Piglet Earrings with Sunflower in 925 Silver

It is fascinating to search for traces of the pig in myth and history, to retrace its magical and religious meanings that have accompanied its evolution and diffusion throughout most of the world. In this regard, we are assisted by a precious reconstruction carried out by Donato Matassino, Ferdinando Ciani and Riccardo Valli (in “L'Allevatore” , 15-30 April 2005, courtesy).

The first cult figures representing the sow are round in the shape of a vase and appear around 7,000 years ago. They seem to depend on various factors including the rapid growth and prolificacy of the animal, the habit of sniffing and digging the ground (the Underworld).

But perhaps the most important function to be extolled was its fecundity; in fact, the sow was pregnant for almost 4 months, alternating with two other phases of preparation and sterility. This cyclicality has allowed, in some historical cultures of the archaic period, to divide the annual cycle into three phases. In fact, the Egyptian goddess Toeris, depicted with a pig's head, was the goddess who presided over the alternation of time (Civitelli, 2001).

The sow, goddess of the sky and mother of the stars

In ancient Egypt the pig is the being sacred to the gods Seth and Thoth and the sow represents the goddess of the sky Nut, whose children - the stars - were swallowed in the morning and resurrected in the evening, while the goddess Isis is depicted enthroning on a pig (Civitelli, 2001).

The wild pig that makes the earth emerge from the waters

In India the pig goddess Vajravarahi (the sow of the diamond) has the six-pointed star and dances along the orbit of the stars, having under her dPal-Idan-iha-mo, the goddess of Soma, of the ocean of milk or of blood from which everything was created.

In the Vedic and then Hindu Religion, the Varaha boar is one of the ten earthly incarnations of the goddess Vishnu, belonging to the sacred Trimurti together with Brahma and Shiva, who takes on the appearance of a wild pig to make the earth emerge from the waters (Civitelli, 2001) .

The Great Primal Pig

In the Tibetan Samaras the wheels of life which, in order to be regenerated, must be traveled in both directions have a pig, the original essence, at the center of the spherical labyrinth. In fact, the inspiring principle reads as follows: “In the beginning, in the East, lived the Great Primordial Pig. The Sun and the Moon were his eyes and the stars, rising and setting, passed through his body. Everything that exists was born from the first sow: she is the mother of all of us” (Civitelli, 2001).

Symbol of priests

Among the Celts the wild pig was one of the symbols of the god Lug and represented the Druidic caste, in contrast to the bear which was the emblem of the warriors. During the period of Saman, corresponding to the current day of the dead, the pig was a sacred link between the world of the living and the afterlife; the animal, killed in the evening for the sacrificial banquet, came back to life at dawn, representing the eternal cyclical nature of events. But the symbology, which the Druids attributed to the boar-pig, suggests that the animal performed a true and proper foundation ritual function, attributed only to a guide animal (Civitelli, 2001).

Wild nature, useful taming

In China, the symbolic ambiguity of the pig has been used for didactic and warning purposes: at the beginning it represents the instinctive, dirty, aggressive nature which, once tamed, proves to be of considerable use (Civitelli, 2001).

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