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If you are a follower of this blog, you may be aware that I am an archaeologist. You may also be aware that association with this career has its disadvantages, and these disadvantages may involve interactions with other humans.
I mean the hilarious ‘where’s your whip?’ joke, for one ...
But mostly, there is the problem with a knowledge gap, as archaeologists spend years learning specific stuff and following the latest research into that stuff, whereas the public, via the media, is fed a blend of sensational interpretations of a bit of that stuff (the sexy topics ramped up with interesting adjectives), combined with out of date data and more than a healthy dash of fantasy.
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| Minoan 'snake goddess', Egyptian Isis, 'Venus' of Willendorf, Babylonian goddess. |
Therefore,
online things can escalate pretty quickly.
In fact, I began writing
this blog to avoid the shambles of social media interaction.
However, this
gap between academic writing and popular culture means there is a need
for us to share information in a way that is legible … and that is why
this blog exists... I write it because some people are quite receptive
to information and I dislike arguing with strangers.
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| Terra (Earth) by Bigatti 1827 & Cybele in Lenormant 1867 Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art antique. |
The goddess
This is an introduction to the origins of the Great Mother Goddess myth, a
topic that is no longer de rigueur in archaeology, except as an
intellectual exercise (history of research), yet refuses to die gracefully
elsewhere. As a result it is one topic that can get me in trouble, due to its not matching the public's accepted view of prehistory.
If
you are new to this myth (which I doubt), it is the idea that prehistoric cultures were matriarchal, and that they worshipped one
Great Goddess whose divine aspects were Maiden, Mother
and Crone. This myth argues that later European and Near Eastern goddesses are derived from
the prehistoric goddess.
It is also no longer restricted to prehistory (by which I mean the time before written 'history').
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| Roman Tellus 'Mother Earth', from Carthage & on the Ara Pacis in Rome. |
This myth is thoroughly embedded in modern culture, popping up all over in art, literature, film and music, from the early 20th century until today.
In
order to keep it brief, there will be no attempt at naming everyone who
has contributed, the list is gigantic. For more thorough
overviews I recommend reading Eller (2000 & 2011), Davies 2005, 2010, Röder, Hummel
& Kunz (1996), or Hutton (1997).
I will also not touch the subtleties of matriarchal theory. This is an introduction, and past proponents of this myth don't seem to really understand the distinctions anyway.
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| Isis in Kirchner Oedipus Aegyptiacus 1652. Earth in Maier Atalanta Fugiens 1618. |
Classical authors: The Syrian Goddess and co
To begin we need to travel back 2000+ years to the ultimate source, Classical literature.
To a time when Greek and Roman writers were highly parochial in their outlook, so when they wrote colourful tales of earlier Mediterranean history or foreign lands and their strange religions there was little need for accuracy, or even for first-hand experience.
This means that shaggy-dog tales share equal space with sort of-accurate historical narrative. And othering foreigners was a big part of this space, combined with illustrating how cool Athens (or Rome) is and how backward and primitive it used to be until patriarchy and Greek democracy made everything nice.
This means that shaggy-dog tales share equal space with sort of-accurate historical narrative. And othering foreigners was a big part of this space, combined with illustrating how cool Athens (or Rome) is and how backward and primitive it used to be until patriarchy and Greek democracy made everything nice.
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Achilles kills the Amazon queen, Charles
Cockerell 1811-1815.
copied from a Classical relief at Bassae,
British Museum. |
Livid descriptions of matriarchy and female rule were part of those approaches, for example the Amazons, very popular in arts and literature - never the good guys. Or the cults of goddesses like Mylitta in Babylon, Atargatis in Hierapolis, or Astarte in Byblos – shocking licentious behaviour.
If you read any early modern discussion of ancient goddesses, goddess cult and female rule you will no doubt come across the writings of the usual suspects, such as Lucian (Syrian Goddess), Strabo (Geography), Plutarch (Isis & Osiris), Diodorus (Historical Library) and Herodotus (Histories).
They also introduced the bad girl foreign queens, such as Cleopatra, Nitocris, and Semiramis. The latter a 'proud and promiscuous' half-divine Mesopotamian queen who would over centuries become equated with the evils of female rule, with the goddesses Ishtar and Astarte and the Biblical Whore of Babylon, depending on who was looking.
She would evolve into the definition of wickedness and debauchery in Christian European writing and as a result, with Amazons and sacred prostitution, passing into 18th-19th century art, literature, melodrama and opera as a leading tragic figure (Asher-Greve 2006). Which is where she enters this topic.
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| Hislop 1871, The Two Babylons. |
Along with the Christian Bible, these famous Greek and Roman historians and mythographers were the sole sources for western information about the ancient world until the 19th century when European adventurers began exploring unknown cultures, digging up ancient ruins and deciphering dead languages, finally comparing reality with myth.
But it was an ill fit.
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Völker, & Lenormant 1867 Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art antique. |
19th century Europe
This is when everything really begins for this myth. A time when archaeology was in its infancy, committedly Euro-centric, and in an incestuous relationship with antiquarianism (collecting old foreign stuff), colonialism, and both Biblical and Classical studies.
The latter having put in about 2000 years of promoting the idea that matriarchy was bad and patriarchy good. A time when Europeans really knew very little about the ancient world or other cultures and social structures.
Eduard Gerhard
The first reference to the Goddess, or rather the Göttermutter - the ‘Meter Theon' ('Mother of Gods’) / 'Magna Mater' ('Great Mother') - likely occurred in 1849 in an academic lecture presented at the Royal Academy of Science in Berlin by Classical archaeologist Eduard Gerhard.
This was published in 1851 as ‘On the Metroon in Athens and on the Mother of Gods of Greek Mythology’ (my translation). In which Gerhard proposed that the many
goddesses of the Greek Classical period, such as Dione, Rhea, Themis, Artemis, Aphrodite, Demeter, Hera etc, must have originally stemmed from one primitive Earth and mother goddess: Gaia.
He later repeated this theory in 1855 in a more general study Griechische Mythologie ('Greek Mythology').
While Gerhard did not invent the idea of Mother Earth, as this was embedded in European literary lore, he did lay the foundation for the myth of the Great Goddess by arguing that the attraction of the cult of the Phrygian mother of gods (Cybele/Magna Mater) for Athenians was that the many Greek goddesses had originally stemmed from one earlier goddess of creation and fertility.
To argue this theory, he used the previously mentioned Classical literature, as well as examples from Greek and Roman architecture and art, because that is pretty much all they had in 1851.
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| 'The Judgement of Paris' Lenormant 1867 Chefs d'oeuvre de l'art antique. |
Gerhard proposed that the 3 goddesses of the mythical Judgement of Paris - Hera (mother/wife), Aphrodite (lover) and Pallas Athena (virgin warrior) -
represented aspects of this goddess, and that the Cretan god Zeus was
originally the Great Mother's divine child.
He also argued that cosmic
globes (Earth/Moon) and round things (no, really), like apples, tambourines and
pomegranates were important symbols of this goddess. In addition, not round things, like serpents and phalluses were associated with this cult.
