The Living GoddessesThe Living Goddesses crowns a lifetime of innovative, influential work by one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable scholars. Marija Gimbutas wrote and taught with rare clarity in her original—and originally shocking—interpretation of prehistoric European civilization. Gimbutas flew in the face of contemporary archaeology when she reconstructed goddess-centered cultures that predated historic patriarchal cultures by many thousands of years. This volume, which was close to completion at the time of her death, contains the distillation of her studies, combined with new discoveries, insights, and analysis. Editor Miriam Robbins Dexter has added introductory and concluding remarks, summaries, and annotations. The first part of the book is an accessible, beautifully illustrated summation of all Gimbutas's earlier work on "Old European" religion, together with her ideas on the roles of males and females in ancient matrilineal cultures. The second part of the book brings her knowledge to bear on what we know of the goddesses today—those who, in many places and in many forms, live on. |
Contents
Images of Goddesses and Gods | 3 |
Symbols Signs and Sacred Script | 43 |
The Tomb and the Womb | 55 |
Temples | 72 |
Sacred Stone and Wood Ceremonial Centers | 99 |
Matrilineal Social Structure as Mirrored in Religion and Myth | 112 |
The Living Goddesses | 127 |
The Mtnoan Religion in Crete | 131 |
The Basque Religion | 172 |
The Celtic Religion | 176 |
The Germanic Religion | 188 |
The Baltic Religion | 197 |
EDITORS AFTERWORD | 215 |
EDITORS NOTES | 217 |
GLOSSARY | 231 |
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY | 235 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aegean altar ancient animals anthropomorphic appear archaeologists Artemis artifacts Baltic Basque bird goddess birth bones British Archaeological Reports Bronze Age bull burial Çatal Hüyük cave Celtic central century B.C. ceramic circa classical clay Crete Cucuteni dating death and regeneration decorated deities depicted ditch divine early enclosures Etruscan Euro excarnation excavated female fifth millennium B.C. Figure figurines Freyja frog goddess of death goddesses and gods graves Greece Greek horns human images Indo-European island Kaukas Knossos Laima language Lepenski Vir Linear Lithuanian male Maltese Marija Gimbutas masks matrilineal megalithic tombs meters millennia Minoan Minoan culture Mnajdra monuments mother Mycenaean myth Neolithic Old Europe Old European cultures Old European script Ozieri painted pean portrayed pottery Prehistoric priestesses Ragana regenerative religion religious represent ritual Roman roundels sacred sanctuary sculptures Sesklo shape shrines snake stone symbols temple models triangles Upper Paleolithic vases Vinča culture vulva western women worshiped Zeus