Goddesses/Demigoddesses/Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits from Catal Huyuk?

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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I think most represent a Goddess as well as it is possible, a some could relate to a Demigoddesses/Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits.

“ A demigoddess or demi-goddess is a minor deity, or a mortal or immortal who is the offspring of a god and a human, or a figure who has attained divine status after death.” ref

In my prehistory art in this blog, I offer my speculations relating to art with possible religious/supernatural thinking which I think are justified, or reasoned speculations/conjectures.

My thoughts on speculations/conjectures:

Unreasoned speculations/conjectures

Wild speculations/conjectures

Loose speculations/conjectures

Justified speculations/conjectures

Reasoned speculations/conjectures

Sound/proven speculations/conjectures

Many figures were found in, under, or in the walls or foundations of houses.

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in pagan religions as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, with examples including the Greek Hestia and Norse Frigg. The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism.” ref

“These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownieand Slavic Domovoy. Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref 

“Sumerian religion was the religion practiced and adhered to by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia. The Sumerians regarded their divinities as responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. Before the beginning of kingship in Sumer, the city-states were effectively ruled by theocratic priests and religious officials. Later, this role was supplanted by kings, but priests continued to exert great influence on Sumerian society. In early times, Sumerian temples were simple, one-room structures, sometimes built on elevated platforms.” ref

“The Sumerians believed that the universe had come into being through a series of cosmic births. First, Mother Goddess Nammu, the primeval waters, gave birth to An (the sky) and Ki (the earth), who mated together and produced a son named Enlil. Enlil separated heaven from earth and claimed the earth as his domain. Humans were believed to have been created by Enki, the son of An and Nammu. Heaven was reserved exclusively for deities and, upon their deaths, all mortals’ spirits, regardless of their behavior while alive, were believed to go to Kur, a cold, dark cavern deep beneath the earth, which was ruled by the goddess Ereshkigal and where the only food available was dry dust. In later times, Ereshkigal was believed to rule alongside her husband Nergal, the god of death.” ref

“Deities in ancient Mesopotamia were almost exclusively anthropomorphic, ( attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions). The Anunnaki were believed to be the offspring of An and his consort, the earth goddess Ki, has been identified with the Sumerian mother goddess Ninhursag, stating that they were originally the same figure. The oldest of the Anunnaki was Enlil, the god of air and chief god of the Sumerian pantheon. The deities typically wore melam, an ambiguous substance which “covered them in terrifying splendor”. Melam could also be worn by heroes, kings, giants, and even demons. The effect that seeing a deity’s melam has on a human is described as ni, a word for the physical tingling of the flesh. Deities were almost always depicted wearing horned caps, consisting of up to seven superimposed pairs of ox-horns.” ref

“The ancient Mesopotamians believed that their deities lived in Heaven, but that a god’s statue was a physical embodiment of the god himself. As such, cult statues were given constant care and attention and a set of priests were assigned to tend to them. These priests would clothe the statues and place feasts before them so they could “eat”. A deity’s temple was believed to be that deity’s literal place of residence. The gods had boats, full-sized barges which were normally stored inside their temples and were used to transport their cult statues along waterways during various religious festivals.  Virtually every major deity in the Sumerian pantheon was regarded as the patron of a specific city and was expected to protect that city’s interests. The deity was believed to permanently reside within that city’s temple.” ref

“One text mentions as many as fifty Anunnaki associated with the city of Eridu. In Inanna’s Descent into the Netherworld, there are only seven Anunnaki, who reside within the Underworld and serve as judges. Inanna stands trial before them for her attempt to take over the Underworld; they deem her guilty of hubris and condemn her to death. Major deities in Sumerian mythology were associated with specific celestial bodies. Inanna was believed to be the planet Venus. In the mythologies of the Hurrians and Hittites (which flourished in the mid to late second millennium BC in Turkey not that far from Catal Huyuk), the oldest generation of gods was believed to have been banished by the younger gods to the Underworld, where they were ruled by the goddess Lelwani. Hittite scribes identified these deities with the Anunnaki. In ancient Hurrian, the Anunnaki are referred to as karuileš šiuneš, which means “former ancient gods”, or kattereš šiuneš, which means “gods of the earth. The old gods had no identifiable cult in the Hurrio-Hittite religion; instead, the Hurrians and Hittites sought to communicate with the old godsthrough the ritual sacrifice of a piglet in a pit dug in the ground. The old gods were often invoked to perform ritual purifications. ”  ref

 Grandmother-Mother Ancestor Spirits

“Ancestor worship is perhaps the world’s oldest religion. Some anthropologists theorize that it grew out of belief in some societies that dead people still exist in some form because they appear in dreams. Ancestor worship involves the belief that the dead live on as spirits and that it is the responsibility of their family members and descendants to make sure that are well taken care of. If they are not they may come back and cause trouble to the family members and descendants that have ignored or disrespcted them. Unhappy dead ancestors are greatly feared and every effort is made to make sure they are comfortable in the afterlife. Accidents and illnesses are often attributed to deeds performed by the dead and cures are often attempts to placate them.” ref

“In some societies, people go out of their way to be nice to one another, especially older people, out of fear of the nasty things they might do when they die. Ancestor worship is found in many forms in cultures throughout the world; veneration of ancestors is regarded as a means through which an individual can assure his or her own immortality. Children are valued because they could provide for the spirits of their parents after death. Family members who remained together and venerated their forebears with strict adherence to prescribed ritual find comfort in the belief that the souls of their ancestors are receiving proper spiritual nourishment and that they are ensuring their own soul’s nourishment after death.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Cultic Hunting at Catal Huyuk “first religious designed city”

I view these art scenes as hunting cult behavior of the early paganist males with a totemistic type of warrior-shaman, in demonstrations of bravery taunting and ritually playing with strong animals such as bears and bulls. Cult ritual, not just standard hunting. None of the average male hunters are depicted as wearing a leopard skin crown. It is thus a special or elite thing to wear a leopard skin crown and only a few have this. Moreover, I see this not as standard hunting for food but rather cult ritual hunting behaviors. At Catal Huyuk, some of the cultic hunting scenes depict possible goddesses, female shamanistic pagan figures, or female ancestor spirits. However, possibly it could be all of these characteristics, which was a female ancestor spirit of a female shaman that turned into a goddess or demigoddess protector. Is there one ancestor goddess or demigoddess in each of these three hunting scenes? Well, I think it likely could be so or at least something like that as all others seem to be men.  ref, ref, ref, ref 

To me, my referencing of Catal Huyuk cultic hunting totemistic “warrior-shaman” type it meant to be similar in some ways to the Norse and Germanic peoples paganistic shamanism that involved a sacred trance-like battle-fury closely linked to a particular totem animal, which for Catal Huyuk males was seemingly the leopard (wearer of “leopard -shirts”) and whom I surmise believed they drew their power from the leopard and were devoted to leopard cults. Viking Age “warrior-shamans” had two main totem animal groups, such as the berserkers (wearer of “bear-shirts”) who thought they drew their power from the bear and were devoted to bear cults and ulfheonar (“wolf-hides”) who thought they drew their power from the bear and were devoted to bear cults. Moreover, the wolf type of warrior-shamans appears among the legends of the Indo-Europeans, Turks, Mongols, and even Native American cultures. ref, ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“The first piece of domestic furniture seen in use is the stool with a rectangular frame. It is found over and over again on early Egyptian cylinder seals. These seals, short and fat, usually of black steatite (soapstone), are peculiar to the earliest dynastic period 5,100 years ago. The inscriptions they bear – among the first exam-pies of writing – often give the name and title of some priest or official, followed by a group of signs that represent the deceased seated on a stool behind a pile of offerings (Figures 2, 3). For the stool, or the chair, has always been the mark of an important personage: it raises him above the level of his inferiors. (Most people in Egypt and other parts of the Near East seem to still sit/squatting on the ground) This sign, scarcely changing, remained the determinative for a person of rank in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.” ref

“The stools on the seals are seen either from the side (Figure 2), or from the top (Figure 3) in what was to become a characteristic Egyptian mode of illustration: the representation of each separate part of the whole in its most recognizable aspect. Many of these early seals show a feature retained in pictures of stools throughout the dynastic period and much exaggerated in late times: the frames end in projections shaped like papyrus umbels, suggesting that the first Egyptian furniture was of wickerwork and that the frames were made of bundles of reeds bound together. Sometimes the legs of the stools shown on the seals were carved in the form of bulls’ legs.” ref

