Ancient Female Figures

This paper builds upon my the work which I wrote with Victor Mair - the 2010 book, Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia—and continuing work, some of which was published on the internet in September, 2013, in an open source monograph: Sacred Display: New Findings. My focus for this paper has been one aspect of sacred display: the association of female display figures and the pubic ‘V’ with felines, and the fact that the V appears in many forms, with diacritics, in the Danube Script.

This paper builds upon one I gave in Sibiu, Romania, a few years ago. In that paper I discussed the fact that the Danube Script is essential in understanding the possible intersections of language, archaeology, and religion/myth. The paper theorizes that one of the most important symbols of the Script, the V, which was amplified with diacritics, doubling (VV), and doubling/reversal (M), had at its core a religious symbolism, that of the female pubic triangle.  As well, the M figured in a sacred dance. In this paper, I discuss ancient female figurines and the proliferation of the sacred V, as well as a particular correlate of this form, the female in "Sacred Display," where the female figure, in both ritual dance and stance, displays her sacred genitals. I theorize (along with many others, such as Gheorghe and Magda Lazarovici and Marco Merlini, Marija Gimbutas and Harald Haarmann), that the Danube Script was first used for religious purposes, rather than economic purposes as it was, for example, in Mesopotamia.

Educommunicative poster showing one of the GWUA Goddesses from Karphi, a female idol dated ca. 1200 1100 B.C.E., which was made in terracotta by the island's artisans during the Postpalacial period. The piece in question comes from the 1930s excavation conducted by Pendlebury in the northern area (room 1) of the peak sanctuary at Karphi.

Its typology displays an erect, schematic posture and upraised arms. It is also crowned by a diadem with solar discs and other symbols of Minoan religiosity such as birds (allusive to the epiphany of its divine essence, or a gesture of petition). They are arranged to reinforce "perhaps together with the gesture of her arms", an insinuation to the horns of consecration (Kerata kathosioseos), indicative of the mountain-door that opens the entrance to the Beyond.
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Poster educomunicativo que muestra una de las Diosas GWUA de Karphi, un ídolo femenino datado ca. 1200 1100 a. n. E., y que fue elaborado en terracota por los artesanos de la isla durante el período Postpalacial. La pieza en cuestión procede de las excavaciones de la década de 1930 lideradas por Pendlebury en la zona Norte (sala 1) del pico santuario en Karphi.

Su tipología despliega una postura erguida, esquematizante y brazos levantados. Además está coronada por una diadema con discos solares y otros símbolos de la religiosidad minoica como lo fueron las aves (alusivas a la epifanía de su esencia divina, o un gesto de petición). Las mismas están  dispuestas para reforzar “quizás junto con el gesto de sus brazos”, una insinuación a los cuernos de la consagración (Kerata kathosioseos), indicativos de la montaña-puerta que abría el paso hacia el Más Allá.

Proto-Indo-European Goddeses were few in number and they largely reflected natural phenomena. Their personification was slight.
As evidenced by comparative linguistic and mythological data, most
powerful goddesses and heroines in the mythologies and literatures of
the various Indo-European cultures have been descendants of pre-
Indo-European female figures. They were products of the cultures
indigenous to the areas to which the Proto-Indo-European peoples
migrated, in the fourth to third millennia B.C. They were subsequently
assimilated into the patriarchal Indo-European pantheons, but with
attrition of their powers. These powers underwent a qualitative change
as well: in origin autonomous entities, whose powers were self-
contained, these goddesses, when assimilated into Indo-European
cultures, became bestowers of energy. It is notable that, although they
bestowed energy, they did not retain that energy for themselves. Hence,
the goddesses bestowed their forces on the three functional levels
required by Proto-Indo-European males, becoming transmitters of
sovereignty, martial energy, and nurturing energy. However, these
female figures cannot be pigeonholed into distinct functional levels.
Such a classification belongs only to male deities, who were the active
participants in Indo-European patriarchal cultures. Conversely, when
the quality of their powers was modified, the pre-Indo-European
female figure assumed a 'passive' role in Indo-European society.

