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By Root 942 0

archaeological mystery lying behind this theory: the many thousands of prehistoric figurines from all over the world—some of them from the Stone Age, and dated from eighteen thousand to twenty-five thousand years old. Their widespread existence hints at more than just a fascination with the female form. Often loosely described as prehistoric “Venuses,” these statuettes and figurines come in many shapes and forms, but are often full-bodied and sexually enticing, with exaggerated breasts. Some, but hardly all, are pregnant. As author Nancy Hathaway put it, “We don’t know if they were erotic images, religious icons, household objects, or charms meant to promote fertility. We do know that there are thousands of them…. with [an] absence of an equivalent number of male figures….”

There is, however, broad disagreement about whether the “Venuses” actually represent another age and a different mind-set in human worship—a matriarchal, nonviolent, vegetarian epoch in which the female deity was dominant. In a New York Times article on “Venus” figurines, some archaeologists offer that these small figurines were pendants to be worn by men on the hunt, a Stone Age “picture of the wife” to carry while away from home. There is even a hint—widely dismissed—that they were Stone Age “porn.” But there is no real evidence to suggest that they were all “goddesses.”

The “Goddess movement” has blossomed during the past thirty years, prompted largely by social changes and the shift in attitudes brought about by feminism, the advent of women’s studies on university campuses, the contemporary transformation of traditional sex roles—and a rejection of male-dominated orthodox religions. At about the same time, the environmentally oriented “Gaia movement” emerged, a theory that suggests the earth itself is a living “entity,” named after a Greek earth goddess. The new wave of Goddess worship also awakened enormous popularity in the “Wiccan movement,” said to be among the fastest-growing religions in America. (It is apparently even acknowledged by the U.S. Department of Defense as a legitimate religion that can be practiced on military bases.) Also called “the Craft” or even “Witchcraft,” the practice of Wicca as a religion developed in the United Kingdom in the mid-1900s. Essentially, it is a fertility religion with roots in the ancient myths, which celebrates the natural world and the seasonal cycles that were central to farming societies in Sumerian and Babylonian mythologies, as well as those of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Celts. Contemporary Wicca is an “equal opportunity” borrower and also draws on Buddhist, Hindu, and American Indian rites.

MYTHIC VOICES

When Marduk sent me to rule over men, to give the protection of right to the land, I did right and righteousness in…, and brought about the well-being of the oppressed.

2 If any one bring an accusation against a man, and the accused go to the river and leap into the river, if he sink in the river his accuser shall take possession of his house. But if the river prove that the accused is not guilty, and he escape unhurt, then he who had brought the accusation shall be put to death, while he who leaped into the river shall take possession of the house that had belonged to his accuser.

3 If any one bring an accusation of any crime before the elders, and does not prove what he has charged, he shall, if it be a capital offense charged, be put to death.

25 If fire break out in a house, and someone who comes to put it out cast his eye upon the property of the owner of the house, and take the property of the master of the house, he shall be thrown into that self-same fire.

129 If a man’s wife be surprised [in flagrante delicto] with another man, both shall be tied and thrown into the water, but the husband may pardon his wife and the king his slaves.

130 If a man violate the wife [betrothed or child-wife] of another man, who has never known a man, and still lives in her father’s house, and sleep with her and be surprised, this man shall be put to death, but the wife is blameless.

131