Sound familiar?
This rationale of a Greco-Anatolian ‘mother of gods’, who later evolved into multiple divine aspects set the stage for the idea to develop and was soon followed by an academic who was influenced by Gerhard, both from the publications and through correspondence with the man himself (Eller 2011, Hutton 1997, Stagl 1990).
Bachofen and Das Mutterrecht
In 1861, Johann Bachofen, a wealthy Swiss antiquarian and juristic scholar specialising in Roman law, published ‘The Maternal Law (or Mother Right): An Investigation of the Religious and Juridical Character of Gynocracy in the Ancient World’.
This was a lengthy exercise in cultural evolution based on the battle
of the sexes ('Kampf der Geschlechter'), and he argued for 3 stages of social development, from primitive chaos to civilisation. These stages were called
Hetairism, Gynocracy and Androcracy. The earliest involved forms of egalitarian polygamy or matriarchy, and the worship of a chthonic 'marsh' goddess, the final stage involved patriarchy and ascendant male gods.
It is possible to see a few influences here. The first is obviously Gerhard, although the mother of gods was not really his primary objective, instead Bachofen’s intention was to use Classical sources to define early gynocracy or 'maternal law', goddess worship, and to warn against these (those pesky suffragettes).
The other influences were 19th century social evolutionary theories, and a classical education. For Bachofen has taken Hesiod’s Ages - Gold, Silver, Bronze, Demi-gods and Men - and flipped it on the head, devising his own theory which has culture develop from promiscuity and chaos to sensible masculine order.
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| Bachofen 1861, fig 1. |
Bachofen’s longwinded argument (I could have said tedious) went much further than the Classical period and included earlier Crete, Anatolia, the Near East, Egypt and Asia. And when I say ‘earlier’, I do not mean the Neolithic, or even the Bronze Age, as Bachofen generously considered many, if not all, pre-Classical Greek cultures to have been matriarchal.
Nonetheless,
for the social and religious habits of these ancient cultures he was
almost entirely dependent on the standard Classical and Biblical
sources. Remember, the big excavations hadn't happened yet, Crete,
Mycenae, Troy in Anatolia, much of Egypt and the Near East were blank
slates, almost only Classical art and architecture were available to research.
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| Whut? |
As a result of these limited sources, Bachofen considered ancient Egypt to be the land that was best representative of stereotypical gynocracy … lol … Arguing that Egyptian queens (like 'Nitocris', 'Amessis', 'Nefruari') had disproportionately high status and power because - 'the queen should have greater power and honour than the king' - and - 'the wife should enjoy authority over her husband'.
His sources for this were naturally Diodorus (above Library 1.27.2), Manetho, Plutarch, Herodotus and co.
However, much to Bachofen's chagrin, Das Mutterrecht was not received with enthusiasm by the field of ancient history, with some academics finding his intuitive approach rather questionable, and his lack of interest in accurate philology and etymology raised hackles (Stagl 1990). Therefore, the goddess had to wait almost 50 years to attract interest from historians.
In
fact, it is quite surprising that Bachofen’s theories had such a profound impact when this wasn’t his intention at all.
His unwieldy binary model
of -
matriarchy vs patriarchy
passive female vs active male
dark vs light
earth/moon vs sky/sun
night vs day
bad vs good
primitive chaos vs civilised order
passive female vs active male
dark vs light
earth/moon vs sky/sun
night vs day
bad vs good
primitive chaos vs civilised order
yadda yadda,
- and uninformed vision of prehistory were intended as a warning to his social peers, and matriarchy as an example of moral inferiority, yet Das Mutterrecht impacted enormously on critical and not so critical thought over the next century and a half.
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| Semiramis - 1860 opera by Rossini, and in Hell by Jose Casado del Alisal 1830-1886. |
Context
However, I will also emphasise that the classicists Eduard Gerhard and Johann Bachofen were products of their time.
However, I will also emphasise that the classicists Eduard Gerhard and Johann Bachofen were products of their time.
In 1861 when Das Mutterrecht was published Darwin had just gone public with The Origin of the Species, Dickens was publishing serials about chronic social hardship, in many places it was still okay for rich people to own other human beings, and women had just begun to fight for the right to a life beyond servitude to a husband and household (hence Bachofen’s concern).
Oh, and Cleopatra and Semiramis were some of the most popular melodramatic tragedies in Europe, with interpretations by Voltaire, Vivaldi, Rossini and Crébillon.
Oh, and Cleopatra and Semiramis were some of the most popular melodramatic tragedies in Europe, with interpretations by Voltaire, Vivaldi, Rossini and Crébillon.
Promiscuous female rulers who come to nasty ends were all the rage.
Reception of Bachofen in 19th c. ethnology and socialism
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| August Bebel 1897, Alexis Giraud-Teulon 1867 and Friedrich Engels 1877. |
Reception of Bachofen in 19th c. ethnology and socialism
While not well received among historians, Bachofen’s theory was taken up in 19th century studies of human society and social evolution.
The first probably being by the French lawyer and historian Alexis Giraud-Teulon with La mère chez certains peoples de l’antiquité ('The Mother among Certain Peoples of Antiquity' 1867), and later Les Origines du mariage et de la famille ('The Origins of Marriage and the Family' 1886)
Using Das Mutterrecht as his model, Giraud-Teulon put a racial spin on Bachofen's matriarchal theory and proposed that invading Indo-European and Semitic peoples had imposed patriarchy upon the earlier prehistoric goddess worshipping matriarchies of the Mediterranean region.
Using Das Mutterrecht as his model, Giraud-Teulon put a racial spin on Bachofen's matriarchal theory and proposed that invading Indo-European and Semitic peoples had imposed patriarchy upon the earlier prehistoric goddess worshipping matriarchies of the Mediterranean region.
Unfortunately, this trope stuck, and variations on it began to appear in academic publications from this period.
Subsequently, US anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan used Bachofen as a source for his study Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family (1871) and the following Ancient Society (1877).
In these Morgan argued that matriarchy was the earliest and most primitive stage of social development, and proposed his own 3 stage theory of cultural evolution from Savagery (earliest humans, hunters and gatherers), to Barbarism (sedentism, pottery, plant and animal domestication) and finally Civilisation (the phonetic alphabet, industry and art).
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| According to this model, Bronze Age Egypt and Sumer were barbaric! |
This argument was largely based on comparison to early anthropological studies of 'primitive' living tribal cultures in Australasia, central and northern America, on Classical texts associated with Roman and Greek kinship law, and, of course, the weird things foreigners did in the past from Herodotus and Strabo.
Morgan's model, as well as input from Giraud-Teulon and Bachofen, was picked up by founder of Socialism, Friedrich Engels, using notes from Karl Marx, in Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats im Anschluss an Lewis H. Morgan’s Forschungen ('The Origin of the Family' 1877).
And then later by August Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus ('Woman and Socialism' 1879) and Woman in the Past, Present and Future (1897).
