Origins of the terms Cronos and Saturn?

[Kyriakos]

Cronos (Κρόνος) was the leader of the Titans and their order. In the Theogonia and the Titanomachia the fall of the titans and the rise of the Olympian order with Zeus as the head (Zeus was the son of Cronos) is argued to be something similar to the archetypical night-darkness against daylight progression (which is also a previous part of the Theogonia itself, with Night, Erebus, and Chaos, being the first existences according to Hesiod).
It is also notable that Cronos was still tied to any barbaric activity, and most notably irrational killing or even human sacrifice. So a number of foreign gods- particularly in the early Hellenistic era- were tied to Cronos by the concurrent Greek historians and other thinkers, such as the Phoenecian Baal deity and the sacrifice of children in the idol-oven of Baal, or the Getae deity Zamolxis, who asked an annual rite of a Getae warrior to be thrown to three spears, having first been told what to ask Zamolxis upon meeting with him in the afterlife..

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I wanted to ask if there are any reputable studies, particularly with foundations on the classic era, regarding the origins of the Cronos/Saturn deity and their order of darkness and death. Some argue the order was a symbol for a pre-archaic human-sacrifice era in the Greek world (prior to Homer, so i suppose at around 1000 BC or before that), but i have not seen any definitive study.
I also have seen it argued that Cronos is a slight alteration of the term Chronos (Greek term for Time), and this would tie things to Anaximander's claim that Time asks all finite things to return to the infinity from which they came, and be decomposed there once more.

[Col. Tartleton]

Greek mythology is complicated if we try to make sense of its origins and influences. It's definitely prehistoric. The Proto-Indo-Europeans were clearly worshiping deities in the Neolithic which in their varying forms can be found from Britain to India. The Greek Mythology we all know and love is most likely a bronze age reconstitution. The IE spread their religion across Eurasia which over time took on local variations. Several of those traditions influenced the Greek myths.

I mean you can find Danu or Danona in Ireland and in Indonesia and many of the major river in between are named for her such as the mighty Danube. She is most likely called the Mother or Da-Mater or Demeter by the Greeks, some of whom called themselves Danaoi, not unlike the Irish people who called themselves Tuatha De Danaan and there was also a Hebrew Tribe of Dan most likely invoking the same linguistic ancestry. Another of the Hebrew tribes, and Dan's brother was Naphtali who most likely can be linked to Neptune who of course is romantically linked with Demeter as land and sea or rivers flowing into the sea. Not unlike the Norse pairing of Njordr and Skadi, although in early times before the Norse and German pantheons merged (as reflected in the Aesir and Vanir) he was most likely linked to the German Goddess the Romans called Nerthus who unsurprisingly is a female fertility goddess not unlike Demeter and mother of Freyja and Freyr, yet more fertility gods.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

When you analyze their attributes, Saturn/Cronos and Odin tend to be the same character. They constantly carry on the same traits except for Odin it's more about some timeless destiny which must be fulfilled and for Cronos it's about his strange ethics. For the Greeks their religion tends to be a long thesis about morality and ethics but for the Norse it tends to be more about what we might poorly term as fate and the never ending cycle.
That said both Odin and Saturn share the autumn/winter months as their sacred times and both could be seen as the fathers of their respective gods, despite the differences in the stories.

Interestingly as well Odin replaced the older Norse God Tyr (from the old Tiwaz which is actually Deus), a figure commonly associated with the rule of law and the sky. Similarly Zeus comes from the much older concept of Deus and a figure also associated with the law and the sky. It appears that both Odin and Cronos can be associated with death as well and both are associated with a lack of proper or legitimate law. In fact both deities can be seen as a celebration of illegitimate rulers, the would be king if you will. Both share a type of totalitarian rule so not necessarily Chaos, or what I believe could be more appropriately termed Anarchos.

So Odin replaced the sky god Tyr (Deus) but was ultimately replaced himself by the sky god and more ethically acceptable (acceptable to the warrior classes notably ) Thor. Cronos replaced Ouranos (literally the sky, Deus?) but was himself replaced by Zeus (Deus strikes again!). Again though, neither Odin nor Saturn are associated with the rule of law, they are lawful in so far as they are the authority however they do not necessarily uphold the law and their conduct may be considered socially unacceptable. Somehow these figures became the major deity despite those facts but probably for the same reasons were replaced by a more socially acceptable figure. Which is in total reflection to the stories themselves and how in their mythos they became rulers of the heavens.

[Glaive]

What I have says that Saturn either derives from satus (sowing), or from the Etruscan god Satre. He was later heavily Hellenised.

Cronos (or at least Hesiod's version of the myths) might originate in the Hurrian-Hittite story Kumarbi.

