Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

, Europa (; , ''Eurṓpē'', ) was a

Phoenicia Phoenicians were an Ancient Semitic-speaking peoples, ancient Semitic group of people who lived in the Phoenician city-states along a coastal strip in the Levant region of the eastern Mediterranean, primarily modern Lebanon and the Syria, Syrian ...

n princess from Tyre and the mother of

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Minos Main injector neutrino oscillation search (MINOS) was a particle physics experiment designed to study the phenomena of neutrino oscillations, first discovered by a Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) experiment in 1998. Neutrinos produced by the NuMI ...

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

. The continent of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

is named after her. The story of her abduction by

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

in the form of a bull was a Cretan story; as classicist Károly Kerényi points out, An early reference to Europa is in a fragment of the

Hesiod Hesiod ( or ; ''Hēsíodos''; ) was an ancient Greece, Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.M. L. West, ''Hesiod: Theogony'', Oxford University Press (1966), p. 40.Jasper Gr ...

ic ''

Catalogue of Women The ''Catalogue of Women'' ()—also known as the ''Ehoiai '' (, )The Latin transliterations ''Eoeae'' and ''Ehoeae'' are also used (e.g. , ); see Catalogue of Women#Title and the ē' hoiē-formula, Title and the ''ē' hoiē''-formula, below. Th ...

'', discovered at

Oxyrhynchus Oxyrhynchus ( ; , ; ; ), also known by its modern name Al-Bahnasa (), is a city in Middle Egypt located about 160 km south-southwest of Cairo in Minya Governorate. It is also an important archaeological site. Since the late 19th century, t ...

.Hesiodic papyrus fragment
19 and 19A
of the ''

'', dating from the third century AD. The earliest vase-painting securely identifiable as Europa dates from the mid-7th century BC.

Etymology

Greek (''Eurṓpē'') may have been formed from εὐρύς (''eurus''), "wide, broad" and ὤψ/ὠπ-/ὀπτ- (''ōps''/''ōp''-/''opt-''): "eye, face, countenance". ''Broad'' has been an

epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

of Earth herself in the reconstructed

Proto-Indo-European religion Proto-Indo-European mythology is the body of myths and deities associated with the Proto-Indo-Europeans, speakers of the hypothesized Proto-Indo-European language. Although the mythological motifs are not directly attested – since Proto-In ...

. It is common in ancient Greek mythology and geography to identify lands or rivers with female figures. Thus, ''Europa'' is first used in a geographic context in the Homeric Hymn to Delian Apollo, in reference to the western shore of the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans and Anatolia, and covers an area of some . In the north, the Aegean is connected to the Marmara Sea, which in turn con ...

. As a name for a part of the known world, it is first used in the 6th century BC by

Anaximander Anaximander ( ; ''Anaximandros''; ) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus,"Anaximander" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes Ltd, George Newnes, 1961, Vol. ...

and Hecataeus. Toponyms related to that of Europa exist in the territory of ancient Greece, such as that of Europos in

ancient Macedonia Macedonia ( ; , ), also called Macedon ( ), was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, which later became the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal ...

, as collected by Robert Beekes. An alternative suggestion due to

Ernest Klein Ernest David Klein, (July 26, 1899, Szatmárnémeti – February 4, 1983, Ottawa, Canada) was a Hungarian-born Romanian-Canadian linguist, author, and rabbi. Early life and education Klein was born to father Yitzchok (Ignac) and mother Sara ...

and Giovanni Semerano (1966) attempted to connect a Semitic term for "west", Akkadian ''erebu'' meaning "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun), Phoenician '' 'ereb'' "evening; west", which would parallel ''occident'' (the resemblance to ''

Erebus In Greek mythology, Erebus (; ), or Erebos, is the personification of darkness. In Hesiod's ''Theogony'', he is the offspring of Chaos, and the father of Aether and Hemera (Day) by Nyx (Night); in other Greek cosmogonies, he is the father of A ...

'', from PIE ''*h₁regʷos'', "darkness", is accidental, however). Barry (1999) adduces the word ''Ereb'' on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night", " he country ofsunset", in opposition to ''Asu'', " he country ofsunrise", i.e. Asia (Anatolia coming equally from Ἀνατολή, "(sun)rise", "east"). This proposal is mostly considered unlikely or untenable.

Martin Litchfield West Martin Litchfield West, (23 September 1937 – 13 July 2015) was a British philologist and classical scholar. In recognition of his contribution to scholarship, he was appointed to the Order of Merit in 2014. West wrote on ancient Greek music ...

states that . .

