The Mater Dolorosa of Ancient Rough Cilicia: Tracking an Archetype Prof. Matthew Dillon

The Mater Dolorosa of Ancient Rough Cilicia: Tracking an Archetype

• Prof. Matthew Dillon

• Dept. of Classics and Archaeology

• Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles

Some Context: Who Are These People?

• Rough Cilician coast exposed to various influences (including pirates!):

• Phoenician (cf. legend of Cilix)
• Greek
• Roman
• Egyptian (under Cleopatra)

• But native population group dominates

• Luwians, related to Hittites

Luwian Language

• Hieroglyphic Script used by Hittites (2nd mill. BCE)

• Following collapse of Hittite empire (ca. 1200 BCE), “Neo-Hittite” kingdoms of eastern Anatolia provide extensive corpus of Luwian inscriptions (11th-8th c. BCE)

• Local scripts in Lycia, Pamphylia last until 3rd c. BCE

• Spoken language still in use in 1st c. CE

• Paul & Barnabas addressed in Lycaonian dialect, Acts 14:11

Luwian Remnants in Rough Cilicia

• Of over 2,200 inscriptions from western Rough Cilicia, NONE in native language

• 32 in Latin, rest in Greek

• But nomenclature indicates ethnic dominance of native Luwians

• Ca. 75% of names non-Greek, mostly Luwian

• Some evidence of Lycian influence

E.g.: Name List from Korykion Antron

Lycian Influence?

Recap

• Luwian People of Rough Cilicia indigenous since the Bronze Age

• Iron Age power centers in East

• Extensive Greek influence in Hellenistic period

• Language & Politics

• In RC, native artistic traditions survive into Roman Period

• Most sites from 1st-4th centuries CE
• Dating based on surface pottery, inscriptions

Basic Assumptions

• Female figure of importance/power

• Mature, respectable (veil)

• Mother/Wife

• Funerary

• Mournful attitude
• Location in or near necropoleis

• Ergo, mater dolorosa “sorrowful mother”

• Repetitions indicate “type”

• Can we speak of “archetype”?

• Trace first mater, then dolorosa in Anatolia

What is an “Archetype”?

• Greek : pattern, model

• Appropriated by C.G. Jung for symbols (“primordial images”) from collective unconscious

• Used to analyze neuroses:
• “The mother archetype forms the foundation for the so-called mother complex….Typical effects on the son are homosexuality and Don Juanism, and sometimes also impotence.”
• “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype”, from:
• C.G. Jung, Four Archetypes, Princeton 1970, p. 19.

Back to Basics

• Term still useful in mythology/art:

• Recurrent symbol from human experience

• Strong examples of basic archetypes:

• Father (sky god, king)
• Mother (earth goddess, queen)

Ancient Sky Gods

Mother Goddesses

• Various Types/Archetypes

• Emphasis on:

• Power (mater natura, “Mother Nature”)
• Dominatrix?
• Fertility (alma mater, “nourishing mother”)
• Loss (mater dolorosa, “sorrowful mother”)

• Startling concentration of female power in Anatolia

• Matrix of all mothers!

Neolithic Mothers

• Hacilar and Çatal Höyük offer striking examples from 7th-6th mill. BCE

• Animal imagery survives 5,000 year gap!

Hittite Arinna

• Little Evidence for Bronze Age Mother Cult

• Sun goddess Arinna appears at Yazilikaya, near Hittite capital (13th c. BCE)

• Note mountains, lion, high crown (polos)

Neo-Hittite Kubaba

• Localized around Karkemish, ca. 950-700 BCE

• Attributes: polos (high crown), pomegranate, mirror

• Attested as far west as

• Sardis in Lydia

The Great Mother (Magna Mater)

• Most important mother cult in Mediterranean

• Localized in Phrygia, spread far & wide

• Phrygians enter central Anatolia ca. 900 BCE

• Only Phrygian deity attested in art, inscriptions

• Name is simply Matar (Mother)

• But epithet kubileya (“mountain”?) establishes specious connection with Kubaba, widely accepted

• Greeks & Romans called

• her , Cybele

Matar’s Iconography

• Stands upright (in naiskos)

• Attributes: polos, bird, lion, jug

Growth of the Matar Cult: Greece

• Adopted as (), 

• Short Homeric Hymn (6th c. BCE?) refers to ecstatic music, animals, mountains

• Ionia a likely point of intersection

• Metroon in Athenian Agora at

• heart of civic center

• • But cult overshadowed by

• Mysteries of Demeter

Magna Mater in Rome

• Sibylline Books direct cult image to be brought from Phrygia with great fanfare in 204 BCE.

