The Kabeiroi (Cabiri) in Greek myth were a race of gods or god-like beings, closely connected with Hephaistos and with the Mother Goddess. They were associated with metallurgy, magic, and fertility rites, and with other spheres, yet because of the secretiveness of their cult, their exact nature and place within ancient Greek and Thracian religion remains mysterious. The Kabeiroi myth and cult itself probably traces back to the pre-Greek Tyrsenoi of Lemnos, where the Kabeiroi sanctuary maintained an unbroken continuity even after the Tyrsenoi were conquered by the Athenians . Greek mythology comprises the collected legends of Greek gods and goddesses and ancient heroes and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. ... The Temple of Hephaestus, Athens: western face. ... A mother goddess is a goddess portrayed as the Earth Mother who serves as a general fertility deity, the bountiful embodiment of the earth. ... Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and of materials engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements and their mixtures, which are called alloys. ... Look up Magic in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Magic may mean: Magic (paranormal), influence through supernatural, mystical, or paranormal means Magic and religion, the relationship between paranormal magic and religion Magic (gaming), paranormal magic as used in games Magic (Harry Potter), paranormal magic in the Harry Potter series Magic (illusion... Fertility is the ability of people or animals to produce healthy offspring in abundance. ... The Thracians were an Indo-European people, inhabitants of Thrace and adjacent lands (present-day Bulgaria, Romania, northeastern Greece, European Turkey and northwestern asiatic Turkey, eastern Serbia and parts of Republic of Macedonia). ... The Etruscan civilization existed in Etruria and the Po valley in the northern part of what is now Italy, prior to the formation of the Roman Republic. ... Lemnos (mod. ... For other uses, see Athens (disambiguation). ...

Name

The etymology of the name Kabeiroi is unknown, and is probably a loan from the Lemnian language. Semitic kabir ('great') has been compared at least since Scaliger, but nothing else seems to point to a Semitic origin (Burkert, p. 457). A.H. Sayce in 1925 suggested a connection to Hittite habiri, 'looters, outlaws', but subsequent discoveries have made this implausible on phonological grounds. G. Dossin (1953) compares Kabeiroi to the Sumerian word kabar, 'copper', but this is only a guess. The Lemnian language is the language of a 6th century BC inscription found on a funerary stela on the island of Lemnos (termed the Lemnos stele, discovered in 1885 near Kaminia). ... 12th century Hebrew Bible script The Semitic languages are a family of languages spoken by more than 250 million people across much of the Middle East, where they originated, and North and East Africa. ... Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) was the tenth child and third son of Julius Caesar Scaliger and Andiette de Roques Lobejac. ... The Hittite language is the dead language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who once created an empire centered on ancient Hattusa (modern Boğazköy) in north-central Turkey. ... The Sumerian language of ancient Sumer was spoken in Southern Mesopotamia from at least the 4th millennium BC. Sumerian was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language around 2000 BC, but continued to be used as a sacred, ceremonial and scientific language in Mesopotamia until about 1 AD. Then, it... General Name, Symbol, Number copper, Cu, 29 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 4, d Appearance copper, metallic Atomic mass 63. ...

Their name recalls Mount Kabeiros, a mountain in the region of Berekyntia in Asia Minor, closely associated with the Phrygian Mother Goddess. The name of Kadmilus (or Kasmilos), one of the Kabeiroi who was usually depicted as a young boy, was even in antiquity linked to camillus, an old Latin word for a boy-attendant in cult, which is probably a loan from Etruscan. In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey, from ca. ... The Kabeiroi (Cabiri) in Greek myth were a race of gods or god-like beings, closely connected with Hephaistos and with the Mother Goddess. ... Latin is the language originally spoken in the region around Rome called Latium. ... Etruscan was a language spoken and written in the ancient region of Etruria (current Tuscany) and in what is now Lombardy (where the Etruscans were displaced by Gauls), in Italy. ...

