Pig Earrings in 925 Silver

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

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

But perhaps the most important function to be exalted was its fecundity; in fact, the sow was pregnant for almost 4 months, alternating with two other stages of preparation and sterility. This cyclical nature 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 sacred being to the gods Seth and Thot and the sow represents the sky goddess Nut, whose children - the stars - were swallowed in the morning and resurrected in the evening, while the goddess Isis is depicted throning on a pig (Civitelli, 2001).

The wild pig that makes the land emerge from the waters

In India the pig goddess Vajravarahi (the diamond sow) has a 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 blood from which everything was created.

In the Vedic and then Hindu Religion the boar Varaha 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 bring out the earth from the waters (Civitelli, 2001) .

The Great Primordial 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, ran through his body. From the first sow everything that exists was born: 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 Saman period, corresponding to the current recurrence of the dead, the pig constituted a sacred link between the world of the living and the Hereafter; the animal, killed in the evening for the sacrificial banquet, came back to life at dawn, representing the eternal cycle of events. But the symbology, which the Druids attributed to the boar-pig, suggests that the animal performed a real foundation ritual function, attributed only to a guide animal (Civitelli, 2001).

Wild nature, useful domestication

In China, the symbolic ambiguity of the pig was used for teaching and warning purposes: at the beginning it represents the instinctive, dirty, aggressive nature which, once domesticated, proves to be of considerable utility (Civitelli, 2001).

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