Introduction In this paper, I shall discuss several interrelated topics. First, we look at the underlying matrilineal traditions of the Irish, reflected in several phenomena: the bestowal of the Dumezilian first and second functions through a female line; women's autonomous status-sexual and otherwise; inheritance of property, reflected in the "Pillow Talk" of the Tain, along with Old Irish laws regarding female inheritance; the avunculate,2 and the fostering by maternal kin which constitutes a subtext in the Tain Bo Cuailnge, the "Cattle Raid ofCooley." Then we discuss the caricature of female figures such as Queen Medb in the Tain, which reflects the need of the scholars who created the Tain to attack that very female power which was threatening to them. The Irish are unique among the Indo-European cultures. In other Indo-European realms, female autonomy was a concomitant of chastity and even virginity. In Ireland, however, perhaps because of matrilinear inheritance patterns which underlie the structure of their society,3 and the relative female autonomy

Comparisons are drawn between the indie Surya, the Baltic Saules
Meita, and the Greek Helen, as daughters of the sun. Just as Surya and
Saules Mieta were married to both a moon god and a set of divine
twins, so Helen's brothers were the divine twin Diokouroi, and her
husband was Menelaus, a hero/diety who may have had lunar overtones.
In this paper Menelaus is related to both Greek men, "wait, be steadfast,"
and men, "moon," as "double entendres."

This book is a source book in two ways.  It traces the sources of early historic Indo-European (Greco-Roman, Indic, Iranian, Germanic, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slavic, Irish, and Welsh) goddesses and heroines, beginning with Neolithic iconography and continuing through the iconography of Near Eastern goddesses and texts dating from the third through the first millennia BCE.  It is found that Neolithic European bird and snake iconography, as well as iconography, functions, and epithets, are given to many Indo-European female figures.

The other way in which this is a source book is that the author has translated texts from all of these cultures, so that the reader may have primary sources for all of these female figures.

In this paper, we look at female figures in early historic Indo-European cultures and make use of recent archaeological and biological evidence to consider anew who the Proto-Indo-Europeans were—their religion and social structure, the place of women in their societies, and what element of society may have comprised those who migrated (or, more likely, expanded)1 out of their original homeland. This evidence includes
new studies in both mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome DNA.

Starr Goode and Miriam Robbins Dexter.  In both human social structure and divine pantheons, the ancient Irish exhibited a legacy of powerful female figures. These female figures appear in both their iconography – as Sheela na gigs – and in their literature. Neither oral traditions nor texts accompany the Sheela na gig figures to tell us who or what they are meant to represent. Only the Sheelas themselves exist, as images of supernatural women that are usually set into the architecture of churches and castles. Their meaning has been examined by scholars for 150 years. We believe that the Sheela na gigs reflect ancient Irish goddesses and heroines, although their form is even more ancient, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras. In this paper, we connect Irish female figures found in Old Irish texts with the Irish Sheela na gig carvings. We analyze the underlying functions and characteristics of these iconographic and textual female figures. (1) The Irish female figures – and by extension the Sheelas – are multivalent. In both the iconography and the texts, they represent all possibilities of the Life Continuum: birth, death, and rebirth. These female figures are not old or young but old AND young. They are not beneficent or terrifying but beneficent AND terrifying. This is the paradox of those who occupy the realm of the numinous: they represent a continuity of possibilities. Polarities need not apply to those in the realm of the sacred.

I examine the Greco-Roman Gorgon, Medusa, cross-culturally, through most of the significant Greek and Roman texts and iconography, in order to examine her origins as well as her multifaceted functions. I will show that Medusa is a compilation of Neolithic European, Semitic, and Indo-European mythology and iconography. Iconographically, two very different depictions coalesce in the Classical-Age Medusa: the Neolithic Goddess of birth, death, and regeneration, who is represented as bird, snake, or bird-snake hybrid; and the Near Eastern demon Humbaba whose severed head is, like Medusa's, used in an apotropaic manner. Medusa is ferocious but half of her blood is healing rather than destructive. Because she is often viewed as frightening in Indo-European cultures, this other side of her is often overlooked.

