omophagia
Sign in to saveright|thumb|Marble image of a dancing Maenad; approximately 120–140 AD. Attributed to Callimachus (sculptor)|Callimachus. Omophagia, or omophagy (from Greek "raw") is the eating of raw flesh. The term is of importance in the context of the cult worship of Dionysus.
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Encyclopedic overview
3 sectionsContents
- Orphism
- ''The Bacchae''
- References
right|thumb|Marble image of a dancing Maenad; approximately 120–140 AD. Attributed to Callimachus (sculptor)|Callimachus. Omophagia, or omophagy (from Greek "raw") is the eating of raw flesh. The term is of importance in the context of the cult worship of Dionysus.
Omophagia is a large element of Dionysiac myth; in fact, one of Dionysus' epithets is Omophagos "Raw-Eater". Omophagia may have been a symbol of the triumph of wild nature over civilization, and a symbol of the breaking down of boundaries between nature and civilization. It might also have been symbolic that the worshippers were internalizing Dionysus' wilder traits and his association with brute nature, in a sort of "communion" with the god.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “omophagia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.