“And when the legs of lions began to replace those of bulls, about the end of the III Dynasty, the idea was similar: the sitter was to share the characteristic qualities of the King of Beasts; spool-like supports under the animal hooves or paws. Known as casters, even though rigid, they were always present with animal feet. Although, as one might expect, stools were made before chairs, there is a picture of a royal throne of about the same period as the cylinder seals. Narmer, the first king of Egypt, dedicated a giant mace head – symbolizing the weapon with which he had conquered his enemies and united Upper and Lower Egypt – in the temple at Hierakonpolis.” ref

‘One of the scenes carved on its surface pictures Narmer seated on a canopy-sheltered throne mounted on a high stepped dais (Figure 4). The throne seems to be a rectangular block scooped out to fit the king’s posterior and offer support for his back. But possibly he is really shown suspended, as it were, above curving arms, and this, accordingly, would be one of the first examples of the Egyptian artist’s reluctance to conceal any part of an object by another closer to the spectator. There is no indication of the material of the throne, but the dais, to judge by its Egyptian name, was of wood. A couch of the I Dynasty was actually more a commodious stool and several beds. The couch also has the familiar bull legs.” ref

“The stool, no matter how it is embellished, remains a raised seat without back or arms. But as early as the II Dynasty, officials, as well as kings, seemed to feel the need of support behind them, and the world’s first chairs were born. A hieroglyph in the pyramid of Pepi I of the 6th Dynasty (4,323-4,150 years ago) implies that his “shining throne” had lions’ heads and constitute the Old Kingdom of Dynastic Egypt with a pyramid built at Saqqara. (Figure 5) Arm panel of the throne of Tuthmosis iv, from his tomb, Thebes, xviii Dynasty, about 3,420 years ago, Cedar, height 94 inches.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük

“The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (also Çatal Höyük) is a baked-clay, nude female form, seated between feline-headed arm-rests. It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother goddess in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a Mistress of Animals motif. The statuette, one of several iconographically similar ones found at the site, is associated to other corpulent prehistoric goddess figures, of which the most famous is the Venus of Willendorf. It is a neolithic sculpture shaped by an unknown artist, and was completed in approximately 6000 BCE.” ref

Kubaba

“Kubaba is the only queen on the Sumerian King List, which states she reigned for 100 years – roughly in the Early Dynastic III period (ca. 2500–2330 BCE) of Sumerian history. A connection between her and a goddess known from Hurro–Hittite and later Luwian sources cannot be established on the account of spatial and temporal differences. Kubaba is one of very few women to have ever ruled in their own right in Mesopotamian history. Most versions of the king list place her alone in her own dynasty, the 3rd Dynasty of Kish, following the defeat of Sharrumiter of Mari, but other versions combine her with the 4th dynasty, that followed the primacy of the king of Akshak. Before becoming monarch, the king list says she was an alewife, brewess or brewster, terms for a woman who brewed alcohol.” ref

“Kubaba was a Syrian goddess associated particularly closely with Alalakh and Carchemish. She was adopted into the Hurrian and Hittite pantheons as well. After the fall of the Hittite empire, she continued to be venerated by Luwians. A connection between her and the similarly named legendary Sumerian queen Kubaba of Kish, while commonly proposed, cannot be established due to spatial and temporal differences. Emmanuel Laroche proposed in 1960 that Kubaba and Cybele were one and the same. This view is supported by Mark Munn, who argues that the Phrygian name Kybele developed from Lydian adjective kuvavli, first changed into kubabli and then simplified into kuballi, and finally kubelli. However, such an adjective is a purely speculative construction.” ref

Cybele

“Cybele (Phrygian: “Kubileya/Kubeleya Mother”, perhaps “Mountain Mother”) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük, where statues of plump women, sometimes sitting, have been found in excavations. Phrygia‘s only known goddess, she was probably its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the 6th century BCE. In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, of her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and of the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following.” ref

“Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions. In Rome, Cybele became known as Magna Mater (“Great Mother”). The Roman State adopted and developed a particular form of her cult after the Sibylline oracle in 205 BCE recommended her conscription as a key religious ally in Rome’s second war against Carthage (218 to 201 BCE). Roman mythographers reinvented her as a Trojan goddess, and thus an ancestral goddess of the Roman people by way of the Trojan prince Aeneas. As Rome eventually established hegemony over the Mediterranean world, Romanized forms of Cybele’s cults spread throughout Rome’s empire. Greek and Roman writers debated and disputed the meaning and morality of her cults and priesthoods, which remain controversial subjects in modern scholarship.” ref

“Isis was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion believed to help the dead enter the afterlife. She was usually portrayed in art as a human woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head. During the New Kingdom (3,550–3,070 years ago), as she took on traits that originally belonged to Hathor, the preeminent goddess of earlier times, Isis came to be portrayed wearing Hathor’s headdress: a sun disk between the horns of a cow. Likewise, the expression of moon disks headdress: a moon disk between the horns of a cow. Her reputed magical power was greater than that of all other gods, and she was said to protect the kingdom from its enemies, govern the skies and the natural world, and have power over fate itself. Whereas some Egyptian deities appeared in the late Predynastic Period (before 5,100 years ago), neither Isis nor her husband Osiris were clearly mentioned before the Fifth Dynasty (4,494–4,345 years ago). The hieroglyphic writing of her name incorporates the sign for a throne, which Isis also wears on her head as a sign of her identity. Like other goddesses, such as Hathor, she also acted as a mother to the deceased, providing protection and nourishment. Thus, like Hathor, she sometimes took the form of Imentet, the goddess of the west, who welcomed the deceased soul into the afterlife as her child.” ref

“Isis is treated as the mother of Horus even in the earliest copies of the Pyramid Texts. Yet there are signs that Hathor was originally regarded as his mother, and other traditions make an elder form of Horus the son of Nut.” ref

“Egyptian mythology, Nut was the goddess of the sky, she was seen as a star-covered nude woman arching over the earth, or as a cow. The ancient Egyptians believed that Nut swallowed the sun-god, Ra, every night and gave birth to him every morning. In direct contrast to most other mythologies which usually develop a sky father associated with an Earth mother (or Mother Nature), she personified the sky and he the Earth. Nut was Mistress of All or “She who Bore the Gods”: Originally, Nut was said to be lying on top of Geb (Earth) and continually having intercourse. Nut was the goddess of the sky and all heavenly bodies, a symbol of protecting the dead when they enter the afterlife. According to the Egyptians, during the day, the heavenly bodies—such as the sun and moon—would make their way across her body. Then, at dusk, they would be swallowed, pass through her belly during the night, and be reborn at dawn. Nut is also the barrier separating the forces of chaos from the ordered cosmos in the world. She was pictured as a woman arched on her toes and fingertips over the earth; her body portrayed as a star-filled sky. Nut’s fingers and toes were believed to touch the four cardinal points or directions of north, south, east, and west.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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“Statuette represents a goddess seated upon a spotted leopard; she caresses the head of the animal. The goddess wears a leopard skin neckerchief. From the Hunting Shrine E VI; measures 11 cm. in height. The drilled holes suggest that it could be worn as a pendant. Professor Mellaart identified the leopard as “the sacred animal of the deities of the animal world and of nature” (Catal Huyuk, 1967, page 156).” ref 

Picture: ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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There are other clothing resembling miniskirts that have been identified by archaeologists and historians as far back as 3,390–3,370 years ago. But this is much older. ref

Leopard claw-bone pendant from the Possible Woman Shaman/Priestess burial with the plastered and painted woman’s head in her arms that is several generations removed. She was buried under the floor of the history house (house with multiple burials beyond that of the connected family) with the twin facing leopards at Catal Huyuk. Ref

“From about 7500 B.C.E to 5700 B.C.E., early farmers grew wheat, barley, and peas, and raised sheep, goats, and cattle. At its height, some 10,000 people lived there. Among its more noteworthy features, Çatalhöyük’s inhabitants were obsessed with plaster, lining their walls with it, using it as a canvas for artwork, and even coating the skulls of their dead to recreate the lifelike countenances of their loved ones.” ref

  “”There was a ritualistic ancestor, three layered burials of random bones as a cap, then a main headless burial on top and inside a lower burial, see in three pictures. The small skull is a baby burial below the other burials like a metaphorical birth.” Ref 

ANCESTOR CULT?