[conon394]

Cronos (Κρόνος) was the leader of the Titans and their order. In the Theogonia and the Titanomachia the fall of the titans and the rise of the Olympian order with Zeus as the head (Zeus was the son of Cronos) is argued to be something similar to the archetypical night-darkness against daylight progression (which is also a previous part of the Theogonia itself, with Night, Erebus, and Chaos, being the first existences according to Hesiod).
It is also notable that Cronos was still tied to any barbaric activity, and most notably irrational killing or even human sacrifice. So a number of foreign gods- particularly in the early Hellenistic era- were tied to Cronos by the concurrent Greek historians and other thinkers, such as the Phoenecian Baal deity and the sacrifice of children in the idol-oven of Baal, or the Getae deity Zamolxis, who asked an annual rite of a Getae warrior to be thrown to three spears, having first been told what to ask Zamolxis upon meeting with him in the afterlife..

*

I wanted to ask if there are any reputable studies, particularly with foundations on the classic era, regarding the origins of the Cronos/Saturn deity and their order of darkness and death. Some argue the order was a symbol for a pre-archaic human-sacrifice era in the Greek world (prior to Homer, so i suppose at around 1000 BC or before that), but i have not seen any definitive study.
I also have seen it argued that Cronos is a slight alteration of the term Chronos (Greek term for Time), and this would tie things to Anaximander's claim that Time asks all finite things to return to the infinity from which they came, and be decomposed there once more.

You got me have you tried Google scholar?

The thing is the evedence is so thin and often coflicting I doubt you find a final answer or even if there is one.

Compare Athena

There is little doubt that she is originally as far as we know the Minoan snake Goddess (re Nilsson - I don't think anyone seriously objects to his argument on this). But how she turned into Athena is unclear just as it is clear Athena became largly what Athens wanted her to be because they had the money and publication output to make that happen - even the modern spelling is a victory for Athens as they got their preferential usage/spelling turned into the one everyone knows 2500 years after they are all gone . But Athena was not everywhere the Athena of Athens. And in any case the whole development is a mishmash of guess and putty based of fragments, inscriptions, art and what not.

A good available review is here:

http://commons.colgate.edu/cgi/viewc...n%20origins%22

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Actually I think Glaive is on to something. Many Hittite/Hurrian gods could be seen in later times within the Greek deities and even at the time of the Hittites the gods of the Achaeans could be easily comparable to Hittite/Hurrian gods.
After all Anu (the sky) was overthrown by Kumarbi (as King of the Heavens) only to be replaced by Teshub/Tarhunta the god of lightning and storms. In fact we can see the exact same pattern of an interloper god between what seems to be the worship of sky deities over and over. One such example is Marduk who also overthrew Anu and happened to be son of Enki (who might be the Semitic/Sumerian version of Anu himself as a newer deity when compared to Anu, despite Enki's domain as god of the water and thus in direct oppostion to Anu as god of the sky).

[Cyclops]

Well these are all interesting stories and the thing about interesting stories is they get repeated, so its likely if someone had a compelling tale about a father trying to kill his son and being overthrown it'd get repeated until people thought it was gospel. Their gospel.

Another point is that technologies and cultural systems usually have their attendent stories, so if (for example) a new technology like iron or making wine spread it'd probably taske its attendent names and stories and connected deities with it.

So Kronos may be a name from a story from anywhere from Africa to China which was compelling and repeated. It may have been connected to iron-working or agriculture or a patriarchal social system that replaced a matriarchal one, who would know?

...Danu or Danona in Ireland and in Indonesia ... the mighty Danube. ...the Mother or Da-Mater or Demeter by the Greeks, some of whom called themselves Danaoi, not unlike the Irish people who called themselves Tuatha De Danaan and there was also a Hebrew Tribe of Dan most likely invoking the same linguistic ancestry. Another of the Hebrew tribes, and Dan's brother was Naphtali who most likely can be linked to Neptune who of course is romantically linked with Demeter as land and sea or rivers flowing into the sea. Not unlike the Norse pairing of Njordr and Skadi, although in early times before the Norse and German pantheons merged (as reflected in the Aesir and Vanir) he was most likely linked to the German Goddess the Romans called Nerthus who unsurprisingly is a female fertility goddess not unlike Demeter and mother of Freyja and Freyr, yet more fertility gods.

I love this game. A mate of mine at work has a theory about the word lk*. He says figures like Lycurgus, mythical one-eyed sun/wolf god (or something like that) appear in most cultures as a law giver/trickster (he had a whole list, I can't recall most of them). There's supposedly a middle eastern version, an Egyptian version etc. I pointed out the Norse version would be Odin/Wotan etc, but later I read some scholars opine that Odin was a late creation who took over as law giver from (drum roll) Loki (who retained a trickster role).