Back in France, the ethnologist and anthropologist Charles Letourneau published his own take on primitive matriarchy and promiscuity with La sociologie d'après l'ethnographie ('Sociology Based on Ethnology' 1880), and later L'èvolution de l'mariage et de la famille ('The Evolution of Marriage and the Family' 1888), in which he expanded upon Morgan and Giraud-Teulon's theories, inclusive of such classics as hetairism, sacred prostitution, naughty Amazons and Egyptian gynocracy... and, well, much of the above mentioned, really.
Bebel and Letourneau, in turn, were influential on the matriarchal theories of the theosophist and feminist Francis Swiney, in The Awakening of Women, or Woman’s Part in Evolution (1899), although her input was largely limited to assumptions regarding reverence of the mother in primitive cultures and worship of mother goddesses (eg. Isis, Ishtar, Mylitta, Cybele and Aphrodite) (Albrecht 2023).
Further, Morgan, Giraud-Teulon, Letourneau,
Engels and Bebel, each influenced by Bachofen’s prehistoric
matriarchy, used Greek and Roman sources to illustrate their arguments
about ancient social morals, with emphasis on sacred prostitution as religious duty (part of hetaerism).
Again, I will point out that Herodotus is not a reliable source (as is very clear above with the nonsense about Khufu's daughter), and I might add that a pharaoh forcing his daughter into prostitution for financial gain is a questionable argument for women having had more social power than men.
Yet Bachofen and his successors seem to believe it is... How low was the bar in 1897?
Herodotus is an important source of these myths of immoral foreign queens and the weirder uses for prostitution. But in his defence, he said nothing about sacrificing virginity or the 'rights to chastity' luridly
described by these gentlemen. That embellishment is flavoured by specifically 19th century European values.
James Frazer and the dying priest king
The next scholar to contribute to the myth of a primeval Mother Goddess has to be the forefather of all things anthropological and, to give credit where credit is due, he is also the father of modern paganism.
In fact, he literally wrote the damn book.
His voluminous study of comparative religion The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion was published in 2 volumes in 1890, 3 in 1900, and 12 volumes from 1911-1915. It is still in print today. I can claim to have an abridged copy (pictured above right), and struggled through this as a teenager.
Because, like Bachofen, it is enormous yet not engaging reading (it is also painfully dated).
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| 'prostitute themselves', 'orgy of lust', 'harlotry'. |
In The Golden Bough
the usual suspects, Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus, Lucian and co, were dusted off and
cited as evidence for the cult practices and natures of ancient
cultures and their goddesses.
Again, it should be remembered that at the end of the 19th
century our archaeological knowledge still depended largely on Classical and
Biblical sources… and it shows ... His other sources were the fledgling
studies of living tribal cultures that western colonialists (like Morgan) were
just beginning to document and publish.
Frazer
was a classicist with his own theory of
social evolution. He argued that religious belief progressed through 3 stages from the simplest: Primitive Magic and Totemism, which was
subsequently replaced by Organised Religion, which was then superseded by rational Science.
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| So much unpleasantness to unpack here. |
The Mother Goddess is only sparingly represented in the Bough, and she is largely associated with Phrygian Cybele/Magna Mater. But she is essential to his argument of grotesque and immoral religious rites in early history having influenced later western religion.
He does however energetically reinforce the Classical era fusion of Aphrodite, Cybele, Mylitta, Astarte, Isis and Ishtar into one great fertility goddess, virgin and mother, whose male consort was a dying and reborn god and sacred king who must be sacrificed to guarantee the solar and vegetation cycles.
He does however energetically reinforce the Classical era fusion of Aphrodite, Cybele, Mylitta, Astarte, Isis and Ishtar into one great fertility goddess, virgin and mother, whose male consort was a dying and reborn god and sacred king who must be sacrificed to guarantee the solar and vegetation cycles.
Frazer's emphasis on barbaric practices, savagery and 'primitive' social development was a product of Victorian social evolutionary thinking, and was influenced by earlier theories of fertility goddesses and prehistoric social inferiority.
Nonetheless, his Golden Bough on comparative religion continues to be published and still resonates today, even though his ideas on ancient religion have not stood the test of time nor are they backed up by subsequent research (for good critiques see Budin & Tully 2024).
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| 'mother-goddess presiding over births'!!! Assyriologist Morris Jastrow. |
Transition to the 20th century
By the end of the 19th century
the influence of Ethnology, Classics and Biblical studies had resulted
in a general consensus about pre-Classical goddesses as maternal figures
in academic literature, and in the casual use of 'mother goddess' or
'Mother of the Gods' to describe Near Eastern, Egyptian, Anatolian and
Aegean goddesses.
This was not aided by the, now obsolete, general belief in western academia that 'civilisation' must have started somewhere specific (like in Sumer or Egypt) and spread from there north-westward to Greece and Rome, substantially reinforcing an assumption that the goddesses themselves were all derived from the one original cultural source.
It is also around this time that the term 'fertility goddess', like 'mother goddess', becomes a convenient label applied to any and all ancient goddesses regardless of identity, attributes or how much clothing they had on.
Cue archaeologists and historians adopting this approach.
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| The Judgement of Paris, Jane Harrison Prolegomena 1903. |
The 20th Century
Parallel to Frazer’s massive general study of ancient religion and the adoption of dubious blanket terminologies into historical studies, subsequent scholars took up Bachofen’s 'interesting' rationalisation and developed it to suit their own needs.
So it's basically all downhill from here.
At the end of the 19th century two British academics contributed significantly to the reinforcement of the idea of a prehistoric Great Goddess: Jane Harrison and Arthur Evans.
Jane Harrison and the primeval Mother
At
Cambridge the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison adapted Gerhard and
Bachofen’s ideas to her own research and laid the foundations for
analysis of the origins of ancient Greek myth in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903), repeated in Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion (1912).
In
these books Harrison argued that the early Aegean was inhabited by a peaceful
matriarchal society worshipping a primitive nature and Earth goddess who
was often shown accompanied by a male child or youth (kouros) - Attis, Zeus, Adonis.
This idyllic
ancient society was later conquered and suppressed by incoming
patriarchal tribes who modified the previous mythology, with gods supplanting the Goddess.
While
considered progressive for her time (the Victorian era), Harrison still modelled patriarchy
and the Greek state (the polis) as reflections of civilisation and social advancement.
To add insult to injury, she is also the likely source for the idea that
this ancient goddess, Gaia, Themis, Rhea, Cybele, bore 3 aspects related
to the (stereotypical) female life cycle (see above). Although she placed emphasis on the Mother and Maiden (Demeter and Kore), and little upon the third aspect, the 'grandmother' (Maia).
It is also possible to
argue that Gerhard may take some credit for starting that ball rolling in 1849 with his observation about the 3 goddesses of the Judgement of Paris.
