For these people living six to eight thousand years ago, “The tomb was the womb,” says Gimbutas.11 Some of the tombs found have an entrance similar to a pair of legs which led to an opening into inner chambers of rebirth. In the egg-shaped tombs, skeletons were placed in the fetal position and dabbed with red ochre. Both infants and human skulls were placed in egg-shaped pottery pots for reburial.
Individual and communal burials were practiced. In Northern Old Europe, individual burials predominated. During the Fifth Millennium, collective family burials were common. In Mediterranean Europe, communal burials in megalithic graves and underground chambers called Hypogea are prevalent, most significantly on the island of Malta, c. 5000 to 3000 BCE. This Hypogea was constructed over many centuries and is one of the most spectacular temple/grave structures in Old Europe.
Collective graves are reused with rearrangement of bones in order to accommodate new arrivals. This was practiced in areas of Western Neolithic Europe in the fifth and fourth millennium BCE in what today is called Brittany (France), Portugal, Spain, and England. Skulls are always respected, even if disturbed during new burials, and, if so, they are neatly stacked alongside the graves and covered again with red ochre. Sometimes the skulls are decorated with blue paint, shells, or amber discs placed in the eye sockets. It was believed that the spirit resided in the skull. As a consequence, complete skeletons are rarely found. In New Grange, Ireland, where cremation was a common practice to ensure defleshing before burial, the burned bones are scattered amongst the other ancestors, perhaps to promote peaceful coexistence or more accelerated regeneration; one cannot be certain.
Other symbols of regenerations are also found in abundance: the triple aspect of woman, fish, birds of prey, the egg, the labyrinth with red ochre and energy spirals. If animals were sacrificed, such as dogs, those skeletons were left intact, but they were not eaten beforehand. Triangular altars containing large fish bones and the antlers or shoulder bones of red deer are also prevalent.
The huge Hypogea on Malta is important because it was finished around 2500 BCE, placing its construction and usage near the conclusion of the Neolithic, when other northern areas of continental Old Europe were already being visited by nomadic horseriders, who will change the culture substantially. But in these southernmost areas of the Goddess culture, Malta, Sardinia and Crete, large monuments to the regeneration theme continue being built and used.
Also on Malta there are several sculptures, one quite enormous, of a woman sleeping on her side, lying on an egg-shaped stone couch, her head resting on a pillow. Some believe that in addition to representing the Goddess, these large sleeping ladies with full bodies, not skeletons, may be reminders of yet another practice done by the living. This process is called Incubation. From writing in classical Greece centuries later, it is learned that this same process is known as one of the steps in healing.12
The woman’s treatment began by ritual washing as purification and then was followed by fasting, before being given a drink containing poppy juice and then spending the night in the Hypogean temple with the Goddess, healer/priestess, and all the ancestors.
Tombs were not somber places. Evidence of festivals where girls holding hands and dancing are found on pottery plate. At the juncture of life and death, ceremonies would have taken place not to mourn the dead but to celebrate entrance into a new life. Funerary games at the time of the return of the bones are portrayed on pottery with the accompaniment of male musicians, game players, hunters, and female dancers. The Goddess is shown riding in a small cart with four wheels drawn by three dogs in Hungary c. 6000 BCE.
Astronomy—The Neolithic standing stones associated with sites such as Stonehenge in England, but which also appear in less well-known places, are of great significance if one wishes to comprehend the depth of Neolithic knowledge and culture.
These very large standing stones are an alignment of monuments to astrology, the lunar cycles, solstices, equinoxes and lunar rising, and are ceremonial. All major ones in New Grange, Ireland; Gavunis, Brittany; Maes Howe, Ireland, are associated with grave mounds and oriented toward the rising sun at winter solstice. This time of year depicts the light of the New Year, new life, longest and shortest days of the calendar. Neolithic architects and builders made skillful calculations to place the single window of the grave mound at precisely the spot in the structure which would capture and direct that shaft of sunlight at a specific time, once each year. This ray of sunlight at the first of each New Year promised the people that the Goddess will bring rebirth to them just as She brought light into the darkness of the grave. Her promise still holds true.