This paper will explore the motif referred to as the “Shameless Woman” which appears in the art of many cultures around the world. I will discuss some of the meanings associated with it and more importantly, its probable origins, using the work of the American art historian, Carl Schuster (1904–1969). Dr. Schuster believed that the motif was originally a generic ancestor figure—not necessarily a woman—excerpted from a repeating pattern that was once part of an ancient system for depicting genealogical relations.

Abstract: Thousands of female figurines have been excavated from Neolithic prehistoric archaeological sites. I believe that some—or many—of them represent powerful Goddesses of the life continuum: birth, death, and regeneration. These Goddesses often carried the iconography of bird and snake.  It has been demonstrated that many Neolithic cultures – Çatalhöyük, for example—were both equalitarian and matrilocal. After the migrations of the Proto-Indo-Europeans into
Europe, South Asia, Anatolia, and elsewhere, both the cultures and the religions of the
indigenous peoples were changed. The cultures became more patriarchal and they
merged their religions with those of the Indo-Europeans. “Great”-Goddesses of the life
continuum which were worshipped by the indigenous peoples were assimilated into
pantheons dominated by male deities. The female figures either lost some of their powers or they became spokespeople for the new cultures, as did the Greek Athena. Even so, the Goddesses retained their avian and serpentine iconography, although many Classical-age female figures—those who were associated with death—metamorphosed into witches and monsters: Medusa, Erinys (Furies), Harpies, Sirens, and many others.  I believe that when these “Great”-Goddesses diminished in power, the “group”-Goddesses, which would have had many powers and functions in “Old Europe, were demoted to fairies and often witches. Many of these historic figures had avian characteristics: they had wings and they could fly. Thus, they carried on some of the attributes of Neolithic female figures. These groups of female figures may have
represented aspects of the divine just as did single goddesses who accreted multiple
functions and powers.  These “group”-Goddesses include groups of fairies (sometimes characterized as witches): Romanian Zine, Latvian and Lithuanian Laumas (similar to Raganas), Indic Yogīṇīs and Yakṣīṇīs, Tyrolean Anguane, Celto-Germanic Three Mothers, and Slavic Vili and Rusalki.  These female figures are not unilaterally beneficent. If they liked you, they might do your laundry. If they did not like you, they might destroy your housework or worse. Likewise, the prehistoric “Great”-Goddesses of the life continuum—birth, death, and regeneration—were likely invoked for fecundity, health, and love, but they might also have wreaked havoc, as did the early historic Sumerian Inanna.  One quality which many of these collective divine and magical female figures embody is beauty. The Vili, Laumas with their long blond hair, and the Yakṣīṇīs were lovely, youthful female figures who could entice the men of their cultures. They could also affect the elements. Yet another quality which many of them shared is that they could bring benefits to all, or, just as easily, they could bring harm. This is a diminution of the broad spectrum of powers a prehistoric Goddess of the Life-Continuum would have exercised among her people, but hints of those powers remain among the groups of goddesses who live on in the folklore of the peoples of many Indo-European cultures.

Truncated figurines, otherwise known as fertility figurines, lack legs below the knees. This significant feature is not the only characteristic which distinguishes this type of figurine from other types in the established typology. In an alternative method of analysis, braided hairstyles are considered, revealing diachronic and iconographic developments which indicate a shift in emphasis in the way these objects may have functioned.

The goal of this paper is to ascertain the difference between the
Indo-European Dawn goddess as she appeared in Northern Indo-
European, particularly in Baltic folk songs, as opposed to the manner
in which she was celebrated in Southern Indo-European myth and
ritual, particularly in Italic, Greek and Indic.

The Danube Script offers the earliest evidence of a place where archaeology, language and myth – or archaeology, language and religion – intersect. Along with many others, I theorize that the Danube Script was used for religious, rather than economic, purposes (see, e.g., Haarmann 1995: 28 ff, 77 ff.; Haarmann 2008: 38; Gimbutas 1974: 85 ff; 1999: 50). If so, then meanings of the symbols have religion and myth at their core.

