Representation of women and the cult to the Great Goddess in Marija Gimbucas’ “The

Civilization of the Goddess”

The traditional model of prehistoric society was portrayed for many years as a patriarchal one.
Until the 19th century, research showed that men were usually represented as hunters-and-
gathers and leaders, while women were defined by their abilities for reproduction. This idea has
changed with feminist movements in the last centuries, as well as with new archeologic findings
that provided new theories regarding the role of women in prehistoric society. New religious
movements such as Wicca and The Goddess Movement portray an influence of this feminist
movements on religion as well. They oppose the idea of a male- dominated religion and
suggests a reconnection with the nature and continuation of a cult to a female deity. When it
comes to archeologic sources, it is difficult to prove the existence of a patriarchal or matriarchal
society, as archeologists depend most of the time on visual arts, paintings, sculptures which do
not contain any descriptions of the rituals of that time. Nevertheless, there has been a number
of historians/researchers came up with theories concerning the role of women in prehistoric.
For example, in the 19th century, the law historian and anthropologist Johann J. Bachofen
suggests that before becoming patriarchal, society was organized around women. In 1861, he
writes Das Mutterrecht and develops a theory in which he supports the idea that mother right
preceded father right, and he became an important precursor of theories of matriarchy. Later in
the 20th century, the archeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas also contributed to
theories that claim the importance of women in the Neolithic and she plays an important in
archeology. She publishes several studies in which the gives an overview of her conclusions
about Neolithic social structure, art and religion based on her archeological findings. For
instance, in The Civilization of the Goddess contrasts the differences between Old European
system, which she considered goddess- and woman-centered (gynocentric), and the Bronze Age
Indo-European patriarchal (androcratic) culture. According to her, Old European culture was
egalitarian and peaceful and honored women, whereas the Kurgan people were male-
dominated. The latter is suggested to have imposed their hierarchy on Old European
civilization, which resulted in its transformation into a patriarchal society. In this essay, I am
going to focus on the representation of women and religion in the Neolithic through the work
of Marija Gimbucas in her book The Civilization of the Goddess. I am going to focus on chapter
7 of her book entitled Religion of the Goddess and I am going to investigate to which extent
some of her archeological findings that she discusses in this chapter illustrate a society where
religion was based on a female Goddess. First, I am going to give an overview on Gimbucas’
idea of civilization and her theory of the Great Goddess. Then, I going to concentrate on chapter
7 of her book The Civilization of the Goddess and discuss some of her findings and how she
interprets them. Due to lack of time, I am going to focus only on a few statues and images.
Finally, I am going to contrast Gimbucas’ theory of The Great Goddess in the Neolithic with
other researchers who discusses her ideas.

Civilization in the Neolithic

In her book “Civilization of the Goddess”, Gimbucas discusses her archeologic findings from
Old Europe during the Neolithic period, from the 7th to the 3rd millenia B.C. just before the
arrival of the Indo-Europeans. She claims that the period of 4500-2500 B.C was a period of
constant changes, with many stages to led to the drastic transformation of Old Europe
civilization from a matrilineal to a patrilineal order. For Gimbutas, as the tittle of her book
indicates, Old Europe matrilineal society could be considered as civilization, even if many
historians do not say so. According to the philosopher and theologian Mara Lynn Keller, many
universities in Europe and in the United States claim that “civilization begins at Sumer, in
Mesopotamia, with the rise of empire building, standing armies, class stratification,
monumental architecture, and writing in the service of the ruling class” 1. Once defeated, the
enemies are enslaved by warrior-priest-kings and the economy is consequently slave-based.
Women consequently were subjugated and there is the assumption that a male dominated
society always existed. Gimbucas opposes this idea and suggests another idea of civilization.
She worked as a Professor of European Archaeology and Indo-European Studies, which
allowed her to direct excavations of Neolithic sites in southeastern Europe between 1967 and
1980. Many archeologists did not expect to find anything relevant in these sites, but Gimbucas
unearthed a number of artifacts of daily life and of religious cults and documented her findings
throughout her career. According to her2, the Neolitique Europe is a period when agricultural
communities were developed and when there was a large growth in population, with artistic
expression. She also claims that it is a time when there was “a complex symbolic system

