Understanding Marija Gimbutas Kristina Berggren and James B. Harrod

In the March number of Antiquity 69, 1995, Ucko’s position that Greta” female figurines pp. 74-86, Lynn Meskell in “Goddesses, are not a singular deity. Gimbutas and ‘New Age’ ”, Gimbutas also identified a rich array of suggests that when Gimbutas writes that the male deities, including an ithyphallic- Palaeolithic and Neolithic feminine figures snake god (a proto-Hermes), divine child, bull suggest a gynecocentric and not an androcentric or goat-masked proto-Dionysos; sorrowful culture, this is proof of irresponsible and non- god; proto-Linos flax god, dying and rising scientific behaviour. Meskell has failed to refer vegetation god, proto-Asklepios, and master of to “Figurines of (6500-3000 B.C.)” animals or forest god with hook. in Les de la Préhistoire, 2) Gimbutas identified and deciphered the Valcamonica Symposium ‘72 (Capo Di Ponte: ideogram system of the European Neolithic, Edizioni de1 Centro, 1975, pp. 117-142) and decoding at least fifty ideograms, including the articles in The Encyclopedia of many geometric and abstract signs (e.g. V, (editor in chief Mircea Eliade, chevron, zigzag, M, meander, net, bi-line, Macmillan, 1987), which all give excellent triline, lozenge, circle, triangle, egg, syntheses of Gimbutas’s work. checkerboard, spiral, hook, axe, comb, whirls, From our points of view as specialists, the four-corner designs, life-column, hourglass- one in reconstructing prehistoric religions and shape, bird’s claw, breast, vulva, uterus, semiotic systems, with a focus on the phallus, ship, lunar shapes, flowers and other Mesolithic and ; the other in the field vegetable shapes); and animal symbols (e.g. of the Early in Italy, Marija dove, cuckoo, hawk, waterbird, vulture, , Gimbutas’ contributions are three: mm, deer, bear, snake, pig, boar, dog, frog, 1) She has identified a diverse and complex toad, fish, hedgehog, bull and bucrania, range of Neolithic female divinites, including butterfly and bees). The decipherment of the bird goddess, mistress of animals, Queen of the meaning of each of these ideograms is most Mountains, snake goddess, deer mother, bear fully presented in The Language of the mother, life-giver, craft-giver, birth-giver, Goddess (1989). Gimbutas discovered that nurse, pregnant earth or earth mother, double these ideograms express the numinous life- goddess (mother-daughter), goddess of death, energy in nature and in human life, and that triangle-hourglass goddess, frog goddess, combinations of them could be used to express hedgehog goddess, fish goddess, bee and “sonatas of becoming” as she called them butterfly goddess and regeneratrix, and thereby (1974:167). invalidates the simplistic hypotheses of one 3) Gimbutas clarified the differences “Great Mother” deity for the European between this “Old European” iconographic Neolithic. Marija Gimbutas designated these system and the later Bronze. Age and multiple forms as manifestations of the “Great symbol systems, which have transposed color Goddess” as opposed to the “Great Mother”, symbols, solar symbolism, dominance of male who is secondary, to the decipherment of the gods, and ideology of tools and weapons of various female deities. war. Meske11 obviously is not conversant with Meskell is not conversant with the second of this for she constantly talks about theories of Gimbutas’major contributions, For instance, “the omnipotent ” as if Meske11 asserts that Gimbutas does not explain Gimbutas believed such a theory, when in fact why the geometric and other signs are symbols a major point in her work is to refute it! Contra of the goddess and not of the gods. The Meskell, Gimbutas work agrees fully with problem is “ot with Gimbutas but with Meskells inadequate reading. On the one hand, fantasy notion - but was most likely Gimbutas shows clearly that the iconographic matrilinear. Considering the nature of its system is applied to both male and female ideological system which she so well decoded figures; and on the other, that the - and other archaeological evidence, Gimbutas preponderance of geometric and animal chose the term “matrifocal” to characterize the symbols are associated with female figures. social structure of Neolithic Europe. She chose While male figurines are far fewer in number this term in part to honor the uniqueness of the and in evidence as ideograms, Gimbutas gives archaeological data for Neolithic Europe and a precise categorization of those symbols eschewed ethnographical analogies. By this associated with the male gods, and thereby measure, Meskell's allusions to data from helps us for the first time to decode the Africa and Egypt stand unjustified. semantics of the Neolithic male gods. Why do people who do serious research in Further, Meskell's argument implies that analytical psychology and archetypal