Rihla (The Journey) – was the short title of a 14th Century (1355 CE) book written in Fez by the Islamic legal scholar Ibn Jazayy al-Kalbi of Granada, who recorded and then transcribed the dictated travelogue of the Tangerian, Ibn Battuta. The book’s full title was A Gift to Those who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling and somehow the title of Ibn Jazayy's Rihla of Ibn Battuta’s travels captures the ethos of many of the city and country journeys I have been lucky to take in past years.
Those in terrible distress.
Upon you alone pregnant women call,
O comforter of souls,
EILEITHYIA ON MY MIND
The earliest form of the name Eileithyia is the Mycenaean Greek 𐀁𐀩𐀄𐀴𐀊, e-re-u-ti-ja, written in the Linear B syllabic script. Ilithyia is the latinisation of Εἰλείθυια. (Wikipedia Accessed 02/07/2024)
As an Obstetrician & Gynaecologist it was midway through my career before I encountered Eileithyia, as a very specific Greek goddess of parturition or the labour part of childbirth. But once met she has provided a compass to some of my journeys in Greece.
Most of these journeys were solo but some, with increasing pleasure, were shared. In recent years my grandson has joined my wanderings and this rihla is about aparticular journey, in the company of my grandson, to her home in Crete.
Cast adrift from the remainder of the European platform during the late Miocene (5.3 million years ago [BP - Before Present]) the predominant Cretan geological layers are those of crystalline and platy limestone rock; the gradual erosion of which by water has created a distinct geology, as well as enabling a unique cosmology and mythology on the island.
More permanent homo sapiens settlement in Crete had to wait until the Final Neolithic (c.10,000 - 3,000 BP, on cusp of Bronze Age) but even today archeological evidence of a significant early or mid-Neolithic occupation of Crete is rare. Only one significant Neolithic site on Crete has been identified and this is at Knossos and is dated to approximately c.7,000 BP. Full occupation and settlement of the Island did not occur until a second inward migration at end of Neolithic and the subsequent establishment of the Minoan peoples in c.3100 BP. This development resulted in Europe's first great civilisation 1000 years later.
With the establishment of a Minoan society and “religion” caves became an integral part of the foundation myths. Even today caves are embedded in the Greek psyche in general and the Cretan psyche in particular. Underpinning this assessment is the fact that there is a dedicated Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology and Speleology (the study of Caves) at the Ministry of Culture in Athens and to date about 4,500 caves and sinkholes in Crete have been mapped. Of these 36 thus far have been identified as cult sites with twelve of those specifically dating to the Minoan period 3100 – 1075 BCE.
Later Eileithyia was also adopted by the Mycenaeans following their takeover in Crete and in the 5th – 6th Century BCE her cult moved northwards to the mainland and into the Archaic Greek pantheon, her popularity in part promoted by her inclusion in Homer’s Iliad of c.8th C BCE as the goddess of parturition or childbirth. Homer called her mogosókov (moyodokos) “the goddess of the pains of birth” in the Iliad (Hom II. 16:187).
In the Olympian religion following her “import / migration” from Crete the veneration of Eileithyia soon marginalised Artemis as a primary and exclusive“midwife” goddess in the 5th century BCE to enter into a duality of purpose with Eileithyia Artemis, their mother Hera (who protected the labours of married couples only), and later Hekate. It was convenient to repurpose the role of Artemis, who although was an Archaic mainland goddess of childbirth was also seen as the a “virgin” killer of women. In Crete Artemis was seen as a goddess protecting the newborn and as a consequence of the arrival of the cult of Eileithyia to the mainland Women women in labour in Athens, Corinth or Sparta from the 5th C onwards then had the option of praying to Artemis for her not to kill them in labour and to Eileithyia to protect them in labour and to eease their pains.
In the evolution establishment of Eileithyia’s cult of in mainland Greek religion and society the temples of Eileithyia however, where they existed in isolation and not shared as in Delos , and Sparta, were always, it seems to me, located on the periphery of cities. In Hermoine, Argos, Corinth and Megara they were sited at the city gates, as far from the centre that you could get. Exceptions, for example, were a dedicated central or main town temple in Teos in Ionia and in Leto in Crete, which is a post-Minoan city. They The peripheral temples generally did not have dedicated “priestesses” , one of the rare exceptions being the sanctuary at Hermoine in the southern Argolis. Veneration and the bringing of votive offerings to the sanctuaries was a private experience.