Myth

The Kabeiroi in myth bear many similarities to other fabulous races: the Telchines of Rhodes, the Cyclopes, Idaian Dactyls, Korybantes, Kuretes. There was often a confounding or identification of these different groups with one another since many of them, like the Cyclopes and Telchines, were also associated with metallurgy. In Greek mythology, the Telchines were the original inhabitants of the island of Rhodes, and were known in Crete and Cyprus. ... Main entrance to the medieval city of Rhodes Rhodes, Greek Ροδος (Rhodos), is the largest of the Dodecanese islands, and easternmost of the major islands of Greece in the Aegean Sea. ... This page is about the mythical creatures. ... The Korybantes, called the Kurbantes in (Phrygia), are the crested dancers who worship the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. ... The Korybantes, called the Kurbantes in (Phrygia), are the crested dancers who worship the Phrygian goddess Cybele with drumming and dancing. ...

Diodorus Siculus said of the Kabeiroi that they were Idaioi dactyloi, "Idaian dactyls". The Idaian Dactyls were a race of divine beings associated with the Mother Goddess and with Mount Ida, a mountain in Phrygia sacred to the goddess. Diodorus Siculus was a Greek historian, born at Agyrium in Sicily (now called Agira, in the Province of Enna). ... In Greek mythology, the Dactyls were the archaic race of small phallic male beings associated with the Great Mother, whether as Cybele or Rhea, spirit-men like the Curetes, Cabiri and Korybantes. ... Two sacred mountains are called Mount Ida in Greek mythology, equally named Mount of the Goddess. ... In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of the Anatolian highlands, part of modern Turkey, from ca. ...

Hesychius of Alexandria wrote that the Kabeiroi were karkinoi, 'crabs' (plural of karkinos, 'crab'). The Kabeiroi as Karkinoi were apparently thought of as amphibious beings (again recalling the Telchines). They had pincers instead of hands, which they used as tongs (Greek: karkina) in metalworking. page of Marc. ... Sections Dromiacea Raninoida Heterotremata Thoracotremata The term crab is often applied to several different groups of short (nose to tail) decapods with thick exoskeletons, but only members of the Brachyura are true crabs; other taxa, such as hermit crabs, porcelain crabs, king crabs, and horseshoe crabs are, despite superficial similarities... Tongs are gripping and lifting tools, of which there are many forms adapted to their specific use. ...

According to some accounts, there were originally two Kabeiroi. Later, there were four: two male (Axiocersus and Cadmilus) and two female (Axiocersa and Axierus). In other accounts, one may infer that there was a multitude of them (e.g., in Pausanias, were they are described as a race or tribe, not merely four beings). This article or section should be merged with Kabeiroi Greek fertility gods, the Cabari can be traced to Asia Minor. ... This article or section should be merged with Kabeiroi Greek fertility gods, the Cabari can be traced to Asia Minor. ... This article or section should be merged with Kabeiroi Greek fertility gods, the Cabari can be traced to Asia Minor. ... This article or section should be merged with Kabeiroi Greek fertility gods, the Cabari can be traced to Asia Minor. ... Pausanias is the name of several ancient people: Pausanias was a Spartan general of the 5th century BC. Pausanias of Sparta was King of Sparta from 409 BC-395 BC. Pausanias was the servant/lover who assassinated Philip II of Macedon in 336 BC Pausanias, Greek traveller and geographer of...

There was a suggestion that the Orphic mysteries had their origins among the Kabeiroi. The head of Orpheus, from an 1865 painting by Gustave Moreau. ...

Cult

The Kabeiroi cult is attested in ancient Greece (particularly, at Thebes) and also in Thrace (at Seuthopolis, etc.) and Asia Minor, with the islands of Samothrace and Lemnos seeming to be the focus. For the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, see Thebes, Egypt. ... Thrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe spread over southern Bulgaria, northeastern Greece, and European Turkey. ... Seuthopolis (near Kazanluk) was an ancient city founded by the Thracian king Seuthes the III. It was a small city, built on the site of an earlier settlement. ... Samothrace Samothrace (in Greek: Σαμοθρακη, Samothraki) is an island in Greece, in the northern Aegean Sea. ... Lemnos (mod. ...

