is yours! — If you have multiple characters, please be mindful of your fellow players, and please choose one quote for one character, and allow for others to have a chance to claim theirs before claiming more. 

01. “Of all creatures that breathe and move upon the earth, nothing is bred that is weaker than man.” [UNCLAIMED]

02. “The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.” [XIMENA RODRIGUEZ]

03. “There can be no covenants between men and lions, wolves and lambs can never be of one mind, but hate each other out and out and through.” [UNCLAIMED]

04. “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.” [UNCLAIMED]

05. “A man who has been through bitter experiences and travelled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.” [RAHI KUMAR]

06. “Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this.” [UNCLAIMED]

07. “Let me not then die ingloriously and without a struggle, but let me first do some great thing that shall be told among men hereafter.” [UNCLAIMED]

08. “Even a fool learns something once it hits him.” [UNCLAIMED]

09. “We men are wretched things.” [MINERVA HAWTHORN]

10. “The difficulty is not so great to die for a friend as to find a friend worth dying for.” [UNCLAIMED]

11. “Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say that we devise their misery. But they themselves- in their depravity- design grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.” [JULIAN BERKELEY]

12. “I didn't lie! I just created fiction with my mouth!”

13. “The blade itself incites to deeds of violence.” [MATHIAS MALKOVICH]

14. “Each man delights in the work that suits him best.” [UNCLAIMED]

15. “There will be killing till the score is paid.” [UNCLAIMED]

16. “If you serve too many masters, you'll soon suffer.” [UNCLAIMED]

17. “Few sons are like their fathers--most are worse, few better.” [UNCLAIMED]

18. “Why cover the same ground again? ... It goes against my grain to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly.” [UNCLAIMED]

19. “Too many kings can ruin an army” [UNCLAIMED]

20. “The sort of words a man says is the sort he hears in return.” [UNCLAIMED]

21. “These were the colloquies in heaven.” [UNCLAIMED]

22. “Better to be the hireling of a stranger, and serve a man of mean estate whose living is but small, than be the ruler over all these dead and gone.” [UNCLAIMED]

23. “I know not what the future holds, but I know who holds the future.” [UNCLAIMED]

24. “I have no interest at all in food and drink, but only in slaughter and blood and the agonized groans of mangled men” [UNCLAIMED]

25. “We are perpetually laboring to destroy our delights, our composure, our devotion to superior power. Of all the animals on earth we least know what is good for us. My opinion is, that what is best for us is our admiration of good.” [UNCLAIMED]

HAVE FUN! <3

[a-gnosis]

Why do some of your characters (Aphrodite, Hecate, and Dionysos when he was getting married) have patterns of red dots on their cheeks? What culture/tradition is that from historically, and why is it worn by only those particular characters?

And why was Dionysos’s face painted bright white when he was getting married (like the world’s most beautiful clown, lol)? I really love it, especially since it reminds me of a mask which is fitting for the god of theatre.

I have taken those red dotted rosettes from this Mycenaean sculpture (the Mycenaean civilization flourished in Greece between c. 1700 and 1100 BCE. They were the first people to speak the Greek language).

We don’t know if this female figure was a priestess, a goddess or maybe a sphinx. And we don’t know if the dotted rosettes on her face had some significance or if they were only decoration. I just thought that they looked nice and mysterious, and so were quite fitting for goddesses like Hekate (goddess of witchcraft) and Aphrodite (whose origin is quite mysterious in my telling).

As for Dionysos' white-colored face, it was inspired by this reconstruction of a Mycenaean noble woman. I thought it looked so incredibly cool (I'm drawn to things that are cute/beautiful but also a bit strange). Like you say, it reminds of a mask, which made it very fitting for Dionysos.

[tylermileslockett]

In the Greek pantheon, Hekate is known as a protector of entryways, borders, and crossroads. She is also a Cthonic (underworld) goddess who exists on the peripheries of the pantheon, and teaches witches like Circe and Medea their magical crafts. Therefore, she has darker associations with death, the underworld, the moon, magic spells, and spirits.

In Hesiod’s Theogany, Hecate is the daughter of Titans Perses and Asteria. For defeating the giant Pergamon in the Gigantomauchy (epic battle between Olympians and Giants), Hekate is the only Titan to retain her powers under the rule of Zeus, who gives Hecate a share of earth, heaven and sea. Like Hermes, Hekate is one of the few deities to have the power to move between the realms of the living and the dead, thus, her portrayal holding divine keys.

One of the most famous myths involving Hecate is Hades’ abduction of Demeter’s daughter, Persephone. Hekate assists Demeter in the underworld by leading the way with torchlight, and later becomes an attendant to Persephone. Hecate’s sacred animal ally is a black dog, said to be Hecuba, Queen of Troy, who was reincarnated by Hekate after suicide. For this reason, dogs were sacrificed and eaten in Hekate’s honor. Another sacred animal servant is the Polecat (weasel), who was the handmaiden Galinthias punished for a deception involving the birth of Hercules.

Around the 5th century B.C.E. we see the first sculptural totem figures portraying Hekate in the triple body form surrounding a central column. These votive statues for the protection of travelers would be placed at crossroads with each figure facing a different path.

Hekate is associated with a variety of frightening Daimones (minor divinities or spirits which could be good or evil.) the Empusae was a shapeshifting specter with the body of a woman, and one leg of brass and the other of a donkey, with hopes of devouring a traveler. The Lamia was originally a vengeful Libyan serpentine woman who devoured children, but later was seen to take the form of attractive, voluptuous woman who would seduce a traveler and feast on their fresh blood. The Mormo was another phantom bogeyman said to be sent out by Hekate to nibble on misbehaving children. Hecate was also followed by a retinue of underworld torch bearing nymphs, called the Lampads. These attendants would accompany both Hekate and Persephone on their journeys between the realms, and also symbolically assist initiates of the Eleusinian mysteries.

Thanks for looking! to see more of my greek illustrations, click my linktree: https://linktr.ee/tylermileslockett