PBP: Jars
I’m going to cheat this week as I have no ideas about what to write that involves the letter J. So I’m going to link you to several things mostly by me. If you have any ideas on what I should write for next week, please SHARE
The first link is to my version of the tale of Pandora. What many do not realize is that there was no box, only a jar. Zeus is the keeper of two jars (or urns), the jar of good gifts and the jar of evil gifts. The Truth of Pandora
Next is a link to a recipe for pankarpia/pansperma. This dish is sometimes offered to khthonic gods or placed in the ktesios jar.
“Put the lid on a new two-eared Kadiskos, crown the ears with white wool and let down the ends of…the thread from the right shoulder and the forehead and place in it whatever you can find and pour into it ambrosia. Now ambrosia is pure water, olive oil and pankarpia. Pour in these.” Exegetikon of Antikleides
I do keep a ktesios jar but not in the same way that I used to do. Here are some old entries on my jar.
- June 2008 – the first time I offered the jar
- May 2009 – a new jar and new shelf
- December 2009 – refill and adjusting of frequency
- December 2011 – another change to the frequency
I haven’t changed the jar in a while. I just haven’t felt the need. It currently contains some of my favorite sweets.
Now some links to information on Zeus Ktesios, as the offering jar is for him
- Zeus Notes – contains some info
- Agathos Daimon and Zeus – not exactly about Ktesios but this epithet is mentioned
- Khthonic Zeus – not about Kthesios but about another, similar, epithet
- and again
- About another epithet but again similar
- Beloved in Light‘s thoughts on the jar
And just for the heck of it…an aside from Homer about a particular jar (sometimes called a cauldron or an urn, lidded at any rate)
Homer, Iliad 5. 385 ff (trans. Lattimore) (Greek epic C8th B.C.) : “[Zeus speaks:] ‘Many of us who have our homes on Olympos endure things from men, when ourselves we inflict hard pain on each other. Ares had to endure it when strong Ephialtes and Otos, sons of Aloeus, chained him in bonds that were too strong for him, and three months and ten he lay chained in the brazen cauldron; had not Eeriboia, their stepmother, the surpassingly lovely, brought word to Hermes, who stole Ares away out of it, as he was growing faint and the hard bondage was breaking him.’ “
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