Deucalion

In Greek mythology, Deucalion, or Deukálion ("new-wine sailor") was the name of at least two figures: a son of Prometheus, and a son of Minos. Image File history File links Deucalion_and_Pyrrha_II.jpg Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulating the Earth File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Deucalion_and_Pyrrha_II.jpg Deucalion and Pyrrha repopulating the Earth File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Greek mythology comprises the collected narratives of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... In Greek mythology, Prometheus, or Prometheas (Ancient Greek, Προμηθεύς, forethought) is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use. ... In Greek mythology, Minos was a semi-legendary king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. ...

Deucalion (son of Prometheus)

The first Deucalion was a son of Prometheus and Clymene. When the wrath of Zeus was ignited against the whole of the Pelasgians, the original pre-Hellenic inhabitants of Greece, Zeus decided to bring an end to the Golden Age with the Great Deluge. It appears that all was not as golden as it seemed, at least not in primitive Arcadia, where an old cult of the wolf that demanded human sacrifice and the eating of human flesh lingered longest, for there the son of Pelasgus, Lycaon ("wolf man"), who had brought civilized life into Arcadia, or so it had seemed, offended Zeus by sacrificing to him a boy. This was a sacrifice which was forbidden in the new Olympian order and utterly inappropriate as an offering and repugnant besides. Zeus struck Lycaon's house with a thunderbolt and turned Lycaon into a wolf (see werewolf). Which however may have been the whole point, for in Arcadia Zeus was honored as Zeus Lykaos, "Wolf-Zeus, son of the she-wolf". Sending a werewolf to be king among the wolves and thus keep them off the flocks seems to have been the practice, and lingered among the shepherds of Arcadia into the age of the Olympiads. In Greek mythology, Clymene or Klymenê (famous might) is the name of at least six possibly distinct females. ... Statue of Zeus Phidias created the 12-m (40-ft) tall statue of Zeus at Olympia about 435 BC. The statue was perhaps the most famous sculpture in ancient Greece, imagined here in a 16th-century engraving. ... Ancient Greek writers used the name Pelasgian to refer to groups of people who preceded the Greeks and dwelt in several locations in mainland Greece, Crete, and other regions of the Aegean as neighbors of the Hellenes. ... A golden age is a period in a field of endeavour where great tasks were accomplished. ... The Deluge by Gustave Doré The story of a Great Flood sent by God or the gods to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution is a widespread theme in myths. ... Arcadia or Arkadía (Greek Αρκαδία; see also List of traditional Greek place names) is a region of Greece in the Peloponnesus. ... Lycaon, in Greek mythology, was a son of Priam and Laothoe. ... A German woodcut from 1722 A werewolf in folklore and mythology is a person who changes into a wolf, either by purposefully using magic or by being placed under a curse. ...

But it was the treatment Zeus received when he visited the hall of the fifty sons of Lycaon, in the usual poverty-stricken disguise that gods assume whenever they travel. They set him a stew of sheep guts— hearts, livers and tripes— in which they included the stewed innards of their brother Nyctimus. Zeus was appalled at the primitive cannibal offering and turned them all into a pack of wolves. But Nyctimus he restored to life.

So Zeus was set upon loosing a deluge, where the rivers would run in torrents and the sea encroach rapidly on the coastal plain, engulf the foothills with spray and wash everything clean.

Deucalion had been forewarned of the flood by his father, Prometheus, the first in a long Near Eastern tradition of more-than-human mediators between Mankind and God. Deucalion was to build an ark and provision it carefully (no animals are rescued in this version of the Flood myth), so that when the waters receded after nine days, he and his wife Pyrrha, daughter of Epimetheus, were the one surviving pair of humans. Their ark touched solid ground on Mount Parnassus or Mount Etna or Mount Athos or Mount Othrys in Thessaly -- it depends whose version one is reading. In Greek mythology, Prometheus, or Prometheas (Ancient Greek, Προμηθεύς, forethought) is the Titan chiefly honored for stealing fire from the gods in the stalk of a fennel plant and giving it to mortals for their use. ... Deucalion and Pyrrha throwing rocks that become babies. ... Epimetheus, a Titan known for his hindsight, with Pandora and Eros. ... Mount Parnassus (also Mount Parnassos or Liakoura) is a mountain barren limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. ... Mount Etna (also known locally as Mongibello or simply a muntagna (the mountain) in Sicilian) is an active volcano on the east coast of Sicily, close to Messina and Catania. ... One of the 20 monasteries on Mount Athos Mount Athos is a mountain and a peninsula in Macedonia, northern Greece, called Άγιο Όρος (Ayio Oros or Holy Mountain) in Modern Greek, or Ἅγιον Ὄρος (Hagion Oros) in Classical Greek. ... Mountain in Central Greece, at the southern part of Magnesia. ...

