Talk:Attis/Archive 1

Archive 1

Pomegranate?

Robert Turcan in his treatment of the myth of Nana and Agdistis's genitals suggests that a pomegranate tree was created instead of an almond tree. To my knowledge, he does not cite the source for his treatment (I do not have the work at hand); could the author of this article please discuss the source for the almond? Thanks. 165.230.177.147 16:23, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Answer

That's because we have differing accounts of the myth - the one on the page is derived from Pausanias whereas the more commonly used myth is that of Arnobius of Sicca (Adversus Nationes, Book V) in which an almond tree grows from the blood of Agdistis' castration and a Pomegranate Tree grows from the blood of Attis' own castration (remember that there are two consecutive emasculations in the myth of Arnobius) - in either case, the idea here is that Attis is a 'born of a virgin' vegetation god: an anthropomorphism for plants themselves (specifically those with narcotic qualities) - especially when we consider the ecstatic, Thracio-Dionysian nature of the cult.

Here is the Robert Turcan Reference: "Pausanias (VII, 17, 10) tacks on to the Lydian version an account which he ascribes to the local tradition of Pessinus and which corresponds in broad outline to that of Arnobius. The difference lies in a few details (Zeus impregnates the earth while he sleeps, and almond tree and not a pomegranate emerges from the blood of the emasculated Acdestis, Attis does not die of his mutilation) and chiefly, in Pausanias, the Absence of the Great Mother." (Turcan 1996, p. 33)

ArcesseEum (talk) 12:50, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Religion of the Occident

I'm removing the following line: "In his book, Religion of the Occident, Martin A. Larson makes it clear that Attis was an earlier prototype for Christian mythology." Does anyone know about this book, does it talk about Attis, and is it reliable, etc?--137.186.170.36 (talk) 16:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

assertion was indeed so general as to be meaningless. But a recent editor here has suppressed the mention and link of Attis as a life-death-rebirth deity— the very concept is denigrated by today's fashion-conscious sophomores, many of whom, ironically enough, are Christians! J. G. Frazer's conception of a death-and-rebirth deity was founded on three figures: they were Attis, Adonis and Osiris. Walter Burkert briefly sketched the development of modern Greek mythography in the introduction to Greek Religion (1985, p 3); he wrote, "Frazer's mythological motif of the dying god, Adonis-Attis-Osiris, combined with the idea of sacral kingship, offered a key which seemed to open many doors. It is only within the last decades that the influence and reputation of 'Golden Bough anthropology' has fallen sharply; a more rigorous methodological awareness has come to prevail in ethnology and in the specialist archaeologies and philologies, and increasing specialization has brought with it a mistrust of generalizations."

Our up-to-date mistrust of generalizations might not be authentically and usefully expressed, I think, in suppressing the link to life-death-rebirth deity at the article on Attis. This article urgently needs experienced and competent editors to raise the whole tone here.--Wetman (talk) 09:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but on wiki.answers.com, I have compiled a list of 'similarities' between Attis and Jesus. Hadmiraal (talk) 15:16, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The difficulty with Frazer's idea is that Attis stays dead, in all versions of the myth except one. Indeed Zeus refuses to resurrect him, explicitly. The only exception is the version of the myth told by Firmicus Maternus, ca. 350 AD, where Cybele=the earth and Attis=the crop, which therefore comes back to life by itself from the sown seed every year. Firmicus comments that this all seems like rationalisation of a pre-existing myth, in a time when paganism was under stress; and probably correctly. Earlier (and later) versions relate Attis to the sun.

I am collecting all the ancient literary testimonies to Attis, and all the inscriptions, with links to the full texts, and I hope to digest these into a webpage that we can then reference. I may revise this Wiki article once I have done so. I'm mostly done with the collecting process -- a few still to go --, and the "parallels" to Christianity stuff already looks very suspect. But we'll see. The key to writing a good article must be ancient citation. The use of Pausanias in this article is a good start, tho. This article is not a bad article as it stands. Roger Pearse (talk) 12:06, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Just as a reader/researcher (and seeing Attis show up constantly in lists of dead and resurrected gods), this article confuses me. Off the top, it quotes Britannica saying "his self-mutilation, death, and resurrection..." But when I read the actual Britannica entry, it only talks about an appeal to Zeus to prevent Attis's (presumably dead) body from ever decaying. It doesn't mention if Zeus granted that request, and it definitely doesn't say that Attis was brought back to life. Is it heresy for me to suggest that the Britannica article is misleading/insufficient, especially in the lede? User:SlickVicar 17:20, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Ostian statue

OK, I can only go by my own anatomy for reference here, so it might count as OR, but... it doesn't look particularly emasculated. All of the expected bits and pieces appear to be in place and intact. What's the dealio? 146.199.0.251 (talk) 07:10, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

The Greeks generally had a strong aversion to the depiction of mutilation in art. Even when a mythological figure was said to have been mutilated, they were generally shown in artwork as "whole." They did the same thing with the Amazons, who, according to a late folk etymology, were said to cut off their right breasts to make it easier to shoot a bow and arrow, but all extant depictions of Amazons show them with both breasts fully intact. I imagine this is probably much the same predicament; the Greeks never even portrayed subjects as laughing because it was considered undignified, so it makes sense that they would avoid showing a god as castrated, even if his myths told them that he was. --Katolophyromai (talk) 10:58, 26 September 2017 (UTC)

Contents Order

Is there a reason for "No connection to the god Atys" displaying first among the sections of the article? I think it would improve readability if that section was moved towards the end. As is, it reads like a non-sequitur that confusingly prefaces the History section. Many of the articles on Wikipedia discussing gods begin with a history/origin section and then descend into scholarly minutia towards the end of the article. Changing the order would bring this article into congruity with articles on similar topics. That said, the current order would be well aligned with other articles if this first section discussed the etymology of "Attis" as well as the misidentification. Perhaps this section could be expanded?