Intersexuality - Introduction
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Historical Footnotes: Mythology and Alchemy
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Intersexuality has been known and observed since ancient times all over the world, but different cutures have dealt with it very differently. They not only used different terms to describe it, but also developed different concepts to explain it. Since some of these concepts have played an important role in the history of Western philosophy and art, we are adding here two footnotes:
1. Double-sexed persons appear in many ancient myths about the creation of the world, in classical epics, and even in philosophical discussions. Here, we reproduce only one well-known example from ancient Greece.
2. Combining male and female elements (“hermaphroditism”) was also an essential concept in medieval alchemy. The symbols of the sun (gold, male) and the moon (silver, female) were often joined to form a new double-sexed symbol of perfection. Here we provide only some very basic background information.
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