Arthur Evans and the Minoan utopia
In the early 20th century a contemporary of Harrison, Oxford archaeologist Arthur Evans excavated the Bronze Age site of Knossos in Crete (1900-1921), and bequeathed us a legacy of tree hugging matriarchal Minoans which even now is difficult for archaeology to shake off in his Palace of Minos at Knossos (1921-1935).
.jpg)
This
Victorian gentleman interpreted the absence of combat scenes and the
presence of high status female figures in ritual scenes in Minoan iconography as indicative of
an idyllic and peaceful society ruled by a priest-king, in which women held important religious roles, and a
multi-aspected mother goddess was worshipped.
His Great Goddess was three-fold, representing youth, maturity and decline, and the birth, death and regeneration of nature. She was naturally associated with motherhood, fertility, virginity, snakes and a youth god/kouros, her son or lover. But also double
axes, doves and sacred trees, with bulls as symbols of the boy god.
The
discovery of bare breasted faience ‘snake goddesses’ (it is disputed
that they are goddesses) from a temple repository at Knossos also augmented his
fertility goddess rationalisation (breasts and snakes), although Evans only
identified the larger figurine as a goddess, the others he suggested
were votaries or priestesses (of the goddess).
The extensive restorations of these figures and of the palace frescos by the 'resourceful' excavation restorers were also designed to reinforce this concocted vision of a utopian Minoan Crete that interestingly still retained a Victorian style patriarch 'priest king' in charge (see Sinclair 2013 here).
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| This is for the (mis)interpretation of the Descent of Ishtar myth. |
Ishtar descended clothed to the Underworld, was stripped by the doorkeeper
and killed. The Waters of Life were used by a god to revive her corpse.
As contemporaries, it is difficult to judge how influential Harrison and Evans were upon each other, or who influenced whom, but Evan’s conclusions were additionally influenced by findings of naked ‘fertility’ figures of so-called 'Mother Goddesses' from widely unrelated Neolithic sites in the Balkans and Middle Bronze Age Iraq.
Again, these publications by Harrison and Evans contributed considerable fuel to the idea within the wider public and some scholarship that matriarchal societies and a Mother Goddess preceded patriarchy in prehistory. From 1900 the fertile mother goddess is entangled in a variety of disciplines and publications.
Back to the Classics:
Lucian and The Syrian Goddess
The next small step in the fictionalisation of an ancient ‘Mother Goddess’ is Herbert Strong and John Garstang’s translation of Roman satirist Lucian of Samosata’s The Syrian Goddess (de Dea Syria) in 1913.
While there is no reason that a translation of a Classical text by respectable archaeologists should affect the spread of a myth, apart from making an obscure text accessible to the general public, the introduction to this book adequately illustrates popular thought at that time:
This marks the adoption of fertility and mother goddess ‘theology’ proper into some Near Eastern studies and may be illustrated by Assyriologist Stephen Langdon’s flawed discussion of the Sumerian pantheon under ‘Babylonian and Assyrian Religion’ in the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1929 where the Sumerian goddess Inana is generously gifted attributes of the Virgin Mary - like virginity...
...lol...
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| Assyriologist Stephen Langdon 1929 |
For
the uninitiated, Sumerian Inana/Semitic Ishtar was a high ranking goddess of kingship, sexuality and
battle. She was not associated with motherhood, virginity or divine mercy, rather
she was complex and unpredictable, and could be more severe and wrathful than most gods.
The shepherd god Dumuzi/Tammuz was her
husband.
In the early 20th century translations of myths related to this high ranking and complex goddess were still very much a work in progress, so the interpretations of these texts may be similarly faulty and biased.
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| 'obscene rites' Assyriologist Morris Jastrow. |
The three examples given here show the influence of 19th century values on early 20th century historical writing and within Assyriology. They are another very good reason for caution when relying on old free-to-read online research.
100+ years is a very long time in archaeology.
Donald Mackenzie
Following
this embarrassing trend was the Scottish journalist and folklorist Donald Mackenzie
who published general historical overviews including Myths of Babylon and Assyria (1915) and Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe (1917)
in which he built upon the Goddess predecessors - citing Bachofen, Frazer, Jastrow, Evans and
Hall, to argue that the Near Eastern and European
Neolithic periods were matriarchal right up until the brutal invasions of the patriarchal Indo-Europeans.
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| 'unmoral rites' |
Naturally, this was done in combination with citing the same Classical sources - Herodotus,
Strabo, Lucian etc - on the 'unmoral rites' of Anatolian and Near Eastern goddesses, their semi-divine violent and promiscuous queens and on temple prostitution.
Like many before him he gleefully reinforced the Classical trend of equating goddesses from widely diverse eastern Mediterranean cultures - Gaia, Rhea, Cybele, Ishtar, Tiamat, Astoreth, Astarte, Hathor, Nut - as all reflecting different aspects of one 'creatrix' and 'world mother' associated with prehistoric matriarchal culture.
Robert Briffault
In the early 20th century the idea of primitive societies being by nature matriarchal also took off within the discipline of anthropology with Robert Briffault’s 3 volume The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions in 1927. This was later republished in one volume as The Matriarchal Theory of Social Origins (1931).
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| 'ritual obscenities' vs 'feminine virtue' |
This medical doctor turned social anthropologist employed comparison with animal behaviour and, like Frazer and Morgan, early anthropological studies of living tribal cultures to argue that matriarchy universally preceded patriarchy in human prehistory. Naturally, to support this argument, there was also a healthy dose of citations from the usual suspects from the Classical world.
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| 'subjected to every indignity' |
Briffault also drew heavily from Bachofen's Mutterrecht and argued that 'primitive' cultures, ancient and modern, practiced a form of ancestor worship where each clan worshipped a form of primal mother.
For
ancient Greece and Rome, the influence of the theories of Classicists James Frazer and
Jane Harrison is clear, and for the Bronze Age Aegean and pre-Mycenaean
Minoan matriarchy, Briffault relied on the views of Arthur Evans and
Harold Hall.
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| Oh damn |
The latter, with Flinders Petrie, was also casually cited to argue that the
pharaonic Egyptians 'retained in a pronounced degree the (matriarchal and matrilinear) character of primitive societies'
up until the arrival of Alexander the Great and the Ptolemy pharaohs ...
...insert exasperated *facepalm* here...
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| Lenore Kühn Magna Mater 1928 & Helen Diner Mothers & Amazons 1965. |
Pre-WWII feminism and a bit of fascism
In 1928 the travel writer, anti-Semite, German nationalist and feminist Lenore Kühn (proving it is possible to be feminist, a bigot and solidly right wing) published her book Magna Mater drawing heavily upon Bachofen, but reinterpreting his model for her own inclinations by taking feminist ideas and making these a vehicle for nationalist propaganda.
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| Nothing says die for the glory of the Fatherland quite like this. |
As a result, she transposed the Great Goddess and ancient matriarchy onto a vision of an idyllic early Germany before it was overthrown by the Semitic patriarchy.
This book was a gateway drug into the mother cult of the National Socialist (Nazi) era, which, probably to Kühn's dismay, was in fact the polar opposite of empowering for women, instead forcing German women out of universities and the workforce, and back into the home to produce the new master race (Röder, Hummel & Kunz 1996, Schmidt 2002).
