164 i Flora Unveiled
- It is a young girl’s “coming of age” story. In the Greek myth, Persephone goes through
the transition to womanhood in the Underworld as the wife of Hades. Persephone’s
coming of age myth has its parallel in the development of crocus cormlets, which
undergo a transition from juvenile to reproductive stages while lying dormant
beneath the ground. Because flowers were closely identified with women in Crete,
Minoans may have perceived the underground dormant phase of the crocus plant-
ing cycle in sexual terms analogous to puberty because, without it, the flowers with
their valuable stigmas would not develop. - Both the Persephone myth and the crocus corm propagation cycle are tied to the spring.
According to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone descends into the earth
in the spring and re- emerges in the spring after an unspecified period underground.
Crocus corms, like Persephone, are planted in the ground in the late spring and
are removed from the soil in the spring three to five years later. The planting cycle
of crocus corms is thus a better temporal fit with the Greek myth than the wheat
planting cycle. - Like Persephone, corms are pulled into the ground. In this interpretation, the con-
tractile root becomes the original inspiration for Hades, who carries Kore to his
underground kingdom. - Pomegranate seeds play a pivotal role in the myth. Pomegranates ripen in the fall,
just when crocus flowers bloom. Likewise, Hades must have tempted Persephone
with pomegranate seeds in the autumn, when the fruit is ripe. Fruit may have been
offered as “bloodless sacrifices” to Minoan flower deities. The geographer Pausanias
(second century ce) described some curious features of the cult of “Black Demeter”
that are reminiscent of the “pomegranate” figures of the Phaistos table and bowl.
Festivals to Black Demeter were held annually in a grove before a sacred cave in the
southwest corner of Arcadia. Upon an altar were placed “fruits from various trees,
grapes, honey- combs, and uncarded wool.”^52 Although pomegranates are not spe-
cifically mentioned in the list of offerings, they belong to the general categories of
“tree fruits.” The absence of any reference to grain among the offerings to Demeter
is significant and could indicate that the cult of Black Demeter had preserved fea-
tures that predate the goddess’s identification with grain. Indeed, Walter Burkert
commented that the cult is “strangely reminiscent of Bronze Age religious prac-
tices, be it Minoan, Mycenaean or Anatolian.”^53 - One of Persephone’s attributes is a bird. Persephone is usually associated with the
pomegranate, but a lesser known attribute of the goddess is the chicken, as illus-
trated in a famous marble relief of Persephone and Hades in the Underworld,
in which Persephone holds a chicken in her right hand and a clump of rip-
ened wheat in her left hand (Figure 6.17). Note the comb on the chicken’s head,
which is reminiscent of the headdresses of the dancers on the Phaistos table
and bowl.
Finally, there is a parallel between the yellow color associated with the Minoan saffron
goddess and the yellow color of ripened wheat, emblematic of Demeter and Kore. Yellow
was gendered female by both the Minoans and the Greeks, a tradition that clearly arose
from the yellow colors of two plants sacred to the goddesses.^54