The Language of the Goddess - Softcover

Gimbutas, Marija; Campbell, Joseph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0500282498 ISBN 13: 9780500282496

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2001

Synopsis

"The first authoritative work on the ancient goddess culture."—Boston Globe

The Goddess is the most potent and persistent feature in the archaeological records of the ancient world, a symbol of the unity of life in nature and the personification of all that was sacred and mysterious on earth.

In this pioneering and provocative volume, Marija Gimbutas resurrects the world of the Goddess-worshipping, earth-centered cultures, bringing ancient matriarchal society vividly to life. She interweaves comparative mythology, early historical sources, linguistics, ethnography, and folklore to demonstrate conclusively that Goddess-worship is at the root of Western civilization. Illustrated with nearly 2,000 symbolic artifacts, Gimbutas' magnum opus is at once a "pictorial script" of the prehistoric Goddess religion and an authoritative work that takes these ancient cultures from the realm of speculation into that of documented fact. Over 500 illustrations.

About this title

About the Author:

Marija Gimbutas was Professor of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a prolific author of books on prehistory and archaeology.

From Library Journal:

Bringing together archaeological evidence, comparative mythology and folklore, and symbolic interpretations, Gimbutas's work asserts the existence in prehistoric Europe of a widespread culture centered on the Goddess, lifegiver and sustainer, as well as death-wielder. Through the examination of hundreds of Paleolithic and mostly Neolithic pieces, the author traces cross-cultural and cross-chronological symbolic parallels, some of which are quite broad and open to several types of inference. The central and venerated position of women in the unconscious of early European people seems probable; this order of things changed with the incursions by Kurgan groups (4300-2800 B.C.) and the European world moved "from matrilineal to patrilineal." Whether or not one agrees with these archaeomythological interpretations, Gimbutas offers a thought-provoking symbolic reading of hundreds of selected pieces, beautifully reproduced in this sizeable compendium.
- Winnie Lambrecht, Brown Univ., Providence, R.I.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0500282498
• ISBN 13: 9780500282496
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424