This paper exposes some observations on the female figurines of Sardinia prehistory. Through a qualitative classification and a quantitative study on their distribution in the island, we might be reading on the proposals for their use, meaning and value. A recent discovery at the location Gribaia (Nurachi-OR) opens new assumptions to cultural and chronological records of some materials

Il patrimonio epigrafico lapidario modenese, che attualmente comprende circa 300 iscrizioni, ha restituito più di 160 menzioni relative a schiave, liberte e ingenuae vissute a Mutina e nell'ager Mutinensis tra la seconda metà del I secolo a.C. e la prima metà del IV secolo d.C. Le epigrafi esaminate mettono in luce alcuni interessanti aspetti relativi alla condizione femminile nella splendidissima colonia emiliana e, più in generale, nella società romana.

Virginity was expected of both unmarried mortal women and
unmarried goddesses in most ancient Indo-European patriarchal societies.  This virginity indicated two phenomena: chastity and autonomy. Chastity was a requisite for purposes of inheritance in patrilineal societies.  Further, virgins were often depicted as 'storehouses' of energy which was transferable to others. Although some heroines received renewable virginity, this gift usually led to renewed loss of virginity.  Eternal virginity was possessed by goddesses as an indicator of their autonomy. Since they were not under the domain of husbands, they often retained significant powers.

In Dutch - "Female Images during the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period: Truncated Figurines". A general overview of the existing figurine typology and the relationship between paddle dolls and truncated figurines, together with an outline of an alternative method of categorization and preliminary analysis.

From Irpinia to Sardinia to recall some stories and traditions of magical women that mark the identity of my country. The origin of these figures begins with the cult of Diana and Isis. This article aims to analyse the figures of Irpinia Janare and Sardinia Janas including legends, stories, symbology and folklore about them. Female figures of ancient wisdom, priestesses of nature, herbalists, weavers, magicians, healers, with refined sensory abilities. Through their arts they pass down ancient knowledge, symbols interpretation, codes and ancestral movements, recalling the hidden power of what is real energy that unites human beings beyond the visibility, sometimes even in an instinctive and intuitive way, offering it to the people honestly , most of the time for free. These women pass on and write the history of our lands and are fleeting, like the wind blowing strong on their lands. "Superstitions are religious forms that survive lost ideas. All these had as their main reason to be a truth that we do not know anymore or that has been transformed. It's name comes from the Latin term "superstes" which means survival: they all are material remains of science and ancient opinions!" Eliphas Levi
"Breathing is the rainbow bridge between our sensory surface and the inner depth." Gipsy Eagle

Abstract: Like Socrates, Aspasia did not leave any writings. We know about her from secondary sources. In this paper, I will show a number of things in the reports of what Aspasia said and did that are philosophically interesting, especially in what they show about dealing with various kinds of crises, from marital to political ones. First, I will argue for the most probable reconstruction of her life. Second, I will elucidate what kind of method Aspasia employed when considering marital issues. Third, I will endeavor to prove that Plato’s representation of Aspasia was not a mockery, as some authors argue. Furthermore, the most significant
philosophical points of Aspasia’s Funeral Speech will be highlighted and assessed. Eventually, I will attempt to figure out what Plato’s reasons might have been to ascribe this speech to a woman.
Keywords: Aspasia, philosophy, Aeschines Socraticus, funeral oration, Menexenus.

This monograph updates and expands upon our book Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of
Eurasia (Cambria Press, 2010).
Female figures doing a “sacred display” of their genitals are found in two iconographic forms: (1) a
bent-knee dance — the legs often taking an M-position — and (2) crouching and strongly displaying
the genitals. Some figures, such as the Irish Sheela na gig from Kiltinan,1 do both, dancing a magical
dance while opening and displaying her vulva. Sheela na gigs are medieval female display figures
which are placed in the walls of churches and castles in the British Isles; they are both protective and
apotropaic.
Sacred Display figures represent both the beneficent and the ferocious aspects of the divine
feminine: they are apotropaic, warding off the enemy, and — a natural concomitant — they are
protective for their people. They bring both fertility and good fortune.

In this paper, I discuss the Proto-Indo-European sun maiden, daughter of the sun, and her appearance in the myths of several historic-age cultures.  I discuss as well the interrelated dawn goddesses. Although the dawn is consistently personified as a goddess throughout Indo-European cultures, the sun (but not the child of the sun) appears as a male deity in southeastern Indo-European cultures, and as a female deity in both Northern and Eastern Indo-European. It is the purpose of this paper to determine the roles of the sun and dawn deities, and to understand their gendered differences.