1
KELLER, Mara Lynn. "Gimbutas's Theory of Early European Origins and the Contemporary Transformation of
Western Civilization." Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12.2 (1996): 73-90. Web, p.73.
2
GIMBUTAS, Marija, and Joan Marler. The Civilization of the Goddess : [the World of Old Europe]. San
Francisco: Harper, 1991. Print, p. vii.
formulated around the worship of the Goddess in her various aspects” 3 . All the material
evidence that she found led her to the theory of the existence of a “Goddess civilization”. Keller
adds when discussing Gimbutas’ work that Old Europe civilization “was eventually overrun
but never entirely extinguished by male-dominant Indo-European warriors from the Russian
steppes” 4 . She supports Gimbutas’ theory and suggests that it gives room to a new
understanding of prehistorical origins.

For Gimbutas, the patriarchal society as we know it now does not begin from Neolithic.
She believes that it was due to alien people who arrived in Old Europe at that time, bringing
with them a different ideological, social and economic structure. This foreign civilization who
arrived are not the ones responsible for “civilizing” Old Europe, according to Gimbutas.
Although some historians and archeologists claim that “civilization” began with androcratic
warrior societies, and that the Neolithic was a period before civilization, Gimbutas opposes this
idea. She believes that in order to be considered as a civilization, a society needs to have “artistic
creation, aesthetic achievements, non-material values and freedom”5 as well as “a balance of
power between sexes”. She could observe these characteristics in her findings, and according
to her, the Neolithic can be considered as a true civilization. In the beginning of her book, she
continues to discuss about how Old European are probably structured and she mentions other
studies which depict the same ideas. For instance, Gimbutas uses as an example the work of the
archeologist James Mellaart, famous for his discovery of the Neolithic settlement Catal Hüyük
in Turkey. After conducting excavations in 1961, in which he found different rooms and
buildings containing wall paitings, plaster reliefs and sculptures, he also developed a theory of
the mother goddess worship. Therefore, Gimbucas finds similarities between his theory and
hers, and she highlights that there are no representations of war in Catal Hüyük’s cave paitings,
and the same occurs with the Paleolitic nor in the Neolithic Europe. Consequently, this fact
suggests that before the Indo-Europeans, there was a peaceful society and no evidence of
weapons or arms.

Hypothesis of the Great Goddess and some of Gimbutas’ findings

3
Ibid., p.vii.
4
KELLER, Gimbutas's Theory , op. cit., p. 73.
5
GIMBUTAS, The Civilization, op.cit., p. viii
When it comes to religion, Gimbutas interprets her findings and suggests that women played
central roles in the religion and society of Old Europe. According to her, statues, vases and
other artifacts that that were found represent different deities that were probably linked to a cult
to as Great Goddess, and images of a father god have not been found during this period. Also,
she found evidence from graves which shows no differences in hierarchy between women and
men, which contrasts the royal graves of later periods. Moreover, her research shows that the
symbols and images found revolve around a Goddess that could “represent a cyclical, nonlinear,
mythical time”6. However, Gimbutas talks about a matristic/ matrilineal social order, rather
than a matriarchal one. She explains that the focus was not on domination and not on the
imposition of power, and the Old Europe society was “organized around a theatric, communal,
temple community, guided by a queen-priestess, her brother or an uncle, and a council of
women, as the governing body” 7 . Many other historians support her theory, which also
strengthen some feminist movements. According to the historian and foremother of the Goddess
movement, Carol P. Christ, “Gimbutas interpreted the civilization of Old Europe as
"matrifocal," worshiping the Goddess and honoring women, and probably "matrilineal," with
family ties being traced through the female line”8. The symbol of the Goddess is central for her
as she finds evidence of cult which leads her to hypothesize that “women played central roles
in the creation of Old European religion and probably also played the leading roles in its
rituals”9

Gimbutas discusses gives different examples of artifacts that she considers as an

evidence on the cult to a Great Goddess. For her, the representation of female figures in the
Paleolithic art was already considerably significant, with symbols engraved in rocks which
reflect the belief in “a life-generating female Goddess” 10. Also, she interprets some of the
sculptures as representing a Goddess that gives and protects life, and not just “Venuses that
represent fertility”11. In the Neolithic, there was an increase on artistic expression, as well as
religious symbols. This data allowed Gimbutas to decipher the Goddess iconography. In chapter
7 of her book “The Civilization of the Goddess”, she categorizes the sculptures of the deities
from her study in 4 main groups:

6
Ibid., p. x.
7
Ibid., p. xi.
8
CHRIST, Carol. ""A Different World": The Challenge of the Work of Marija Gimbutas to the Dominant World-
View of Western Cultures." Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12.2 (1996): 53-66. Web, p. 54.
9
Ibid., p. 54.
10
GIMBUTAS, The Civilization, op.cit., p. 222.
11
Ibid., p.222.
  The Goddess who personifies the generative forces of nature
 The Goddess who personifies the destructive forces of nature/ Death Goddess
 The Goddess of Regeneration, who controls life cycles
 The male deities, who are 3 to 5% of the corpus of Neolithic sculptures.

According to Gimbutas, the Goddess of the Neolithic is parthenogenetic, which means that
she creates life out of herself. She mentions different representations, such as statues of pregnant
women, sculptures of a Deer-Mother, and a Bird-Goddess for instance. There is also the Snake
Goddess, which according to her is “a main image of the vitality and continuity of life energy
in the home, and the symbol of family and animal life”12. The snake is depicted by her as a
positive symbol, rather than a representation of evil. One of the sculptures she mentions in her
work that illustrate this claim is the anthropomorphic Neolitique Snake Goddess, which is a
sculpture of clay from early Cretan Neolithic, around 6000 BC. Gimbutas explains that this
statue, sitting in a yogic pose with snakelike hands is also represented in relief of vases and they
can be interpreted as a symbol of “regenerative power”13. Some historians oppose Gimbucas
interpretation of the snake in the statues she found from the Neolithic period. For example, the
archeologist Brian Hayden, who is expert on prehistoric religion, denounces that Gimbutas
made a mistake as far as the interpretation of the snake symbolism is concerned. When she
exposes her interpretation, it is not the shape of the snake, but the “water, rain, earth, cyclical
change, eggs” 14 that she considers to be a representation of the Great Goddess. However,
Hayden believes that it is difficult to avoid the fact that, in Old Europe, the snake is usually
associated with male genitalia, the same way that in a psychoanalytic approach, snakes also
represent masculine forces. He also mentions Eliade’s interpretation of the symbolism of the
snakes which are “are associated with the moon due to the cyclical shedding of their skins and
disappearance into the earth”15. In this case, the snake and moon are considered as "husband
of all women", and according to Eliade, there is a number of societies who believe in the power
of the snake to impregnate women. Nevertheless, the representation of the snake in artifacts
does not mean that it can be seen as a feminine symbol, according to Hayden. For him, snakes
usually appear with images of goddess, therefore that they do not represent them, but “there is

12
GIMBUTAS, The Civilization, op.cit., p. 236.
13
Ibid., p.236.
14
Ibid., p. 236.
15
HAYDEN, B. (1986). Old Europe: sacred matriarchy or complementary opposition?. In A. Bonanno (Ed.),
Archaeology and Fertility Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean: papers presented at the First International
Conference on Archaeology of the Ancient Mediterranean, 2-5 September 1985 (pp. 17-30). Malta: University
of Malta Press, p.20.
an important cosmic interaction in the scene, or it may represent sacred relationship between
two important forces” 16, in other words, both images together may represent “the unification
of feminine and masculine forces”17.

The second kind of Goddess that Gimbutas discusses in her book is the Goddess of
Death. She discusses different examples of this deity, such as the Vulture Goddess, and she
adds that when the Goddess of Death is prophesying death, she usually manifests as birds of
prey. Gimbutas explains that this kind of representation is also found on the wall paintings of
Çatal Hüyük from Mellaart’s study, as it is the most impressive one according to her. In the
plaster reliefs that Mellaart found on the walls, vultures can be seen attacking bodies without
head. Gimbutas explains that the head was probably taken off after death, and places near the
head of a bull which is a symbol of regeneration. She believes that image of the vultures
“gathering the remains of the dead into herself”18 can be understood as a “motherly act” that
goes back to ancient times. She also adds that vultures could not be found everywhere in
Europe, but only in certain areas of the Mediterranean Sea. In the Monoan culture of Crete for
instance, the Vulture Goddess are portrayed in seals and vases, with one of their hands raised,
which can be a “gesture of power or verdict”19. Also, this bird can be found in the symbolism
of European folklore, where vultures are seen as a kind of warning. Indeed, vultures are known
to be an important symbol represented in different civilizations in history, and Gimbutas
identifies them as a very important symbol as well. However, it is difficult to see the connection
between this bird of prey and a Great Goddess and it probably necessary to go into more depth
in her research in order to understand this link.