“The study of the interaction between the living and the dead is to some extent hampered by modern terminology: narrow definitions of “ancestor,” “cult,” and “worship” have obscured the fact that most, if not all, sedentary societies have a degree of communication with their deceased forbears that could broadly be described as ancestor worship. These types of behaviors, however, should be carefully distinguished from funerary rituals, which concern the ceremonial removal of the deceased from the society of the living. The main characteristics of ancestor worship/cult are relatively consistent across the ancient Mediterranean world. As a rule, “ancestor” is an achieved status: death alone does not confer ancestor-hood, but transformation into an ancestor requires ritual both to elevate the status of the deceased individual and to reincorporate him or her into society. While the relationship between the living and the dead is generally one of reciprocity, the dead behave ambivalently toward the living; those beyond living memory (the collective dead)are more likely to behave in a malevolent manner.” ref 

“At the same time, active ancestor cults tend to be short-lived; most are chiefly concerned with parents and grandparents (i.e., people within living memory, who can be identified by name). Physical objects tend to be used as the main focus of interaction, communication, and/or veneration, but the place of interaction may be spatially distinct from the place of burial; ancestor cults are partly, if not completely, connected to domestic religion. It is also worth noting that while ancestors are secondary to major deities, because of their immediacy, they often serve as intermediaries between mortals and gods and may be the first point of contact with the divine. Ancestors are often considered to be responsible for the fertility and health of crops, animals, and people (and conversely for barrenness, illness, and crop failure). A distinction might be drawn between ancestor worship (personal, familial relationship) and the cult of the dead (impersonal, non-familial relationship), as well as the ancestors who are within living memory and those whose names and personalities have been forgotten and who are assimilated into the collective, and potentially disruptive, dead.” ref 

“Ancestor cult is not in general gender-specific. For example, evidence of propitiatory rituals from Mesopotamia shows that all close kin, male and female, could be recipients of the cult; individual relatives mentioned in the incantations are parents, siblings, and grandparents. In “delayed-return” societies such as ancient Egypt, where social continuity is of greater concern than in hunter-gatherer (“immediate-return”) systems, ancestor cults and mortuary rituals form a type of “cultural cement” that assists in holding society together. The house seems to have been the main locus of regular interaction with the dead, as suggested by the presence of anthropoid busts, offering tables, false doors, and incense burners, while the communal aspect of ancestor worship and religion in Egypt more generally is suggested by steles and tomb scenes depicting groups of people, including children, bringing offerings to their deceased relatives to the house: chapels, shrines, temples and “pilgrimage” sites such as Abydos, were all places of potential interaction between the living and the dead.” ref 

“Location and type of deposition are clearly key factors in identifying evidence of ancestor cult in the archaeological record. The presence of figurines, steles, or other objects that may represent the dead found in conjunction with offering tables, evidence of burning(incense or offerings), or the ritual breakage of pots, may well be indicative of ritual practices relating to ancestral spirits. While the Minoans have been categorized as “an ancestor worshipping society” on the basis of evidence for skull retention, secondary burial with associated rituals, household and tomb altars, and feasting with the dead in private and communally, it has been noted that only collectively can such markers be considered as definitive indicators of the presence of ancestor veneration.” ref 

 *Gurob is an archaeological site in Egypt. It is located at the entrance to Fayum, not far from El-Lahun and Hawara. There were remnants from almost all epochs of pharaonic history.  The oldest tombs in this place date back to the time of the Naqada culture. 

Type of site: Temple; palace; town; cemetery; animal necropolis

Timeframe: 
Temple (18th Dynasty); palace (18th Dynasty); town (18th Dynasty-19th Dynasty); Cemetary (Naqada Period, Early Dynastic Period, Old Kingdom, First Intermediate Period, late Middle Period, Second Intermediate Period, New Kingdom, Late Period, Ptolemaic Period); animal necropolis (19th Dynasty) ref 

“Much of the knowledge of the early Naqada culture comes from 85 well-known cemeteries and 50 settlements, with research focused on tombs for a long time.  The deceased were like those of Badari culture in Hocker- or fetal position facing west and grave goods in the form of ceramic buried and personal items. The settlements, as in other contemporary cultures, consisted of round rammed earth huts sunk into the ground, probably in reference to earlier nomadic tents. The ceramic of Naqada I culture consists of red bowls and cups made Niltonwith a shiny black border, the so-called “black-topped pottery.”  Typical decoration patterns are white and cream-colored geometric patterns. Increasingly there are representations of animals, hunting scenes, cultic acts, and battles. For the first time, ships also appear as a symbol of trade. Unlike in earlier cultures, there are also human figures, both bearded men and women, who could be attached to ivory sticks or pendants.” ref  

Ancestor cult in Ancient Egypt

“The cult of the dead is prominent in ancient Egypt, but generally involves a person securing an afterlife either for themselves or for immediate relations: there is less evidence that ancestors from earlier generations received special attention. Objects connected with an ancestor cult mainly date to the New Kingdom (about 1550-1069 BC), specifically to after the Amarna Period. ‘Ancestor busts’ (busts representing a deceased person) have been found mainly in Deir el-Medine, but are also known from other places. Some excavated examples were found in the entrance part of the houses. Here there must have been a special space dedicated to a cult for the dead members of the family. The most monumental examples are two fine busts inscribed, one with the name of the father and invoking the god Shu, the other with the name of the mother and invoking the goddess Tefnet: the reference to the two deities implies that each bust represented the two lines, male and female, right back to the dawn of creation – in Egyptian myth, Shu and Tefnet are the first son and daughter of the creator, the sun-god Ra. Another late New Kingdom object category is the stela with person identified in hieroglyphs as Ax iqr n ra (akh iqer en Ra) – ‘excellent spirit of Ra’. These stelae show the deceased sitting on a chair smelling a lotus flower. They are also dedicated by members of the family.” ref  

Ancestor veneration in China

“Chinese traditional primordial religion” (中國傳統原生性宗教 Zhōngguó chuántǒng yuánshēng xìng zōngjiào) has been defining the traditional religious system organized around the worship of ancestor-gods. Chinese ancestor worship, or Chinese ancestor veneration, also called the Chinese patriarchal religion, is an aspect of the Chinese traditional religion that revolves around the ritual celebration of the deified ancestors and tutelary deities of people with the same surname organized into lineage societies in ancestral shrines. Ancestors, their ghosts, or spirits, and gods are considered part of “this world”, that is, they are neither supernatural (in the sense of being outside nature) nor transcendent in the sense of being beyond nature. The ancestors are humans who have become godly beings, beings who keep their individual identities. For this reason, Chinese religion is founded on the veneration of ancestors. Ancestors are believed to be a means of connection to the supreme power of god Tian as they are considered embodiments or reproducers of the creative order of Heaven.” ref 

Ancestor Worship in Ancient China dates back to the Neolithic period

“The earliest evidence of ancestor worship in China dates to the Yangshao society which existed in the Shaanxi Province area before spreading to parts of northern and central China during the Neolithic period (8,000 to 3,000 years ago in this case). In the Shang dynasty (3,600 – 3,046  years ago) the ancestors of the royal family were thought to reside in heaven within the feudal hierarchy of other spirit-gods. These ancestors, it was believed, could be contacted via a shaman. In the Zhou period (3,046 – 2,256 years ago), the ancestors of rulers had their own dedicated temples, typically within the royal palace complexes, and the presence of such a temple was even a definition of a capital city in the 2,400-2,300 years ago.” ref 

“Ancestor figure from the Tanimbar Islands, Indonesia; in the Royal Tropical Institute Museum, Amsterdam. Height 38 cm.” ref  

Proto-Indo-European Societal deities

“It is highly probable that the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed in three fate goddesses who spun the destinies of mankind. Although such fate goddesses are not directly attested in the Indo-Aryan tradition, the Atharvaveda does contain an allusion comparing fate to a warp. Furthermore, the three Fates appear in nearly every other Indo-European mythology. The earliest attested set of fate goddesses are the Gulses in Hittite mythology, who were said to preside over the individual destinies of human beings. They often appear in mythical narratives alongside the goddesses Papaya and Istustaya, who, in a ritual text for the foundation of a new temple, are described sitting holding mirrors and spindles, spinning the king’s thread of life. In the Greek tradition, the Moirai(“Apportioners”) are mentioned dispensing destiny in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, in which they are given the epithet Κλῶθες (Klothes, meaning “Spinners”). In Hesiod’s Theogony, the Moirai are said to “give mortal men both good and ill,” and their names are listed as Klotho (“Spinner”), Lachesis (“Apportioner”), and Atropos (“Inflexible”). In his Republic, Plato records that Klotho sings of the past, Lachesis of the present, and Atropos of the future. In Roman legend, the Parcae were three goddesses who presided over the births of children and whose names were Nona (“Ninth”), Decuma (“Tenth”), and Morta (“Death”). They, too, were said to spin destinies, although this may have been due to influence from Greek literature. In the Old Norse Völuspá and Gylfaginning, the Norns are three cosmic goddesses of fate who are described sitting by the well of Urðr at the foot of the world tree Yggdrasil.” ref 