Men—The men in this part of the story are not central but not superfluous either, nor are they denigrated from what has been discovered in relatively equal burials practices for both women and men. However, women and children were often buried under the floors of the houses, which is not true for their male counterparts.
In the Neolithic, the sex of women and men was not dichotomized: “It was believed that their fusing created potency necessary to charge nature with life powers.”13 Gimbutas explains that the following five categories of male divinities repeat in the same postures over time. Some are of high enough status to be seated on a stool or throne. She calls them the “sorrowful ancients” because many of the statues of the men appear to be holding their head in the hands, a recognized posture of mourning.
These male deities apparently held their rituals and ceremonies outside in nature because with the exception of the Phallic God, evidence of them was not found in the houses or temples. But examples of the sorrowful, strong, quiet God are found from the 7th to the 4th Millennium BCE.
It is believed that this is part of the agricultural year God concept. The fusing of the male with the seed to bring forth plants, provide food, then die in the fall, lie dormant in winter and reappear again in spring. There are five ways in which the male spirit is depicted: first, the idea of the agriculture God as a young man; second, as a strong God continues into historical times where he is repeatedly portrayed as the young, virile, lover/son/consort of the Goddess/Queen (Demeter-Dionysus, Artemis-Actern, Hera-Hercules, Athena – Erectheus, Cybell-Attis, Isis-Osiris/Horus). The third type of representations are the phallic gods often shown as standing statues with an erect penis. As a snake, the phallic God represents fertility, abundance through increase and health. Mythological representations continue forward from Goddess Neolithic to Greece, Rome, and enduring in folklore to the present day. The fourth representation is the Centaur: Bull body, male head and shoulders. These are stimulators of life powers and are sometimes buried in graves to assure regeneration. And the fifth, as protector of forests and wild animals, are the Guardians of Nature Gods, as currently seen in Eurasian Myths and possibly translated into the Celtic/Druid priesthood, which appeared during Roman times and later in Europe. Sometimes these are referred to in mythology as Silvanus, Faunus, or Pan. Little archeological evidence exists from the Neolithic although his image goes all the way back to Paleolithic cave paintings (10,000–8,000 BCE), which show a figure half animal, half human depicted among different animal herds. In Catal Huyuk, (Anatolia/Turkey) a male stick figure holding vultures alternates with a female figure also holding vultures: The two are thought to be mistress and master of the animals, suggesting parallel responsibilities between the women and men representing deities.
CATAL HUYUK – THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
Two major archeological sites give information on the temple practices of the Neolithic times. One is the temple of Achelleion in Thessaly, Greece, which dates from the 7000 to 6000 BCE, and the second is the town of Catal Huyuk in central Turkey dating from 7000 BCE. Catal Huyuk is becoming known as the new cradle of civilization, predating Sumerian and Greek culture by many thousands of years.
Excavations date back to 7000 BCE, showing this was a thriving town in ancient Anatolia with a population of some 10,000 people who continued to thrive nearly 2,000 years in peaceful prosperity
without moving in the fashion of nomads.
Original excavations were done by James Mellart in 1961–63. The findings were extensively documented in his own writings. Other archeologists have continued to uncover layer after layer of extraordinary houses, temples, wall paintings, and artifacts. (There is now an information and visitors center on site.)
The city of Catal Huyuk, consisting of about 32 acres and the largest settlement yet uncovered of its time, was built on a wide Anatolian plain near a river. The dwellings are constructed of mud brick with common walls, intermittent open courtyards, and flat roofs. There are second story windows but no doors on either the first or second floor exterior walls. People climbed ladders to the second floor and then entered the interior space through an opening in the roof at one end of the room below. It is believed that these rooftops were also used for growing plants in pots, for drying food, and for social contact between families. A computerized reproduction of the town looks similar in design and building material to Native American Pueblo architecture of the Hopi, where the Hopi kiva is accessed by an opening in the top. The design is economical, using shared common walls, practical as the thick walls provide moderate temperatures and insulate from extremes of heat or cold, and protect from undesirable elements whether weather, animal or vermin. And because human waste must be eliminated from dwellings of habitation, the people simply rose above the trenches and ditches they built to carry away the waste.