Later in the chapter, she also discusses the Goddess of Death and Regeneration, being
represented in a continuous cycle of life and death. She explains that in the religion of Old
Europe, “death and regeneration are expressed as two interdependent, contiguous aspects of
one deity”20. In our culture, life and death are seen as opposite sides, but in the religion of the
Great Goddess of the Stone Age they are seen as “an unbroken continuity”, as she “holds
dominion over death”21, but at the same time receives the seeds and eggs which will become a
womb. Among the many representations of this Goddess, there is the image of a female womb

16
Ibid., p.20.
17
Ibid., p. 25.
18
GIMBUTAS, The Civilization, op.cit., p. 238.
19
Ibid., p. 240.
20
Ibid., p.243.
21
Ibid., p.243.
or uterus, which she calls “the Goddess in the form of a frog”22. Apparently, this is a symbol
that predominates in the temples and amulets throughout the Neolithic of Old Europe, Bronze
Age and other historical times. According to Gimbutas, “in the Neolithic and later periods,
frogs are pictured frequently with anthropomorphic features, with a vulva or human head”23. In
Gimbutas’s findings of the Neolithic artwork, the frog is also seen as a Goddess, and it can be
found as a woman with frog legs, or a frog with a human vulva. The Neolithic people revered
frogs for their life cycle and their reappearance in springtime. When it comes to temples
Gimbutas gives several examples from Neolithic sites to show that deities were worshiped in
temples. For instance, different temples with miniature sculptures and ceremonial platforms
were found in the excavations, made by her and other 2 archeologists in 1973 and 1974, in a
settlement called Achilleion near Farsala. One of these sculptures is the Pregnant Goddess,
which was probably worshiped in a bread oven in the courtyard. She explains that “bread ovens
were equipped in front or on the side with a platform resembling a bench which held
sculptures”24. The sculptures found there resemble to a pregnant woman, holding her belly,
sitting on something that could be interpreted as a throne. Other objects were found in this
ceremonial site, such as large vases and pottery. She concludes by saying that the vast majority
of the figurines excavated in Archilleion were female, and 2 out of a 200 represent male gods.
Gimbutas considers that the lack of male statues in this site is a strong proof to a cult to a Great
Goddess in the Neolithic Old Europe. However, it does not mean that male images were less
divine or not divine at all. Gimbutas sees male gods “as partners, consorts, and brother of
goddesses”25. They do not represent the life-giving forces, but their sexual and physical power
were important for the female power of giving life. She also argues that some female goddesses
of regeneration were depicted with male genitals, which was criticized by many scholars. One
of the examples of male Gods that Gimbutas gives is the Strong and Dying Gods of Vegetation,
which according to her, “must have been the consort of the Goddess”26, as they are young males
with ithyphallic posture. She also mentions the Phallic God or Snake, which shows that for her
the snake was not only seen as a feminine symbol. There is also the Centaurus, with the body
of a bull and the head of a man, and their role was probably to stimulate life powers. Finally,
she talks about the Guardians of Wild Nature, that were probably guardians of forests and wild

22
Ibid., p.245.
23
Ibid., p. 246.
24
Ibid., p.253.
25
Ibid., p.249.
26
Ibid., p. 249.
animals. The latter was one of the most difficult to identify when doing the excavations as the
cult probably took place in the wild and was not surrounded by any temples.27

