The Degeneration of Ancient Bird and Snake Goddesses Into Historic Age Witches and Monsters
The Degeneration of Ancient Bird and Snake Goddesses Miriam Robbins Dexter Special issue 2011 Volume 7 The Monstrous Goddess: The Degeneration of Ancient Bird and Snake Goddesses into Historic Age Witches and Monsters Miriam Robbins Dexter An earlier form of this paper was published as 1) to demonstrate the broad geographic basis of “The Frightful Goddess: Birds, Snakes and this iconography and myth, 2) to determine the Witches,”1 a paper I wrote for a Gedenkschrift meaning of the bird and the snake, and 3) to which I co-edited in memory of Marija demonstrate that these female figures inherited Gimbutas. Several years later, in June of 2005, the mantle of the Neolithic and Bronze Age I gave a lecture on this topic to Ivan Marazov’s European bird and snake goddess. We discuss class at the New Bulgarian University in who this goddess was, what was her importance, Sophia. At Ivan’s request, I updated the paper. and how she can have meaning for us. Further, Now, in 2011, there is a lovely synchrony: I we attempt to establish the existence of and have been asked to produce a paper for a meaning of the unity of the goddess, for she was Festschrift in honor of Ivan’s seventieth a unity as well as a multiplicity. That is, birthday, and, as well, a paper for an issue of although she was multifunctional, yet she was the Institute of Archaeomythology Journal in also an integral whole. In this wholeness, she honor of what would have been Marija manifested life and death, as well as rebirth, and Gimbutas’ ninetieth birthday.
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