The sacred and beautiful pomegranate today will be the subject of our admiration, dear readers! The jewelry execution of this fruit always causes delight, and the deep symbolism of this fruit makes jewelry incarnations of the pomegranate even more attractive.
Symbol of life and death. Two seemingly mutually exclusive concepts - such is the symbolism of the pomegranate.
The pomegranate is rich not only in taste, but also in cultural history. Some historians of religion claim that it was this forbidden fruit that Eve tried, followed by Adam. Pomegranate, not apple—its Latin name punica granatum—means grainy or seeded apple.
Its earthly history begins at the very beginning of written civilization, when this fruit was one of the earliest cultivated by humans.
Symbolism and rituals developed around this fruit that continue to this day.
The ancient Persians believed that its seeds represented fertility and the cycle of rebirth, a belief shared by their Greek and Egyptian contemporaries in the pomegranate-shaped vases found in Tutankhamun's tomb.
In some parts of modern Greece and Turkey, there is still a tradition for the bride to throw whole pomegranates at the door of her new home: the scattered seeds symbolize the number of children that will be blessed by the newlyweds.
The Akkadians of Mesopotamia also equated the crimson-red fruit with fertility and offered the fruit to statues of Ishtar, the goddess of love and fertility.
The Babylonians revered the flowering fruit and are said to have featured prominently in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, as the Greeks called it.
Immortal life
Pomegranate's modern status as an anti-aging superfood may not be far-fetched, as the fruit also once represented eternal life.
The Persian king Xerxes, who reigned in the fifth century BC, is said to have fielded an army of warriors against the Greeks with spears topped with silver and gold garnets instead of sharpened blades, as a symbol of strength and immortality.
- I want to make a small digression - take a look at the portrait of Xerxes (16th century) and how he was portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster...
Traditionally, a sip of the fruit's juice was given to those who were at death's door in the hope that it would heal them and prolong their life, and a few seeds of the fruit were also placed in the mouth of someone who had already died.
This special ritual was also performed by the Sumerians, who lived in neighboring Mesopotamia and considered the seeds sacred. By offering them to the deceased, they believed that the deceased would become immortal.
In Christianity, Renaissance artists depicted the baby Jesus on his mother's lap, often clutching a pomegranate - this time to symbolize new life and hope for humanity. This association appears in many works of art from both the 15th and 16th centuries.
In Greek mythology, the plant is also called the "fruit of the dead" and is said to be grown from the blood of Adonis. But here the fruit seems to transcend the worlds of the living and the dead, and the most famous of them was offered to Persephone by Hades.
Love story of Hades and Persephone
An amazing myth about the cycle of seasons on earth, about how life and death are inextricably linked, tells how the god of the underworld of the dead, Hades, fell in love with and kidnapped the beautiful, young goddess of Spring - Persephone (Proserpina).
This myth is also about maternal love - after all, Persephone’s mother, the goddess of fertility Demeter, was so saddened by the loss of her daughter that a cold winter came on earth...
The symbolism of Demeter is interesting - she is depicted, as a rule, with ears of rye (wheat) and a sickle.
The story of Proserpina's return from the kingdom of Hades is quite long, but what role did the pomegranate play in it? The role of the forbidden fruit, oddly enough. Proserpina could have returned forever to the world of the living if she had not eaten anything in the world of the dead, but she was tempted by a few pomegranate seeds...
And from now on she was to remain with Hades forever and ever. But mother Demeter was so worried about her daughter that the Supreme God Zeus nevertheless decided that Proserpina would stay in the underworld for 6 months (precisely 6 pomegranate seeds) and return to her mother for 6 months. And so, when Proserpina leaves her husband, spring and summer come on earth, and when she returns to Hades, winter covers the earth with its cold.
An amazing myth. Every time I re-read it, delving into the archetypes of deities and this whole love story of two antagonists, I understand how intertwined life and death are and there is nothing finite in this best of worlds.
Yes, the most mystical and incomprehensible meaning in this fruit...
Scroll through the gallery of decorations in the form of pomegranate fruits:
Jewelry made by jewelers in the form of garnets, in addition to aesthetic grace, also symbolizes fullness of life, wealth, and health.
