Topics (move over topic to see place in topic list)
02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs
01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery
02 Religious and ideological symbols and iconographic motifs
03 Religious festivals, cults, rituals and practices
01 Religious and ideological doctrines and imagery
Keywords
Greece
religions
Samos
Period
Neo-Assyrian Empire
Channel
Iconographic tradition
Summary
Some features in Hera’s cult on Samos indicate the influence of Gula’s cult in Mesopotamia.
Text
One group of the bronze statues from the temple of Hera at Samos (Greece) represents votives standing next to dogs, and these are related to the worship of Gula, the Babylonian goddess of healing whose symbol is the dog. Dog burials in Samos and elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean are comparable with a tenth-century dog cemetery excavated near a sanctuary-site of Gula at Isin in Mesopotamia. From Samos too comes a corroded figure of the Mušhuššu-dragon. These items suggest particularly close connections between Mesopotamia and Samos. The annual cult procession on Samos in which the image of Hera was bathed and clothed is certainly Near Eastern in character, recalling the akītu-festival of the New Year in Babylon.
Bibliography
Dalley and Reyes 1998, 98
Dalley, S. and A. T. Reyes. “Mesopotamian Contact and Influence in the Greek World.” In: S. Dalley (ed.). The Legacy of Mesopotamia. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 85-124.