So my mate named his son Luke. He's one eyed, but only about football .

[conon394]

Loki (who retained a trickster role)

Of course you add another layer by even using the word trickster. Since Loki is a fairly dark character at least in the later era mythology. Prometheus is given the same title (by academics) but by the time Athenian literature rolls around they have turned him into an almost Jesus like savior of men hardly a trickster - almost no self interest at all just sacrifice and risk for men - I mean they even walk back the Pandora story so he can thwart Zeus at that as well. I suppose from the perspective of other gods he might be a traitor, but he never tricks men or rapes any women, etc he really simply becomes the ideal of a true protector god for humanity with no anger or rage or need/demand for supplication.

But that of course that requires you figure out who even wrote Prometheus bound...

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&...0bound&f=false

[Kyriakos]

^Hm, so this new scholar claims that Prometheus Bound is likely not written by Aescylus, due to... the character being very different from other characters in the poet's work?

Uh..

I suppose 'Description of a Struggle' wasn't written by Kafka. I mean just juxtapose the main figure there (or pretty much most figures there, most notably an incredibly obese person...) to any other stuff Kafka wrote

(in brief: this scholar mentions this as his starting argument in his own prologue linked above. And it is a dreadful argument).

[conon394]

^Hm, so this new scholar claims that Prometheus Bound is likely not written by Aescylus, due to... the character being very different from other characters in the poet's work?

Uh..

I suppose 'Description of a Struggle' wasn't written by Kafka. I mean just juxtapose the main figure there (or pretty much most figures there, most notably an incredibly obese person...) to any other stuff Kafka wrote

(in brief: this scholar mentions this as his starting argument in his own prologue linked above. And it is a dreadful argument).

Well you kind of missing my point

The thing is there were hundreds of play writers and thousands of works and even of the famous ones we have but a few total and some fragments its all just a guessing game to judge style or meter or linguistics. Then we have to wait hundreds of years for lists of supposed works by people who we know are often wrong or know nothing really about Athens. We do via Aristophanes and his jokes that as a community they did poach each other ideals and titles etc. Thus it's difficult to say if the three known titles even belong to the same author or if they were a trilogy.

Again consider that both more typical tragedy and the scathing criticsm of Aristopanes like works surrvived the end of Athenian democracy - Drama did not just become Menander in totality. But we have but names and tiny fragments and a few odd titles so any conclusion is web of mostly assumption.

So my point who is Prometheus? He was something decidedly different in Democratic Athens than he was for Hesiod, and certainly much different from many other supposed tricksters. Mythology is actually rather flexible and it is always useful to consider the layer(s) (*) of modern scholarship and or ancient that you are looking through to a supposed reality. Compare again Hesiod -his Pandora's last in in the box is bitter hope and as well it should be for a such a bitter poet. But the Pandora of Prometheus of Athens allows blind/positive hope such that men will not be in fact overwhelmed by the ills of Zeus.

* And If you note the argument is as old as modern scholarship on Greek drama more or less - so its not new.

[Kyriakos]

^The dramatists of the 5th century BC Athens often changed stuff from the original myth, even drastically. A good example would be Iphigeneia who in the play is argued to have been at risk of being ritually sacrificed, while in Homer's Iliad she is threatened of being devoted to some god (Artemis iirc?) and sent to serve at the temple. So there is a pretty big gap between the two Also i don't recall Homer having Maenads going around decapitating people (including their own son).

I can suppose, in general, that their era (the Greek-Persian wars in Greece had just ended, Aescylus even fought in the battle of Marathon) was more bleak than the immediately preceding ones due to the threat of being destroyed by Persia, so the dramatic tones are darker too.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Europeans, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Hittites and Hurrians tend to have an obsession with the sky. The Mesopotamian people seem to be more interested in water and the Earth.

[Kyriakos]

^In presocratic philosophy all those elements on occasion are presented as crucial, eg Water in Thales, Air in Anaximander, Fire (but likely a metaphor) in Heraklitos, Earth as a progression of flow towards water and the opposite (Xenophanes), and also a fifth element, Aether (Parmenides iirc), which was tied to the edge (or the glow?) of a flame.

But they tend to be metaphors, at least after the first Milesian philosophers (Thales and Anaximenes; Anaximander was in between but he spoke of a much more impressive 'Origin', which he termed as 'Limitless' and was a sort of primordial chaos). Pythagoras had numbers and math instead, Heraklitos also proposed a Measure of change and constant flow of "fire", and later 5th century thinkers spoke of Atoms (Democritos) and ultimately the human mind as the center of what we can examine (Anaxagoras, and the main sophist Protagoras). Then comes Plato/Socrates with somewhat of a return of focus to the 'God' origin ("The meter of all is God").