#menerva

Menerva (Athena) in the centre holding up the head of the Gorgon Medusa, with Ferse (Perseus) seated left and Turms (Hermes) seated right.

To celebrate @ulises-aithon's birthday, I've decided to give him this present. We've been chatting since the last colouring post about how much we'd love to get a polychrome Etruscan-style bronze mirror, so I decided to paint one for him, one of the prettiest I've found on the British Museum's website, and especially because it featured ivy fruits (actually, just for this reason LOL)

Brief explanation: the material is bronze, obviously; the turquoise background with the speckled effect is oxidised bronze (as my good friend LOVES chemistry 🤣). The plants, as I said before, are ivy with its berries. The clothes are the auras the characters give me, but this time in pastel shades, and Athena’s because we love pink. Also I stand for reptile monstrous Medusa and the jewellery is gold, as is the caduceus. As for the scene, I thought the reflection of Medusa’s head was a little puddle after the rain. The scene itself is super cute, Perseus wants to see Medusa properly and in detail (I think Ulises is Perseus here; bro, I want to see that… i'm a scientist: soy 100tífico) and asks his bros for that and the three are participating (they're so cute omgosh)

I’ve changed the little flower to a Cymbalaria muralis, which isn’t native to Greece (though I’m not 100% sure), but it is native to the western Mediterranean and grows among rocks and in gaps between walls.

Here’s the original:

Etruscan bronze mirror, ca. 400-350 BC. Found in Perugia Umbria. British Museum

Hedera helix fruit and Cymbalaria muralis plants.

Feliz cumpleaños, amigo🥳🎉

Thank you very much in advance if you reply🙏

As far as I know the only source for his passion for her and the subsequent (fake) marriage of Mars and Minerva is Ovid's Fasti 3.675–96, although I've seen it argued that it might be a remnant of an older Italic tradition that had those two gods conceptualized as a couple, or that it came about as a result of the identification of Minerva with the goddess Nerio, a wife and cult partner of Mars.

The story has no Greek equivalent and it is used to explain a ritual in the Roman festival of the Roman goddess Anna Perenna, which makes it quite likely that it is an Italic myth rather than a borrowed Greek one. Another myth (only preserved in art) that has no parallel in Greek sources involves Minerva/Menerva pulling an armed, youthful Mars from a vessel of (boiling?) liquid, which might be based on the myth of the Etruscan figure Maris who was said to have died and been resurrected three times and who, as an infant, is also depicted being pulled out of an amphora by Menerva.

Meeting of deities; from right: Mars (Laran), Venus (Turan), Minerva (Menerva), Apollo (Aplu)

Etruscan mirror

LEGO Cuusoo Hayabusa Jaxa Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency 21101

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