Matronalia Festival

From Patheos:

Juno Capitolium was another goddess called upon by new brides and wives, for She is a goddess who protects the sanctity of marriage vows and marital relations.  A story grew up that Juno, already angry over her husband’s affairs, became even more infuriated when She learned that Jupiter had given birth to a daughter. To relieve Jupiter’s headache, Vulcan split open His head with a mallet and out arose wise Minerva. Grey-eyed Minerva was addressed as “most chaste goddess” because Her conception and birth had not resulted from sexual intercourse. Juno was so angered by this that She decided that She, too, would bear a child on Her own, without any help from Jupiter. She enlisted the help of Flora, Goddess of Flowers, who provided Juno with a sacred lily that held pollen-laced dew. This was the semen that Flora poured from the lily into Juno’s ear. This immaculate conception of Juno is celebrated on 2 May as another sort of Matronalia comparable to modern Mother’s Day. Then, on the first day of the New Year, the first day of March, Juno gave birth to Mars. 

Stone Age Fertility Artifact

From Discovery News:

A Stone Age-era artifact carved with multiple zigzags and what is likely a woman with spread legs suggests that fertility rituals may have been important to early Europeans, according to new research.

The object, which will be documented in the March issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, is made out of a large elk antler and has been radiocarbon dated to about 10,900 years ago.

"The ornament is composed of groups of zigzag lines and a human representation, probably a woman with spread legs with a short zigzag nearby," lead author Tomasz Płonka told Discovery News. "The woman may be nude, but the geometrical style of representation does not allow us to answer (this question)."

The researchers aren't yet certain if the images on the carved antler are associated with Venus figurines, statuettes of women with exaggerated sexual features that date to as early as 35,000 years ago. Some Venus figurines have been excavated in Poland not too far from the Swidwin site.

The Bone Collector

From IOL News:

Like many Taiwanese teenage girls, Lee You-fang likes to sing pop songs and play with her pet dog, but she has an unusual job: working with the bones of the dead.

For five years, 19-year-old Lee has honed her craft as a “bone collector,” assisting her father in an ancient funerary rite that involves collecting, cleaning and arranging human skeletons for reburial.

She began working full-time after graduating from high school last year, following in the footsteps of her great-grandfather who started the family business eight decades ago.

Bone collecting is linked to a belief that the feng shui of ancestral graves will affect the lives of the descendants and that a reburial can help turn around luck in difficult times.