Page "Persephone" Paragraph 47

In the Near eastern myth of the primitive agricultural societies, every year the fertility goddess bore the " god of the new year ", who then became her lover, and died immediately in order to be reborn and face the same destiny.

Similar cults of resurrected gods appear in the Orient in the cults of Attis, Adonis and Osiris, In Minoan Crete, the " divine child " was related with the female vegetation divinity Ariadne who died every year.

The Minoan religion had its own characteristics.

The cult was aniconic, the principal deities were female, and they appeared in epiphany called chiefly by ecstatic sacral dances, by tree – shaking and by baetylic rites.