[A doctor's reflections on the breast ornament of the Artemis Ephesia].
Up to now, the discussion concerning the icongraphical identification of the mysterious ornamental dress of the breasts of the Ephesian Artemis a new approach of interpretation has been sought, a medically-diagnostic examination of this very likely polymastic form. Basing on the opinion of Christian apologists, the Ephesia to be a sample of pathologically morphological deformation with the pagan anthropomorphous idea of deities, the process of development of iconographic symbols, to be exact, the "macromasty" and the "pubic triangle", has been traced, beginning with the palaeolithic idols, coming futhermore to the old Anatolian mother deity and finally the Ephesia. In the Artemision, votive gifts where found, breastshaped and trigonal forms, inter alia made of amber. They represent please or the gratefulness of women with gynaecological disorders, directed to the goddess of fertility and childbirth. The question arises, whether we find here the reason for the connection between the amazons, having a unilateral amastia, and the Ephesia. The above-mentioned ornamental dress of the breasts may, besides other indicators and missing mamilla and areola, be token of the pathomorphological finding of polymastia glandularis, so that the main reason of those who deny a "multimammia Ephesia", can be proved wrong. It should be mentioned that the polymastic attribute of the deity may also be proved through parallel cases, shown by phenomenology of religion.
Wiebe
Walter
W
D001871:Book Ornamentation / Q000266:history*; D001940:Breast; D005260:Female; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D008877:Middle East; D012071:Religion and Sex; D013561:Symbolism