ANCIENT CELTIC RELIGION: ANCESTRAL GODDESSES AND GODS

“Caesar and the insular literature indicate the Celts did not look upon their gods as creators but as their ancestors—more as supernatural heroes and heroines. In the lives of these gods and heroes, goddesses, and heroines, the lives of the people, in their emerging patriarchal society and the essence of their religious traditions, were mirrored. The gods and goddesses were depicted as human and were subject to all the natural virtues and vices in an idealized form: love of nature, arts, games, feasts, hunts and heroic single-handed combat. Their intellectual powers were equal to their physical abilities. This depiction of gods as ancestors also appears in Hindu myth and saga. Ancient Celts believed creation evolved around the Mother Goddess. In one tale, the children of the Mother Goddess, Danu, arrive in Ireland to battle the evil Fomorri, whose own Mother Goddess is Domnu. The Irish epic tells of several struggles between the Children of Domnu, representing darkness and evil, and the Children of Danu, representing light and good. Only after the Children of Danu break the powers of the Fomorri at the second Battle of Magh Euireadh did the good gods prevail. Interestingly, the Children of Domnu are never completely overcome or eradicated from the world. The Children of Danu came from four fabulous cities where named Druids taught them skill, knowledge and perfect wisdom.” ref 

African Indigenous Religions: Deities, Ancestors, and Spirit beings

“In African indigenous religions, the principal deities, spirits, gods, ancestors, and personal and impersonal forces are regarded as active agents in the created world, with theistic and nontheistic notions of supernatural forces embedded in the various cosmologies. ‘Gods, ancestors, and spirit beings’ illustrates that African pantheons of gods, goddesses, spirits, and other nonhuman beings are varied in number and complex in character. The relationship between the many gods and the Supreme God varies from region to region, from people to people. Ancestral tradition, the veneration of deceased parents and forebears, constitutes a key aspect of African religions. Today, polytheism—the worship of multiple gods—on the African continent is extremely controversial and embattled.” ref 

“In some Afro-diasporic cultures, ancestors are seen as being able to intercede on behalf of the living, often as messengers between humans and the gods. As spirits who were once human themselves, they are seen as being better able to understand human needs than would a divine being. Ancestor veneration is prevalent throughout Africa, and serves as the basis of many religions. It is often augmented by a belief in a supreme being, but prayers and/or sacrifices are usually offered to the ancestors who may ascend to becoming a kind of minor deities themselves. Ancestor veneration remains among many Africans, sometimes practiced alongside the later adopted religions of Christianity (as in Nigeria among the Igbo people), and Islam (among the different Mandé peoples and the Bamum) in much of the continent. In orthodox Serer religion, the pangool is venerated by the Serer people.” ref  

India: Deities, Ancestors, and Spirit beings 

“Amongst Hindus and Sikhs, ancestors may be worshiped as Gramadevata (village deity) or clan deity, such as Jathera (also called Dhok, from Sanskrit Dahak or fire). The spirit of a dead person is called Pitrs, which is venerated.” ref 

“Ancestor worship in Assam, which is a state in India, situated south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. In the Ahom religion is based on ancestor-worship. The Ahoms believe that a man after his death remains as ‘Dam’(ancestor) only for a few days and soon he becomes ‘Phi’ (God). They also believe that the soul of a man which is immortal unites with the supreme soul, possesses the qualities of a spiritual being and always blesses the family.” ref   

Philippines Ancestor Worship 

 “This is a picture of Anito, also spelled anitu, refers to ancestor spirits, nature spirits, and deities (diwata) in the indigenous animistic religions of precolonial Philippines. It can also refer to carved humanoid figures, the taotao, made of wood, stone, or ivory, that represent these spirits. In the animistic indigenous religions of the precolonial Philippines, ancestor spirits were one of the two major types of spirits (anito) with whom shamans communicate. Ancestor spirits were known as umalagad (lit. “guardian” or “caretaker”). They can be the spirits of actual ancestors or generalized guardian spirits of a family.” ref, ref 

Mediterranean Ancestor Worship 

“In Greece, ancestor veneration did take place, although it was not as important as in China or Japan. It intertwined with hero worship, which included the worship of demi-gods or historical figures that were raised to a high status after they died. This was not practiced widely. Ceremonies took place to honor the souls of the supreme heads of the house and political leaders. The souls of the male ancestors whose deeds the family thought were heroic were also venerated. They were made objects of ceremonies.” ref 

“In the classical Roman era, ancestor worship existed as a part of religion.  The Romans believed that life existed after death, and that the spirit should be tended to just as a physical body should be tended to. They believed that ancestors should be worshiped as gods, as opposed to just respecting them. The bodies of high members of the church were often put on display for the church to see when they had died. This practice showed how important the Church was to Rome. The Romans believed that their ancestors would return to earth to visit their relatives when ceremonies honoring them took place.  They mostly worshiped ancestors from their homes, where they would create tablets with engraving of the most important ancestors. Of course, statues were made to immortalize and honor the political figures that passed on from the family.” ref 

Ancestor Worship in the Japanese Religion of Shinto

“Kami  the spirits or phenomena that are worshiped in the religion of Shinto, kami are not separate from nature, but are of nature, possessing positive and negative, and good and evil characteristics. They can be elements of the landscape, forces of nature, as well as beings and the qualities that these beings express; they can also be the spirits of venerated dead persons. Many kami are considered the ancient ancestors of entire clans(some ancestors became kami upon their death if they were able to embody the values and virtues of kami in life). Traditionally, great or sensational leaders like the Emperor could be or became kami.” ref 

“Shinto or kami-no-michi (as well as other names) is the traditional religion of Japan that focuses on ritual practices to be carried out diligently to establish a connection between present-day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written historical records of the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki in the 8th century. Still, these earliest Japanese writings do not refer to a unified religion, but rather to a collection of native beliefs and mythology. Shinto today is the religion of public shrines devoted to the worship of a multitude of “spirits“, “essences” or “gods” (kami), suited to various purposes such as war memorials and harvest festivals, and applies as well to various sectarian organizations.” ref 

“Amaterasu-Ō-Mi-Kami commonly called Amaterasu, is the goddess of the sun as well as the purported ancestress of the Imperial Household of Japan. Her full name means “Great Goddess” or “Great Spirit Who Shines in the Heavens”; she may also be referred to as Ōhiru-menomuchi-no-kami. For many reasons, one among them being her ties to the Imperial family, she is often considered (though not officially) to be the “primary god” of Shinto.” ref 

Figurines as process at Çatalhöyük? 

“The notion of figurine as process can refer to almost every stage in the life of a figurine. From its inception the gathering of materials for making represents a social process of procurement, whether sourcing local stone, clays or combining the plaster from regular wall plastering activities with marl to fashion figures of remarkably fine quality and light appearance. In all of these activities we could imagine a collective sphere where various individuals were present and where collaboration took place.  Figures were probably moved about during their use lives as well and it is unlikely that they were static and sitting about, as outlined above many cannot stand unaided. Though we can say little about their original use lives from the excavation and contextual data retrieved, we know form their use-wear, damaged state and their final deposition in fill, that they were not like ‘cult statues’ that were separated from human affairs, spatially and temporally. These were incorporated into practice, a moving and mobile suite of embodied actions, One suggestion we have is that the small clay human forms (and perhaps some of the animal figures) were collected together in small skin or woven bags, worn or carried, as evidenced in other ethnographic contexts. They could have been carried together with other evocative objects such as pebbles or stones, objects of amuletic value, organics, bone objects decorative and functional, or other types of miniatures. If we think of Native American fetishes, these were often carried or worn on the person and treated like the animal spirit that it represented, so they were fed ground turquoise from miniature pots. Natural products like sage were imbued with sacred valences and were carried in what is considered sacred bundles. The significance of these objects is formed through action not in isolation or distanced contemplation. They are things to be used.” ref   

“They are things in process, in motion, and thus temporally situated. While this may seem an obvious statement, the various things we tend to call figurines may have had very different roles and purposes for people at Çatalhöyük and it may prove misleading to categorically lump them together. Almost all of the clay figurines of this very general type have missing heads, although damaged we might posit that many also had dowel holes for detachable heads. The fabrication of history and memory might not have been focused solely upon human beings, but upon animal and spirit worlds as well. To attempt a summary of the themes that we find most evocative at present first is the notion of figurine as process rather than end product must be the first. It is indelibly linked to the idea of circulation and mobility; figurines are not static but mobile and potentially shifting things. Part of that malleability is their inherent possibilities for identity changes and narrative, evidenced at Çatalhöyük by the detached heads and ceramic anthropomorphic bodies with dowel holes. In addition, we have the removal or severing of heads in the case of stone human figurines. The idea of storytelling, coupled with memory and identity are evocative. And finally this connects to the wider practice across media of embedding skeletal parts and plastering or covering them with cultural materials that replace impermanent natural ones. In doing so both animals and humans were preserved, they survived death and decay, and were incorporated into the very fabric of houses and spaces at the site. They served as ever-present reminders, fleshed out, of their former selves and former existence, redolent with memories, stories or myths that are steeped in their attendant materiality.” ref  

