There is a haunting yet peaceful expression on the face of Demeter. She was discovered in 1953 by divers collecting sponges from the depths of the Aegean sea. The rusty bronze fragment of a once beautiful and compassionate goddess was lying on the sea bed 120 feet below the surface.
Demeter was the goddess of agriculture and the harvest. Her only daughter, Persephone, was a happy child who grew to be a stunningly attractive young woman who caught the eye and affection of Pluto. He abducted her and carried her off to the underworld where she became his captive wife. In her anger, Demeter prevented the earth from producing any crops threatening its very existence.
Zeus had to intervene and ordered Pluto to send the lovely daughter home. Cunningly, Pluto tricked her into eating a pomegranate seed which bound her to the underworld forever. A contract then had to be agreed upon which allowed for Persephone to live for 8 months in the upper world with her mother; but 4 months she had to return to the underworld to live with Pluto.
How ironic that the beautiful Demeter herself would spend many centuries in her own “underworld” twenty fathoms deep in the Aegean Sea.