Marija Gimbutas was perhaps one of the most influential archaeologists of the 20th century. For over two hundred years archaeologists and historians wrote that war and the male-dominated society was man’s natural state. That there had never been an egalitarian, matriarchal society. Gimbutas presented evidence, based on archaeological findings and myths, that there had once been an egalitarian society and while it was not matriarchal, it was most likely matrifocal, and the people valued the feminine divine.
Gimbutas’ rewriting of history, even with supporting evidence, was not taken well in academia. She was denigrated, and her research dismissed. Other academics created a strawman argument against her work; they completely misrepresented her research and wrote that Gimbutas had postulated an Amazonian, woman warrior dominated culture and that such a culture never existed. They said that Gimbutas was part of the women’s spirituality and pagan movements of the time and she was rewriting history to suit their narrative. Gimbutas denied that she had any connection to these groups and while women’s spirituality scholars did reference her work, they acknowledged that she was not writing for them.[1]
Chief among Gimbutas’ critics was noted archaeologist Colin Renfrew. Renfrew encouraged his archaeology students to write articles against Gimbutas’ work; however, these articles never actually cited Gimbutas. They only referenced what others said about her. To paraphrase a former teacher, “This wouldn’t have gotten a Masters’ from a state school, but it earned a Ph.D. in the Ivy Leagues.”[2] These attack arguments and false equivalencies lead to Gimbutas’ work being dismissed by most of academia for two decades.[3]
While Gimbutas was attacked for writing that the narrative about the ancient past was wrong other women were still doing work. However, the shadow of Gimbutas was hanging over them, like a Sword of Damocles, just waiting to fall on a woman who raised her head and said that history was wrong. I believe that one of these women, who was afraid to take her conclusions further and disrupt the historical narrative was Lynn Roller in her book In Search of God the Mother. I have a great deal of respect for Roller and her book was vital to my dissertation research on ancient Mother Goddess figures in Anatolia. However, I would like to offer a critique of her work, and I encourage others to reexamine her findings in light of the new archaeological evidence and a greater acceptance of Gimbutas’ findings. By doing this, I hope that other scholars will feel more comfortable presenting views which oppose current narratives of history.
Critique of Roller’s Analysis of the Neolithic Great Mother
While I agree with Lynn Roller’s analysis[4] of the Great Mother during the later Classical Period, I do not agree with her stance on the Great Mother during the Neolithic Period. Roller does comment on the structures and figurines found at Catal Huyuk; however, she then seems to perform some mental gymnastics. Roller claims that there is no evidence that the Goddesses worshipped during this period have any connection to the later Phrygian Goddess Cybele. I believe that Roller does this to distance her work from any association with Gimbutas, whose primary research was done at Catal Huyuk.
Though Gimbutas sadly passed away in 1994 and Roller’s book In Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele was not published until 1999, Gimbutas’ work was still being mocked, misrepresented, and demeaned by many American academics.[5] I believe that Roller worried that any mention of a female deity of the time having connections to a later goddess would bring about the same backlash against her work; so, she confined herself to written records and magnificent temples and downplayed other archaeological evidence.
When discussing the sites Catal Huyuk and Hacilar, Roller writes,
Evidence from both sites suggests that powerful female figures played a role in the religious consciousness of the community. These figures were represented with symbol systems similar to those of the historically attested Phrygian Mother. And both sites are located in regions that contained cult centers of the Phrygian Mother in historical periods.[6]
However, Roller then goes on to dismiss any idea that the artifacts found related to a Great Mother. One of the most famous of these artifacts depicts a female seated on a throne flanked by two large cats while she appears to be giving birth. Other figurines depict women with exaggerated breasts, buttocks, and abdomens; several seem to be giving birth. Because some of these figurines have been found in domestic settings, grain bins, or include the horns of a bull Roller suggests that these figurines may be symbols of humanity’s dependence on animals or grains. That these figurines were representations of how the people lived and how they perceived their world.