“This figurine, from recrystallized limestone dated roughly between 8,300 and 8,000 years ago. Ian Hodder, professor of anthropology and of classics at Stanford, who “realized immediately that it was a very special find.” Conventionally associated with fertility goddesses, this figurine is also thought to represent an elderly woman who had risen to prominence in Çatalhöyük’s famously egalitarian society. Excavators had hollowed out a large dwelling, where its former occupants had deposited the figurine in platforms built atop earlier structures. At the platform’s far southeast corner, abutting the wall, the archaeologists found the figurine. Left of the first figurine lay an obsidian blade, and nearby sat another figurine of lesser quality, hewn from yellow limestone, next to a piece of galena.” ref   

“What sets this figurine apart from so many others is not its appearance, but its craftsmanship. Goddess figurines at Catalhöyük usually depict a woman with her hair tied in a bun, plump, with sagging breasts and a pronounced belly, suggesting maturity. The figurine in question contains a few unusual features: elaborate fat rolls on the limbs and neck; the arms separated from the torso; and an undercut below the belly to separate it from the rest of the body. Such detail is only possible with thin tools, like flint or obsidian, in the hands of a practiced artisan.” ref 

“While of exceptional quality, this figurine was not of exceptional purpose. Goddess figurines were common in the Neolithic period, crafted throughout southeastern Europe, the Middle East and Anatolia, the region in central Turkey where Çatalhöyük once flourished. While they have long symbolized fertility, a more recent theory suggests otherwise. Meskell is among a handful of scholars who posit that the Neolithic figures at Çatalhöyük may “represent older women who have achieved status.” Whether they rose to the level of goddesses, though, is unclear.” ref  

“Çatalhöyük’s reputation as a relatively egalitarian society may offer some clues into the figurine’s symbolism and use. “In all egalitarian societies, older people have a special status and are venerated,” said Hodder. In his account, “whether one can talk of these older people as ‘gods’ is a rather thorny issue.” Gods or not, the elderly in Neolithic Çatalhöyük may have held elite status, performing rituals and making decisions that impacted the entire community. Fatness may have been a sign of social standing and of age, with calorie-burning manual labor replaced by sedentary religious and political duties.” ref  

If this and others are actually depicted people where are there fat bodies? Most bodes found are bound so close they could not be overweight at all. 

“The retrieval, curation, and redeposition of human heads – either the entire skull (i.e. cranium and mandible), or simply the cranium (without the mandible) – is a common feature of Near Eastern Neolithic mortuary practices. In some cases, the facial features were modeled in plaster or mud, and bivalve or cowrie shells were set into the eye sockets to provide a life-like appearance.” ref 

“The earliest human burials found in Faynan, a major wadi (seasonal river valley) and region in southern Jordan some 140km south of Amman, come from the early Neolithic site of WF16 and date back to 11,200 years ago, and that this discovery also indicated a high mortality rate among the local communities. The bodies were buried into graves cut through the floors of houses and then sealed with mud plaster, Mithen explained, adding that “most of the bodies were put into a sleeping position, on their side with their knees tucked up and their heads resting on their hands”. “Some of the graves were opened for a second burial to be inserted, and, in some occasions, bones were removed.” There is evidence that skulls were displayed within some of the houses, according to the scholar, who said that, in some cases, the dead were brought to WF16 for burial as researchers discovered packages of bones that had been wrapped in gypsum plaster and textiles made from vegetable fibres. To place many valuables into the grave was not the characteristic of the Neolithic people, the scholar said, adding that “in some cases, large flint blades were positioned on the chest, and, in others, shell beads appear to have been with the bones, possibly from necklaces of bracelets that had been worn.” ref  

8.2 kiloyear event” 8,200 years ago climatic climate event

is evident at Çatalhöyük (WOULD MAKE BEING FAT EVEN HARDER)

 The event is evident in multiple proxy records across the globe. The overall sequence shows major changes in husbandry and consumption practices. Some indirect paleoclimatic evidence has suggested that hunter-gatherer societies from the Mediterranean basin and central Europe were deeply affected. This and evidence from Catal Huyuk provide compelling evidence for the specific impacts of climatic event on the economic and domestic activities of pioneer Neolithic farmers, influencing decisions relating to settlement planning and food procurement strategies. This sudden climatic crisis thus put to test the farming communities in the Near East and may have accelerated the spread of early farmers out of Anatolia to new pastures in Greek Macedonia, Thessaly, and Bulgaria. The 8.2-kyBP climatic event on the economic and domestic activities of pioneer Neolithic farmers of Çatalhöyük, which clearly influenced their local decisions related to food procurement strategies and settlement planning.” ref 

Analyzing 100 Upper Paleolithic Figurines 

“From a total of 100 Upper Paleolithic (45,000-40,000 to 10,000 BP) statues were studied, the photos having been taken from the frontal, lateral and back view. Among the 97 female idols studied, 24 were skinny (mainly young women), 15 were of normal weight, while more than half of them (51) represented overweight or very obese females whose breasts were also extremely large. The figurine analysis revealed various types of obesity. Increased fat tissue deposition can be seen in the following body parts: belly only in 2 Venus figurines, belly + hip in 10, belly + gluteal + hip in 14, belly + hip + gluteal + femora in 24 and diffuse obesity in one. Steatopygia (derived from the Greek “steato” meaning fat, and “pygia” meaning buttocks and describing excessive fat of the buttocks) was observable in 7 idols, although these females were not particularly overweight and had a reasonably thin waist and legs. Only seven statues were in the state of advanced gravidity (pregnancy). The presence of such a small number of gravidity statuettes challenges the general view concerning Venus idols, namely, that they all represent female fertility.” ref 

“From a total of 100 figurines (97 female and 3 male) made of ivory, mammuth bone, limestone and other substances. The sculptures were found on the Eurasian continent, from the Pirenees to Lake Baikal (southern Siberia) and the river Amur (between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China, Inner Manchuria). More than half (57.3%) of the idols show various types of female obesity.” ref 

Neolithic Figurines: SOME GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 

“Statuettes of human beings and animals, mostly small and made of clay, are among the most fascinating yet insufficiently researched elements of the Neolithic world of symbols and imagery. Although at first glance they seem quite diverse, the greater part of clay statuettes nonetheless follow an image scheme which was already developed during the 9th millennium BC (11,000-10,000 years ago). Compared with the representational scheme in depictive Palaeolithic works, for example, such as the “Venus” of Willendorf, what we see in the Neolithic image scheme is clearly an innovation. Figures of the Palaeolithic period with their bent legs can-not stand; their heads were bowed/lowered. Neolithic figures, in contrast, are free-standing and their view is directed upwards, as can be observed in the statuette from Mureybet. Aside from free-standing figures there are also seated figures in Neolithic statuary, like-wise with the head tilted back and the face directed upwards. Emerging here, in contrast to Palaeolithic statuettes, is something new in form, which presumably should also express something new in the way of thinking as well as execution. Neolithic clay figurines hold a genealogical position between the statuettes of hunters of the Palaeolithic and the art of the early civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia. They constitute a complex of figural art, which however – despite its stylistic diversity – is distinguished by a limited and repetitive repertory of representational types, which again varies within the “Neolithic pictorial formula”. This realization is important, for there long seemed to be a considerable temporal gap between Palaeolithic and Early Neolithic art.” ref 

“The Neolithic invention of depiction was very successful. Corresponding statuettes were produced for over five thousand years, until at the end of the 5th millennium BC (7,200-6,000 years ago) the production of anthropomorphic art was completely abandoned in many regions or was replaced regionally by new conceptions. Clay figurines were created in the crescent of Neolithic cultures in the Near East, Anatolia, and Southeastern Europe. Yet, their emergence was not ubiquitous. No clay statuettes were produced in the distribution areas of pottery with cardial and impres so decoration, especially in Northern Africa, Spain, and Southern France. The invention of the figural pictorial scheme during the Early Neolithic (Pre-Pottery Neolithic A) constitutes the foundation for the entire further history of Neolithic clay figures. Within a geographic sphere, extending from the Tigris to the Middle Danube Rivers, this pictorial scheme varied within a narrow range. The position of the arms was variable, so that different types of images can be discerned. General and basic characteristics of figural art to underscore here are axial symmetrical structure, frontality, and stylisation. Axial symmetry dwindled only in seated figures with legs folded to the side,especially in Anatolia and Greece. However, attempts to lessen axial symmetry did not catch on in the Balkan Peninsula.” ref  

