Hi Everyone,
Today, on 3rd week of Did You Know series, Chimera in our feature, i found really interesting informations and facts about it. I hope you find them interesting…
“The Chimera or Chimaera was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing female creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of multiple animals: upon the body of alioness with a tail that ended in a snake’s head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine. The Chimera was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra. The term chimera has also come to mean, more generally, an impossible or foolish fantasy, hard to believe.
Homer’s brief description in the Iliad is the earliest surviving literary reference: “a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire”. Elsewhere in the Iliad, Homer attributes the rearing of Chimaera to Amisodorus. Hesiod’s Theogony follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna: “She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay” The author of the Bibliotheca concurs: descriptions agree that she breathed fire. The Chimera is generally considered to have been female (see the quotation from Hesiod above) despite the mane adorning its lion’s head, the inclusion of a close mane often was depicted on lionesses, but the ears always were visible (that does not occur with depictions of male lions). Sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcanoes).
While there are different genealogies, in one version the Chimera mated with her brother Orthrusand mothered the Sphinx and the Nemean lion (others have Orthrus and their mother, Echidna, mating; most attribute all to Typhon and Echidna).
The Chimera finally was defeated by Bellerophon, with the help of Pegasus, at the command of King Iobates of Lycia. Since Pegasus could fly, Bellerophon shot the Chimera from the air, safe from her heads and breath. A scholiast to Homer adds that he finished her off by equipping his spear with a lump of lead that melted when exposed to the Chimera’s fiery breath and consequently killed her, an image drawn from metalworking.
Pliny the Elder cited Ctesias and quoted Photius identifying the Chimaera with an area of permanent gas vents which still can be found today by hikers on the Lycian Way in southwest Turkey. Called in Turkish “Yanartaş (flaming rock)”, it consists of some two dozen vents in the ground, grouped in two patches on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaestus about3 kmnorth of Çıralı, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia. The vents emit burning methane thought to be of metamorphic origin, which in ancient times were landmarks by which sailors could navigate.
The Neo-Hittite Chimera from Carchemish, dated to 850–750 BCE, which is now housed in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations no doubt served as a basis for the Greek legend. It differs from the Greek version in that while there are three heads, none of them is that of a goat, only a main human head, a lion’s head facing forward and placed on the chest of the lion’s body, and a snake’s head placed at the end of the tail.”
I hope you liked this week’s entry of Did You Know series, i’ll be here next week with another information and cool facts about Puppet Guardian & Magical Rooms. Until next time, take care and see you!!! 😀 😀 😀
Rivers the Puppet 