Whether temples or caves the veneration of and the bringing of votive offerings to Eileithyia tended to be a very private “female” or “familial” experience with families offering votive offerings to Eileithyia for the safety of their daughters in labour. In Crete it was caves that generally fulfilled that detached, private sanctuary purpose.
The most important caves are located at Amnissos on the north coast and at Tsoutsouros (ancient Inatos) on the south coast of Crete. As a former obstetrician it was fairly late in my career before I decided to investigate Eileithyia as a specific Greek goddess of parturition or the labour part of childbirth.
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‘The Lycian Olen, an earlier poet, who composed for the Delians, amongst other hymns, one [was dedicated] to Eileithyia and styled her “the clever spinner”, clearly identifying her with fate, and this makes her older than Cronos.’
Pausanias
Description of Greece 8:21:3 c. 160 CE
My first encounter with the cult of Eileithyia was many years ago on the island of Delos. Escaping the bedlam of Mykonos, a 35 minutes boat trip takes you into a magical time-capsule of a now uninhabited place that as the home of the Delian League ( c.478 BC) was at the very centre of the Greek commercial world.
“When at length Eileithyia, goddess of childbirth, had brought him to the light, and he saw the rays of the sun.”
Homer:
“The Messenians have a temple erected to Eileithyia with a stone statue.”
Pausanias
Sometime later in the summer of 2022 my next encounter with Eileithyia was a small ruined temple with an altar pillar near back wall half-way up Mt. Ithome (named after one of the nymphs who raised Zeus when hidden from his father), the mountain that rises up above the ancient city of Messene in SW Greece. It lies about 150 meters to the north of a narrow track that originates beside the bigger temple complex of Artemis-Limnatis (Lady of the Lake or waters) on the mountain. The temple was mentioned by Pausinias although some recent work by Maria Spathi suggests it might have been dedicated to Demeter, the Goddess of fertility instead.
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Finally, again in the summer of 2022, having left Thermopylae ( see: http://deworde.blogspot.com/2022/08/rihla-journey-75-thermopylae-greece.html) I stopped on my way to Larissa and in a small but perfectly presented museum in the acropolis castle of Lamia there was a wonderfully detailed 4th century BCE carved stone stele ( see below) of a votive gift being given to Artemis-Eileithyia from the Eileithyia sanctuary in ancient Echinos in Thessaly. The carving charmed me and it was the subsequent use of a picture of the stele to designate the obstetrics and gynaecology teaching material on our university teaching platform that prompted me this summer to head for Crete to search for Eileithyia’s own birthplace and sacred sanctuary at Amnissos on the north coast.
EILEITHYIA: FROM WHENCE SHE CAME?
“So he anchored his ships at Amnisus [Amnissos], where there is a cave of Eileithyia, in a difficult harbour, and barely did he escape the storm.”
Homer
The Odessey 19:188
“Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit”
James Joyce,
Ulysses 14: Oxen of the Sun
Eileithyia has been with us through the ages. She is a Cretan deity primarily but as to her origin there is some disagreement about the etymology of her name. Whether the name has an pre-Indo-European, Indo-European or Semitic root remains unclear. The Minoan language is still unclassified because neither Cretan hieroglyphics or Linear A have been deciphered satisfactorily. A later (c.1800-1500BP), transitional Eteocretan language that bridged pure Minoan with Mycenaean proto-Greek, although available in a few inscriptions in early Greek alphabets, also remains unclassified even if it is a direct evolution of Minoan.
The name of the goddess in a decipherable script and language first appears on clay tablets from Knossos c. 1000 BCE listing offerings to the goddess where she is named as e-re-u-ti-ja [Eluthia] which scholars agree is the same as Homeric Greek Ειλείθυια. Interestingly she is mentioned 4 times in clay tablets found at Knossos (Tablets Od 714, 715 & 716) and in three of the instances her name is linked with wool.
In Greek the name, EILEITHYIA ( Ειλείθυια) is thought to derive must likely fromthe root ελεύsmai “to come”. The Cretan equivalent is “to bring”, or finally the root “to liberate” as in "to liberate” from pain. Simone Zimmerman Kuoni points out that a specific epithet of Eileithyia is that of “she who loosens the girdle” impeding a difficult childbirth. In rural Greece and Crete ela, ela ,[ ela, ela], “come, come” is still used as an exhortation to help deliver a mother in labour.