“The restriction of Neolithic figurines to only a few representational types implies that they were not just secondary decorative works or children’s toys. They were far more an expression of the self-perception and the self-reassurance of these early farming communities. Anew economic basis of subsistence was not the sole great change effected by the “Neolithic revolution”; associated with it was also a basic transformation in thinking and a change in the system of social symbols. Along with the omnipresent symbol of the bull in many settlements, especially in Çatalhöyük, most of the clay statuettes of females as representative of the Neolithic revolution in symbols. Furthermore, it can be assumed, that during the long time span of producing statuettes, especially across such a vast area, social practices with which the statuettes were interwoven were differentiated and, as a result, the statues were represented differently. On the other hand, the fact should be stressed that over such a long period of time, conventions in representations – viewed supra-regionally – were quite similar. Only in the 5th millennium BC did this similarity dissolve.” ref  

“Excavations in Çatalhöyük brought forth a great number of figurines, which have almost become synonymous for figural statuary of the Neolithic period as a whole. In past decades numerous excavations in Turkey have broadened this picture fundamentally. Above all are excavations in the Lake District, in Western and Northwestern Anatolia, where a multitude of new, hitherto unknown representational forms of Neolithic statuettes have come to light. Anatolia is indeed a bridge between Mesopotamia and Southeastern Europe, but it is not a transit area. It embraced far more a number of centers, in which creativity in statuette production could develop and react to tendencies in style with new innovative statuette forms. Nonetheless, it should be mentioned that, despite the great number of excavations undertaken, many stretches of land have been scarcely researched, and also that certain episodes in the Neolithic period still await study. The most important finds of figurines that are crucial for understanding the history of art of the Occident have become known through excavations in recent decades in Çayönü, Nevalı Çori, Göbekli Tepe and many other places in Southeastern Turkey. Unlike Göbekli Tepe, in Nevalı Çori and Çayönü numerous small figurines of males and females were found which were made of air-dried or slightly fired grey-brown clay. Some 665 mostly fragmented statuettes were counted in Nevalı Çori; in Çayönü 400 pieces were counted. Figures of males do accrue, although female figurines predominate. Their pose follows the Neolithic scheme entirely; that is to say, the upper body leans backwards slightly. This is especially distinct in the small statuettes in Çayönü and one figure from Cafer Höyük.” ref 

Evolution and Obesity

“Until the last century, people were at more risk from malnutrition or starvation than they were from obesity. This lopsided pressure may have shaped humans to be more prone to store fat than to lose it. The ability to store extra calories as fat during times of plenty could help someone stay healthy and fertile when food was scarce. Over thousands of generations, selective pressure from food scarcity could cause many different kinds of adaptations to evolve. These adaptations could make us crave rich foods that are easy to digest, or drive us to keep eating after we’ve had enough. They could act on our desire to exercise, making us inclined to sit still and conserve energy. They could allow us to extract more nutrients from food, or channel those nutrients to fat cells and away from other body functions. Unreliable food supplies have likely shaped our evolution in all these ways and more.” ref  

Women and Men at Çatalhöyük?

“The largest known Neolithic settlement yields clues about the roles played by the two sexes in early agricultural societies. One of the questions in which Çatalhöyük was immediately embroiled was the role of women in early agricultural societies. A long tradition in European thought holds that most of these societies were matriarchies (women were the leaders, descent was through the female line, and inheritance passed from mother to daughters) and that they worshiped a powerful mother goddess. Was Çatalhöyük the bastion of female power it has been thought to be?  Cultural anthropology provides no substantiated claims for true matriarchies. The record does show, however, that in most recent and contemporary societies women have some form of authority or that women at certain stages in their lives, or in certain contexts, have power. Rather than talking simplistically about matriarchies and patriarchies, we should expect, according to the ethnographic evidence, a more complicated picture, which is just what we find at Çatalhöyük.” ref 

“Some of our strongest scientific evidence about the relative status of men and women in the early and middle levels of Çatalhöyük concerns diet. If women and men lived notably different lives, and if one or the other was dominant, then we might expect to uncover disparities in diet, with the dominant group having more access to certain foods, such as meat or better joints of meat. So we have searched hard for such evidence, but we have not uncovered clear differences. But analysis of skeletons detected no statistical variation between the isotopes in male and female bones. The same is true of the teeth.  Women tend to have more cavities than men, but in terms of wear on the teeth the researchers found no difference. The study of the human remains showed that men were taller than women, but the variation in size was slight. The bones reveal that women were sometimes fatter in relation to their height than men.  But dietary and bone analyses give no clear sign that any divergence in lifestyle between women and men was translated into differences of status or power.” ref 

Evolution of Gods?  

I would say the evolution of deities went something like this: family ancestors evolved to metaphorical clan ancestors to deified metaphorical ancestors thus to goddesses and gods. How the natural elements became deified is likely similar believed nature/weather spirits became metaphorical weather spirits with animal/human spirit connections in the family/clan as a form of ancestor spirits and then deified to goddesses and gods. 

Lastly, I challenge the notions Çatalhöyük figurines as not involve some kind of goddesses, by some others who have tried to debunk the figurines, saying at most they where ancestors. They wrongly are thinking that even if hey where ancestors that such ancestors could not become goddesses or gods after death which I have shown they commonly can in ancestor worship through the world especially from the Neolithic on wards.  

I personally think there is a goddess and not enough evidence to support a male god at Çatalhöyük but if there was both a male and female god and goddess then I know the kind of gods they were like Proto-Indo-European mythology.

To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so.

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Lajja Gauri Style

1.  Lajja Gauri. China, Majiayao. 3,200-2,000 BCE or around 5,220 to 4,020 years ago. ref
2.  Lajja Gauri. India, Kashmir. ref
3.  Lajja Gauri. Egypt. ref
4.  Lajjā Gaurī a lotus-headed Hindu goddess. ref
5.  Lajja Gauri. Nepal. ref
6.  Lajjā Gaurī lotus-headed goddess. India. ref

Sheela na gig Style

1.  Sheela na gig. Ireland. ref
2. Sheila Na Gig. ref
3. Sheila Na Gig. ref
4. Sheela na gig. Ireland. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Low Gods “Earth” or Tutelary deity and High Gods “Sky” or Supreme deity

“An Earth goddess is a deification of the Earth. Earth goddesses are often associated with the “chthonic” deities of the underworld. Ki and Ninhursag are Mesopotamian earth goddesses. In Greek mythology, the Earth is personified as Gaia, corresponding to Roman Terra, Indic Prithvi/Bhūmi, etc. traced to an “Earth Mother” complementary to the “Sky Father” in Proto-Indo-European religion. Egyptian mythology exceptionally has a sky goddess and an Earth god.” ref

“A mother goddess is a goddess who represents or is a personification of nature, motherhood, fertility, creation, destruction or who embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world, such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother. In some religious traditions or movements, Heavenly Mother (also referred to as Mother in Heaven or Sky Mother) is the wife or feminine counterpart of the Sky father or God the Father.” ref

“Any masculine sky god is often also king of the gods, taking the position of patriarch within a pantheon. Such king gods are collectively categorized as “sky father” deities, with a polarity between sky and earth often being expressed by pairing a “sky father” god with an “earth mother” goddess (pairings of a sky mother with an earth father are less frequent). A main sky goddess is often the queen of the gods and may be an air/sky goddess in her own right, though she usually has other functions as well with “sky” not being her main. In antiquity, several sky goddesses in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Near East were called Queen of Heaven. Neopagans often apply it with impunity to sky goddesses from other regions who were never associated with the term historically. The sky often has important religious significance. Many religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic, have deities associated with the sky.” ref

“In comparative mythology, sky father is a term for a recurring concept in polytheistic religions of a sky god who is addressed as a “father”, often the father of a pantheon and is often either a reigning or former King of the Gods. The concept of “sky father” may also be taken to include Sun gods with similar characteristics, such as Ra. The concept is complementary to an “earth mother“. “Sky Father” is a direct translation of the Vedic Dyaus Pita, etymologically descended from the same Proto-Indo-European deity name as the Greek Zeûs Pater and Roman Jupiter and Germanic Týr, Tir or Tiwaz, all of which are reflexes of the same Proto-Indo-European deity’s name, *Dyēus Ph₂tḗr. While there are numerous parallels adduced from outside of Indo-European mythology, there are exceptions (e.g. In Egyptian mythology, Nut is the sky mother and Geb is the earth father).” ref

