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Athena (; Attic Greek: , ''Athēnā'', or , ''Athēnaia''; Epic: , ''Athēnaiē''; Doric: , ''Athānā'') or Athene (; Ionic: , ''Athēnē''), often given the epithet Pallas (; ), is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, mathematics, strength, war strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Minerva is the Roman goddess identified with Athena.〔Deacy, Susan, and Alexandra Villing. ''Athena in the Classical World''. Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001. Print.〕 Athena is known for her calm temperament, as she moves slowly to anger. She is noted to have only fought for just reasons, and would not fight without a purpose. Athena is portrayed as a shrewd companion of heroes and is the patron goddess of heroic endeavour. She is the virgin patroness of Athens. The Athenians founded the Parthenon on the Acropolis of her namesake city, Athens (Athena Parthenos), in her honour.〔 Veneration of Athena was so persistent that archaic myths about her were recast to adapt to cultural changes. In her role as a protector of the city (''polis''), many people throughout the Greek world worshipped Athena as ''Athena Polias'' (Ἀθηνᾶ Πολιάς "Athena of the city"). While the city of Athens and the goddess Athena essentially bear the same name (''Athena'' the goddess, ''Athenai'' the city), it is not known which of the two words is derived from the other.〔"Whether the goddess was named after the city or the city after the goddess is an ancient dispute" (Burkert 1985:139)〕 ==Etymology of the name and origins of her cult== Athena is associated with Athens, a plural name, because it was the place where she presided over her sisterhood, the ''Athenai'', in earliest times. Mycenae was the city where the Goddess was called Mykene, and Mycenae is named in the plural for the sisterhood of females who tended her there. At Thebes she was called Thebe, and the city again a plural, Thebae (or Thebes, where the ‘s’ is the plural formation). Similarly, at Athens she was called Athena, and the city Athenae (or Athens, again a plural).〔Ruck and Staples 1994:24.〕 Athena had a special relationship with Athens, as is shown by the etymological connection of the names of the goddess and the city. According to mythical lore, she competed with Poseidon and she won by creating the olive tree; the Athenians would accept her gift and name the city after her. In history, the citizens of Athens built a statue of Athena as a temple to the goddess, which had piercing eyes, a helmet on her head, attired with an aegis or cuirass, and an extremely long spear. It also had a crystal shield with the head of the Gorgon on it. A large snake accompanied her and she held Nike, the goddess of victory, in her hand. In a Mycenean fresco, there is a composition of two women extending their hands towards a central figure who is covered by an enormous figure-eight shield and could also depict the war-goddess with her palladium, or her palladium in an aniconic representation. Therefore, Mylonas believes that Athena was a Mycenaean creation.〔G. Mylonas, ''Mycenae and the Mycenaean world'', Princeton University Press, Princeton 1965, p. 159.〕 On the other hand, Nilsson claims that she was the goddess of the palace who protected the king, and that the origin of Athena was the Minoan domestic snake-goddess.〔Also the later Greek Athena was closely related with the snakes and the birds: Μ. Nilsson,''Die Geschichte der griechischen Religion'', C.F.Beck Verlag, München 1967, pp. 347, 433.〕 In the so-called Procession-fresco in Knossos which was reconstructed by the Mycenaeans, two rows of figures carrying vessels, seem to meet in front of a central figure, which is probably the Minoan palace goddess “Atano”.〔A. Fururmark, “The Thera catastrophe-Consequences for the European civilization”, p. 672. In: ''Thera and the Aegean world I'', London 1978.〕 In Mycenaean Greek, at Knossos a single inscription ''A-ta-na po-ti-ni-ja'' /Athana potniya/ appears in the Linear B tablets from the Late Minoan II-era "Room of the Chariot Tablets"; these comprise the earliest Linear B archive anywhere.〔KN V 52 (text 208 in Ventris and Chadwick).〕 Although ''Athana potniya'' often is translated ''Mistress Athena'', it literally means "the ''Potnia'' of At(h)ana", which perhaps, means ''the Lady of Athens'';〔Palaima, p. 444.〕 any connection to the city of Athens in the Knossos inscription is uncertain.〔Burkert, p. 44.〕 We also find ''A-ta-no-dju-wa-ja'' (KO Za 1 inscription, line 1), in Linear A Minoan; the final part being regarded as the Linear A Minoan equivalent of the Linear B Mycenaean ''di-u-ja'' or ''di-wi-ja'' (''Diwia'', "divine"). ''Divine'' Athena also was a weaver and the deity of crafts (see ''dyeus'').