In terms of a key sanctuary location for Eileithyia, a court of appeal as it were, of the most important “deity” that would ease a woman’s birthing process for Homer’s Odessey it was a cave on the coast in Crete. For James Joyce this divine “midwife”reference was repeated in Ulysses when it was the deity that was Andrew John Horne and his “house” was the National Maternity Hospital ( then located at site of William Roe's short lived maternity hospital at No. 32 Holles St.) where he was master.
Eileithyia in mythology, however, was not all sweetness and light (even she was considered a lunar goddess bringing light) however. Her mother Hera held sway over her as a master would an apprentice particularly when dealing with the births of the bastard offspring of the mortal mistresses of her husband Zeus. Dispatched by Hera to prevent Alcmene’s delivery of Heracles and his twin Iphicles [ Heracles and Iphicles were a case of heteropaternal superfecundation where a woman carries twins with different paternal genes i.e. a cycle with two eggs where pregnancy occurs after receiving sperm from two different episodes of intercourse with different partners] she prevented her cervix from dilating, letting Alcmene writhe in pain with the contractions. As it was twins, from an Obstetric perspective, the most likely cause of this obstructed labour was perhaps Eileithyia performingan external manipulation of the first coming twin so that it was lying transverse and thus impacted at the entrance to the pelvis. She was ultimately tricked by Galinthias, Alceme’s maidservant into releasing her hold and first Iphicles and then Heracles were delivered. Subsequently Galinthias was turned into a weasel for defying the will of the Gods and in Crete in particular thereafter mustelids were always associated with the Eileithyian sanctuaries and childbirth in general.Cretans call weasels kalogennousa or “she who births easily/well” an obvious link to the purpose of Eileithyia.
Childbirth in Bronze Age Crete was dangerous with high maternal mortality rate from haemorrhage, sepsis, hypertension and thrombosis. The estimate would be about 1500 maternal deaths / 100, 000 live births. The current rate in Ireland is 6 / 100,000 live births. Prolonged and difficult labours were the worst outcome of all with perhaps a stillborn baby delivering after a 3-4 day labour and the mother dying shortly afterwards. The need for a protective deity was manifest. The votive offerings deposited in Amnissos and Inatos caves are testament to this. Eileithyia is depicted on an amphora from Tinos with a tool of her trade, a sickle-shaped harpé knife in her hand most likely for cutting the umbilical cord or perhaps doing a caesarean section.
THE CAVE OF EILEITHYIA AT AMNISSOS
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Modern understanding of parturition and the signals that initiate and maintain labour are still not fully understood. Nor the timing or the location fully elaborated or controlled. The most earnest hope for individual women, their partners, their parents, their midwives and obstetricians is that delivery can be achieved safely for the mother and child.
After leaving I sat outside the cave for a while in the bright sunshine with my grandson, and the sudden thought came to me as to the real reason we were sitting there on that hot June morning. I remembered that his mum went into a precipitate labour and that younger brother was delivered (not intentionally!) at home by his father (my son), with his grandfather (me) supervising and that he at seven years of age, awakened in the early hours by the commotion, being sent off to the kitchen to get a scissors and twine to cut and tie the umbilical cord.
Yes indeed Eileithyia: a cave of memories, shared endeavours and a deep, deepappreciation for a safe passage into and beyond this life.
Éla, Éla ; come , come into the light.
GREEK MINISTERY OF CULTURE _ SPEOLOGY
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2020 Les Carnets de l’ACoSt 20
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B S ZIMMERMANN KUONI. Midwives of Eileithyia – Tracing a female healing tradition in prehistoric Crete. PhD Thesis. Vol II 2019. TCD, Dublin, Ireland.
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M CHYLENSKI et al. Ancient mitochondrial Genomes reveal the absence of maternal kinship in the burials of Catalhoyuk people and their genetic affiliates. 2019 Genes 10:3 ;207
BS ZIMMERMAN KUONI The obstetric connection: Midwives and weasels withinand beyond Minoan Crete. 2021 Religions 12; 1056
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IVAZZO C et al. Eileithyia: The Goddess of Labour. 2022 Maedica 17;1: 253-255
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