Family

Sources differ in details regarding Europa's family, but agree that she is

n, and from an Argive lineage that ultimately descended from the princess Io, the mythical

nymph A nymph (; ; sometimes spelled nymphe) is a minor female nature deity in ancient Greek folklore. Distinct from other Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature; they are typically tied to a specific place, land ...

beloved of Zeus, who was transformed into a heifer. She is generally said to be the daughter of

Agenor Agenor (; ) was in Greek mythology and history a Phoenician monarch, king of Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre or Sidon. The Greeks, Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC), born in the city of Halicarnassus under the Achaemenid Empire, estimated that Agen ...

, the

n King of Tyre; the Syracusan poet Moschus makes her mother Queen Telephassa ("far-shining") but elsewhere her mother is Argiope ("silver-faced"). Kerenyi points out that these names are attributes of the moon, as is Europa's broad countenance. Other sources, such as the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'', claim that she is the daughter of Agenor's son, the "sun-red" Phoenix.

Scholia Scholia (: scholium or scholion, from , "comment", "interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of the manuscript of ancient a ...

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

, ''

'' B, 494, p. 80, 43 ed. Bekk. as cited in Hellanicus' ''Boeotica'' It is generally agreed that she had two brothers,

Cadmus In Greek mythology, Cadmus (; ) was the legendary Phoenician founder of Boeotian Thebes, Greece, Thebes. He was, alongside Perseus and Bellerophon, the greatest hero and slayer of monsters before the days of Heracles. Commonly stated to be a ...

, who brought the alphabet to mainland Greece, and Cilix who gave his name to

Cilicia Cilicia () is a geographical region in southern Anatolia, extending inland from the northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Cilicia has a population ranging over six million, concentrated mostly at the Cilician plain (). The region inclu ...

Asia Minor Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

, with the author of '' Bibliotheke'' including Phoenix as a third. So some interpret this as her brother Phoenix (when he is assumed to be son of Agenor) gave his siblings' name to his three children and this Europa (by this case, niece of former) is also loved by Zeus, but because of the same name, gave some confusions to others. After arriving in Crete, Europa had three sons fathered by Zeus:

, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon, the first two becoming judges of the Underworld, alongside

Aeacus Aeacus (; also spelled Eacus; Ancient Greek: Αἰακός) was a king of the island of Aegina in Greek mythology. He was a son of Zeus and the nymph Aegina, and the father of the heroes Peleus and Telamon. According to legend, he was famous ...

of Aegina, when they died. In Crete she married

Asterion In Greek mythology, Asterion (Ancient Greek, Greek: , gen.: , literally "starry") or Asterius () may refer to the following figures: * Asterion (god), Asterion, one of the River gods (Greek mythology), river gods. * Asterius (giant), Asterius ...

, also rendered Asterius, and became mother (or step-mother) of his daughter

. Pausanias wrote that the poet Praxilla makes Carnus a son of Europa.

Mythology

The ''Dictionary of Classical Mythology'' explains that Zeus was enamoured with Europa and decided to seduce or rape her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her helpers were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, and eventually got onto his back. Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of

. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

and three additional gifts: the bronze

automaton An automaton (; : automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers i ...

guard

Talos In Greek mythology, Talos, also spelled Talus (; , ''Tálōs'') or Talon (; , ''Tálōn''), was a man of bronze who protected Crete from pirates and invaders. Despite the popular idea that he was a giant, no ancient source states this explicitl ...

, the hound Laelaps who never failed to catch his quarry, and a

javelin A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon. Today, the javelin is predominantly used for sporting purposes such as the javelin throw. The javelin is nearly always thrown by hand, unlike the sling ...

that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus. It should not be confused with the

Cretan Bull In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull () was the bull Pasiphaë fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur. Mythology Background Minos was king in Minoan civilization, Crete. In order to confirm his right to rule, rather than any of his b ...

that fathered the

Minotaur In Greek mythology, the Minotaur (, ''Mīnṓtauros''), also known as Asterion, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "par ...

and was captured by

Heracles Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...

. Roman mythology adopted the tale of the ''Raptus'', also known as "The Abduction of Europa" and "The Seduction of Europa", substituting the god

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...

for

. The myth of Europa and Zeus may have its origin in a sacred union between the Phoenician deities 'Aštar and 'Aštart (

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

), in bovine form. Having given birth to three sons by Zeus, Europa married a king

, this being also the name of the Minotaur and an epithet of Zeus, likely derived from the name ''Aštar''. According to

Herodotus Herodotus (; BC) was a Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus (now Bodrum, Turkey), under Persian control in the 5th century BC, and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria, Italy. He wrote the '' Histori ...