With windows on the second floor, in addition to providing necessary ventilation, there were beautiful views of the plains and the agricultural fields; it was possible to monitor the growth of crops and the progress of herds as well as the distant volcano that occasionally erupted creating a spectacular display.
The third, top floor also with windows was used as a small temple. Many of these house temples were found among the various apartments. Hallways may have allowed passage from one apartment to another without having to climb up to the roof and walk across. The first floor, a lowest floor devoid of windows, had permanent beds that were actually sleeping ledges built into the sidewalls. Beneath this first floor the remains of one’s dead ancestor’s skeletons were buried.
This large apartment complex was kept clean and free from debris. One’s ancestors were always present, and, no doubt, one could hear the admonitions of mother’s voice throughout life, as one slept directly above her grave. The people engaged in an active economy, the basis of which was irrigation agriculture: the breeding of sheep, goats, and cattle; trading in woven textiles, skins, leather goods; food surplus such as wheat, barley, legumes, and profitable trades in black volcanic obsidian, which was valuable for fashioning into divination mirrors, and chipping into blades for cutting. Bone tools, jewelry pendants, lead technology (c. 6500 BCE) and copper beads (c. 5400 BCE) have been discovered in the excavations.
The Goddess was worshipped both in the side temples and outside in the temple courtyards of Catal Huyuk where the bread oven fire pits and special altars were located. The early Neolithic Pregnant Goddess was worshipped at the bread oven outdoors. Inside, the goddess was worshipped in one of several aspects: protectress of life, energy and hearth; guardian of families; giver of death/regeneratrix.
These separate temple structures had two rooms, often two stories in height. One was the temple proper, usually on the second floor, and one on the main/ground floor was a workshop for ceramic figurines, decorated pottery production and ritual preparations.
The figurines are fascinating: Whether seated, or slightly reclining, or in extremely formal posture, though apparently naked to the waist, She has a straight back, folded arms, some with Her hands cupping breasts. She has intricate hair braids neatly coiled on top of Her head and sometimes an elongated headdress with a wide band covering all her hair. She is sculpted with a rather massive set of thighs, ample hips and elongated hanging oval shaped and very large breasts. She is the pregnant Goddess, and may be shown either sitting or reclining in an ancient birthing chair and not a throne as has sometimes been assumed.14
The larger temples of Catal Huyuk vividly and prominently portray the dual death/regeneration process held so sacred. The frescos picture exposed funeral places of esoteric design where the overwhelmingly large vulture birds with extended wings excarnate the dead, who were often painted as already headless. The people understood this practice as the Goddess receiving, once again, that life which She generated in the beginning. There is also a vulture painted hidden in the female breast of the Goddess: the cycle symbolic of death, regeneration and new life. There is a large temple room that is called the bucrania after the bullheads mounted on walls lining the room. The heads have been painted with red ochre and blue roses.
“As a symbol of regeneration, the bull head or skull is also found in the Near East and extensively in the art of Old Europe. This symbol might actually originate in the Paleolithic when human excarnation was customary. The exposition of human organs would have offered the occasion to notice such a similarity of images.”15 This similarity is between the bullhead with its set of horns and the female reproductive organs of uterus and fallopian tubes on either side.
The spiritual experience here was collective, communal, shamanic and perhaps psychedelic. It has long been known that the shamanic traditions of native people throughout the world, across cultures and continents, were core features in physical healing and emotional balance. Many, but not all, shamans (women and men, too) had both an animal spirit helper and plant world helpers both for medicinal use on other people and for personal assistance in divination. Catal Huyuk appears to have relied on these substances for healing the sick and enhancing the power of spiritual pursuit.