In 1932 Austrian journalist and theosophist Bertha Eckstein-Diener writing under the pseudonym Sir Galahad drew directly from Bachofen, Frazer, Evans, Briffault and the tired old Classical sources to publish what she considered to be the first ‘women’s cultural history’, Mutter und Amazonen: Ein Umriß Weiblicher Reiche.
In this book her primeval mother was, following Bachofen ... who else... both a Moon and Earth goddess, a 'black and white mother' of the night, moonlight, forests, marshes and chthonic fertility.
33 years later this book was republished in the US (1965) as Mothers and Amazons: The First Feminist History of Cultures under the pseudonym Helen Diner. The introduction to the English edition was written by mythologist Joseph Campbell and the choice was timely, as in the 60s the Goddess and matriarchy were experiencing a revival. But we are not there yet.
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| The White Goddess 1946 & 1970s editions |
Robert (von Ranke) Graves
In 1946 author and poet Robert Graves published his musings on ancient Greek, Roman and Celtic poetic inspiration in The White Goddess. This novel ranks with Frazer’s Golden Bough as the handbook of reconstructing ancient paganism for a modern audience, or at least it was for me.
It is an elaborate exercise in ‘poetic grammar’, by defining the idea of an omnipotent Triple Goddess as muse and patroness of poets. But equally, his definitions of this Goddess (generously yoinked from Jane Harrison): maiden, nymph/lover, hag, served as the model for later Goddess neo-paganism and 70s feminism.
In this book Graves’ argument centred on Classical myth as an influence upon early Irish and Welsh myth and prose, and I probably do not need to point out his literary inspirations – with Frazer, Evans, Harrison and the Classics well represented.
He also drew widely from Biblical, Hebrew mystic and Near Eastern mythological sources and for British archaeology cited private correspondence with the archaeologist Christopher Hawkes (see further on under the purveyor of British prehistoric matriarchy, Jacquetta Hawkes).
How his matriarchal goddess worshippers arrived in Britain is barely explained, nor is the chronology consistent, but where they came from is clear – Minoan Crete. These people, the ‘Danaan’, and their goddess supposedly arrived in Britain sometime towards the end of the 3rd millennium, or in the middle of the 2nd.
However, to argue similarities between Greek, British and Hebrew myths, he also includes a group of matriarchal merchants, the Peoples of the Sea, who on being displaced from the Aegean at various dates in the Middle Bronze Age settled Syria, Canaan, and later Ireland and Britain.... Aaaargh
However, to argue similarities between Greek, British and Hebrew myths, he also includes a group of matriarchal merchants, the Peoples of the Sea, who on being displaced from the Aegean at various dates in the Middle Bronze Age settled Syria, Canaan, and later Ireland and Britain.... Aaaargh
Regardless, the matriarchal Aegean
was supposedly invaded by successive waves of patriarchal Indo-European
herdsmen from the Middle to Late Bronze Age (2000-1200 BCE). Britain on the
other hand was overrun some time during and after this.
To sum up, the chronology is a mess and the cultural attributions dodgy, although some blame must be laid with the general consensus of historical research at the time.
Graves went on to reinforce these views in his The Greek Myths published
in 1955, and still in reprint. It is a lovely read, scrupulously
combining most variations of Greek mythology and their ancient sources,
if overly filled with much interesting Bachofian Goddess speculation as
chapter endnotes.
I bought copies of these books in my teens and cannot say how many times I read them, I was charmed, and that charm drove me to read more … particularly the ancient sources. But in fact, it wasn’t until beginning my classics and archaeology degree that I discovered how tenuous these ideas were and their origins.
The Goddess expands her scope
From the 1950’s onwards psychologists, mythologists and classicists contributed their 2 cents worth to perpetuating Bachofen's myth.
In 1952, the classicist Karl Kerenyi published The Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion drawing directly from Bachofen, whom he had studied and published on in 1945. He went on to produce further publications related to the cult of the mother and maiden goddesses, Demeter and Core and their Eleusian mysteries.
In 1952, the classicist Karl Kerenyi published The Virgin and Mother in Greek Religion drawing directly from Bachofen, whom he had studied and published on in 1945. He went on to produce further publications related to the cult of the mother and maiden goddesses, Demeter and Core and their Eleusian mysteries.
The
Goddess entered psychological theory with a bang as the “Great Mother
Archetype” in publications by Carl Jung and Erich Neumann: while Jung
contributed a paper on this topic in 1955, Neumann went further with a chapter
on the Mother and Bachofen's matriarchy in The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954), which he later expanded into a book as The Great Mother (1955)
Mythographer Mircea Eliade published his own take with La terre-mère et les hierogamies cosmiques (‘The Earth Mother and Celestial Sacred Marriage’) in 1954, then reiterated the connection of the Mother Goddess to primitive cultures citing both Bachofen and Frazer in The Sacred and the Profane (1957) and Patterns in Comparative Religion (1958).
In 1959 anthropologist Edwin James published The Cult of the Mother
Goddess in which one all-powerful prehistoric mother goddess of the
Aegean, Egypt and Near East was argued to precede all other gods.
Combining the mythology of a wide range of ancient goddesses and
cultures to form the most versatile of ancient mothers ever.
 |
| Physician heal thyself? |
Each of these scholars was influenced in their theories by the Classics, by Biblical sources and by their predecessors; Harrison, Frazer, Evans and of course Bachofen.
Thus the myth of a Great Goddess presiding over idyllic and matriarchal cultures in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern Neolithic was substantially reinforced in the mid 20th century. This chthonic mother is variously a Moon, Underworld, harvest and vegetation goddess, and associated with a youthful male god: Attis, Baal, Tammuz, Osiris. He may be her son or lover, and bloodily sacrificed to maintain the seasonal cycle.
Thus the myth of a Great Goddess presiding over idyllic and matriarchal cultures in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern Neolithic was substantially reinforced in the mid 20th century. This chthonic mother is variously a Moon, Underworld, harvest and vegetation goddess, and associated with a youthful male god: Attis, Baal, Tammuz, Osiris. He may be her son or lover, and bloodily sacrificed to maintain the seasonal cycle.
However, we need to return to archaeology for the misuse of the Mother Goddess in the second half of the 20th century. Even though this was the same time as questions were being raised within anthropology and archaeology about the dodgy model.
Jacquetta Hawkes and the Old European Mother Goddess
In the 1940s an archaeologist specialising in Neolithic Europe, Jacquetta Hawkes, had published Prehistoric Britain (1944) with her archaeologist husband Christopher Hawkes in which matriarchal goddess worshippers from the Mediterranean were allocated a place in British prehistory. A year later she published a similar work as sole author, Early Britain (1945) essentially establishing herself in a prominent career in popular culture history writing.
Not unlike Mackenzie had 25 years earlier, in these books Hawkes assumed that the builders of Neolithic megalithic monuments in western Europe had worshipped a Great chthonic Mother Goddess whose ultimate prehistoric origin could be traced back to Crete, Egypt, Anatolia and the Near East. However, in these books this assumption is not explained in any depth.
She repeated the Mother Goddess trope in Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization, co-written with Near Eastern archaeologist Leonard Woolley in 1963, arguing that this religion, its cult and matriarchy proper held out longest against the threat of patriarchy in Bronze Age Crete but in western Europe succumbed at the end of the Neolithic with the arrival of warlike Indo-European groups.
 |
| Hawkes The Atlas of Early Man 1976. |
Later in 1968 she devoted an entire book to the topic, Dawn of the Gods: Minoan and Mycenaean Origins of Ancient Greece, in which she expanded upon her theories of prehistory in the Aegean, substantially influenced by Arthur Evans as well as the classicists and archaeologists already mentioned here.
In this book the goddess worshipping matriarchy of the “New Stone Age” evolved into the Minoan high culture of the 3rd and 2nd millennia only to be suppressed by “Achaean” Indo-European speaking patriarchs who had invaded Anatolia and the Greek mainland ca 2000 BCE. Later, as the Mycenaeans, the Achaeans integrated their gods with the Minoan Goddess and her cult.
This approach continued in her later broad reach publications on prehistory and world history, somewhat reinforced by the research of the following two archaeologists.
James Mellaart and Çatal Höyük
In the early 1960’s the archaeologist excavating the Neolithic site of Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, James Mellaart, described naked female figurines found in the Neolithic levels of the site as images of a supreme ‘Mother Goddess’. Displaying the influence of Graves and co. he rationalised this goddess was threefold and that the culture that inhabited the site was matriarchal.
Mellaart maintained his pro-triple goddess and prehistoric matriarchy stance resolutely for the rest of his sometimes controversial academic life in Çatal Hüyük, A Neolithic Town in Anatolia (1967), The Neolithic of the Near East (1975) and The Goddess from Anatolia (1989).
Mellaart maintained his pro-triple goddess and prehistoric matriarchy stance resolutely for the rest of his sometimes controversial academic life in Çatal Hüyük, A Neolithic Town in Anatolia (1967), The Neolithic of the Near East (1975) and The Goddess from Anatolia (1989).
Nonetheless, these claims have since been refuted by the next director of excavation, archaeologist Ian Hodder (2004, Meskell 1998), who has argued that Mellaart’s identifications are not actually supported by the evidence from the site.
In fact, the vast majority of figurines do not imitate the original mother goddess style touted by Mellaart, some figurines are misidentified as female, and there are many other figurines, not just those of naked women.
Instead of a Neolithic matriarchal culture, overseen by one great goddess, Hodder maintains that the site Çatal Höyük gives little indication of matriarchy or patriarchy, rather, the roles of women and of men appear to be relatively equivalent, with similar social standing.
Instead of a Neolithic matriarchal culture, overseen by one great goddess, Hodder maintains that the site Çatal Höyük gives little indication of matriarchy or patriarchy, rather, the roles of women and of men appear to be relatively equivalent, with similar social standing.
In
fact, academic criticism of the argument for a prehistoric mother goddess based on Neolithic and Bronze Age female figurines was not lacking in the 1960’s.
Anthropologist Peter
Ucko (1962 & 1968) and prehistorian
Andrew Fleming (1969) both argued
convincingly for a less narrow approach to interpreting artefacts and
burial culture.
Marija Gimbutas and Old Europe
Ten years after James Mellaart's excavations in Anatolia, the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas decisively finished the work that Gerhard and Bachofen so ably started, with her own take on the Goddess and matriarchy in The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (1974).
In this she argued that figurines from Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites of south-eastern Europe, the Balkans and Anatolia provide evidence for the important status of women in prehistory and the existence of a cult of a Great Goddess.
As is consistent with the original models, this triple goddess had three aspects related to fertility, death and regeneration and may be accompanied by a priapic god or youth whose symbol was the bull.
Like
many before her, particularly Mackenzie (1917), Gimbutas argued her own variation of an idealised matriarchal ‘Old Europe’ in which the peaceful worship of a female supreme deity preceded the
invasive and warlike masculine culture and gods of the Indo-European speaking 'Kurgan' migrations in around 3500 BCE (her date).
In her publications, Gimbutas cites the influence of an unsurprisingly wide mix of the Great Goddess and matriarchy exponents mentioned here, inclusive of Bachofen, Harrison, Evans, Mackenzie, Briffault, Neumann, Eliade, Jung, Kerenyi and Mellaart.
While her theories were not greeted with enthusiasm within archaeology, due to her arbitrary approach to actual archaeological evidence and lack of academic rigour, Gimbutas went on to a career extolling these ideas to folklorists, mythologists and feminists, publishing more books on the subject in the decades before her
death in 1994.
Marija Gimbutas was the ‘pin up girl' for the Great Mother Goddess, for late 20th century feminism, goddess worshippers
and for many manifestations of neo-paganism, although some feminists justifiably
rejected her theories as essentialistic and perpetuating antiquated models of gender and social evolution (Conkey & Tringham 1995, Eller 2005).
Archaeologists of prehistory were similarly unimpressed.
The 21st century, or where are we now?
Since the late 20th century, the theory of prehistoric matriarchy and a Great Mother Goddess has been binned within anthropology and archaeology, because the original model is out-of-date, fatally flawed and 150 years of archaeological research has done nothing to confirm any of it.
The topic has been adequately investigated and critiqued by many competent individuals among archaeologists, anthropologists, classicists, historians, feminists, neo-pagans and a variety of other academic disciplines and inclinations, some of whose names have been given here and are also provided below.
But these ideas have not lost ground elsewhere, as the sheer breadth of alternative literature and freedom of misinformation pays tribute to the power of the past to inspire the present. Which would be cool if it were constructive, but what we actually have is a compelling modern fairy tale, like a lot of feel-good nonsense online and in print.
This myth emerged from questionable beginnings in ethnocentric and conservative 19th century classics and ethnology, was used as a model of primitive depravity and to reinforce the social model of traditional marriage at a time when western women were beginning to push back against this.
From this unsound basis the ideas were extended out to include many ancient cultures over a mind bogglingly long period that spans tens of thousands of years from the Palaeolithic to the Iron Age.
Johann Bachofen’s model of the Goddess was created at a time when archaeological research was in its infancy and embarrassingly ethnocentric, that is, it was too reliant on the religious and cultural models of its time.
If Das Mutterrecht were written now it would be pseudoscience and probably have a Netflix contract.
19th century Matriarchal theory, both the original and its many derivations, forces overly simplistic dualistic ideas upon the past, like primitive vs civilised, chaos vs order, female vs male, passive vs active, emotive vs rational, darkness vs light, onto what are actually much more complex and interesting subjects.
Later, Bachofen's model was rejigged to suit the needs of socialism, fascism, psychologists, Theosophists, the neo-pagan, esoteric and feminist movements, reaching its peak in the 1960s and 70s with the popular publications of Hawkes and Gimbutas, and the avid republication of the earlier books of Graves, Frazer, Eliade, Neumann, Kerenyi and Jung.
Which is where I came in, as budding hippy and feminist, buying and reading many of these books with avid interest, winding up with Merlin Stone's When God was a Woman. And at face value it is a very attractive model, like all sweeping generalisations (that involve communing with nature, ritual nudity, free love and fantasies of an earlier more idyllic past).
Which leaves me with a couple of questions:
What is the problem with polytheism? Why is it necessary to invert patriarchal monotheism and make ancient goddesses into an all-mighty mother? Is it simply a Jungian archetype made divine (like it may have been for Bachofen) – is it just ‘mummy dearest’?
Because there is no evidence that ancient peoples felt this way. While a culture might equate a foreign god with theirs, or consider the head of their pantheon supreme above all others, they never rejected the validity of other gods, or forced them into one god. The earliest evidence of this type of thinking is from the Classical period and is specific to the ‘Mother of Gods’ and the roots of this myth.
Or is the problem with polytheism motivated by the idea that ancient gods can represent one all-mighty father? In other words, is this thinking simply a reflection of the inability of monotheists to imagine worshipping a lot of gods?
Because there is no evidence that ancient peoples felt this way. While a culture might equate a foreign god with theirs, or consider the head of their pantheon supreme above all others, they never rejected the validity of other gods, or forced them into one god. The earliest evidence of this type of thinking is from the Classical period and is specific to the ‘Mother of Gods’ and the roots of this myth.
Or is the problem with polytheism motivated by the idea that ancient gods can represent one all-mighty father? In other words, is this thinking simply a reflection of the inability of monotheists to imagine worshipping a lot of gods?
Why must female gods be associated with 'fertility'?
While there is no question that goddesses of motherhood and/or fertility were worshipped in (recorded) antiquity, there have been many many other goddesses with unique characteristics that had no connection to these, and others who are the antithesis.
This
narrow approach, forcing any and all ancient goddesses to fit a model
of 'fertility', aka reproduction and nurture… barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen … also conveniently
ignores the proliferation of male Earth and fertility gods from the
ancient world, not to mention gods that are androgynous,
or that have ambiguous or even mutable gender.
I personally refuse to plonk these gods all into the character and nature of one (very flexible) goddess and her depraved religion as many prudish Victorian scholars chose to.
Also, if it is okay for gods to come in widely different packages I believe it is okay for goddesses too, otherwise we do risk perpetuating out-of-date myths about social roles.
And speaking of social roles -
Have you ever thought about the definitions?
This divine triad - Maiden, Mother, Crone - or - Virgin, Lover, Hag - the so-called essential stages of a woman's life, is at its core a polite way of defining the
sexual availability of a woman: undeflowered adolescent,
child-bearing adult or post.menopausal elderly …
Perhaps try constructing a masculine version
of this cliché and see how well you go - virgin boy god, virile adult god, sterile old man god? - as aspects of the Great primeval Triple God? - suddenly it gets a bit weird.
In fact, the aspects of the Great Goddess are a model entirely based on a woman’s relative
shagability. As is Bachofen’s 'matriarchal' social evolutionary model of promiscuous hetairas, nurturing mothers and dangerous Amazon warriors.
Endnote
To conclude, I
will admit that I am ever so slightly cranky about being taken in by a fairy tale written by 19th century misogynists, but in my youth the line between fact and speculation was more blurred in broadreach archaeology publications, there were a lot of unfortunate hangovers from early research, and I was no academic.
However, the beauty of archaeology is that, like all sciences, it is not static, and keeps accumulating information, evaluating, challenging and building upon knowledge, as is clear from the few examples of this process of self -correction that is given here.
Nonetheless, crankiness aside, if I could I
wouldn’t change my experience of this, because through my earlier reading I
already knew a lot of the source material, I had experienced the process, and this reading has led me
to learn so much more, and to archaeology.
The moral of this story is - you can do this too - so keep reading, keep learning. There is way more to read on this topic than I have skimmed through here, and most of these books and articles are available online. The not so good news is that many of the dodgy original sources are still in print.
Oh, and always check original publication date... old books can talk a lot of out-of-date shit.
Andrea Sinclair
March 2025
Andrea Sinclair
March 2025
PS: I am now really hoping to get rid of the earworm, Hymn to Her by the Pretenders, that has haunted me throughout the writing of this post.
Don't just trust me: Further Reading
Critiques and related literature
Albrecht, J.A. 2023. 'Eugenic Appropriations of the Goddess Isis: Reproduction and Racial Superiority in the Theosophical Feminist Writings.' Orbis Litterarum 1-14.
Albrecht, J.A. 2023. 'Eugenic Appropriations of the Goddess Isis: Reproduction and Racial Superiority in the Theosophical Feminist Writings.' Orbis Litterarum 1-14.
Asher-Greve J.M. 2006. 'From 'Semiramis of Babylon' to 'Semiramis of Hammersmith'.' In Orientalism, Assyriology and the Bible, S.W. Holloway (ed), 322-373.
Bahrani, Z. 2001. Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia. Routledge.
Balter, M. 2017. The Goddess and the Bull: Çatal Höyük: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. Routledge.
Budin, S.L. 2008. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge.
Budin, S.L. & C.J. Tully 2024. A Century of James Frazer’s Golden Bough: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough. Routledge.
Conkey, M.W., & R.E. Tringham 1995. 'Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology.' In Feminisms in the Academy: Rethinking the Disciplines. D.C. Stanton & A.J. Stewart (eds), 199–247. University of Michigan.
Davies, P.J. 2010. Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity: Johann Jakob Bachofen in German Culture 1860-1945. De Gruyter.
Balter, M. 2017. The Goddess and the Bull: Çatal Höyük: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. Routledge.
Budin, S.L. 2008. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge.
Budin, S.L. & C.J. Tully 2024. A Century of James Frazer’s Golden Bough: Shaking the Tree, Breaking the Bough. Routledge.
Conkey, M.W., & R.E. Tringham 1995. 'Archaeology and the Goddess: Exploring the Contours of Feminist Archaeology.' In Feminisms in the Academy: Rethinking the Disciplines. D.C. Stanton & A.J. Stewart (eds), 199–247. University of Michigan.
Davies, P.J. 2010. Myth, Matriarchy and Modernity: Johann Jakob Bachofen in German Culture 1860-1945. De Gruyter.
Davies, P.J. 2005. 'Myth and Materialism in the Work of Johann Jacob Bachofen.' German Studies Review 28(3): 501-518.
Eller, C. 2000. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future. Beacon.
Eller, C. 2000. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future. Beacon.
Eller, C. 2005. 'The Feminist Appropriation of Matriarchal Myth in the 19th and 20th Centuries.' History Compass 3: 1-10.
Eller, C. 2011. Gentlemen and Amazons: The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory. University of California.
Fagan, B. 1992. 'A Sexist View of Prehistory.' Archaeology 45(2): 14-15, 18, 66.
Fleming, A. 1969. 'The Myth of the Mother-Goddess.' World Archaeology 1(2): 247-261.
Hackett, J.A. 1989. ‘Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us? Ancient Near Eastern ‘Fertility’ Goddesses’. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5(1): 65-76.
Hodder, I. 2004. ‘Women and Men at Çatalhöyük’. Scientific American Magazine 290(1): 67-73.
Hutton, R. 1997. ‘The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition’. Antiquity 71: 91-99.
Hackett, J.A. 1989. ‘Can a Sexist Model Liberate Us? Ancient Near Eastern ‘Fertility’ Goddesses’. Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 5(1): 65-76.
Hodder, I. 2004. ‘Women and Men at Çatalhöyük’. Scientific American Magazine 290(1): 67-73.
Hutton, R. 1997. ‘The Neolithic Great Goddess: A Study in Modern Tradition’. Antiquity 71: 91-99.
Hutton, R. 2025. 'The Modern Goddess' in Modern Wichcraft and Paganism, Gresham College - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv_HdgT9q0s
Meskell, L. 1995. ‘Goddesses, Gimbutas and 'New Age' Archaeology’. Antiquity 69(262): 74-86.
Meskell, L. 1995. ‘Goddesses, Gimbutas and 'New Age' Archaeology’. Antiquity 69(262): 74-86.
Meskell, L. 1998. ‘Oh my Goddess! Archaeology Sexuality and Ecofeminism.’ Archaeological Dialogues 2: 126-142.
Paglia, C. 2006. ‘Erich Neumann: Theorist of the Great Mother.’ Arion 13(3): 1-14. Röder, B., J. Hummel & B. Kunz 2001. Göttinnendämmerung. Das Matriarchat aus archäologischer Sicht.
Schmidt, I. 2002. 'Geschlechter Politik, Religion, Nationalismus und Antisemitismus im Leben der Publizistin und Philosophin Lenore Kühn.' Researches Germanique 32: 69-93.
Sinclair, A. 2012. 'Erroneous Terms in Archaeology and Popular Literature: the 'Mother Goddess', or Why I Can be Tiresome at Social Engagements.' Ancient Planet 3: 16-27 - https://works.hcommons.org/records/rkc7k-g5j56Sinclair A. 2013. 'Enduring Fictions of Late Victorian Fantasy: Sir Arthur Evans and the Faience Goddesses from Minoan Crete.' Ancient Planet 5: 2-23 - https://works.hcommons.org/records/8svbm-8yh39
Stagl, J. 1990. 'Johann Jakob Bachofen, "Das Mutterrecht" und die Folgen.' Anthropos 85 (1/3): 11-37.
Talalay, L.E. 1998. ‘A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory.’ Gender and History 6: 165-183.
Talalay, L.E. 1998. ‘A Feminist Boomerang: The Great Goddess of Greek Prehistory.’ Gender and History 6: 165-183.
Talalay, L.E. 2024. ‘Changing Perspectives on Greek Neolithic Figurines.’ In Figurine Making in the Neolithic Aegean, S. Nanoglou & F. Mavridis (eds), 13-23. Sidestone.
Tringham, R. & M.W. Conkey 1998. ‘Rethinking Figurines: A Critical View from Archaeology of Gimbutas, the ‘Goddess’ and Popular Culture.’ In Ancient Goddesses, the Myths and the Evidence, L. Goodison and C. Morris (eds), 22-45. Ucko, P. 1962. ‘The Interpretation of Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Figurines.’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 92: 38-54.
The myth as quoted here: Out of date but not out of mind or print
Bachofen, J.J. 1861. Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur. Krais & Hoffmann.
Briffault, R. 1927. The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions. Macmillan.
Briffault, R. 1931. The Mothers: The Matriarchal Theory of Social Origins. Macmillan.
Diodorus Siculus Library, Book I at Perseus Digital Library - https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1A*.html
Bachofen, J.J. 1861. Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur. Krais & Hoffmann.
Briffault, R. 1927. The Mothers: A Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions. Macmillan.
Briffault, R. 1931. The Mothers: The Matriarchal Theory of Social Origins. Macmillan.
Diodorus Siculus Library, Book I at Perseus Digital Library - https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/1A*.html
Eckstein-Diener, B. as Sir Galahad, 1932. Mutter und Amazonen: Ein Umriß Weiblicher Reiche. Liwi Verlag.
Eliade, M. 1954. 'La terre-mère et les hierogamies cosmiques.' Eranos Jahrbuch 22: 57-95.
Eliade, M. 1958. The Sacred and the Profane. Harcourt.
Eliade, M. 1958. Patterns in Comparative Religion. Sheed & Ward.
Evans. A. 1901. ‘Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult and its Mediterranean Connections.’ The Journal of Hellenistic Studies 21: 99-204.
Evans. A. 1921-1935, The Palace of Minos at Knossos.
Frazer, J.G. 1912-15. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Macmillan & Co.
Gerhard, E. 1851. Über das Metroon zu Athen und über die Göttermutter der griechischen Mythologie. Königlichen Akademie Berlin.
Evans. A. 1921-1935, The Palace of Minos at Knossos.
Frazer, J.G. 1912-15. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Macmillan & Co.
Gerhard, E. 1851. Über das Metroon zu Athen und über die Göttermutter der griechischen Mythologie. Königlichen Akademie Berlin.
Gerhard, E. 1854. Griechische Mythologie. Georg Reimer.
Gimbutas, M. 1974. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. Thames and Hudson.
Gimbutas, M. 1974. The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. Thames and Hudson.
Gimbutas, M. 1989/91. The Civilisation/Language of the Goddess. Harper.
Graves, R. 1946. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Dover.
Hall, H.R. 1913. The Ancient History of the Near East. Methuen & Co.
Harrison, J. 1903. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.
Graves, R. 1946. The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth. Dover.
Hall, H.R. 1913. The Ancient History of the Near East. Methuen & Co.
Harrison, J. 1903. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.
Harrison, J. 1908. 'Mountain Mother.' In Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics VII, 868-869.
Harrison, J. 1912. Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion.
Hawkes, J. 1945. Early Britain. Collins.
Hawkes, J. 1945. Early Britain. Collins.
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James, E.O. 1959. The Cult of the Mother-Goddess. Thames & Hudson.
Jastrow, M. 1898. The Religion of Babylon and Assyria. Ginn & Co.
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Letourneau, C. 1888. L'èvolution du mariage et de la famille. Paris.
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Mackenzie, D.A. 1917. Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe. Gresham.
Mellaart, J. 1967. Çatal Höyük, A Neolithic Town in Anatolia.
Mellaart, J. 1975. The Neolithic of the Near East. Thames & Hudson.
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Neumann, E. 1954.The Origin and History of Consciousness. Harper.
Neumann, E. 1955. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype. Princeton.
Strabo Geography at Perseus Digital Library - https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0239 Neumann, E. 1955. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype. Princeton.