' rationalizing approach, Europa was kidnapped by Greeks (probably Cretans), who were seeking to avenge the kidnapping of Io, a princess from Argos. His variant story may have been an attempt to rationalize the earlier myth; or the present myth may be a garbled version of facts—the abduction of a Phoenician aristocrat—later enunciated without gloss by Herodotus.

Cult

Terracotta Europa bull Staatliche Antikensammlungen

Astarte and Europa

In the territory of Phoenician

Sidon Sidon ( ) or better known as Saida ( ; ) is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located on the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast in the South Governorate, Lebanon, South Governorate, of which it is the capital. Tyre, Lebanon, Tyre, t ...

Lucian of Samosata Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syria (region), Syrian satire, satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with whi ...

(2nd century AD) was informed that the temple of

, whom Lucian equated with the moon goddess, was sacred to Europa: : There is likewise in Phœnicia a temple of great size owned by the Sidonians. They call it the temple of Astarte. I hold this Astarte to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa, the sister of Cadmus. She was the daughter of Agenor, and on her disappearance from Earth the Phœnicians honoured her with a temple and told a sacred legend about her; how that Zeus was enamoured of her for her beauty, and changing his form into that of a bull carried her off into Crete. This legend I heard from other Phœnicians as well; and the coinage current among the Sidonians bears upon it the effigy of Europa sitting upon a bull, none other than Zeus. Thus they do not agree that the temple in question is sacred to Europa. The paradox, as it seemed to Lucian, would be solved if Europa ''is'' Astarte in her guise as the full, "broad-faced" moon.

Interpretation

There were two competing myths relating how Europa came into the Hellenic world, but they agreed that she came to

(Kríti), where the sacred bull was paramount. In the more familiar telling she was seduced by the

god In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

in the form of a bull, who breathed from his mouth a saffron crocus and carried her away to Crete on his back—to be welcomed by

,According to the scholium on ''Iliad'' XII.292, noted in Karl Kerenyi (1996) ''Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'' p. 105. . Pausanias rendered the name Asterion (2.31.1); in ''Bibliotheke'' (3.1.4) it is ''Asterion''. but according to the more literal, euhemerist version that begins the account of Persian-Hellene confrontations of

,Herodotus, ''Histories'' I.1; the act is made out to be a revenge for the previous "kidnapping" of Io. she was kidnapped by Cretans, who likewise were said to have taken her to Crete. The mythical Europa cannot be separated from the mythology of the sacred bull, which had been worshipped in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

. In 2012, an archaeological mission of the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

led by Lebanese archaeologist, Claude Doumet-Serhal, discovered at the site of the old American school in

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

currency that depicts Europa riding the bull with her veil flying all over like a bow, further proof of Europa's Phoenician origin. Europa does not seem to have been venerated directly in

cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...

anywhere in classical Greece,No public statue of Europa is mentioned by Pausanias or any other Classical writer, but a headless statuette, closely draped in a cloak over a

peplos A peplos () is a body-length garment established as typical attire for women in ancient Greece by , during the late Archaic Greece, Archaic and Classical Greece, Classical period. It was a long, rectangular cloth with the top edge folded down ab ...

, of the type called "Amelung's Goddess", but inscribed "Europa", at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, seems to be a Roman copy of a lost Greek original, of ; an uninscribed statuette of the same type, from Hama, Syria, is in the Damascus Museum, and a full-size copy has been found in

Baiae Baiae (; ) was an ancient Roman town situated on the northwest shore of the Gulf of Naples and now in the ''comune'' of Bacoli. It was a fashionable resort for centuries in antiquity, particularly towards the end of the Roman Republic, when i ...

: ; I. E. S. Edwards, ed. ''The Cambridge Ancient History'', plates to vols. V and VI 1970:illus. fig. 24. but at Lebadaea in

Boeotia Boeotia ( ), sometimes Latinisation of names, Latinized as Boiotia or Beotia (; modern Greek, modern: ; ancient Greek, ancient: ), is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the modern regions of Greece, region of Central Greece (adm ...

, Pausanias noted in the 2nd century AD that ''Europa'' was the

Demeter In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Demeter (; Attic Greek, Attic: ''Dēmḗtēr'' ; Doric Greek, Doric: ''Dāmā́tēr'') is the Twelve Olympians, Olympian goddess of the harvest and agriculture, presiding over cro ...