religious ideology cannot be inferred from mythology appreciate her work which some of archaeological artefacts. For instance, she her colleagues deem to be unworthy of an suggests “alternative hypotheses” for the archaeologist? Why did the editorial board of function of Neolithic female figures: territorial the Encyclopedia of Religion ask Gimbutas - makers, ancestor cults, teaching devices, and not, for example, Ucko - to write eleven birthing rituals, healing, marriage contract articles? Why does the Pacifica Graduate tokens, toys etc. While all these might be Institute in Carpenteria, California, which is possible, it is an irrational leap to conclude that specialized in Jungian studies, house her because female (or male) figurines have archive and not her own university, UCLA? To various functions, any attempt to interpret the understand this we need to look at the three iconographic system applied to these figures , pillars that uphold her mythological and which gives them their theological or psychological approach to the Neolithic mythological meaning, is refuted. Ironically - iconography. since Meskell believes these alternative uses of The publisher, Thames and Hudson, besides figurines invalidate their theological changing the title of the first edition, 1974, significance - almost all of the alternative from The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe functions listed by Meskell are “religious” and to The Gods and Goddesses, did not allow her thus would beg for the decipherment of the to publish any reference notes. Thus, Gimbutas iconography of the artifacts. did not account for the works that had Does Meskell believe that because statues of influenced her, except in her bibliography. Hermes in ancient Greece were used as Here we find - beside Bachofen, whose work territorial markers, in ancestor cults, as is less important than The Mothers (1929) in teaching devices, in healing rituals, and might two volumes, by Robert Briffault - Rudolf even have been used as toys, it follows that if Otto, Mircea Eliade, and C.G. Jung. one has discovered a Greek male statue one is The German theologian and scholar of the forbidden to determine if it has sacred history and of religions, iconographic elements, and if it does have such Rudolph Otto, in his book The Idea of the elements, whether it represents Hermes or Holy, 1st German ed. 1917, tried to identify the some other god? What kind of a logic argument nonrational element in religious experience by is this? describing what is left over after the rational As for the issue of egalitarianism, Gimbutas elements have been subtracted. He found that has marshalled a lot of evidence for it and the term holy had lost its primary meaning and Meskell a little against it. Further Meskell fails had come to designate ethical and moral self- to know or acknowledge that Gimbutas has righteousness. Otto, therefore, coined a new repeatedly stated that the Neolithic culture was word, numinous, to stand for the holy minus its not a “” - matriarchy is a literary and moral factor. Numinous refers to a deep 72

emotion that can be understood only by those human consciousness the figure of the father who have experienced it (Otto 1937:8). Otto arrives later than that of the mother. calls it the mysterium tremendum et fascinans, How do we express the deep emotions that because it cannot be described in rational terms the breaking through of a mysterium awakes in (mysterium), and because it contains an us? Even the smallest emotion, when we element of fear or revulsion (tremendum) that suddenly understand something new, is continues to attract and fascinate (fascinans) difficult to describe without resorting to an the person involved (Otto 1937:5, 6, 27-37, 42- analogy. We have to use rational words or 52; cpr. Ludwig 1987). images taken from our physical world to Otto’s description of the mysterium tre- describe nonrational emotions. Jung called mendum et fascinans is close to Jung’s hy- these analogies symbols, the best possible pothesis of the constellation of an archetype, descriptions of facts that are so deeply felt that that is, the breaking forth of something hitherto they can only be described through analogies unknown from the collective unconscious into with our physical world (Jung 198lb: par. 814). the collective or personal consciousness (Jung A symbol is much more than a metaphor or an 198la). allegory. Symbolic expressions are not only Jung kept repeating that the archetypes are words but also images, figures, dances, rituals. hypothetical factors. We cannot observe the Although it is impossible to state just what archetypes in themselves but only their prehistoric symbols mean to their users, it is at different manifestations. The archetypes least possible to highlight the analogy between themselves are deeply imbedded in our