These chapters examine the codes transmitted by Western artists to design the pose of Humanist figures in Classical and Renaissance art - specifically the figure's will and repose to express soul, life-likeness, and the passions. Types of pose are examined (contrapposto, etc), and the route of transmission through academies is pursued. Moving beyond the individual figure, we examine figurative groupings, and how these are to be 'read' through the painting's narrative or 'istoria'.

En: Educommunicative poster showing one of the GWUA Goddesses from Karphi, a female idol dated ca. 1200 1100 B.C.E., which was made in terracotta by the island's artisans during the Postpalacial period. The piece in question comes from the 1930s excavation conducted by Pendlebury in the northern area (room 1) of the peak sanctuary at Karphi.

Its typology displays an erect, schematic posture and upraised arms. It is also crowned by a diadem with solar discs and other symbols of Minoan religiosity such as birds (allusive to the epiphany of its divine essence, or a gesture of petition). They are arranged to reinforce "perhaps together with the gesture of her arms", an insinuation to the horns of consecration (Kerata kathosioseos), indicative of the mountain-door that opens the entrance to the Beyond.

Note: The following educomunicative poster corresponds to the English edition of the material previously published in Spanish in the portal https://laflorquesiempreretorna.wordpress.com/, as well as in my Academia.edu profile.
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Esp: Poster educomunicativo que muestra una de las Diosas GWUA de Karphi, un ídolo femenino datado ca. 1200 1100 a. n. E., y que fue elaborado en terracota por los artesanos de la isla durante el período Postpalacial. La pieza en cuestión procede de las excavaciones de la década de 1930 lideradas por Pendlebury en la zona Norte (sala 1) del pico santuario en Karphi.

Su tipología despliega una postura erguida, esquematizante y brazos levantados. Además está coronada por una diadema con discos solares y otros símbolos de la religiosidad minoica como lo fueron las aves (alusivas a la epifanía de su esencia divina, o un gesto de petición). Las mismas están dispuestas para reforzar “quizás junto con el gesto de sus brazos”, una insinuación a los cuernos de la consagración (Kerata kathosioseos), indicativos de la montaña-puerta que abría el paso hacia el Más Allá.

Nota: El siguiente poster educomunicativo, corresponde a la edición en inglés, del material publicado previamente en español tanto en el portal https://laflorquesiempreretorna.wordpress.com/, así como en el presente perfil de Academia.edu.

Female images are quite varied within the Celtic world, and most of them date to Roman times. Therefore, their identification tends to reflect the Roman world, also because written material of that era is scarce, and archaeological data are unreliable. A large number of inscriptions give these figures the name of “Mothers” with many and various epithets. A few monuments depict a triad of female figures, with a cornucopia on their knees or a child in their arms. They are therefore identified with female deities associated with nurture and fertility, for the most part “Mother Goddesses”. The Celtic traditions – including through the Irish tales – seems to give a prominent place to female figures, playing both the natural role of “Mother” and a more political one of “Queen” – with the name of Rigani. In this perspective, these female figures may refer to a more symbolic concept, i. e. both motherhood and autochthony.

The interpretation of Type 1 figurines, also known as fertility figurines, of the Middle Kingdom and Second Intermediate Period, relies on the established typology set out by Pinch. Type 1 figurines, those lacking lower legs, here termed ‘truncated’, are significantly different in material, form, decoration and contexts from later types. Preliminary observations drawn from a study of over one hundred and sixty truncated figurines indicates that Pinch’s typology requires adjustment to take account of cultural differences between earlier and later practices. To illustrate the potential of such a dataset, a case study of the Type 1 truncated figurines excavated from the Thirteenth Dynasty Ramesseum Tomb 5 is presented, highlighting features specific to this type of figurine, along with consideration of other forms of contemporary female representation.