—"Demeter whom they surname Europa and say was the nurse of Trophonios"—among the Olympians who were addressed by seekers at the cave sanctuary of Trophonios of Orchomenus, to whom a

chthonic In Greek mythology, deities referred to as chthonic () or chthonian () were gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility. The terms "chthonic" and "chthonian" ...

cult and

oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

were dedicated: The festival of Hellotia in Crete was celebrated in honour of Europa.

Argive genealogy

In art and literature

''Europa'' provided the substance of a brief

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

epic written in the mid-2nd century BCE by Moschus, a bucolic poet and friend of the Alexandrian grammarian Aristarchus of Samothrace, born at Syracuse.The poem was published with voluminous notes and critical apparatus: Winfried Bühler, ''Die Europa des Moschos'' (Wiesbaden: Steiner) 1960. In ''

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' (, , ) is a Latin Narrative poetry, narrative poem from 8 Common Era, CE by the Ancient Rome, Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''Masterpiece, magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its Cre ...

'' Book II, the poet

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

wrote the following depiction of Jupiter's seduction: Kylix figure rosse 370 ac tomba 32 necropoli Poggio Sommavilla archivio SBALazio

His picturesque details belong to anecdote and fable: in all the depictions, whether she straddles the bull, as in archaic vase-paintings or the ruined metope fragment from Sikyon, or sits gracefully sidesaddle as in a mosaic from North Africa, there is no trace of fear. Often Europa steadies herself by touching one of the bull's horns, acquiescing. Her tale is also mentioned in

Nathaniel Hawthorne Nathaniel Hawthorne (né Hathorne; July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer. His works often focus on history, morality, and religion. He was born in 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, from a family long associat ...

's '' Tanglewood Tales''. Though his story titled "Dragon's teeth" is largely about Cadmus, it begins with an elaborate albeit toned down version of Europa's abduction by the beautiful bull. The tale also features as the subject of a poem and film in the Enderby (fictional character) sequence of novels by

Anthony Burgess John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993) who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his Utopian and dystopian fiction, dy ...

. She is remembered in ''

De Mulieribus Claris ''De Mulieribus Claris'' or ''De Claris Mulieribus'' (Latin for "Concerning Famous Women") is a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in Latin prose in 1361–1362. ...

'', a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author

Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio ( , ; ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so ...

, composed in 136162. It is notable as the first collection devoted exclusively to biographies of women in Western literature.

Gallery

File:The Kidnapping of Europa Mosaic.jpg, Europa '' velificans'', (mosaic, Zeugma Mosaic Museum) File:Tizian 085.jpg, '' The Rape of Europa'' by

Titian Tiziano Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), Latinized as Titianus, hence known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian Renaissance painter, the most important artist of Renaissance Venetian painting. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno. Ti ...

(1562) File:Chauveau, François Métamorphoses d'Europe Eau-forte.jpg, ''The Rape of Europa'' by François Chauveau (1650) File:Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre - Le Rapt d'Europe.jpg, ''The Rape of Europa'' by Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre (1750) File:The rape of Europa, Goya.JPG, '' The Rape of Europa'' by

Francisco Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 1746 – 16 April 1828) was a Spanish Romanticism, romantic painter and Printmaking, printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Hi ...

(1772) File:Felix Vallotton The Rape of Europa.jpg, ''The Rape of Europa'' by

Félix Vallotton Félix Édouard Vallotton (; December 28, 1865December 29, 1925) was a Swiss and French painter and printmaker associated with the group of artists known as '. He was an important figure in the development of the modern woodcut. He painted portra ...

(1908) File:Valentin Serov - Похищение Европы - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Rape of Europa'' by Valentin Serov (1910) File:UT-McClungPlaza.jpg, ''Europa on the Bull'' by

Carl Milles Carl Milles (; 23 June 1875 – 19 September 1955) was a Swedes, Swedish sculpture, sculptor. He was married to artist Olga Milles (née Granner) and brother to Ruth Milles and half-brother to the architect Evert Milles. Carl Milles sculpted the ...

