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
Modern understanding of Greek mythology and the Norns of Norse mythology. Archaeology and mythography, on the other hand, has revealed that the Greeks were inspired by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor and the Near East. Adonis seems to be the Greek counterpart — more clearly in cult than in myth — of a Near Eastern dying god. His name is related to the Semitic invocation "adon" (Lord) and appears in other cultures as Dumuzi, Tammuz or Attis. Cybele is rooted in Anatolian culture, and much of Aphrodite's iconography springs from the Semitic goddesses Inanna, Ishtar and Astarte. The theogonic myths current in the