Divergences of opinions and interpretations

Gimbucas’s theory of the Great Goddess is based on a long study carried out during many years,
and it is supported and criticized by many scholars. One of her supporters is Christ, who argues
that the reason why some scholars criticize Gimbucas’ work is because the latter is radical and
implicitly feminist and it goes against “the patrifocal, warlike, hierarchical, class-based
societies in Europe”.28 She explains that Gimbutas uses a feminist method to interpret the data
of Old Europe, whereas her critics want “to defend patriarchal Western hegemony”.29 Christ
claims that Gimbucas’ work is important as it gives a name to a world that until then was only
considered as prehistory. In other words, the term prehistory according to Christ is often seen
as an unimportant prelude to something real, and Gimbutas chose to examine this data which
constitutes an important symbolic language, that it is far from just a prelude. Another scholar
who also supports Gimbucas’ views is Keller. She discusses the fact that Gimbutas’s method is
multidisciplinary, which helps in the construction of knowledge and it helps in the
understanding of an ancient civilization. According to her, instead of archeology, when talking
about Gimbucas’ work, we must think of archeomythology, which “interconnects the
knowledge generated by the fields of empirical archaeology, linguistics, mythology, folklore,
and the history of religion”30. This is a multidisciplinary approach which Keller claims to be
valuable and reliable when it comes to investigating ancient human cultures. The prehistorical
and historical origins of Western civilization can be seen as a very complex one, and she
believes that Gimbutas is very successful in combining science and mythology to study her
findings and to build a bridge between science and spirituality. Keller also supports Gimbucas
by saying that archeologists who only based their research on empirical knowledge, and who
believe that this is the real knowledge, will find it hard “to believe it is possible to have any
reliable knowledge of the mental or spiritual perceptions of people, whether preliterate or
literate”31. By saying that, Keller admits in a certain way that Gimbutas’s interpretations are not

27
Ibid., p. 251.
28
CHRIST, Carol, and Naomi Goldenberg. "The Legacy of the Goddess: The Work of Marija Gimbutas." Journal
of Feminist Studies in Religion 12.2 (1996): 29-29. Web, p.55.
29
Ibid., p. 56.
30
KELLER, Gimbutas's Theory, op.cit., p. 82.
31
Ibid, p. 81.
based on empirical data, but maybe her own interpretation based on her beliefs. In fact, most of
the scholars who share Gimbucas’ views are in a way part of a feminist movement, and their
point of view is considered biased by other scholars. For instance, Claudine Cohen, philosopher
and sciences historian, argues that even though there is the belief in the cult to a Great Goddess
in prehistory by many scholars for years, this is not scientifically proved. She denounces some
of these feminist movements, especially the ones in Anglo-Saxon countries, of using prehistory
32
science as a justification for their feminist revindications. She also denounces the over-
interpretation of some statues. For example, she agrees that some statues indeed look like
pregnant women and therefore represent fertility, but some others have no sign of pregnancy at
all, and still, they are claimed to represent birth.

Many scholars who opposes Gimbucas’ views and other feminist views in relation to
the Great Goddess denounce the fact that they use old myths to explain their theories. Also,
they use an ideologic approach rather than a scientific one, and they are also seen as
essentialists. 33 For example, the historian Patrick Snyder believes that Gimbucas’ theory
inspires feminist movements such as the Great Goddess movement, which have an essentialist
and a dualist approach, depicting women as the nature and men as the culture34. Another scholar
who goes against Gimbucas’ interpretations is the anthropologist and specialist in primitive
societies Allan Testart. For example, he believes that when it comes to life and death, women
are key representations as they are the ones who give birth, as they have a cosmic dimension
and power. However, according to Testart, they do not control their power, men do it instead
and women are the means for its manifestation. For him, it is normal that women are represented
in art in abundance as the masculine monotheism was not present at the Neolithic yet, but that
is not a guarantee that women played a central role in Neolithic religion. Therefore, Testart
believes that the objects found by Gimbucas are not always religious and representing a Great
Goddess, but they are simply everyday objects or decorations. These images can also represent
superstitions of a group, which for him cannot be considered as religion.35 Also, some of the
images found by Gimbutas, according to Testart, consist only on a number of statues of naked
women, which cannot be associated to a place of cult or a temple. For him, some of them are

32
COHEN, Claudine. La Femme Des Origines : Images De La Femme Dans La Préhistoire Occidentale. Paris: Belin
: Herscher, 2003. Print, p.122.
33
SNYDER, Patrick. "Le Mouvement De La Déesse : Controverses Dans Le Champ Académique Féministe."
Nouvelles Questions Féministes 38.1 (2019): 70-85. Web, p.78.
34
Ibid., p. 82.
35
TESTART, Alain. La Déesse Et Le Grain : Trois Essais Sur Les Religions Néolithiques. Paris: Ed. Errance, 2010.
Print. Collection Des Hespérides, p.23.
ordinary, without any special features, and they can represent women who are good to be
married with, because they show good health.