As an anthropologist, I am familiar with the concept of sympathetic magic, where a symbol or figurine is meant as a stand-in for a deity or a metaphysical concept.[7] However, sometimes images are straightforward in their meaning. I do not believe that the people of Catal Huyuk were painting pictures of men hunting and dancing without complex symbolism[8] but used highly symbolized figurines of women giving birth. Roller wrote that these images did not represent actual women giving birth or even a Great Mother giving birth but instead was linked to animal farming and agriculture.[9]
Names and Representations of a Great Mother Goddess
Between 900 and 700 BCE the culture of the Neo-Hittites who lived in southern Anatolia and whose Goddess was called Kubaba. Kubaba’s name during the Hellenistic period was Kybebe, a name also used by the Greeks for the Phrygian Mother Goddess whom they also called Kybele.[10] Aside from phonetic similarities Kubaba and Kybele share many other similarities: both are sometimes depicted as seated on thrones and they both wear long gowns and ornate headdresses which include a long veil.[11] However, while she acknowledges that the images of Kubaba and Kybele indicate that the cultures were in contact with each other Roller believes that the differences between the Goddesses prove that Kybele is not a continuation of Kubaba, nor that the Goddess is based on an earlier Mother Goddess. Baring and Cashford disagree with Roller’s conclusion and write that, “The earliest form of Cybele’s name may have been Kubaba or Kumbaba (Kybebe in Greek), which sounds strangely like Humbaba, the guardian of the forest in the Epic of Gilgamesh.”[12]
Roller writes that the Phrygian Goddess was rarely associated with or represented by lions while Kybele, Kubaba, or their consorts do appear with lions.[13] This is an odd supposition to make when one considers that the later Goddess Cybele, who is the Phrygian Goddess in Rome, is rarely without her lions. According to Roller, Kubaba is not associated with the hunt while hunting is part of the iconography of the Phrygian Mother. However, Kubaba was part of a pantheon of many deities so it is logical that she would not represent all the aspects that the Phrygian Goddess, from a monotheistic religion, would.[14]
Conclusion
It is puzzling to me that Roller asserts that because there are differences in how a Goddesses are represented or understood in different cultures that this means the Goddesses have little to no connection. I did part of my comprehensive examination on the Virgin Mary, comparing how she is changed based on the cultures she is brought to and the needs of the people. In the Western world, she was the perfect Madonna, the symbol of grace and purity and very Caucasian. However, in Eastern and Southern Europe she became the Black Madonna, and when she was brought to Central and South America, she became the Virgin of Guadalupe with brown skin. Today in Italy, and some parts of South America, she is a symbol of liberation theology and strong women in the Church.[15] And the Virgin has existed for a much shorter period then the span between the Neolithic and Hellenistic periods. It is frankly ridiculous to expect that different cultures across time would never make changes to how a deity is represented or what role they fulfill in the culture.
At the beginning of this essay, I wrote that I hoped other scholars would not let fear of how their research will be viewed cause them to alter their conclusions. Baring and Cashford’s The Myth of the Goddess was first published in 1991 after Gimbutas had first postulated the existence of an egalitarian culture which venerated the Feminine Divine. Baring and Cashford were aware of the backlash Gimbutas faced yet they put forward their conclusion that there was some connection between these female or goddess figures found in different cultures from the region. Roller, writing several years after them, makes no mention of their conclusions and dismisses the idea that a later culture could have incorporated into its pantheon an earlier goddess.
I do not know why Roller reached these conclusions. I have only my supposition based on the virulent hatred leveled against Gimbutas’ theory and the fear any young scholar might feel when confronting bigotry from the big names in one’s field. So instead I have argued why I believe that Roller was wrong. This is important because even though her book was published twenty years ago, it remains a significant work in the field. As it should, it is excellent research, and most of her conclusions are supported by the evidence. However, based on my research, I must point out where I think she was wrong.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.
[1] Christ, “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant.”
[2] Dr. Dennis Hickey (ret.) History professor Edinboro University of PA.
[3] Christ, “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant.” However, recent DNA evidence has proven Gimbutas’ Kurgan theory was correct, “magically vindicated” Renfrew said at inaugural Marija Gimbutas Lecture at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Nov. 8, 2017.
[4] Roller, In Search of God the Mother, Chapters 2 and 4.
[5] Christ, “Marija Gimbutas Triumphant.” However, recent DNA evidence has proven Gimbutas’ Kurgan theory was correct, “magically vindicated” Renfrew said at inaugural Marija Gimbutas Lecture at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago Nov. 8, 2017.
[6] Roller, In Search of God the Mother, 28.
[7] The most widely known example of sympathetic magic is the voodoo doll; a representation of a person who will experience whatever is done to the doll.
[8] Roller, In Search of God the Mother, 30–31.
[9] Ibid., 36, 38–39.
[10] Ibid., 44–45.
[11] Ibid., 47.
[12] Baring and Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess, 395.
[13] Roller, In Search of God the Mother, 49.
[14] Haas, Die Hethitische Literatur. In fact, the Hittite god Kurunta was the god of wild animals and the hunt.
[15] I did a comprehensive examination on the Virgin Mary and her influence on women’s spirituality.
Re a Critique/ Gimbutas…” Roller then goes on to dismiss any idea that the artifacts found related to a Great Mother. One of the most famous of these artifacts depicts a female seated on a throne flanked by two large cats while she appears to be giving birth.”
How can it be possible to continue to ignore the obvious?
The fact that Gimbutas’s scholarship is still being reviled/dismissed reveals the depth of woman hatred embedded in this culture.
Academia has a nasty habit of destroying careers of any scholar that goes against the accepted canon, and while I can feel empathy for anyone who wants a career, I cannot respect or support any woman who distances herself from Gimbutas’s scholarship. most of us KNOW she was on the right track.