• Sources describe aniconic stone (meteorite?)

• Ovid (Fasti 4.179ff.) narrates Quinta Claudia’s miracle

• Popular cult also intrigues Lucretius (DRN 2.600ff), Catullus (c. 63)

Unsavory Aspects?

• Literary sources emphasize castration

• Complex Myth of Attis adapted in Catullus 63
• Dea, magna dea, Cybebe, dea domina Dindymi!
• Galli (eunuch priests of cult) notorious

• Calling Dr. Jung!

• But little evidence from Anatolia!

Mater Dominatrix?

• Several myths associate dominant female with subordinate male

• Cybele and Attis
• Inanna and Dumuzi (Mesopotamian)
• Venus and Adonis

• Intersection with “Mistress of Animals” (Potnia Theron) motif?

• Mother Nature has power to control, terrify

Syncretism: Unity in Diversity

• Merging of cults inevitable

• Apuleius provides locus classicus (Metam. 11.5)
• Isis cult adds to Mediterranean mix

• Ephesus, capital of Roman Asia, provides fertile ground for interaction

• Luwian Apasa?
• Center of Artemis cult
• Christian crossroads

Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!

• Roots of unique cult image unknown

• Temple a Wonder of the World

• Paul ousted from theater by devotees (Acts 19.23ff.)

Another Ephesian Goddess?

• Scripture puts Mary, mother of Jesus, in John’s care (John 19.25-27)

• John allegedly buried near Ephesus

• “Mary’s House” located (1891) via visions of Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824)

• Her visions also guided Gibson’s Passion!

• House now a cult site for BVM

The Cult of Mary

• “Mariolatry” officially rejected

• by Roman Catholicism

• But “apparitions” most common of all

• Virgin, Mother, Queen unite archetypes

• Cf. Virgin/fertility cult of Ephesian Artemis

• Emphasis less on power, domination

• Opens door for more human aspects

• Alma Mater (“nourishing mother”)
• Mater Dolorosa (“sorrowful mother”)

Alma Mater

Mater Dolorosa

Origins of Mater Dolorosa

• Archetype closes circle of life and death

• Women’s role in Funerary ritual crucial

• More prevalent in Myth than in Art

• Thetis, in Iliad (set in NW Anatolia)
• Demeter, at Eleusis near Athens
• Niobe, turned to stone in Lydia
• Penelope, for husband and son

• Can we connect to RC reliefs?

The Women of Rough Cilicia

• Epigraphy gives (limited) view of female roles in Roman period (1st-4th c. CE)

• Women figure prominently in both funerary and honorific texts

• Inscriptions suggest fair amount of respect, independence, visibility

• “Lineage Society” model must take women into account

Funerary Evidence

• Some communal tombs place in separate chambers (men above, women below)

• But not all, and couples are often buried together

• Men erect tombs for wives, daughters, mothers-in-law

• “Tomb holds us like one bedroom and one bed” (OlB46)

• Wives erect tombs for husbands

• Women erect tombs for themselves

• Priestess of Demeter for “self and no one else” (Kan22)

• Mothers erect tombs for daughters

• Daughters erect tombs for fathers

• Brothers erect tombs for sisters

Honorary Inscriptions

• Wives, daughters, mothers honored with statues by “Council and People”

• For “modesty”, “respectability”, “consular” rank
• One woman served as gymnasiarch (Kes4a)

• Women pay for statues, columns, public dinners

• Wife and daughter build public propylaion (Kzb6)

• Cf. civic activity of Plancia Magna at Perge (ca. 80 mi. W. of RC)

Conclusions

• Female powers in Anatolia run gamut of archetypes

• Dolorosa type counterbalances Dominatrix

• Prominence of mater dolorosa motif in RC suggests acknowledgement of female power, esp. in funerary context

• Indigenous Luwians of RC maintain cultural identity in multicultural Roman empire

• Women apparently active, visible in civic life and death