Ambrosia is the Greek elixir of immortality. The food, drink or nectar of the Gods, ambrosia connects to nourishment and fruit of the Earth. Human ambrosia is honey mead, a drink made with fermented honey.
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Mead production begins in the Neolithic age, with the first drink made from fermented honey identified in China c. 6500 BCE. Mead is discovered before both pottery and agriculture, as humans find naturally fermented sweet honey in old honeybee hives.
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At the end of the Ice Age c. 11,000 ya, the climate is warmer and in some regions, more humid. People migrate north. Honey bees migrate all over the world, establishing honey manufacturing facilities on every continent except Antarctica.
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Ambrosia relates to divinity, wisdom, enlightenment, long life or eternal life. In Hindu religion it's compared to the mythical Amrita, a drink of immortality. Amrita is used by the devas or blessed beings, often in conflict with the asuras, or demons.
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When the devas churn the ocean of milk, strange creatures issue forth. Among them comes Dhanvantari, god of healing, with the sacred substance Amrita in a pitcher. Words Amrita and ambrosia come from the same Proto-Indo-European root, 'not death' or 'deathlessness'.
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Similarly the word nectar comes from the Proto Indo European nek-, "death", and -*tar, "overcoming". In Greece, those who consume ambrosia, nectar of the Gods, have not blood but divine ichor in their veins.
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Discovery of an elixir of life is one of the three prime aims of alchemy for centuries. Alchemy and the quest for immortality is especially important to Chinese emperors and nobles, some of whom perish from toxic ingestions, such as liquid metal mercury or quicksilver.
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Doves carry the ambrosia to the Greek gods in their empyrean home Olympus. The drink is served at the heavenly feast by Hebe the Cup-Bearer, Goddess of Youth or Prime of Life; or by Ganymede, a divine hero of Troy.
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In Homer's Iliad,
Ganymedes was the loveliest born of the race of mortals; therefore the gods caught him away to themselves to be Zeus' wine-pourer, for the sake of his beauty, so he might be among the immortals.
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Ambrosia is also used for beauty and health. Aphrodite applies it as perfume for its sweet fragrance. According to the Iliad, Hera "cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh." Infant Achilles is dunked in ambrosia before being passed through a fire, only his heel untouched.
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Athena anoints Penelope, wife of Odysseus, as she sleeps, so when she appears before her suitors she inflames them with desire. Penelope's heart still belongs to Odysseus. Fending off ardent men until he returns, she becomes a symbol of faithfulness and love.
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Various cultures attribute 'food of the gods' to ambrosia and 'drink of the gods' to nectar. It can be the other way around, or the words are used interchangeably. A few botany mythologists identify ambrosia with the hallucinogenic mushroom fly agaric.
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By the first century CE, writers use ambrosia in a broad sense as a "delightful liquid". Terminology evolves to describe cooking, art, hair, music, fragrance of the body or botanical elements, pleasure.
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In the ancient Aegean, fermented honey or honey mead is used to transcend the boundaries of reality before the discovery of wine and viniculture. At least two Minoan goddesses are portrayed with faces of bees.
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Ambrosia is also a nymph of the god Dionysus. In the 9th century BCE, Lycurgus, king of Thrace, outlaws the cult of Dionysus and attacks the entourage of the gods when they try to celebrate.
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Ambrosia turns herself into a grape vine to hide. Dionysus, god of wine, theater and madness, lives up to his reputation and drives the king dramatically insane. Lycurgus kills his son, thinking him a stalk of ivy (or kills his whole family), then himself.
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