Cybele

The Phrygic mother and fertility goddess. Her name could mean 'Great Mother'. Another explanation for her name is "she who lives in a cave'. Cybele is the goddess of life and death, she is a fertility goddess and protector of wild life. The Greek named her Artemis and Rhea. She is also connected to the great Syrian goddess Dea Syria of Hieropolis (the Holy City) where she was named Atargatis or Astarte. She lived at the tops of mountains such as the Ida, Dindymos and Agdos in Phrygia. This gave her the names Dindymen, Agdistis and Mater Idae.

To her followers belonged castrated priests, called Corybantes in Phrygia, on Crete they were called Kurets and in Rome 'Galloi'. With her hair hanging down she searches the world, grieving for her lover Attis, whom is her son. Her rituals are the same as those of Aphodrite and Adonis. In her hands she used to carry a scepter, a timpane, a whip and laurel. Just like Rhea and the Ephesic Artemis, she was shown with a crown on her head, which was a symbol for her being protector of a city in the time that these were walled.
In another picture she is shown sitting on a throne, flanked by two lions. Her wagon was pulled by to lions aswell. This resembles the goddess Hebat of the Hittites in Anatolia. She is often seen with a drum, an instrument used in her rituals.

In Greek mythology Cybele is the daughter of Uranus and Gaia and married to Kronos. On Crete she was equalized with Rhea and was she the mother of Zeus, Poseidon, Hestia, Hera, Demeter and Hades. Her Crete priests are called Curets or Kourets.
Cybele was mainly worshipped in Anatolia and it is very likely that her cult goes back to the old Mother Goddess of Çatal Hüyük in modern Turkey, where statuettes are found of a goddess sitting on a throne, flanked by two lions, baring a child. This statuette is appr. 8,000 years old.
From a ritual in Anatolia we can see Cybele worshipped as an earthgoddess. Her statue was carried over the fields to be blessed by her presence. Later she would be cleaned in a holy river, as a symbol of cleansing and the irrigation of the fields. These rituals are similar to those of the European Nerthus or Hertha.
Later, Cybele was worshipped as a goddess on the Anatolian mountain Ida. This cult would influence the later religion on Crete where is also a mountain called Ida.

Cybele's story
Gaia