Gimbutas tells us that opium poppy was among the plants grown agriculturally in Neolithic Old Europe. William Eichman, Pennsylvania State College lecturer, writes in The Religion of Catal Huyuk that the original work of archaeologist Mellaart describes the mound of Catal Huyuk covered by shrubs of Syrian rue:
whose seeds contain compounds harmine and harmaline – the psychoactives in South American shamanic drink yage. Most importantly for the culture of Catal Huyuk and our understanding of it, these substances are known to produce visions of big wild cats such as leopards and lions or panthers. Archeology has shown that the leopard skin imagery is everywhere in Catal Huyuk: on cups, on Goddesses figurines, on painting of the volcano … Catal Huyuk is located in an area where the psychedelic plants of Old Europe-Syrian rue, amanita muscaria mushroom, ergotized grains and cannabis are commonly found.”16
Because this culture lasted nearly 2,000 years in the same locale, there is reason to believe that these natural plant substances utilized in the peaceful, communal co-existence of the city did not interfere with agriculture, temple worship or sacred spiritual practices, all of which were intertwined. Perhaps the way in which they were used actually promoted peaceful co-existence in such a densely populated city.
However they achieved the result, this population was very successful in their agricultural endeavors, understanding crop rotation, fallow fields, fertilizer and exerting the hard work of the harvest. They honored ancestors whom they anticipated meeting again, had beautiful art, astonishing temples of worship built to concentrate on regeneration of human-kind through the blood, body and spirit of the eternal body of the Goddess.
Their energy went into life perpetuation. Their patience was for eternal life. Their persistence was for the continuation of one unbroken cycle of life. Their culture distributed goods and services equally. Their burial honored both men and women equally. Their universe was so filled with life, the pursuit of life and the belief in life, that it seems almost incomprehensible to us now, because they devoted absolutely no time or energy on war on weapons or on taking away from others what did not belong to them.
Can any of us today even imagine such a world?
SACRED SCRIPT
The Goddess cultures invented writing, but that is still not what is taught today even though archeology justifies
the statement.
Although we may not yet know the full meaning of all of it, there was a sacred script used by Goddess peoples that appeared during the first half of the 6th millennium BCE and was used continuously for about 2,000 years. This Old European script is older than the Sumerian from Mesopotamia and older than the Indus script that the Harppa civilization used. It predates Cretan hieroglyphics and Crypo-Minoan by several thousand years.17
This script was used when the Neolithic culture had a metallurgic industry, advanced knowledge of architecture, trade relations with others hundreds of miles distant, specialized crafts, textile weaving and dyeing, a developed agriculture, highly complex religious practices of long duration and a peaceful co-existence with other people over vast territories. It was the signature of a developed culture during the 6th through the 5th Millennium BCE, across Eastern Old Europe, the Balkans, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and sometimes found as far south as Italy and in Western Europe also.
The oldest written form may be “M” and “V.” The letter or symbol “M” formed from wavy lines for “water” going all the way back to the Paleolithic, phonetically pronounced MA. And the “V,” which is the symbol of the female pubic triangle, the vulva, was understood universally in the same way that the “victory” sign made with the first two fingers spread apart is universally understood today.
Where are these script signs found?
Inscriptions appear only on items associated with sacred practice and work in service of the Goddess, which was done inside the Temple or outside in the Temple courtyard. Script is on spindle whorls, loom weights, clay temple models, ceremonial vases and drinking cups, offering receptacles and figurines depicting aspects of the Goddess. It may also be that body tattooing occurred, because many of the figurines are highly inscripted front and back. Masks are nearly universal on the figurines, but many of the masks are also inscripted in addition to portraying a bird. However, because there was a universal Neolithic practice of excarnation of bodies before burial, there is no physical evidence of this tattooing practice except the inscribed bodies of the figurines, which may also have been exvotos for the people to hold, have in their homes, and remember the more complex meanings implied by the inscriptions.
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