Where the Sun meets the Ocean: the glitter path as an eschatological route in archaic Greece
Issue: Vol 6 No. 1 (2020)
Journal: Journal of Skyscape Archaeology
Subject Areas:
DOI: 10.1558/jsa.39053
Abstract:
At sunrise and sunset, the Sun’s reflection on a sea appears as an elongated gold band, called a glitter path. This research explores how this intangible manifestation of light might have been culturally appropriated, focusing on a diachronic analysis from the Late Bronze Age III Aegean civilisation (c. 1400-1100 BC) to the Archaic period (c. 1100-800 BC) onwards in Greece. The analysis of visual observations, funerary pottery iconography, and literary sources supports the hypothesis that this phenomenon might have been considered a solar eschatological route for the dead. The LM/H III psychopomp octopus can be consider a predecessor of the god of Hermes, whose golden staff also resembles the shape of a glitter path. In the mythical geography, a continuity of the idea of the glitter path as eschatological route can be attested in the qualitative solar connotations of psychopomp gods.
Author: Ilaria Cristofaro
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