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| Salvator Rosa's 1658 work, Allegory of Fortune, features the horn of abundance as Fortuna, the goddess of luck. |
The cornucopia is generally shown in contemporary art as a hollow, horn-shaped wicker basket that is filled with a variety of celebratory fruits and vegetables.
The cornucopia has come to symbolize Thanksgiving and the harvest in the majority of North America.
The annual November Food and Wine festival in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, is also known as Cornucopia.
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| Personifying the Americas as the New World by using an alligator, a parrot, and a cornucopia |
Idaho's flag and state seal both include two cornucopias.
Liberty stands on the Great Seal of North Carolina as Plenty holds a cornucopia.
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| A North Carolina state seal depicting a Cornucopia. |
The cornucopia, a sign of plenty, is also seen on the coats of arms of Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, Panama, and the State of Victoria in Australia.
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| Columbia's Coat Of Arms |
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| Chile's Coat Of Arms |
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| Seal Of The Philippines |
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| Kharkiv, Ukraine's Coat Of Arms |
Tiffany Aching, a witch in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy books, temporarily held the Cornucopia, which is Summer's badge of office, until she developed avatarism and ped fecundis during the events of Wintersmith.
By spitting up food and animals, including a large flock of hens, this presents issues.
The Hunger Games novel series makes use of the cornucopia concept.
A massive horn-shaped cache packed with weapons and equipment is put before the beginning of the series' titular gladiatorial matches.
This cache, which is referred to as the "Cornucopia," acts as the center of combat during the first minutes of the match.
The national anthem of Panem, the main location of the series, is referred to as "the Horn of Plenty" in the film version, and it is referenced multiple times in the lyrics.
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| Harpocrates with a cornucopia, a figurine from the Hellenistic era, is shown at Dion's Archaeological Museum (Dion, Greece) |
As a symbol of fertility, good fortune, and prosperity, the horn of plenty is utilized as body art and at Halloween.
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| The Statue of Flora in Szczecin, Poland, has a cornucopia. |
How Is 'Cornucopia' Derived From The Name Of Goddess 'Copia'?
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| Rubens' allegorical representation of the Roman goddess Abundantia holding a cornucopia (ca. 1630) |
The cornucopia, also known as the horn of plenty and deriving from the Latin words cornu (horn) and copia (plenty), was a representation of abundance and sustenance in ancient antiquity.
It was often a big horn-shaped receptacle filled to the brim with fruits, flowers, or nuts.
Western Asia and Europe have long utilized baskets or panniers of this kind to store and transport recently gathered foods.
The harvester's hands would be free to pick while the horn-shaped basket was carried on the back or draped over the torso.
How Was Goddess Copia Worshiped In Greek and Roman mythology?
The genesis of the cornucopia is explained in a variety of myths.
The birth and upbringing of Zeus, who had to be concealed from his devouring father Cronus, is one of the most well-known.
Baby Zeus was taken care of and guarded by a multitude of heavenly attendants in a cave on Mount Ida on the island of Crete, including the goat Amaltheia ("Nourishing Goddess"), who fed him with her milk.
As a little child, the future king of the gods possessed extraordinary strength and talents.
When he was playing with his nursemaid, he accidently cut off one of her horns, which was endowed with the divine ability to supply endless sustenance just as the god's foster mother had done.
In a different tale, the cornucopia was created when Heracles (Roman Hercules) engaged in combat with the river deity Achelous and severed one of his horns; river gods were often shown as having horns.
The mural painting Achelous and Hercules by American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton depicts this variation.
A number of Greek and Roman gods adopted the cornucopia as their symbol, especially those who were connected to the harvest, prosperity, or spiritual abundance, such as personifications of Earth (Gaia or Terra), the son of the grain goddess
Demeter and god of riches, Plutus, the nymph
Maia, and Fortuna, the goddess of luck who could bring about prosperity.
Abundantia, who represents "Abundance," and Annona, the goddess of Rome's grain supply, were two abstract Roman goddesses who promoted peace (pax Romana) and prosperity in the Roman Imperial religion.
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| Girolamo Campagna's bronze Allegory of Peace, created in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and based on designs from about 1585–86 |
Hades, the ancient underworld lord in mystery religions, is often seen holding a cornucopia in artwork.
He was a provider of material, spiritual, and natural prosperity.
References And Further Reading:
- Joseph Spence. Polymetis: Or, An Enquiry Concerning the Agreement Between the Works of the Roman Poets, and the Remains of the Antient Artists: Being an Attempt to Illustrate Them Mutually from One Another. In Ten Books. R. Dodsley, 1747, p. 148.
- "Abundantia, Roman Goddess of Abundance". www.thaliatook.com. Retrieved 2020-09-10.
- Virtue, Doreen (2005). Goddesses and Angels. United States of America: Hay House. p. 215. ISBN 978-1-4019-0473-9.
- J. Rufus Fears, "The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.2 (1981), p. 812.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses; 9.87–88, as cited by Fears, p. 821.
- Universal Technological Dictionary Volume 1. London: Baldwin. 1823.
- Manfred Claus, The Roman Cult of Mithras: The God and His Mysteries, translated by Richard Gordon (Routledge, 2000, originally published 1990 in German), p. 118.
- Paul-Marie Duval, "Rosmerta," American, African, and Old European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1993), p. 221.
- Edward Burnett Tylor, excerpt from Primitive Culture, in Understanding Religious Sacrifice: A Reader (Continuum, 2003, 2006), p. 22.
- Alan E. Bernstein, "The Ghostly Troop and the Battle over Death: William of Auvergne (d. 1249)," Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions (Brill, 2009), p. 144.
- Benjamin Thorpe, Northern Mythology (London, 1861), vol. 1, p. 281; Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (English translation London, 1880), pp. 283–288.
- Hans Peter Broedel, The Malleus Maleficarum and the Construction of Witchcraft: Theology and Popular Belief (Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 109.
- Jürg Meyer zur Capellen, Raphael: The Roman Religious Paintings, ca. 1508-1520 (Arcos, 2005), p. 264.
- David Leeming, The Oxford Companion to World Mythology (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 13; Robert Parker, Polytheism and Society at Athens (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 422.
- Ovid, Metamorphoses 9.87–88, as cited by J. Rufus Fears, "The Cult of Virtues and Roman Imperial Ideology," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.17.2 (1981), p. 821.
- Kevin Clinton, Myth and Cult: The Iconography of the Eleusinian Mysteries (Stockholm, 1992), pp. 105–107.