Tutelary deity

“A tutelary (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of “tutelary” expresses the concept of safety and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Korean shamanism, jangseung and sotdae were placed at the edge of villages to frighten off demons. They were also worshiped as deities. Seonangshin is the patron deity of the village in Korean tradition and was believed to embody the Seonangdang. In Philippine animism, Diwata or Lambana are deities or spirits that inhabit sacred places like mountains and mounds and serve as guardians. Such as: Maria Makiling is the deity who guards Mt. Makiling and Maria Cacao and Maria Sinukuan. In Shinto, the spirits, or kami, which give life to human bodies come from nature and return to it after death. Ancestors are therefore themselves tutelaries to be worshiped. And similarly, Native American beliefs such as Tonás, tutelary animal spirit among the Zapotec and Totems, familial or clan spirits among the Ojibwe, can be animals.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Austronesian beliefs such as: Atua (gods and spirits of the Polynesian peoples such as the Māori or the Hawaiians), Hanitu (Bunun of Taiwan‘s term for spirit), Hyang (Kawi, Sundanese, Javanese, and Balinese Supreme Being, in ancient Java and Bali mythology and this spiritual entity, can be either divine or ancestral), Kaitiaki (New Zealand Māori term used for the concept of guardianship, for the sky, the sea, and the land), Kawas (mythology) (divided into 6 groups: gods, ancestors, souls of the living, spirits of living things, spirits of lifeless objects, and ghosts), Tiki (Māori mythology, Tiki is the first man created by either Tūmatauenga or Tāne and represents deified ancestors found in most Polynesian cultures). ” ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref, ref

Mesopotamian Tutelary Deities can be seen as ones related to City-States 

“Historical city-states included Sumerian cities such as Uruk and Ur; Ancient Egyptian city-states, such as Thebes and Memphis; the Phoenician cities (such as Tyre and Sidon); the five Philistine city-states; the Berber city-states of the Garamantes; the city-states of ancient Greece (the poleis such as Athens, Sparta, Thebes, and Corinth); the Roman Republic (which grew from a city-state into a vast empire); the Italian city-states from the Middle Ages to the early modern period, such as Florence, Siena, Ferrara, Milan (which as they grew in power began to dominate neighboring cities) and Genoa and Venice, which became powerful thalassocracies; the Mayan and other cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica (including cities such as Chichen Itza, Tikal, Copán and Monte Albán); the central Asian cities along the Silk Road; the city-states of the Swahili coast; Ragusa; states of the medieval Russian lands such as Novgorod and Pskov; and many others.” ref

“The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BCE; also known as Protoliterate period) of Mesopotamia, named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia and the Sumerian civilization. City-States like Uruk and others had a patron tutelary City Deity along with a Priest-King.” ref

“Chinese folk religion, both past, and present, includes myriad tutelary deities. Exceptional individuals, highly cultivated sages, and prominent ancestors can be deified and honored after death. Lord Guan is the patron of military personnel and police, while Mazu is the patron of fishermen and sailors. Such as Tu Di Gong (Earth Deity) is the tutelary deity of a locality, and each individual locality has its own Earth Deity and Cheng Huang Gong (City God) is the guardian deity of an individual city, worshipped by local officials and locals since imperial times.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) in Hinduism, personal tutelary deities are known as ishta-devata, while family tutelary deities are known as Kuladevata. Gramadevata are guardian deities of villages. Devas can also be seen as tutelary. Shiva is the patron of yogis and renunciants. City goddesses include: Mumbadevi (Mumbai), Sachchika (Osian); Kuladevis include: Ambika (Porwad), and Mahalakshmi. In NorthEast India Meitei mythology and religion (Sanamahism) of Manipur, there are various types of tutelary deities, among which Lam Lais are the most predominant ones. Tibetan Buddhism has Yidam as a tutelary deity. Dakini is the patron of those who seek knowledge.” ref

“A tutelary (also tutelar) The Greeks also thought deities guarded specific places: for instance, Athena was the patron goddess of the city of Athens. Socrates spoke of hearing the voice of his personal spirit or daimonion:

You have often heard me speak of an oracle or sign which comes to me … . This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything, and this is what stands in the way of my being a politician.” ref

“Tutelary deities who guard and preserve a place or a person are fundamental to ancient Roman religion. The tutelary deity of a man was his Genius, that of a woman her Juno. In the Imperial era, the Genius of the Emperor was a focus of Imperial cult. An emperor might also adopt a major deity as his personal patron or tutelary, as Augustus did Apollo. Precedents for claiming the personal protection of a deity were established in the Republican era, when for instance the Roman dictator Sulla advertised the goddess Victory as his tutelary by holding public games (ludi) in her honor.” ref

“Each town or city had one or more tutelary deities, whose protection was considered particularly vital in time of war and siege. Rome itself was protected by a goddess whose name was to be kept ritually secret on pain of death (for a supposed case, see Quintus Valerius Soranus). The Capitoline Triad of Juno, Jupiter, and Minerva were also tutelaries of Rome. The Italic towns had their own tutelary deities. Juno often had this function, as at the Latin town of Lanuvium and the Etruscan city of Veii, and was often housed in an especially grand temple on the arx (citadel) or other prominent or central location. The tutelary deity of Praeneste was Fortuna, whose oracle was renowned.” ref

“The Roman ritual of evocatio was premised on the belief that a town could be made vulnerable to military defeat if the power of its tutelary deity were diverted outside the city, perhaps by the offer of superior cult at Rome. The depiction of some goddesses such as the Magna Mater (Great Mother, or Cybele) as “tower-crowned” represents their capacity to preserve the city. A town in the provinces might adopt a deity from within the Roman religious sphere to serve as its guardian, or syncretize its own tutelary with such; for instance, a community within the civitas of the Remi in Gaul adopted Apollo as its tutelary, and at the capital of the Remi (present-day Rheims), the tutelary was Mars Camulus.” ref 

Household deity (a kind of or related to a Tutelary deity)

“A household deity is a deity or spirit that protects the home, looking after the entire household or certain key members. It has been a common belief in paganism as well as in folklore across many parts of the world. Household deities fit into two types; firstly, a specific deity – typically a goddess – often referred to as a hearth goddess or domestic goddess who is associated with the home and hearth, such as the ancient Greek Hestia.” ref

“The second type of household deities are those that are not one singular deity, but a type, or species of animistic deity, who usually have lesser powers than major deities. This type was common in the religions of antiquity, such as the Lares of ancient Roman religion, the Gashin of Korean shamanism, and Cofgodas of Anglo-Saxon paganism. These survived Christianisation as fairy-like creatures existing in folklore, such as the Anglo-Scottish Brownie and Slavic Domovoy.” ref

“Household deities were usually worshipped not in temples but in the home, where they would be represented by small idols (such as the teraphim of the Bible, often translated as “household gods” in Genesis 31:19 for example), amulets, paintings, or reliefs. They could also be found on domestic objects, such as cosmetic articles in the case of Tawaret. The more prosperous houses might have a small shrine to the household god(s); the lararium served this purpose in the case of the Romans. The gods would be treated as members of the family and invited to join in meals, or be given offerings of food and drink.” ref

“In many religions, both ancient and modern, a god would preside over the home. Certain species, or types, of household deities, existed. An example of this was the Roman Lares. Many European cultures retained house spirits into the modern period. Some examples of these include:

• Brownie (Scotland and England) or Hob (England) / Kobold (Germany) / Goblin / Hobgoblin
• Domovoy (Slavic)
• Nisse (Norwegian or Danish) / Tomte (Swedish) / Tonttu (Finnish)
• Húsvættir (Norse)” ref

“Although the cosmic status of household deities was not as lofty as that of the Twelve Olympians or the Aesir, they were also jealous of their dignity and also had to be appeased with shrines and offerings, however humble. Because of their immediacy they had arguably more influence on the day-to-day affairs of men than the remote gods did. Vestiges of their worship persisted long after Christianity and other major religions extirpated nearly every trace of the major pagan pantheons. Elements of the practice can be seen even today, with Christian accretions, where statues to various saints (such as St. Francis) protect gardens and grottos. Even the gargoyles found on older churches, could be viewed as guardians partitioning a sacred space.” ref

“For centuries, Christianity fought a mop-up war against these lingering minor pagan deities, but they proved tenacious. For example, Martin Luther‘s Tischreden have numerous – quite serious – references to dealing with kobolds. Eventually, rationalism and the Industrial Revolution threatened to erase most of these minor deities, until the advent of romantic nationalism rehabilitated them and embellished them into objects of literary curiosity in the 19th century. Since the 20th century this literature has been mined for characters for role-playing games, video games, and other fantasy personae, not infrequently invested with invented traits and hierarchies somewhat different from their mythological and folkloric roots.” ref

