Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Throwback sculpture from 06

"Sibyl" ceramic and acrylic

The word sibyl probably comes (via Latin) from the Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. (Other schools of thought suggest that the word may have come from Arabic.) The earlier oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" (Burkert 1985 p 117) prophesied at certain holy sites, probably all of pre-Indo-European origin, under the divine influence of a deity, originally one of the chthonic earth-goddesses. Later in antiquity, sibyls wandered from place to place.

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