es ago seem to have prompted
early pharmacologists to obtain a more potent elixir than human blood by
stealing from the heights of Olympus the divine blood of the life-giving
deities themselves.

The pig was identified not only with the Great Mother, but with Osiris
and Set also. With the pig's lunar and astral associations I do not
propose to deal in these pages, as the astronomical aspects of the
problems are so vast as to need much more space than the limits imposed
in this statement. But it is important to note that the identification
of Set with a pig was perhaps the main factor in riveting upon this
creature the fetters of a reputation for evil. The evil dragon was the
representative of both Set and the Great Mother (Sekhet or Tiamat); and
both of them were identified with the pig. Just as Set killed Osiris, so
the pig gave Adonis his mortal injury.[432] When these earthly incidents
were embellished with a celestial significance, the conflict of Horus
with Set was interpreted as the struggle between the forces of light and
order and the powers of darkness and chaos. When worshipped as a
tempest-god the Mesopotamian Rimmon was known as "the pig"[433] and, as
"the wild boar of the desert," was a form of Set.

I have discussed the pig at this length because the use of the words
[Greek: choiros] by the Greeks, and _porcus_ and _porculus_ by the
Romans, reveals the fact that the terms had the double significance of
"pig" and "cowry-shell". As it is manifestly impossible to derive the
word "cowry" from the Greek word for "pig," the only explanation that
will stand examination is that the two meanings must have been acquired
from the identification of both the cowry and the pig with the Great
Mother and the female reproductive organs. In other words, the
pig-associations of Aphrodite afford clear evidence that the goddess was
originally a personification of the cowry.[434]

The fundamental nature of the identification of the cowry, the pig, and
the Great Mother, the one with the other, is revealed not merely in the
archaeology of the AEgean, but also in the modern customs and ancient
pictures of the most distant peoples. For example, in New Guinea the
place of the sacrificial pig may be taken by the cowry-shell;[435] and
upon the chief facade of the east wing of the ancient American monument,
known as the Casa de las Monjas at Chichen Itza, the hieroglyph of the
planet Venus is placed in conjunction with a picture of a