Ceres (mythology) in the context of "Cereal crop"

A cereal is a grass cultivated for its edible grain. Cereals are the world's largest crops, and are therefore staple foods. They include rice, wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, and maize (corn). Edible grains from other plant families, such as amaranth, buckwheat and quinoa, are pseudocereals. Most cereals are annuals, producing one crop from each planting, though rice is sometimes grown as a perennial. Winter varieties are hardy enough to be planted in the autumn, becoming dormant in the winter, and harvested in spring or early summer; spring varieties are planted in spring and harvested in late summer. The term cereal is derived from the name of the Roman goddess of grain crops and fertility, Ceres.

Cereals were domesticated in the Neolithic around 8,000 years ago. Wheat and barley were domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. Rice and some millets were domesticated in East Asia, while sorghum and other millets were domesticated in West Africa. Maize was domesticated by Indigenous peoples of the Americas in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. In the 20th century, cereal productivity was greatly increased by the Green Revolution. This increase in production has accompanied a growing international trade, with some countries producing large portions of the cereal supply for other countries.

Vesta (Classical Latin: [ˈwɛs.ta]) is the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family in Roman religion. She was rarely depicted in human form, and was more often represented by the fire of her temple in the Forum Romanum. Entry to her temple was permitted only to her priestesses, the Vestal Virgins. Their virginity was deemed essential to Rome's survival; if found guilty of inchastity, they were buried or entombed alive. As Vesta was considered a guardian of the Roman people, her festival, the Vestalia (7–15 June), was regarded as one of the most important Roman holidays. During the Vestalia privileged matrons walked barefoot through the city to the temple, where they presented food-offerings. Such was Vesta's importance to Roman religion that following the rise of Christianity, hers was one of the last non-Christian cults still active, until it was forcibly disbanded by the Christian emperor Theodosius I in AD 391.

The myths depicting Vesta and her priestesses were few; the most notable of them were tales of miraculous impregnation of a virgin priestess by a phallus appearing in the flames of the sacred hearth — the manifestation of the goddess combined with a male supernatural being. In some Roman traditions, Rome's founders Romulus and Remus and the benevolent king Servius Tullius were conceived in this way. Vesta was among the Dii Consentes, twelve of the most honored gods in the Roman pantheon. She was the daughter of Saturn and Ops, and sister of Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Juno, and Ceres. Her Greek equivalent is Hestia.

The Temple of Cybele or Temple of Magna Mater was Rome's first and most important temple to the Magna Mater ("Great Mother"), who was known to the Greeks as Cybele. It was built to house a particular image or form of the goddess, a meteoric stone brought from Greek Asia Minor to Rome in 204 BC at the behest of an oracle and temporarily housed in the goddess of Victory's Palatine temple. The new temple was dedicated on 11 April 191 BC, and Magna Mater's first Megalesia festival was held on the temple's proscenium.

The temple was sited on the high western slope of the Palatine, overlooking the valley of the Circus Maximus and facing the temple of Ceres on the slopes of the Aventine. It was accessible via a long upward flight of steps from the flattened area or proscenium below, where the goddess's festival games and plays were staged. The goddess's altar was visible both from the proscenium and the temple's interior. The original temple burned down in 111 BC, and was restored by one Metellus, possibly Gaius Caecilius Metellus Caprarius. It burned on a further two occasions in the early Imperial era, and was restored each time by Augustus; his second rebuilding was probably the more sumptuous of the two.

Proserpina (/proʊˈsɜːrpɪnə/ proh-SUR-pih-nə; Latin: [proːˈsɛrpɪna]) or Proserpine (/ˈprɒsərpaɪn/ PROSS-ər-pyne) is an ancient Roman goddess whose iconography, functions and myths are virtually identical to those of the Greek Persephone. Proserpina replaced or was combined with the ancient Roman fertility goddess Libera, whose principal cult was housed in a temple atop Rome's Aventine Hill, which she shared with the grain-goddess Ceres and the wine god Liber (Liber Pater).

Each of these three deities occupied their own cella at the temple, their cults served or supervised by a male public priesthood. Ceres was by far the senior of the three, one of the Dii Consentes, Rome's approximate equivalent to the Greek Twelve Olympians, Ceres being identified with the Greek Demeter and Liber with Dionysus. Libera is sometimes described as a female version of Liber Pater, concerned with female fertility. Otherwise she is given no clear identity or mythology by Roman sources, and no Greek equivalent. Nothing is known of her native iconography: her name translates as a feminine form of Liber, "the free one". Proserpina's name is a Latinization of "Persephone", perhaps influenced by the Latin proserpere ("to emerge, to creep forth"), with reference to the growing of grain.

In ancient Roman religion and mythology, Tellus or Terra ("Mother Earth") is the personification of the Earth. Although Tellus and Terra are hardly distinguishable during the Imperial era, Tellus was the name of the original earth goddess in the religious practices of the Republic or earlier. The scholar Varro (1st century BC) lists Tellus as one of the di selecti, the twenty principal gods of Rome, and one of the twelve agricultural deities. She is regularly associated with Ceres in rituals pertaining to the earth and agricultural fertility.

The attributes of Tellus were the cornucopia, bunches of flowers, or fruit. She was typically depicted reclining, or rising, waist high from a hole in the ground. Her male complement was a sky god such as Caelus (Uranus) or a form of Jupiter. Her Greek counterpart is Gaia, and among the Etruscans, her name was Cel. Michael Lipka has argued that the Terra Mater who appeared during the reign of Augustus, is a direct transfer of the Greek Ge Mater into Roman religious practice, while Tellus, whose ancient temple was within Rome's sacred boundary (pomerium), represents the original earth goddess cultivated by the state priests.

The Sanctuary of Thinissut is an archaeological site in Tunisia, first excavated in the early 20th century. It is in the present-day locality of Bir Bouregba in the Cap Bon region, about five kilometers from the town of Hammamet and sixty kilometers southeast of the capital, Tunis.

Although the excavated site is primarily dated to the early Imperial period, it is considered characteristic of Punic places of worship. The site demonstrates continuity in worship sites up to the Roman era, including the late period, and illustrates the syncretic religious movement at work. It was originally dedicated to the worship of Ba'al Hammon and his consort Tanit. However, the later honored deities include Saturn, Caelestis, Ceres, and other Hellenistic deities.

Alma mater (Latin: alma mater; pl.: almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning 'nourishing mother'. It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to alumnus, literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a school graduate.

In its earliest usage, alma mater was an honorific title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele. Later, in Catholicism, it became a title for Mary, mother of Jesus. By the early 17th century, the nursing mother became an allegory for universities. Used by many schools in Europe and North America, it has special association with the University of Bologna, whose motto Alma Mater Studiorum ("nurturing mother of studies") emphasizes its role in originating the modern university.