The ancients themselves had raised the question whether the Skira were sacred to Athene or to Demeter and Kore. This question is not really relevant to our enquiry; Athene, as will be seen later, when the ‘making of a goddess’ is discussed, is simply ἡ Ἀθηναία κόρη, the κόρη, the _maiden of Athens_, and any festival of any Kore—any maiden—would early attach itself to her. More important is the question, What does the word σκίρα mean? Two solutions are offered. The scholiast on Aristophanes[344] says σκίρον means the same as σκιάδειον, umbrella, and the feast and the month took that name from the fact that at a festival of Demeter and Kore on the 12th of Skirophorion, the priest of Erechtheus carried a white umbrella. A white umbrella is a slender foundation for a festival, but the element of white points in the right direction. The scholiast on the _Wasps_ of Aristophanes[345] commenting on σκῖρον has a happier thought: he says a certain sort of white earth, like gypsum, is called σκιρράς, and Athene is called Σκιρράς inasmuch as she is daubed with white, from a similarity in the name. The same notion of white earth appears in the notice of the _Etymologicon Magnum_ on the month _Skirophorion_, ‘the name of a month among the Athenians; it is so called from the fact that in it Theseus carried σκίραν by which is meant gypsum. For Theseus, coming from the Minotaur, made an Athene of gypsum, and carried it and as he made it in this month it is called Skirophorion.’ But, it will be asked, supposing it be granted that Skira means things made of gypsum and Skirophoria the carrying of such things, what, in the name of common sense, has this to do with a festival of women analogous to the Thesmophoria? Dr A. Mommsen[346], who first emphasized this etymology, proposes that the white earth was used as manure; this, though possible and ingenious, seems scarcely satisfactory. I would suggest another connection. The scholiast on Lucian has told us that the surrogates deposited in the _megara_ were shaped out of paste made of grain. Is it not possible that the Σκίρα were such surrogates made of gypsum alone or part gypsum, part flour-paste? That such a mixture was manufactured for food we learn from Pliny[347]. In discussing the preparation of _alica_ from _zea_ (spelt) he says, ‘astonishing statement, it is mixed with chalk.’ In the case of a coarse sort of _zea_ from Africa, the mixture was made in the proportion of a quarter of gypsum to three of _zea_. If this suggestion be correct, the Skirophoria is simply a summer Thesmophoria.