the prehistoric symbolic image and its phylogenetic psyche which functions at underlying physical phenomena The human subconscious psycho-biological levels (Stevens characteristic of expressing symbols in images 1982:89). was certainly no less highly developed in When Meskell, citing Talalay, says that “the prehistoric man than it is in us. writings of Freud and Jung both asserted that Because the archetypes belong to the devotion to female deities appeared early in collective unconscious, the analogies expressed human evolution”, she is the victim of a by the symbols have a universal basis. It is, misunderstanding. Jung does not write about therefore, not against scientific method to religious entities as such: he leaves religion to interpret the feminine figures belonging to the specialists (Jung 198la). He and his various cultures and civilizations as symbols of followers Erich Neumann, Ernst Whitmont, the same archetype, that of the feminine. and Silvia Perera who have all written books Hierophany (from the Greek hiero-, with titles that allude to goddesses (The Great “sacred,” and phainein, “to show”) is the term Mother, The Return of the Goddess, The Mircea Eliade coined in Patterns in Compara- Descent of the Goddess), write about arche- tive Religion, English edition 1958) to types that have been understood (constellated) designate how the manifestation of the Sacred as divinities. The difference may seem in- Otto’s mysterium tremendum et fascinans has finitesimal, but it is important. Jung did, been symbolized through the ages. According however, consider the archetype of the mother to Eliade, everything has been a hierophany as constellated earlier than that of the father in somewhere at some time in history: all animals, the individual psyche. This, of course, has a tools, toys, all gestures, children’s games, biological explanation: all of us, men and dances, musical instruments, wagons, boats etc. women, are born of mothers. We have all lived (Eliade 1983: par. 3). This presupposes a nine months in symbiosis with our mother holistic concept of religion. (cf. Gimbutas inside her womb and then, another year close to 1989: 321). Prehistorians are apt to forget that her receiving our nutrition, at least for some of the attempt to define religion as being opposed this period, directly from her body. In the to the profane is primarily a Western concern, even now (King 1987). We should be ywary of 73 projecting our modem Western dichotomy onto enriched our knowledge of the complexity and the past. beauty of Neolithic culture and religion, and To these concepts Gimbutas added that of ranks at the top of a lifetime of important ideograms schematic, conventional signs that contributions to the fields of archaeology, archaeological literature usually considers mere mythology, folklore, and . “geometrical motifs.” It took her years to discover that they were all symbols of the numinous powers of life. The prehistoric artists REF!!,R!ZNCES used the abstract “ot because they were not Eliade, M., 1983. Patterns in Comparative able to make naturalistic art but because their Religion. 1st English ed. 1958. London: Sheed art was meant to be read in symbolic and and Ward, Stagbooks. archetypal terms, not merely glanced at as we, Gimbutas, M., 1982. Goddesses and Gods of who are on the brink of drowning in pictures, Old Europe. 2nd ed. London: Thames and merely glance at them. Hudson. Thus, Marija Gimbutas’ hypothesis based Gimbutas 1989. The Language of the Goddess. on solid knowledge of the material coupled London: Thames and Hudson. with profound studies in archetypal mythology Jung, C.G., 1981a. “The Archetypes and the and analytical psychology; opens new, exciting Collective Unconscious”, in Collective Works and valid paths toward deeper studies of 9:I: par. 42-53. London: Routledge and Kegan prehistoric culture. Paul. Finally, it is obviously unscientific to Jung 198lb. “Psychological Types”, in dismiss Marija Gimbutas’ analysis and Collected Works 5. London: Routledge and conclusions because they are variously used Kegan Paul. and misused in popular culture, anymore than King, W.L., 1987. “Religion”, in Encyclopedia Einstein’s theory of relativity is refuted because of Religion 12, ed. Eliade. New York some people wear Einstein T-shirts. It is Macmillan: 282-293. incumbent upon the critics to come up with a Ludwig, T.M., 1987. Otto, Rudolph, in better and more accurate analysis of the Encyclopedia of Religion 11: 139-141. iconographic system presented in the Otto, R., 1937. Das Heilige. Munchen: archaeological data. Beck'sche. Despite the misreadings by some in pop Stevens, A., Archetypes. A Natural culture and academia of Gimbutas’ works, her History of the Self London: Routledge and “archaeomythological” decoding of the Neo- Kegan Paul. lithic iconographic system has tremendously