Thesan- Etruscan GodDeity
Also known as: πππππ
Description
Wings spread against the first light, she rises on Etruscan bronze mirrors as a radiant figure carrying young Tinthun skyward, dawn made flesh, whose sanctuaries at Pyrgi received offerings from women in childbirth as readily as from those greeting the sunrise.
Mythology & Lore
Thesan and Tinthun
On bronze mirror after bronze mirror, the scene repeats: Thesan, winged, lifts the youth Tinthun into the sky. She strides or flies, and he rises with her, both figures labeled in Etruscan script. The mirrors date from the fourth and third centuries BCE and come from workshops across Etruria. Whatever the story behind the abduction, the Etruscans wanted it on their mirrors. Thesan wanted the boy, and she took him the way dawn takes the night: completely, without negotiation.
Her name sits in the eastern sector of the Piacenza Liver, the bronze model haruspices used to map the sky onto a sheep's organ. The east is where she belongs. When marks appeared in her sector during a reading, the message came from the dawn.
At Pyrgi, the port sanctuary of Caere, women left anatomical votives and offerings for safe delivery. Thesan received them. She brought each day out of darkness, and the women who prayed to her asked for the same service: bring this child out alive.
Relationships
- Family
- Associated with