THEMIS

She is perhaps the brightest and boldest of Alabama's goddesses.....

She is called Themis.

I first heard about Themis on another website several months ago when I was doing a little research on the presence of goddess figures in public places. I was looking up Blind Justice, I think, when I came upon the name of Themis, and found the website of someone who was VERY unhappy with an homage to the goddess on one of Alabama's public buildings.. This is that website.

There's a very unusual sculpture of the goddess at the Federal courthouse in Montgomery Alabama.
It's highly stylized, and while it is supposed to represent Lady Justice, on close inspection, it's overall appearnce is to me, quite ominous. I'm not the only one strangely moved by
this shining image. The author of the afore-mentioned website entitles her brief essay "Pagan Religion at the Federal Courthouse". This statue of course, is in the very same city where Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore was suspended because he refused to take down a monument featuring the Ten Commandments back in 2003. For people following that chain of events, Themis seems to create a bit of a conundrum, to say the least.
I was in Nashville when I came upon the site. I knew I'd have to make the trip to Montgomery to see this thing. The other day I did. My pics are featured here. The goddess sculpture at the Federal Courthouse features a large Chrome feminine head, with a blindfold
that is melded into the face. It's mounted on a marble wall, with several bands of chrome running behind it. Turns out, that wall is actually a flag; it features thirteen stripes, and beneath it, are three pentagrams.
One either side of the head are large bowls with water continually flowing out. I read recently that the bowls
are meant to represent the scales of " Lady Justice " as seen in more traditional figures.

Themis is:
..."the Titan Goddess of divine law and order - those rules of conduct first established by the gods. She was also a prophetic goddess who presided over the most ancient of the earthly oracles, including the shrine of Delphoi. In this role, she was the divine voice who first instructed mankind in the primal laws of justice and morality, such as the precepts of piety, the rules of hospitality, good governance, conduct of assembly, and pious offerings to the gods. Themis was the prime counsellor of Zeus in heaven, where she was seated beside his throne to advise him on the precepts of divine law..":

Warding Off Evil?

When you see it first hand, the sculpture is very striking, and reminds me a lot more of a kind of gargoyle than a ' statue'. And I think it's purpose may be the same. A little research on the gargoyle tells us that the horrific images of bats, dragons, monsters and human heads which adorn gothic churches and other buildings once served the mystic purpose of protecting the building from evil, by warding off evil spirits. True, the gargoyles often served the dual purpose of waterspout, so that rainwater could be channeled away from the building. Of course, the image of Themis serves no such purpose. She really is more of a traditional gargoyle....a spirit image designed to protect the Federal edifice.
Themis is a classic example of the goddess in America ( or is that the goddess of America?) In other words, she's but another representation of Lady Justice, who is Lady Liberty, who is Columbia, who is Athena, who is also Diana, who is also Ceres who is The Eternal Virgin who is Isis. Amazing. A massive, modern building erected by the government on September 13, 2002, still pays homage to an ancient pagan diety who must be one of the most powerful objects of worship of all time. Who says the Old gods are dead?