Late Mycenaean Kourotrophe phi-figurine (circa 1360 B.C.E.) (Louvre)
Kourotrophos (Greek: κουροτρόφος, "child nurturer") is the name that was given in ancient Greece to gods and goddesses whose properties included their ability to protect young people. Numerous gods are referred to by the epithet such as Athena, Apollo, Hermes, Hecate, Aphrodite, Artemis, Eileithyia,[1] Demeter, Gaia, Cephissus and Asclepius.[2]
They were usually depicted holding an infant in their arms.[3] Deianeria and Ariadne were occasional shown on vases with their children, Hyllus and Staphylos and Oenopion respectively, but there is no evidence that there was a cult around them as kourotrophic figures.[4]
Kourotrophos was also the name of a goddess or goddesses worshiped independently in shrines of their own.[5] For example, Kourotrophos was a deity of the city of Athens but was not among the major Olympian deities. She appeared as the protector of children and young people and a sanctuary built on her name in honor of the cult, the so-called Kourotropheion.[3] Kourotrophos was a major figure of cult, appearing in sacrifice groups connected with fertility and child care.[6]
Kourotrophos is similar to the Dea Gravida, which are figures representing either a goddesses or woman who is visibly pregnant.[7]
^Wise, Susan (2007). Childbirth Votives and Rituals in Ancient Greece (PhD). University of Cincinnati.
^Lesley A. Beaumont (2013). Childhood in Ancient Athens: Iconography and Social History. Routledge. p. 64. ISBN 978-0415248747.
^ abLampsas Giannis, Dictionary of the Ancient World (Lexiko tou Archaiou Kosmou), Vol. III, Athens, Domi Publications, 1984, p. 247.
^Hadzisteliou Price, Theodora (1978). Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities. Netherlands: Brill Archive. ISBN 90-04-05251-8.
^Harvey Alan Shapiro, Art, Myth, and Culture, Greek Vases from Southern Collections
^Oxford Reference.
^Budin, Stephanie Lynn (2014). Images of Woman and Child from the Bronze Age: Reconsidering Fertility, Maternity, and Gender in the Ancient World. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. p. 221. ISBN 9781107660328.
figures. Kourotrophos was also the name of a goddess or goddesses worshiped independently in shrines of their own. For example, Kourotrophos was a deity...
the epithet "Kourotrophos". Kourotrophos was the name of an old goddess who was subordinate to Ge. Dieterich believed that Kourotrophos and Potnia theron...
covered. In Ancient Greece there were several cults worshipping the "Kourotrophos", the suckling mother, represented by goddesses such as Gaia, Hera and...
gods). Among the Greeks, T.H. Price notes that the nurturing power of Kourotrophos might be invoked in sacrifices and recorded in inscription, without specifically...
been found in the cargo of transport ships. Dea Gravida is similar to kourotrophos figures. (Greek: κουροτρόφος, "child nurturer"). These figures are typically...
one of the best attested facets of his panhellenic cult persona. As a kourotrophos, Apollo is concerned with the health and education of children, and he...
of a Kouros, found at Leontini from the fifth century BC. a limestone kourotrophos, a headless female statue, holding two twins, which was found at Megara...
seven times upon Brimo, "she who haunts the night, the Nursing Mother [Kourotrophos]. In black weed and murky gloom she dwells, Queen of the Dead". The Thessalian...
successful in her role protecting and nurturing a hero (the theme of kourotrophos), but her role in succoring deities is emphatically repeated by Homer...
vase-painting. Though Etruscans preferred to show the goddess as a nurturer (Kourotrophos) rather than an abductor of young men, the late Archaic sculptural acroterion...
(Κλειδοῦχος), holding the keys. As the keeper of the keys of Hades. Kourotrophos (Κουροτρόφος), nurse of children. Krokopeplos (Κροκόπεπλος), saffron...
Kessler-Dimini, Elizabeth. 2008. "Tradition and Transmission: Hermes Kourotrophos in Nea Paphos, Cyprus." In Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian...
wooden masks and they were called kyrritoi (pushing with the horns). Kourotrophos, protector of young boys. During the Apaturia the front hair of young...
stretches to the Nike bastion, Pausanias also locates shrines to Ge Kourotrophos and Demeter Chloe. Here some pottery fragments and figurines associated...
the god hidden from the frenzied women roaming the countryside by the kourotrophos Kala Thea, the Beautiful Goddess, and raised as a girl: the transition...
[citation needed] In Ancient Greece there were several cults worshiping the "Kourotrophos", the suckling mother, represented by goddesses such as Gaia, Hera and...
pp. 41–64. ISBN 978-1785705809. Hadzisteliou Price, Theodora (1978). Kourotrophos: Cults and Representations of the Greek Nursing Deities. Leiden, Netherlands:...
Hestia, Demeter, Enodia, Aphrodite, Athena and Themis. Enodia is also a kourotrophos (i.e. a protector and nurturer of children). An iron key was found inside...
vases. Room 35 displays a statue of the 3rd century Mother and Child (Kourotrophos Maffei) and fragments of terracotta decorations from a temple facade...
from the Late Helladic period (c. 1500–1100 BC). She coined the term kourotrophos for a particular class of these artifacts depicting a woman holding a...
monuments in Syracuse and recovery of the great statue of a "Mother" Kourotrophos in the site of Megara Hyblaea at Augusta Identification near Mineo of...
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