Editing Cabeiri (section)

==Lemnos==
The Lemnians were originally non-Greek; they were [[Hellenized]] after [[Miltiades the Younger|Miltiades]] conquered the island for Athens in the sixth century BCE. In [[Lemnos]] the cult of the Cabeiri survived, according to archaeological evidence, through the conquest: an ancient sanctuary dedicated to the Cabeiri is identifiable by traces of inscriptions, and seems to have survived the process of Hellenization. [[Walter Burkert]] records that wine jars are "the only characteristic group of finds" from the Cabeirium of Lemnos and that the Cabeirium was the location for initiation into an ancient mystery cult.<ref>Burkert, ''Greek Religion'', p. 281</ref> However, due to the secret nature of [[mystery cults]] in the ancient world little survives to indicate what was involved in these initiation ceremonies; indeed, Hugh Bowden notes that on the basis of our evidence we do not know what happened at Lemnos beyond the fact of initiation, and that "we have no descriptions and nothing on which even to base speculation".<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bowden|first1=Hugh|title=Mystery Cults of the Ancient World|date=2010|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691146386|page=56}}</ref> However, according to the [[Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition|''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Eleventh Edition]], Lemnos held an annual festival of the Cabeiri, lasting nine days, during which all the fires were extinguished and fire brought from [[Delos]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=916}}

The geographer [[Strabo]] reported (Geogr. 10,3,21) that in Lemnos, the mother (there was no father) of the Cabeiri was '''Kabeiro''' ([[Ancient Greek|Greek]]: Καβειρώ) herself, a daughter of [[Nereus]] (one of the "old men of the sea") and a goddess whom the Greeks might have called [[Rhea (mythology)|Rhea]].

In general Greek myth identifies the Cabeiri as divine craftsmen, sons or grandsons of [[Hephaestus]], who was also chiefly worshipped on Lemnos. [[Aeschylus]] wrote a tragedy called ''[[The Kabeiroi]]'', which apparently featured the deities as a chorus greeting the [[Argonauts]] at Lemnos and the Argonauts' initiation into the cult of the Cabeiri.