Testart explains that in every society, men manipulate the image of women, and in the
Neolithic, Gimbutas’s findings are not a sign of the power of women, but just a representation
of men’s domination. In other words, he believes that these statues are always made by men
and they represent the wives of ancestors, the ones who give life, symbol of fecundity and
maternity. He does not deny the importance of women, as for him, they are important for giving
birth to children who are going to work in the fields or become warriors. However, Testart
believes that “they are the objects and men of male’s strategies”36, and not the rulers of a society.
He agrees that in a polytheist religion, there are representations of female deities, but that does
not mean that the place of women in society is different. For him, there is the place for the
feminine in different religions, monotheist or polytheist, and women are indeed symbols that
represent life, protection, patience, among other things. In other words, he does not exclude the
existence of a cult to the Great Goddess in other places or other periods, but he believes that
Gimbucas’s findings are not representative enough for her claim about the Neolithic. For
example, he mentions the work of the British archeologist Arthur John Evans, and the Minoan
civilization in Crete from 2000 B.C, which was discovered in the early 20th century. Evans’
research shows evidence of a cult to a Great Goddess, not just because there were feminine
statues, but also the altar and the way the objects were displayed. It also lacks elements of war,
which indicates that it was a more peaceful civilization. Nevertheless, Testarts does not seem
to be against Gimbutas’ views just because he defends a patriarchal view of society, as Christ
claims to be the case for the scholars who oppose her theory. He only argues that the fact that
a civilization with a cult to a great Goddess could have occurred in a certain period, it does not
mean that the same happened in the Neolithic. He also criticizes the idea of James Mellaart and
his interpretation of the “Seated woman of Çatal Hüyük” as representing a Great Goddess.
According to Mellaart, there were representations of the Goddess of Death, such as the
statuettes of a woman giving birth. He explains that “she sits on a throne supported on either
sides by lions, while her feet rest on what are almost certainly meant to be human skulls”37. For
Mellaart, this image can represent a Goddess of Life or Death, who grants life or take it from
all beings. Testart believes that the statue cannot be seen as an important deity, due to the size

36
Ibid., p. 18.
37
MELLAART, James. “Deities and Shrines of Neolithic Anatolia: Excavations at Catal Huyuk, 1962.”
Archaeology, vol. 16, no. 1, 1963, pp. 29–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/41667298, p. 32.
of the statue and where it was found. 38 However, she might have had an important role in
agriculture or in the harvest, she could have been a Goddess with a minor role, but not the Great
Goddess.

Conclusion

The work of Marija Gimbutas is very important as her excavations portrays the discovery of a
civilization which gives a new perspective for new hypothesis about the religion in the Neolithic
period of Old Europe. Her findings are indeed important for archeology, and she is supported
by other scholars who try to show evidences, until this day, that her findings indeed prove the
existence of a prehistorical matrilineal society with the cult of a Great Goddess. It is also known
that in archeology, it is difficult to prove how religion works, as we do not have any written
sources explaining in what people believe in or how their religion is organized. Instead,
archeologists have to depend on statues and images that are not always easy to identify.
Gimbutas clearly found some important evidence of a civilization in which women played an
important role, as she found more female statues than male ones in the sites where her
excavations took place. But these statues lack evidence of gender hierarchy, and as Testart says,
sometimes seem to be ordinary objects. Also, her methods are not seen as scientific, and it is
criticized by many scholars. The ones who share her point of view are also part of feminist
movements, as Gimbutas herself. Therefore, her research is denounced for being biased, in
other words, many scholars believe that her interpretations of her findings more ideological
than scientific. Indeed, it is difficult to say that all the images discussed by Gimbucas represent
a matrilineal society in which the main religion revolves around a female Goddess in the
Neolithic of Old Europe.

38
TESTART, La Déesse, p.33.
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