Unlike the mortal humans the gods which the Greeks called athanotoi (immortals) did not die. They had human appearances but they did not have blood coursing through their veins but an ethereal juice called iktor. This is mentioned in the Iliad when Aphrodite is wounded by Diomedes and ‘her immortal blood gushed out, ichor such as flows through the veins of the blessed immortals’. The Ancient Greeks were visually able to represent each deity individually by their unique attributes or objects. Zeus was most famously known by his symbol of a thunderbolt, which he was instantly recognisable from. Poseidon was known for his trident, Dionysus by his wine goblet, Apollo by his lyre, Athene by her aegis, Artemis by her bow, Demeter by her ear of wheat, Hephaistos by his axe etc.
The ancient Greeks did not just use the image of humanity to represent the image of the gods. There were many different forms of representation that were used by the ancient Greeks harmoniously throughout any period of time. One form of divine representation was the ‘bretes’ and ‘yeranon’, the figures were sometimes used in cults and were bathed or clothed. Another form was a ‘herm’ which was a rectangular pillar with a phallus and a head that was meant to represent Hermes. They were placed practically everywhere and were meant to structure space. The damage of these herms usually by mutilating the genitals was regarded as a great religious offense. A ‘Kouroi’ was a life sizes stature of a youth in the nude. They were often sculpted for a funeral but were not meant to be made in the likeness of the deceased person. The statues were a symbol of the gifts bestowed by the gods on a victor at the games like speed or strength. The classic representation of the gods is the anthropomorphic statues that depict a god in human form. JP Vernant claimed that “To pose the problem of the body of the gods is not to ask how the Greeks could have equipped their gods with human bodies. It is rather an investigation of how this symbolic system functions, how the corporeal code permits one to think of the relations between man and god…”[1] It seems to me that the thinking behind not only the ancient Greek religion but also all religions that depict their god/gods in human form may be that order to describe the unknown you have to use the known for example in the Hebrew bible it says that God came down and walking in the Garden of Eden. This is impossible to describe unless God has taken some sort of form.
The Greeks chose the human form to depict their gods not because they thought that the gods had human bodies and that they functioned in the same way as mortals. They chose physically fit and beautiful bodies to depict the gods because they marvelled at the human form and believed that that human body in its perfected form had divine qualities. A lesser known method of representing the divine was the mask. Masks were frequently used in worshipping a god. The god Dionysus was especially worshipped in this way. An example of this is in the cult of Orthia at Sparta. In the Dionysus rituals the masks that were worn represented the ceasing of being ones self and the person was incarnating the power of the divine.
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