Kanathos
The unspoken nature of the ritual forbade its being embodied openly or directly in Greek mythology.S. Casson suggested that it was the obscure subject of the so-called "Ludovisi Throne", generally considered to represent the parallel, and far better-known, renewal of Aphrodite,[3] bathing in the sea at Paphos.At Samos, the ritual bathing of the goddess was represented in cult thus: the archaic wooden cult image of Hera at Samos, originally an iconic plank of wood, or xoanon, was taken out annually and ritually washed in the sea, for which an aiton was offered in the form of a mythic anecdote.[5] For Jane Ellen Harrison, simply recalling that a triple Hera, perhaps of Pelasgian origin, was venerated at Stymphalos in Arcadia as maiden child, wife and even widow,[6] was sufficient "to enable us to recognize in her the year-goddess in the three Greek seasons, spring, summer-autumn and winter.The exclusive matron-hood, familiar to us in the Iliad, is but one aspect, emphasized to complete the literary Olympian family circle.