The Goddess

Paleolithic Goddesses

The "venuses" of Dolni Vestonice, Willendorff, Lespugue (2), and Laussel date from inter-Gravitean Solutrean

20000-18000 B.C.

“VENUS” or FEMALE FIGURINES ?

The distinctive features consist of breasts, buttocks, bellies and vulvas, emphasized and greatly exaggerated

The extremities: head, arms, hands, legs and feet, are very much diminished or missing

Because these figures are often faceless, and sometimes headless, the images are probably signs of WOMAN rather than images of women.

Woman, Doll or Goddess?

Earth mother or mother goddess? Fertility symbol or charm? Some figurines daubed with red

ochre in vulva area -- connection with menstrual cycle?

Tradition of making figurines lasted 17,000 years

Left hand rests on pregnant belly

Venus of Laussel20,000-

18,000 bce

Right hand holds a horn marked with 13 lines: 13 lunar months in a year.

§ MATRIARCHY: pre-eminence of the mother -- Mütterrecht -- “Mother-right”

‡ PATRIARCHY: pre-eminence of the father as the head and authority in the family

§ MATRILINEAL: descent and inheritance through the mother’s line

‡ PATRILINEAL: descent and inheritance through the father’s line

§ MATRISTIC: honoring and sacralizing the feminine aspect of motherhood and nurturing

‡ PATRISTIC: honoring and sacralizing the masculine aspect of fatherhood and authority

GYLANY

A culture which values equally the masculine and feminine natures (term used by Riane Eisler in The

Chalice and the Blade and by others to describe the social relationships in Old European culture and other Neolithic cultures that might serve as a model

for evolving human relationships)

GAIA HYPOTHESIS

Earth is not so much a planet adorned with diverse life forms, but a planet which has been transfigured

and transformed by a self-evolving and self-regulating living system. In view of the nature of

this activity, Earth seems to qualify as a living organism its own right. Life has modified and been

modified by the biosphere, a process called coevolution. The organisms that survive and thrive

on the planet are those that help maintain the biosphere in a way that is favorable for life.

All living things are interrelated and dependent on each other.

First proposed by James Lovelock in the 1970sNamed for the Greek Goddess of the Earth

The Scholarly Trail

§ 1851: Lewis H. Morgan, The League of the Ho-dé-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois

§ 1861: J. J. Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht§ 1927: Robert Briffault, The Mothers: A Study of

the Origins of Sentiment and Institutions§ 1948: Robert Graves, The White Goddess§ 1970s : James Lovelock, The Gaia Hypothesis§ 1974: Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods

of Old Europe§ 1976: Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman§ 1988: Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade

Aspects of the Goddess§ Fertility-giver: pregnant nude § Birth-giver: naturalistic birth-giving pose§ Life-giver/Protectress: bird-woman with

breasts and protuding buttocks§ Nurturer/Mother: mother and child§ Death-wielder: stiff nude, “bone”§ Symbols: vulvas, triangles, breasts,

chevrons, zig-zags, meanders, cupmarks, spirals

Great Mother Labyrin

th of Time

Bannerby

Wahaba Karuna

http://www.motherkalis.com/Flags_4.html

Snake Goddess of Life/Death and Wisdom:

snake symbolizes sacred energy, primordial and mysterious

Southeast Asia

NEOLITHIC CULTUREbegins ca. 10,000 bp

Also referred to as the New Stone Age Ground and polished stone tools Settled villages with domesticated plants and animals Development of pottery and weaving Megalithic architecture Evidence of mother-earth/goddess religion The end of the Neolithic period is marked by the use

of writing, metal tools, and the rise of urban civilization

Spread of Neolithic Culturebce: before Common Era

The earliest known development of Neolithic culture was in SW Asia between 8000 and 6000 bce.

In the Tigris and Euphrates river valleys, Neolithic culture developed into the urban civilizations of the Bronze Age by 3500 bce.

Between 6000 and 2000 bce Neolithic culture spread through Europe, the Nile valley (Egypt), the Indus valley (India), and the Huang He valley (N China).

In the New World, the domestication of plants and animals occurred independently of Old World developments. By 1500 bce, Neolithic cultures were present in Mexico and South America

Lifestyle ChangesDependency on few plantsGreater vulnerability to weatherComplete dependency on harvest timesNeed for hard physical laborLarger familiesExpanded “tool kit”Wealth and property become meaningful

The Agricultural Revolution:Village Life

Sedentism: living in one place Opportunities:

Accumulation of food and wealth Development of new skills Specialization

Challenges: Close quarters: need for

community organization Epidemics Protection

Çatalhöyük ca. 8,000-7,000 bce

Çatalhöyük means 'forked mound' and is the modern name for the site of an ancient city in the country of Turkey, ancient Anatolia.

First discovered and excavated by James Mellaart in 1950s and 1960s

Archaeologists believe the ancient city covered an area the size of 50 soccer fields.

Enthroned Çatalhöyük Goddess

Hierosgamossacred marriage between the goddess and the king

The goddess represents the sovereignty of the land. Marriage of the king and the goddess ensures the

fertility of the land. Kings held power only by virtue of their association

with a continuing female line, which is thus immortal both by childbirth and by genealogy, while the male remains transient and mortal likewise on both counts.

Traditions of transient sacred kingships interrupted by human sacrifice are an expression of this motif.

Immortal earth goddess -- Dying and resurrected vegetation god-king

InannaThe earliest written version of a hierosgamos

story is that of the Sumerian Inanna -- told in The Descent of Inanna and in The Epic of Gilgamesh

Other versions include the story if Ishtar and Tammuz, Isis and Osiris, Venus and Adonis, and Celtic tales including the Arthurian legend Elements of the sacred marriage are included in the Old Testament Song of Songs.

The Goddess“… a potential being who exists in all of us and

who, since the beginning of human history, has emerged in varying degrees into consciousness in the many and diverse forms cultural forms to which we apply the word goddess in the sense of female deity… a being who is Goddess as opposed to God, a force who long preceded her male counterpart as an appropriate metaphor for the Great Mystery of Existence….

The Goddess

…who contains and celebrates light and dark, life and death, male and female, and

whose source is the inner depths rather than the airy heights.”

David Leeming and Jake Page, “Introduction,” Goddess