(1926) File:Monumento a Europa.jpg, ''Rapto de Europa'' by Juan Oliveira Viéitez (1989) File:Statue of Europa outside Council building in Brussels.jpg, ''Europa'' by Léon de Pas (1997) File:Sculture by the European Parliament 1.jpg, ''Europe'' by May Claerhout (1999)

Namesakes

Continent

The name

, as a geographical term, was used by

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

geographers such as

Strabo Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo, Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-si ...

to refer to part of

Thrace Thrace (, ; ; ; ) is a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe roughly corresponding to the province of Thrace in the Roman Empire. Bounded by the Balkan Mountains to the north, the Aegean Sea to the south, and the Black Se ...

below the

Balkan Mountains The Balkan mountain range is located in the eastern part of the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It is conventionally taken to begin at the peak of Vrashka Chuka on the border between Bulgaria and Serbia. It then runs f ...

. Later, under the Roman Empire the name was given to a Thracian

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

. Thrace or Thraike in Greek mythology, was the sister of a water nymph named Europa. Europa was also a surname given to the earth mother goddess Demeter. It is derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

word ''Eurōpē'' () in all

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

Germanic languages The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania, and Southern Africa. The most widely spoke ...

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

Baltic languages The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people

Celtic languages The Celtic languages ( ) are a branch of the Indo-European language family, descended from the hypothetical Proto-Celtic language. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edward Lhuyd in 1707, following Paul-Yve ...

Iranian languages The Iranian languages, also called the Iranic languages, are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian Plateau. The Iranian langu ...

Uralic languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

( Hungarian Európa, Finnish Eurooppa, Estonian Euroopa). Imago Europae euronis

Jürgen Fischer, in ''Oriens-Occidens-Europa'' summarized how the name came into use, supplanting the '' oriens''–'' occidens'' dichotomy of the

later Roman Empire In historiography, the Late or Later Roman Empire, traditionally covering the period from 284 CE to 641 CE, was a time of significant transformation in Roman governance, society, and religion. Diocletian's reforms, including the establishment of t ...

, which was expressive of a divided empire, Latin in the West, Greek in the East. In the 8th century, ecclesiastical uses of "Europa" for the imperium of

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...

provide the source for the modern geographical term. The first use of the term '' Europenses'', to describe peoples of the Christian, western portion of the continent, appeared in the Hispanic Latin Chronicle of 754, sometimes attributed to an author called Isidore Pacensis in reference to the Battle of Tours fought against Muslim forces. The European Union has also used Europa as a symbol of

pan-Europeanism Pan-European identity is the sense of personal identification with Europe, in a cultural or political sense. The concept is discussed in the context of European integration, historically in connection with hypothetical proposals, but since t ...

, notably by naming its web portal after her and depicting her on the Greek €2 coin and on several gold and silver commemorative coins (e.g. the Belgian €10 European Expansion coin). Her name appeared on

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

s celebrating the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; , CdE) is an international organisation with the goal of upholding human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. Founded in 1949, it is Europe's oldest intergovernmental organisation, represe ...

, which were first issued in 1956. The second series of

euro banknotes Banknotes of the euro, the common currency of the eurozone (euro area members), have been in circulation since the first series (also called ''ES1'') was issued in 2002. They are issued by the national central banks of the Eurosystem or the Eur ...

is known as the Europa Series and bears her likeness in the watermark and hologram.

Chemical element

The metal ''

europium Europium is a chemical element; it has symbol Eu and atomic number 63. It is a silvery-white metal of the lanthanide series that reacts readily with air to form a dark oxide coating. Europium is the most chemically reactive, least dense, and soft ...

'', a

rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or rare earths, and sometimes the lanthanides or lanthanoids (although scandium and yttrium, which do not belong to this series, are usually included as rare earths), are a set o ...

, was named in 1901 after the continent.

Moon of Jupiter

The invention of the

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption, or Reflection (physics), reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally, it was an optical instrument using len ...

revealed that the planet

, clearly visible to the naked eye and known to humanity since prehistoric times, has an attendant family of moons. These were named for male and female lovers of the god and other mythological persons associated with him. The smallest of Jupiter's Galilean moons was named after Europa.

Notes

References

External links

A metope from Sicily, carved with Europa, 540 BCE
the bull's face, turned head-on, clearly reveals his Near Eastern iconic antecedents
Europa
on the Greek euro coin of €2
www.europesname.eu
A study describing the origin and artistic use of the name EUROPE in its mythical, geographic and political sense by Drs. Peter H. Gommers
Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Europa)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Europa (Mythology) Princesses in Greek mythology Queens in Greek mythology Agenorides Mortal women of Zeus Mythological rape victims Metamorphoses characters Phoenician characters in Greek mythology Cretan mythology Europe in mythology Astarte National personifications Symbols of the European Union Zoophilia in culture Personifications of continents