An extremely old stone figurine was recently found at Tan Tan, Morocco in strata dated to 300,000 to 500,000 BP. It provides an analog to the much-disputed Berekhit Ram figurine from Golan Heights, of about the same age. Both objects bear marks enhancing the stone's resemblance to a woman. See http://donsmaps.com/tantanvenus.html

 

  

New finds in archaeology
(as well as older but little-known ones)

Flints chipped in the shape of female forms, in the late stone age. These shapes are seen in small sculptures and plaques as well as incisions in cave walls at Peche Merle and other Magdelinian sites. Numerous examples can be seen, along with other rarely seen archaic female images at:
http://digilander.libero.it/FRRU/
Vep/Mag/Mag.htm

 These highly abstracted female figures have been found at Lalinde, Gönnersdof, Wilczyce, and many other sites in north central and western Europe.

One of many figures in the round of the same type. From Courbet in the Tarn region of France.

 

 

The sensational find of a large stone relief from Tamtoc, Mexico, in the Huastec cultural zone. It shows three women, one with upraised arms and the other two headless. (Chinnamasta in reverse? just kidding.) Early reports saying that the find dates from the Olmec era are being disputed.

 

  

Another large stone relief of a divinity was found near the Templo Mayor in Mexico. She has been identified as the Aztec Earth deity Tlaltehcihuatl / Tlaltehcuhtli.

At right is a detail
from the oldest Maya mural ever found, at
San Bartolo, Guatemala. Nearly 2000 years old, it depicts the birth of the cosmos, with a divinized king at the center and trees, birds, and life force.

Ancient vulva petroglyphs
at Soogok-ri-Andong, Korea

More at http://anu.andong.ac.kr/~yimsk/petroglyphs/petro-eng/petro-eng.html

And for dolmens --Korea has over a third of all the megaliths in the world-- check out http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~kbyon/dolmen/dolmen.htm

  

A recently discovered mural, over 4000 years old, from a temple in Lambayeque, Peru. It shows a deer in a net.

  

 

This one is the first color photo I've seen of the Lachish Ewer. A menorah stands between two antelopes (a position where a goddess is often shown) Directly above, an inscription dedicates an offering poured out to Elat ("Goddess"). Canaanite, circa 1300.

 

Huastec statue, medieval Mexico.
One of many powerful stone women
from coastal Veracruz.

  

More on Teresa Urrea, la Santa de Cabora

I found several fascinating sources on this daughter of a Sinaloan Indian woman and a wealthly rancher, who became a famous healer and an inspiration to Indian rebels. She trained under the midwife/curandera la Huila and a Yaqui medicine man, and was a skilled healer even before her extended near-death experience and visionary transformation. She was given up for dead and nearly buried, but revived and began healing people suffering from cancer, blindness, stroke, and paralysis. Thousands of Indian people streamed to the ranch where she lived.

Teresa preached justice for the Yaquis and other Indian people who had been subjected to genocidal wars and land seizures. She said it was Indian land, and should not be stolen. She denounced the atrocities the federales were committing against the Indians, having herself seen them hang a three-year-old from a tree:

“Do you wonder why the tribe fights the forces of such a government? My poor Indians! They are the bravest and most persecuted people on earth! They will fight for their rights until they win or are exterminated. God help them! There are few of them left.”

A revolutionary movement coalesced around Teresa, culminating in the weeks-long battle of Tomochic in 1892, when Indian villagers held off the federales for weeks. Their battle cry was "Viva la Santa de Cabora!" Other insurgents took up the call, foreshadowing the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Teresa was forced into exile by the dictator Porfirio Diaz, who called her “the most dangerous girl in Mexico.”

She wound up in El Paso where she continued her healing work and remained politically active. She was one of the authors of the comprehensively progressive Plan de Tomochic, which demanded abolition of “all laws or social practices that maintain inequality based on gender, race, nationality or class.” It called for new laws “declaring both men and women, whites and blacks, natives and foreigners, rich and poor, have the the same rights, duties and privileges and that they be absolutely equal before the law.” We have yet to attain those goals today.  There’s much more to Teresa’s story which is part of the Rebel Shamans show.

Han Gaku, a famous woman warrior from Niigata, Japan, circa 1200. She fought the Kamakura shogunate and was nearly executed for it.

  

 

Kimpa Vita

was the prophetic leader of an African cultural revival movement. In 1706, Portuguese Capuchin monks had her burned at the stake as a heretic, but the Antoniados movement she founded spread in the African diaspora, to Brazil, Colomiba, and other countries.

She is also known as Dona Beatriz de Congo.

 

  
Also in Rebel Shamans

Juana Azurduy, heroine of the
Bolivian independence revolution.

 

Other finds

I came across some beautiful 19th century paintings of Jeanne d’Arc and her signature on a declaration at her Inquisition trial. Also paintings of Juana Azurduy, the heroine of the Bolivian independence movement. Mercedes Sosa sings a song about her:

Juana Azurduy, flor del alto Peru, no hay otro capitan mas valiente que tu… Tierra en armas
que se hace mujer, amazona de la libertad! El español no pasará que mujeres tendrá que pelear.

“There’s no other captain as brave as you… Earth takes up arms and becomes a woman, an amazon of freedom! The Spanish won’t pass through, for it's women they will have to fight.”

Also added: amazing Gandharan goddesses from the Swat Valley (ancient Odiyana, famous for its dakinis) and some rock-cut reliefs of the Iranian goddess Anahita. Antique pictures of Befana and Perchta and various European witch goddesses. Old drawings of a babaylan from the Philippines doing a curing ceremony and of a machitun in Chile some 150 years ago. Eighteenth century paintings of Abenaki and other Native people in Eastern Canada. Icons of the apocryphal saint Paraskeva, sometimes known as Saint Friday, through whom pagan rites were smuggled into the Orthodox Church. She absorbed veneration of a goddess (some scholars say it was Mokosh) of spinning and weaving (Paraskeva L'nianitsa, the "flaxen") and of the Earth (Paraskeva Gryaznyaya, the "dirty").

Ach! There's far more than I have time to write about, but some of the new finds
 are scattered through this newsletter for you to taste.

 

Pot with symbols. Dimini culture,
Greece, circa 4000 BCE.

  

Articles by Max Dashu on other sites: (URLs at www.maxdashu/articlesinter.html )

An essay on The Meanings of Goddess is being serialized in the Goddess Pages, online journal published by Geraldine Charles in Glastonbury, England. Parts One and Two were published in 2007 and are archived on the site. Part Three will appear in 2008.

Another series of Max's articles is archived in the Seasonal Salon published in the e-journal of Reformed Congregation of the Goddess, at www.rcgi.org. The Winter Solstice article will go up around December 21.

Last year's newsletter can be read here.

Your donations to the Archives help get global women's history out there. Fund what you believe is important.

Home | Catalog | Articles