The pine cone does not stay in the ancient world.
The pine cone does not stay in the ancient world.
Osiris is shown with a shaft topped by a pine cone. Dionysus carries a fennel staff, the thyrsus, with a pine cone on top. His maenads carried the same staff. He was the liminal god, the one said to open contact between the human world and the spirit world, and his followers used drugs to reach that ecstatic state.
The same shape shows up later. Popes are pictured with a staff that has a pine cone under the top. In the Vatican, the Cortile della Pigna, the Court of the Pine Cone, holds what is called the largest pine cone statue in the world.
The speaker’s research suggests it was moved there in the early days of the church from the nearby Temple of Isis. He says he has never seen a church explanation for why it is there.
A pine cone as the sign of contact with the gods, still standing in the court.
“Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them… and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.” — Deuteronomy 12:30
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