On Lemnos, the sanctuary dedicated to the Kabeiroi is identifiable by traces of inscriptions and seems to have survived the Greek conquest by Miltiades in the 6th century, and the program of Hellenization that ensued. The geographer Strabo reported that in Lemnos, the mother (there was no father) of the Kabeiroi was Kabeiro herself, a daughter of Proteus, one of the "old men of the sea," a goddess whom the Greeks might have called Rhea. Aeschylus wrote a play called the Kabeiroi and the fragments that survive have them as a chorus greeting the Argonauts at Lemnos. There seems to be a raucous burlesque character to the mysteries of the Kabeiroi: wine-vessels are the only characteristic finds, and an inscription at Lemnos indicates parapaizonti, the one who "jests along the way" (Burkert 1985). Miltiades Miltiades (c. ... Strabo (squinty) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. ... In Greek mythology, Proteus is an early sea-god, one of several deities whom Homer calls the Old Man of the Sea, whose name suggests the first, as protogonos is the firstborn. No mention is made of his parents, until for later mythographers he became the son of Poseidon in... Rhea (she who flows) was the Titaness daughter of Uranus and of Gaia. ... Aeschylus (525 BC—456 BC; Greek: Αισχυλος) was a playwright of ancient Greece. ... The Black Sea near the shore of Colchis. ...

At Greek Thebes there are more varied finds, which include many little bronze votive bulls and which carry on into Roman times, when the traveller Pausanias, always alert to the history of cult, learned that it was Demeter Kabeiriia who instigated the initiation cult there in the name of Prometheus and his son Aitnaios. Walter Burkert (1985) says, "This points to guilds of smiths analogous to the Lemnian Hephaistos." The votive dedications at Thebes are to a Kabiros in the singular, and childish toys like votive spinning tops for Pais suggest a manhood initiation. Copious wine was drunk, out of characteristic cups that were ritually smashed. Fat, primitive dwarves like the followers of Silenus, with prominent genitalia were painted on the cups. For the ancient capital of Upper Egypt, see Thebes, Egypt. ... The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar in the episode of the idol of the Golden Calf made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus). ... Pausanias was Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century A.D., who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. ... In traditional usage, the cult of a religion, quite apart from its sacred writings (scriptures), its theology or myths, or the personal faith of its believers, is the totality of external religious practice and observance, the neglect of which is the definition of impiety. ... Dêmêtêr (or Demetra) (DEH-MEH-ter) (mother-goddess or perhaps distribution-mother) is the Greek goddess of agriculture, the pure nourisher of youth and the green earth, the health-giving cycle of life and death, and preserver of marriage and the sacred law. ... This article is about the mythological figure. ... Walter Burkert (born Neuendettelsau (Bavaria), February 2, 1931), the most eminent living scholar of Greek myth and cult, is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland who has also taught in the United Kingdom and the United States. ... In Greek mythology, sileni were a race of half-horse, half-humans, unlike the satyrs, who were half-goat. ...

In Classical Greek culture the mysteries of the Kabeiroi at Samothrace remained popular, though little was entrusted to writing beyond a few names and bare genealogical connections. Seamen among the Greeks might invoke the Kabeiroi as "great gods" in times of danger and stress. The archaic sanctuary of Samothrace was rebuilt in Greek fashion; by classical times the Samothrace mysteries of the Kabeiroi were known at Athens. Herodotus had been initiated. But at the entry to the sanctuary, which has been thoroughly excavated, the Roman antiquary Varro learned, there had been twin pillars of brass, phallic like herms, and in the sanctuary it was understood that the child of the Goddess, Kadmilos, was in some mystic sense also her consort. Äž Ăǘē ĒØĂŷ ĞŐąËò Bust of Herodotus Herodotus of Halicarnassus (Greek: ΗΡΟΔΟΤΟΣ, Herodotos) was an ancient historian who lived in the 5th century BC (484 BC-ca. ... Marcus Terentius Varro ([[116 BC]–27 BC), also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer, who the Romans came to call the most learned of all the Romans. ... In ancient Greece, before his role as protector of merchants and travelers, Hermes was a phallic god, associated with fertility, luck, roads and borders. ... This article or section should be merged with Kabeiroi Greek fertility gods, the Cabari can be traced to Asia Minor. ...

References

• Karl Kerenyi, Gods of the Greeks (1951).
• Walter Burkert, Greek Religion, (1985).