Once the deluge was over and the couple had given thanks to Zeus, Deucalion consulted an oracle of Themis about how to repopulate the earth. He was told to cover your head and throw the bones of your mother behind your shoulder. Deucalion and Pyrrha understood that "mother" is Gaia, the mother of all living things, and the "bones" to be rocks. They threw the rocks behind their shoulders and the stones formed people. Pyrrha's became women; Deucalion's became men. An oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion; an infallible authority, usually spiritual in nature. ... In Greek mythology, Hesiod mentions Themis among the six sons and six daughters—of whom Cronos was one—of Gaia and Ouranos, that is, of Earth with Sky. ... Gaia (World Book «JEE uh») (land or earth, from the Greek ; variant spelling Gaea—see also also Ge from ) is a Greek goddess personifying the Earth. ...

Deucalion and Pyrrha had at least two children, Hellen and Protogenea, and possibly a third, Amphictyon (who is autochthonous in other traditions). Note: Hellen was not the same person as Helen of Troy, or Helenus, son of King Priam of Troy. ... In Greek mythology, Protogenea (or Protogenia) was the name of two distinct figures: Protogenea was the daughter of Deucalion and Pyrrha. ... Amphictyon, in Greek mythology, was the second son of Deucalion and Pyrrha, although there was also a tradition that he was autochthonous (born from the earth). ... Indigenous peoples are: Peoples living in an area prior to colonization by a state Peoples living in an area within a nation-state, prior to the formation of a nation-state, but who do not identify with the dominant nation. ...

Deucalion's parallels with Noah and with Utnapishtim, the survivor of the Sumerian Flood that is told in the Epic of Gilgamesh, are even clearer in the wine subtext in this myth. Though Deucalion is no longer allowed to be the inventor of wine as Noah still is, his name gives away his secret: deucos + halieus "new wine sailor". His wife, named "wine-red", just happens to be the sister of Ariadne who mothered with Dionysus, several wine-making progenitors of Aegean tribes. Noah or Nóach (circa 2104 BCE according to the chronology of the Hebrew Bible/Tanakh) (Rest, Standard Hebrew נוֹחַ (Nóaḥ), Tiberian Hebrew (); Arabic نوح ()), is a Biblical figure who, according to Genesis, built an ark to save his family and each species of the worlds animals from the Deluge... In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim (also known as the Sumerian character Ziusudra) is the wise king of the Sumerian city state of Shuruppak who, along with his wife, whose name was not mentioned in the story, survived a great flood sent by Enlil to drown every living thing on... The Deluge tablet of the Gilgamesh epic in Akkadian The Epic of Gilgamesh is from Babylonia, dating from long after the time that king Gilgamesh was supposed to have ruled. ... Ariadne (utterly pure, from a Cretan-Greek form for arihagne) was a fertility goddess of Crete. ...

But a shred perhaps of earlier myth survives in the tale that another survivor of the Flood was Megaron, who was roused from his couch by the cries of cranes (see crane (bird) for crane lore) and climbed to the top of Mount Gerania ("Crane Mountain") and so was saved. And Cerambus of Pelion: him the nymphs changed to a scarab beetle and he flew to the top of Mount Parnassus above the waters. Genera Grus Anthropoides Balearica Bugeranus Cranes are large, long-legged with large talons and long-necked birds of the order Gargoyles, and family Gruesome killers. ... Genera not a complete list Agestrata Augosoma Canthon Chalcosoma Chelorrhina Cheirolasia Cheirotonus Cotinis Dynastes Eudicella Goliathus Megsoma Onthophagus Pachnoda Phanaeus Plusiotis Ranzania Rhomborrhina Stephanorrhina Xylotrupes The scarab is a type of beetle noted for rolling dung into spherical balls and pushing it, as well as its habit of laying its...

Deucalion (son of Minos)

The second Deucalion lived many generations later, and ruled over Crete. He was a son of Minos and Pasiphae, and apparently succeeded his older brother Catreus as King of Crete. This Deucalion was the father of Idomeneus, his successor, who led a Cretan force to the Trojan War, as well as a bastard son named Molus, father of Meriones. In Greek mythology, Minos was a semi-legendary king of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. ... For Pasiphaë the moon of Jupiter, see Pasiphaë (moon). ... In biology, Catreus is a genus of pheasants. ... In Greek mythology, Idomeneus was a Cretan warrior, grandson of Minos. ... The Trojan War was a war waged, according to legend, against the city of Troy in Asia Minor by the armies of the Achaeans, following the kidnapping (or elopement) of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy. ... In Greek mythology, Meriones was the charioteer, the half-nephew, Molus (was his father) and brother-in-arms of Idomeneus during the Trojan War. ...

External links

• Deucalion from Charles Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1867), with source citations and some variants not given here.
• Deucalion from Carlos Parada, Genealogical Guide to Greek Mythology.