{"id":823,"date":"2011-11-24T09:46:15","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T13:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2015-06-11T09:23:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T13:23:22","slug":"thanksgiving-course-three%e2%80%94ancient-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/thanksgiving-course-three%e2%80%94ancient-greece","title":{"rendered":"Thanksgiving Course Three\u2014Ancient Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Are you full yet? The third course of Explorica\u2019s Thanksgiving series puts it all in the <em>gods<\/em> hands\u2014the ancient <a href=\"..\/..\/educational-tours\/best-of-greece.aspx\">Greek<\/a> gods, that is. According to mythology, it was Demeter\u2019s, the goddess of food grains, job to feed the world. (No pressure, Demeter.) She set the stage for women taking charge of \u201cThanksgiving\u201d feasts.<\/p>\n<p>A little history about Demeter\u2026 Her daughter Persephone was abducted by Hades, the ancient Greek god of the underworld and Demeter\u2019s brother, to become queen of the pits of the earth. Not her ambition, (surprise, surprise) Demeter became so depressed she wouldn\u2019t do her job, refusing to eat or feed the world until the other gods came up with a plan to rescue her daughter. Luckily, they did. And, after the mother-daughter reunion, grateful Demeter gave the gift of agriculture to us mere mortals.<\/p>\n<p>To honor the goddess of food grains and in an effort to receive Demeter\u2019s blessings, the ancient Greeks offered up seed corn, cakes, fruits and pigs. This went on for nine full days during what was called Thesmophoria\u2014the holiday name meaning laws (or thesmoi<em>) <\/em>stating men must provide nourishment and work the land. And back then, though \u201cmen\u201d referred to mankind, women really were the leaders of this occasion. Female officials took charge of state-sponsored feasts and Greek matrons who usually stayed home all the time couldn\u2019t wait to take part in all the action. And the action came as quintessential Greek <em>drama<\/em>. It\u2019s believed matrons re-enacted the anguish Demeter suffered when Hades kidnapped her daughter Persephone. Also, the women most likely pleaded for the goddesses\u2019 help in obtaining a bountiful harvest. Not exactly the merry-making you\u2019d associate with a festival. Maybe, just maybe, that\u2019s why you can barely find any remnants of the holiday in modern <a href=\"..\/..\/educational-tours\/best-of-greece.aspx\">Greece<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Are you full yet? The third course of Explorica\u2019s Thanksgiving series puts it all in the gods hands\u2014the ancient Greek gods, that is. According to mythology, it was Demeter\u2019s, the goddess of food grains, job to feed the world. (No pressure, Demeter.) She set the stage for women taking charge of \u201cThanksgiving\u201d feasts. A little <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/thanksgiving-course-three%e2%80%94ancient-greece\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173,63,172],"tags":[183,58,178],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-parents","category-students","category-teachers","tag-ancient-greece","tag-educational-travel","tag-thanksgiving","post_format-post-format-aside"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5719,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/5719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.explorica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}