29 Amphitrite & Amphitrite on fountain / Amfitríta na kašne - Jicín (East Bohemia)
N 50° 26.213 E 015° 21.123
33U E 525000 N 5587266
Asteroid 29 bears name of the ancient Greek sea goddess Amphitrite. The given coordinates indicate an Amphitrite statue on Empire-style fountain located in the main public space of town Jicín - Valdštejnovo námestí (Wallenstein Square).
Waymark Code: WM12GHG
Location: Královéhradecký kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/24/2020
Views: 17
Asteroid 29 bears name of the ancient Greek sea goddess Amphitrite. The given coordinates indicate an Amphitrite statue on Empire-style fountain located in the main public space of town Jicín - Valdštejnovo námestí (Wallenstein Square). The statue is work of a prominent Czech sculptor Jan Sucharda from 1835.
Amphitrite (minor planet designation: 29 Amphitrite) is one of the largest S-type asteroids, approximately 200 km in diameter, and probably third largest after Eunomia and Juno, although Iris and Herculina are similar in size. Amphitrite was discovered by Albert Marth on 1 March 1854, at the private South Villa Observatory, in Regent's Park, London. It was Marth's only asteroid discovery. Its name was chosen by George Bishop, the owner of the observatory, who named it after Amphitrite, a sea goddess in Greek mythology. [wiki]
The sandstone fountain, located in the eastern part of the square, has an approximately square floor plan with bevelled corners. It is decorated on all four sides with oval flat medallions. In the center of the fountain, on an octagonal pedestal with fish heads protruding from four longer sides, stands the life-size figure of Amphitrite on a low profiled pedestal. Amphitrite is depicted as a slightly curved female figure, dressed in a loose blanket, stands on a group of fish, holding an oar in her right hand and holding a robe in her left.
In ancient Greek mythology, Amphitrite was a sea goddess and wife of Poseidon and the queen of the sea. She was a daughter of Doris and Nereus (or Oceanus and Tethys). Under the influence of the Olympian pantheon, she became the consort of Poseidon and was later used as a symbolic representation of the sea and the goddess of calm seas and safe passage through storms. It is said her voice is the only thing that can calm her husband’s mightiest of rages and lull him to a deep slumber so the ocean could be back at peace. Just as the Romans called Poseidon Neptune, they called Amphitrite Salacia.
Amphitrite, "the third one who encircles [the sea]", was so entirely confined in her authority to the sea and the creatures in it that she was almost never associated with her husband, either for purposes of worship or in works of art, except when he was to be distinctly regarded as the god who controlled the sea. An exception may be the cult image of Amphitrite that Pausanias saw in the temple of Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth. [wiki]