A ce jour, on dénombre environ 470 figures féminines en terre cuite de l'âge du fer connues dans les musées et des fouilles en Jordanie. Cet article présente un fragment de figurine récemment découvert à Jneneh dans le Wadi az-Zarqa au nord de la Jordanie centrale. Certaines de ses caractéristiques font référence à un type de figurine du Levant méridional et septentrional du début et du milieu de l'âge du fer, jusqu'alors inconnu.

Analysis of Robinson Jeffers’strategies in recreating Medea. The drama, “freely adapted from Euripides”, was written on demand of the actress Judith Andersen, and was first performed at the National Theatre in New York during the 1947/8 season. Jeffers' modus operandi has several points of contact with the so-called 'artistic translations' by Latin tragedians from the third century B.C, all the more that two parallel circumstances appear to us:  the “discovery” of the Attic masterpieces (repositories of centuries-old literary tradition, from Homer on) made by a culturally young, open-minded audience (the public of ancient Rome and the public on Broadway, "an intelligent but not learned audience", as Jeffers wrote); the fact that both Ennius and Jeffers were (although in a different way) “poetae docti”, with a deep knowledge of the language and cultural underground of their hypotexts, and therefore they were able to act as competent mediators between Euripides and a non-specialist public. Moreover, like ancient Latin dramatists, Jeffers practises the so-called contaminatio-technique (with interpolations from Seneca, Homer, and lyric poetry of Archaic period).

In this chapter, we look at several love goddesses, beginning with “Venus”-figures of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic; then we concentrate upon goddesses named in early historic texts. Powerful multi-functional “Great”-Goddesses, one of whose functions oversees the realm of love, are associated with the planet Venus and with ‘wandering’ in search of their lost loves.

The Demeter Ode in the Helen has no obvious connection to the plot of the play: commentators traditionally explained it away as being merely decorative. This article follows from the work of Guepin and Foley, who see Persephone’s story as analogous to the abduction and return motif in the Helen. I examine the ode through the filter of parthenaic imagery and motifs which I argue runs through the play. By reinterpreting the ode in this light, I also suggest an answer to the question which has caused much confusion: why do the chorus say that Helen has made Demeter angry?"

Starr Goode and Miriam Robbins Dexter. In both human social structure and divine pantheons, the ancient Irish exhibited a legacy of powerful female figures. These female figures appear in both their iconography – as Sheela na gigs – and in their literature. Neither oral traditions nor texts accompany the Sheela na gig figures to tell us who or what they are meant to represent. Only the Sheelas themselves exist, as images of supernatural women that are usually set into the architecture of churches and castles. Their meaning has been examined by scholars for 150 years. We believe that the Sheela na gigs reflect ancient Irish goddesses and heroines, although their form is even more ancient, dating to the Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic eras. In this paper, we connect Irish female figures found in Old Irish texts with the Irish Sheela na gig carvings. We analyze the underlying functions and characteristics of these iconographic and textual female figures. (1) The Irish female figures – and by extension the Sheelas – are multivalent. In both the iconography and the texts, they represent all possibilities of the Life Continuum: birth, death, and rebirth. These female figures are not old or young but old AND young. They are not beneficent or terrifying but beneficent AND terrifying. This is the paradox of those who occupy the realm of the numinous: they represent a continuity of possibilities. Polarities need not apply to those in the realm of the sacred.

Coined by French antiquarians in the 19th century, the term “Vénus à gaine” or “corseted Venus” is still used today to describe a small female figurine in a hieratic pose. The body seems to be enclosed in a rectangular tablet decorated with geometrical patterns, much like a corset. Mostly found in burial contexts from the 1st to
2nd century AD, this type of statuette belongs to a group of anthropomorphic and animal figures widely used in Gaul, Germania and Brittany in the Roman conquest period. Cast in white kaolin clay, they were popular with the lower classes. While they are considered as “cheap knick-knacks”, toys or inexpensive ex-votos, they also demonstrate certain features relating to religious practices and beliefs in Gaul: the pose, attributes, signature and marks found on the “Vénus à gaine” from Hanches (in France’s
Eure-et-Loir region) make it an object of devotion that has less to do with the classic pantheon than with a more popular religion stemming from the Gallic substratum and resulting from various influences.