Great Seal of California Great Seal of California The Great Seal of the State of California was adopted at the California state Constitutional Convention of 1849 and has undergone minor design changes since then, the last being the standardization of the seal in 1937. The seal shows the Roman goddess Minerva (Athena in Greek mythology), the goddess of wisdom and war, because she was born an adult, and California was never a territory; a California grizzly bear (the official state animal) feeding on grape vines, representing California's wine production; a sheaf of grain, representing agriculture; a miner, representing the California Gold Rush and the
Metis (mythology) Metis (mythology) Metis (; Greek: Μῆτις - "wisdom," "skill," or "craft"), in ancient Greek religion, was a mythical Titaness belonging to the second generation of Titans. By the era of Greek philosophy in the 5th century BC, Metis had become the mother of wisdom and deep thought, but her name originally connoted "magical cunning" and was as easily equated with the trickster powers of Prometheus as with the "royal "metis"" of Zeus. The Stoic commentators allegorised Metis as the embodiment of "prudence", "wisdom" or "wise counsel", in which form she was inherited by the Renaissance. The Greek word "metis" meant