Marija Gimbutas Goddess Movement Analysis

1)The Goddess Movement is a belief or claim that most or all cultures were once matriarchal, that is, the people primarily worshipped female deities or goddesses. The evidence of such a movement is present in New Zealand, Australia and cultures of south-east Europe and was initially brought to light by Marija Gimbutas’ works in the 1970s. The claim is that human society and religion began with the worship of a Goddess, and evidence of this devotion was “ignored” purposefully, or otherwise, by archaeologists until the 1970s and this created an incorrect image of a patriarchal society that existed throughout. This is believed due to the immense number of religious artifacts/temples etc found that highlight the reproductive and ‘life-giving” ability of women, with deity figures sometimes being portrayed with large breasts and hips. This Goddess Movement also attempted to rejuvenate the importance and image …show more content…
Her work that emphasized the female-goddess devotion in some European cultures initially sparked the development of the Goddess Movement. Many other archaeologists followed after her and published their works such as “The Creation of Patriarchy” (Gerda Lerner) which also began attracting more attention to female deity figures across various cultures. Several other historians also argued that cultures in Egypt and Greece also worshipped a universal Great Goddess, supporting their arguments with archaeological material found in many sites. It was around this time that works such as “Mothers and Amazons: The First Feminist History of Culture” and “When God Was a Woman” were reprinted, published and extensively contributed to the development of the movement. Soon this theory or movement gained a lot of attention and it was widely accepted by feminists involved in the field of theology and other archaeologists that a Goddess-centered culture existed in the distant