heaven (nebisasdU-as) (KBo xi. 32. 31). The Vedic Pr
̇
thivı ̄ often has the epithet
‘mother’, especially when she is mentioned together with Dyaus the father.
Greek poets call Ge ‘the mother of all’, ‘mother of the gods’, ‘the all-mother’
(παμμ τωρ,παμμ τειρα) and the like, or simply ‘the mother’.^41
There is another Greek goddess who has ‘mother’ incorporated into her
name, much as ‘father’ is in the name of Jupiter. This is Demeter, in the older
form of her name ∆α-μα ́ τηρ, with a Lesbian variant ∆ωμα ́ τηρ. As the
mistress of cereal crops she clearly had a close association with the earth, and
some in antiquity made the equation ∆ημ τηρ=ΓH μ τηρ.^42 The ∆α--,
however, cannot be explained from Greek. But there is a Messapic Damatura
orDamatira, and she need not be dismissed as a borrowing from Greek; she
matches the Illyrian Deipaturos both in the agglutination and in the transfer
to the thematic declension (-os, -a). (It is noteworthy that sporadic examples
of a thematically declined ∆ημ τρα are found in inscriptions.) Damater/
Demeter could therefore be a borrowing from Illyrian.^43 An Illyrian Da ̄- may
possibly be derived from *Dhg
h
(e)m-.
In Asia Minor, to the north of Konya, there was a village with the remark-
able name Gdanmaa or Gdammaua.^44 It is generally seen as a compound,
with the first element, Gdan-, representing a version of the Earth-goddess’s
name. It is surprising to encounter such a form in Anatolia, as it resembles
neither the Hittite and Luwian nor the Phrygian reflexes of *dheg
h
o ̄m. It may
perhaps be Pisidian, since there are several Pisidian personal names beginning
with Gda-. Gdan could derive from earlier Anatolian Dgan by a local
metathesis. The second part of the compound may represent ‘mother’.
In Armenian folklore the earth is the maternal element from which we are
born. The supernatural Divs of legend, who represent the old gods, often refer
to men as ‘earth-born’.^45
The Roman evidence for the idea of Earth as a mother is of doubtful
weight. Where it occurs, it usually attaches to the name Terra, not Tellus, and
it may be due to Greek influence.^46
(^41) Hes. Op. 563, Hymn. Hom. 30. 1, 17, Solon fr. 36. 4, Aesch. Sept. 16, [Aesch.] Prom. 90,
Soph. fr. 269a. 51, Eur. Hipp. 601, Hel. 40 (Χθ.ν), fr. 182a, 839. 7, etc.; Dieterich (1925), 37–42.
(^42) Eur. Phoen. 685 f., cf. Bacch. 275 f.; Orph. fr. 302 K. = (398), 399 B.; E. Fraenkel on Aesch.
Ag. 1072.
(^43) Hertzenberg (as n. 31), 96. The Lesbian Do ̄- may simply reflect a different dialectal
pronunciation of the non-Greek name; cf. Messapian Domatriax=Damatrias (Haas (1962),
180). The gemination of μ in Thessalian ∆αμμα ́ τειρ is merely a regional peculiarity; see
A. Thumb–A. Scherer, Handbuch der griechischen Dialekte, ii (2nd edn., Heidelberg 1959), 62.
(^44) MAMA 1. 339, 7. 589. It appears as ,Εκδα3μαυα in Ptol. Geogr. 5. 4. 10, as Egdaua on the
Tabula Peutingeriana. Cf. O. Masson in Florilegium Anatolicum.Mélanges... E. Laroche (Paris
1979), 245–7.
(^45) I take this from Dieterich (1925), 14, who had it from an Armenianist colleague.
(^46) Cf. Dieterich (1925), 74 f.
176 4. Sky and Earth