Potnia

This Archaic image known as the Lady of Auxerre may be a version of the Minoan goddess, probably Kore or Despoina (c. 640-630 BCE, Louvre).

Artemis Orthia in the stance of Potnia Theron on an archaic ivory (National Archaeological Museum of Athens)

Potnia is an Ancient Greek word for "Mistress, Lady" and a title of a goddess. The word was inherited by Classical Greek from Mycenean Greek with the same meaning and it was applied to several goddesses. A similar word is the title Despoina, "the mistress", which was given to the nameless chthonic goddess of the mysteries of Arcadian cult. She was later conflated with Kore (Persephone), "the maid", the goddess of the Eleusinian mysteries,^[1] in a life-death rebirth cycle which leads the neophyte from death into life and immortality. Karl Kerenyi identifies Kore with the nameless "Mistress of the labyrinth", who probably presided over the palace of Knossos in Minoan Crete.

Etymology[]

Potnia (Greek: πότνια, "mistress")^[2] is a poetic title of honour, used chiefly in addressing females, whether goddesses or women; its masculine analogue is posis (πόσις).^[3] Its hypothetical Proto-Indo-European (PIE) form *pot-nih_a-, "mistress", "lady", "wife", is the feminine counterpart to *pótis, "husband"; cf. Latin hospēs, "host", Sanskrit páti-, "master", "husband", fem. pátnī-, "lady", "wife".^[4] Potnia is attested in the Linear B script in Mycenean Greek: