Another contribution to the much-ballyhooed theory of matriarchal
prehistory, by the late feminist pioneer Gimbutas
(Archaeology/UCLA; Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, not reviewed).
Gimbutas built a career around her controversial claims that before
Indo-European warriors invaded around 4400 B.C., "Old Europeans"
from Ireland to Italy enjoyed an agrarian, peaceful,
goddess-worshiping existence. Their aesthetic standard was higher
than that of other cultures of the period, with sophisticated
architecture, complex linear language, and advanced farming
techniques. Their religious rituals centered on birth and
regeneration, with female reproductive images occupying prominent
roles. Many archaeologists have criticized Gimbutas's techniques
and interpretations, noting that she reads more into the physical
evidence than is supportable. Are all circles eggs, for example,
and is every triangle a pubic image? At times, Gimbutas's claims,
which she reiterates in this volume, nearly completed before her
death in 1994, border on the ridiculous, as when she argues that
the bull - generally a symbol of patriarchal dominance - was really
a woman-centered image for the Old Europeans because the bull's
head and horns resemble the female uterus and Fallopian tubes. The
latter half of the book moves to a discussion of social structure,
with Gimbutas maintaining that Old Europeans had much greater
respect for women's rights than their Indo-European successors.
However, Gimbutas sometimes engages in a circuitous logic, claiming
at once that women were socially respected because Old Europeans
worshiped the goddess and that they worshiped the goddess because
women were already regarded so highly. Also, Gimbutas conflates all
Neolithic cultures into one "Old European" entity, missing the
diversity of religion and practice among them. The book is
well-written, and much credit must be given to editor Dexter (a
lecturer in women's studies at UCLA), for tying together Gimbutas's
last works in an eloquent manner. Full of intriguing possibilities,
but Gimbutas's work is too wedded to theory and ideology, rather
than to archaeological evidence, to be ultimately persuasive.
(Kirkus Reviews)
The 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.
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