Mosaic of Demeter

Demeter, Ancient Greek God of the harvest, is adorned with a golden, thorny crown and necklace, her brown hair thick and curly and lips full. The black stones accentuate her long eyelashes. She wears a golden and brown colored rope and glances to her right. Demeter was depicted as a mature woman, responsible for sustaining humankind with the earth’s rich bounty of grain, bread, and agriculture. 

In ancient mythology, Demeter’s daughter Persephone is kidnapped by Hades, god of the dead and king of the underworld, who wished to have her as his young wife. Demeter’s grief brings darkness to the earth for the first time, winter arrives. Without her harvest, plants wither and die as snow engulfs the land. 

Worried of the inevitable starvation, Zeus, God of the sky and thunder, brokered a deal where Perspephone would live on earth for six months of the year with Demeter, who would come out of her depression and tend to the harvest, but was bound to the underworld for the rest of the year, throwing Demeter back into mourning. And thus formed the seasons.