Editing Persephone (section)

===In Mycenaean Greece===
[[File:Triptolemos Kore Louvre G452 full.jpg|240px|thumb|[[Triptolemus]] and Kore, [[tondo (art)|tondo]] of an Attic red-figure bowl by the Aberdeen Painter, c.470~460 BCE. ([[Louvre]], [[Paris]])]]

There is evidence of a cult in Eleusis from the [[Mycenaean Greece|Mycenean period]];<ref>{{harvnb|Kourouniōtēs|Mylonas|1932|loc=I,1 ff}}</ref> however, there are not sacral finds from this period. The cult was private and there is no information about it. As well as the names of some Greek gods in the Mycenean Greek inscriptions, names of goddesses who do not have Mycenean origin appear, such as "the divine Mother" (the mother of the gods) or "the Goddess (or priestess) of the winds".<ref name=Burkert285/> In historical times, Demeter and Kore were usually referred to as "the goddesses" or "the mistresses" (Arcadia) in the mysteries .<ref>{{harvnb|Nilsson |1967|pp=  463–465}}</ref> In the Mycenean Greek tablets dated 1400–1200 BC, the "two queens and the king" are mentioned. John Chadwick believes that these were the precursor divinities of Demeter, Persephone and Poseidon.<ref>{{harvnb|Chadwick|1976}} {{pages needed |date=December 2024}}</ref>{{efn|"Wa-na-ssoi, wa-na-ka-te, (to the two queens and the king). Wanax is best suited to Poseidon, the special divinity of Pylos. The identity of the two divinities addressed as wanassoi, is uncertain".<ref>{{harvnb|Mylonas|1966|p= 159}}</ref>}}

Some information can be obtained from the study of the cult of [[Eileithyia]] at Crete, and the cult of [[Despoina]]. In the cave of Amnisos at Crete, Eileithyia is related with the annual birth of the divine child and she is connected with ''Enesidaon'' (The earth shaker), who is the chthonic aspect of the god Poseidon.<ref name=Dietrich-origins-220/> Persephone was conflated with Despoina, "the mistress", a chthonic divinity in West-Arcadia.<ref name="Kerenyi31"/> The [[megaron]] of Eleusis is quite similar to the "megaron" of Despoina at Lycosura.<ref name=Burkert285/> Demeter is united with her, the god [[Poseidon]], and she bears him a daughter, the unnameable Despoina.<ref name="Pausanias 8.37.9">{{harvnb|Pausanias|loc=8.37.9}}</ref> Poseidon appears as a horse, as usually happens in Northern European folklore. The goddess of nature and her companion survived in the Eleusinian cult, where the words "Mighty Potnia bore a great sun" were uttered.<ref name=Dietrich-origins-220/> In Eleusis, in a ritual, one child ("pais") was initiated from the hearth. The name ''pais'' (the divine child) appears in the Mycenean inscriptions.<ref name=Burkert285/>

In Greek mythology Nysa is a mythical mountain with an unknown location.{{efn|name=Sherwood217}} ''Nysion'' (or Mysion), the place of the abduction of Persephone was also probably a mythical place which did not exist on the map, a magically distant chthonic land of myth which was intended in the remote past.<ref name="Nilsson 1967 463"/>