〔Ventris and Chadwick (missing )〕 Whether her name is attested in Eteocretan or not will have to wait for decipherment of Linear A. Apart from these Creto-Greek attributions, Günther Neumann has suggested that Athena’s name is possibly of Lydian origin;〔Günther Neumann, “Der lydische Name der Athena. Neulesung der lydischen Inschrift Nr. 40”. In: ''Kadmos'' 6 (1967).〕 it may be a compound word derived in part from Tyrrhenian ''ati'', meaning ''mother'' and the name of the Hurrian goddess Hannahannah shortened in various places to ''Ana''. In his dialogue ''Cratylus'', the Greek philosopher Plato (428–347 BC), gives the etymology of Athena’s name, based on the views of the ancient Athenians and his own etymological speculations: Thus for Plato her name was to be derived from Greek , ''Atheonóa'' — which the later Greeks rationalised as from the deity’s (θεός ''theos'') mind (νοῦς ''nous''). Plato also noted that the citizens of Sais in Egypt worshipped a goddess whose Egyptian name was Neith,〔“The citizens have a deity for their foundress; she is called in the Egyptian tongue Neith, and is asserted by them to be the same whom the Hellenes call Athena; they are great lovers of the Athenians, and say that they are in some way related to them.” (''Timaeus'' (21e ))〕 and which was identified with Athena.〔Besides ''Timaeus'' 21e, cf. also Herodotus, ''Histories'' 2:170–175.〕 Neith was the war goddess and huntress deity of the Egyptians since the ancient Pre-Dynastic period, who was also identified with weaving. In addition, ancient Greek myths reported that Athena had visited many mythological places such as Libya's Triton River in North Africa and the Phlegraean plain.〔Aeschylus. ''Eumenides'' (v.292–293 ). Cf. the tradition that she was the daughter of Neilos: see, e.g. Clement of Alexandria ''Protr.'' 2.28.2; Cicero, ''De Natura Deorum''. 3.59.〕 Scholar Martin Bernal created the controversial〔Jacques Berlinerblau, (''Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals'' ), Rutgers University Press, 1999, p. 93ff.〕 Black Athena theory to explain this associated origin by claiming that the conception of Neith was brought to Greece from Egypt, along with "an enormous number of features of civilization and culture in the third and second millennia".〔M. Bernal, ''Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization'' (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987), pp. 21, 51–53.〕 The connection with Neith was later rejected by other scholars in view of formal difficulties.〔Jasanoff, Jay H. and Nussbaum, Alan, (Word games: the Linguistic Evidence in Black Athena ), in: Mary R. Lefkowitz, Guy MacLean Rogers (eds.), (''Black Athena Revisited'' ), The University of North Carolina Press, 1996, p. 194.〕 R. S. P. Beekes has suggested a Pre-Greek origin of the name.〔R. S. P. Beekes, ''Etymological Dictionary of Greek'', Brill, 2009, p. 29.〕 Some authors believe that, in early times, Athena was either an owl herself or a bird goddess in general: In the third Book of the ''Odyssey'', she takes the form of a sea-eagle. These authors argue that she dropped her prophylactic owl-mask before she lost her wings. “Athena, by the time she appears in art,” Jane Ellen Harrison had remarked, “has completely shed her animal form, has reduced the shapes she once wore of snake and bird to attributes, but occasionally in black-figure vase-paintings she still appears with wings.”〔Harrison 1922:306. ((Harrison 1922:307, fig. 84: Detail of a cup in the Faina collection )). 〕 Some Greek authors have derived natural symbols from the etymological roots of Athena’s names to be aether, air, earth, and moon. This was one of the primary developments of scholarly exploration in the ancient world.〔Gerhard Johrens (1981), ''Athenahymnus'', pp. 438–452.〕 Miriam Robbins Dexter has suggested that, at least at some point in her history, Athena has been a solar deity.〔Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Proto-Indo-European Sun Maidens and Gods of the Moon. Mankind Quarterly 25:1 & 2 (Fall/Winter, 1984), pp. 137–144.〕 Athena bears traits common with Indo-European solar goddesses, such as the possession of a mirror and the invention of weaving (for instance, the Baltic Saule possesses both these characteristics), and her association with Medusa (herself also suspected of being the remnants of a solar goddess) adds solar iconography to her cultus. Additionally, she is also equated with the Celtic Sulis, a deity whose name is derived from the common proto-Indo-European root for many solar deities. Though the sun in Greek myth is personified as the male Helios, several relictual solar goddesses are known, such as Alectrona. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Athena」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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