“In contradistinction to both Herbert Spencer and Edward Burnett Tylor, who defended theories of animistic origins of ancestor worship, Émile Durkheim saw its origin in totemism. In reality, this distinction is somewhat academic, since totemism may be regarded as a particularized manifestation of animism, and something of a synthesis of the two positions was attempted by Sigmund Freud. In Freud’s Totem and Taboo, both totem and taboo are outward expressions or manifestations of the same psychological tendency, a concept which is complementary to, or which rather reconciles, the apparent conflict. Freud preferred to emphasize the psychoanalytic implications of the reification of metaphysical forces, but with particular emphasis on its familial nature. This emphasis underscores, rather than weakens, the ancestral component.” ref

“William Edward Hearn, a noted classicist, and jurist, traced the origin of domestic deities from the earliest stages as an expression of animism, a belief system thought to have existed also in the neolithic, and the forerunner of Indo-European religion. In his analysis of the Indo-European household, in Chapter II “The House Spirit”, Section 1, he states:

The belief which guided the conduct of our forefathers was … the spirit rule of dead ancestors.” ref

“In Section 2 he proceeds to elaborate:

It is thus certain that the worship of deceased ancestors is a vera causa, and not a mere hypothesis. …

In the other European nations, the Slavs, the Teutons, and the Kelts, the House Spirit appears with no less distinctness. … [T]he existence of that worship does not admit of doubt. … The House Spirits had a multitude of other names which it is needless here to enumerate, but all of which are more or less expressive of their friendly relations with man. … In [England] … [h]e is the Brownie. … In Scotland this same Brownie is well known. He is usually described as attached to particular families, with whom he has been known to reside for centuries, threshing the corn, cleaning the house, and performing similar household tasks. His favorite gratification was milk and honey.” ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Hinduism around 3,700 to 3,500 years old. ref

 Judaism around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (The first writing in the bible was “Paleo-Hebrew” dated to around 3,000 years ago Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. And many believe the religious Jewish texts were completed around 2,500) ref, ref

Judaism is around 3,450 or 3,250 years old. (“Paleo-Hebrew” 3,000 years ago and Torah 2,500 years ago)

“Judaism is an Abrahamic, its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Some scholars argue that modern Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the religion of ancient Israel and Judah, by the late 6th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions.” ref

“Yahwism is the name given by modern scholars to the religion of ancient Israel, essentially polytheistic, with a plethora of gods and goddesses. Heading the pantheon was Yahweh, the national god of the Israelite kingdoms of Israel and Judah, with his consort, the goddess Asherah; below them were second-tier gods and goddesses such as Baal, Shamash, Yarikh, Mot, and Astarte, all of whom had their own priests and prophets and numbered royalty among their devotees, and a third and fourth tier of minor divine beings, including the mal’ak, the messengers of the higher gods, who in later times became the angels of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Yahweh, however, was not the ‘original’ god of Israel “Isra-El”; it is El, the head of the Canaanite pantheon, whose name forms the basis of the name “Israel”, and none of the Old Testament patriarchs, the tribes of Israel, the Judges, or the earliest monarchs, have a Yahwistic theophoric name (i.e., one incorporating the name of Yahweh).” ref

“El is a Northwest Semitic word meaning “god” or “deity“, or referring (as a proper name) to any one of multiple major ancient Near Eastern deities. A rarer form, ‘ila, represents the predicate form in Old Akkadian and in Amorite. The word is derived from the Proto-Semitic *ʔil-, meaning “god”. Specific deities known as ‘El or ‘Il include the supreme god of the ancient Canaanite religion and the supreme god of East Semitic speakers in Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period. ʼĒl is listed at the head of many pantheons. In some Canaanite and Ugaritic sources, ʼĒl played a role as father of the gods, of creation, or both. For example, in the Ugaritic texts, ʾil mlk is understood to mean “ʼĒl the King” but ʾil hd as “the god Hadad“. The Semitic root ʾlh (Arabic ʾilāh, Aramaic ʾAlāh, ʾElāh, Hebrew ʾelōah) may be ʾl with a parasitic h, and ʾl may be an abbreviated form of ʾlh. In Ugaritic the plural form meaning “gods” is ʾilhm, equivalent to Hebrew ʾelōhîm “powers”. In the Hebrew texts this word is interpreted as being semantically singular for “god” by biblical commentators. However the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament (corresponds to the Jewish Torah) developed originally in the 1870s, identifies these that different authors – the Jahwist, Elohist, Deuteronomist, and the Priestly source – were responsible for editing stories from a polytheistic religion into those of a monotheistic religion. Inconsistencies that arise between monotheism and polytheism in the texts are reflective of this hypothesis.” ref

Jainism around 2,599 – 2,527 years old. ref

Confucianism around 2,600 – 2,551 years old. ref

Buddhism around 2,563/2,480 – 2,483/2,400 years old. ref

Christianity around 2,o00 years old. ref

Shinto around 1,305 years old. ref

Islam around 1407–1385 years old. ref

Sikhism around 548–478 years old. ref

Bahá’í around 200–125 years old. ref

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

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Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

The “Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries”

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ Atheist Leftist @Skepticallefty & I (Damien Marie AtHope) @AthopeMarie (my YouTube & related blog) are working jointly in atheist, antitheist, antireligionist, antifascist, anarchist, socialist, and humanist endeavors in our videos together, generally, every other Saturday.

Why Does Power Bring Responsibility?

Think, how often is it the powerless that start wars, oppress others, or commit genocide? So, I guess the question is to us all, to ask, how can power not carry responsibility in a humanity concept? I know I see the deep ethical responsibility that if there is power their must be a humanistic responsibility of ethical and empathic stewardship of that power. Will I be brave enough to be kind? Will I possess enough courage to be compassionate? Will my valor reach its height of empathy? I as everyone, earns our justified respect by our actions, that are good, ethical, just, protecting, and kind. Do I have enough self-respect to put my love for humanity’s flushing, over being brought down by some of its bad actors? May we all be the ones doing good actions in the world, to help human flourishing.

I create the world I want to live in, striving for flourishing. Which is not a place but a positive potential involvement and promotion; a life of humanist goal precision. To master oneself, also means mastering positive prosocial behaviors needed for human flourishing. I may have lost a god myth as an atheist, but I am happy to tell you, my friend, it is exactly because of that, leaving the mental terrorizer, god belief, that I truly regained my connected ethical as well as kind humanity.

Cory and I will talk about prehistory and theism, addressing the relevance to atheism, anarchism, and socialism.

At the same time as the rise of the male god, 7,000 years ago, there was also the very time there was the rise of violence, war, and clans to kingdoms, then empires, then states. It is all connected back to 7,000 years ago, and it moved across the world.

Cory Johnston: https://damienmarieathope.com/2021/04/cory-johnston-mind-of-a-skeptical-leftist/?v=32aec8db952d  

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist (YouTube)

Cory Johnston: Mind of a Skeptical Leftist @Skepticallefty

The Mind of a Skeptical Leftist By Cory Johnston: “Promoting critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics by covering current events and talking to a variety of people. Cory Johnston has been thoughtfully talking to people and attempting to promote critical thinking, social justice, and left-wing politics.” http://anchor.fm/skepticalleft

Cory needs our support. We rise by helping each other.

Cory Johnston ☭ Ⓐ @Skepticallefty Evidence-based atheist leftist (he/him) Producer, host, and co-host of 4 podcasts @skeptarchy @skpoliticspod and @AthopeMarie

Damien Marie AtHope (“At Hope”) Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist. Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Poet, Philosopher, Advocate, Activist, Psychology, and Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Historian.

Damien is interested in: Freedom, Liberty, Justice, Equality, Ethics, Humanism, Science, Atheism, Antiteism, Antireligionism, Ignosticism, Left-Libertarianism, Anarchism, Socialism, Mutualism, Axiology, Metaphysics, LGBTQI, Philosophy, Advocacy, Activism, Mental Health, Psychology, Archaeology, Social Work, Sexual Rights, Marriage Rights, Woman’s Rights, Gender Rights, Child Rights, Secular Rights, Race Equality, Ageism/Disability Equality, Etc. And a far-leftist, “Anarcho-Humanist.”

I am not a good fit in the atheist movement that is mostly pro-capitalist, I am anti-capitalist. Mostly pro-skeptic, I am a rationalist not valuing skepticism. Mostly pro-agnostic, I am anti-agnostic. Mostly limited to anti-Abrahamic religions, I am an anti-religionist. 

To me, the “male god” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 7,000 years ago, whereas the now favored monotheism “male god” is more like 4,000 years ago or so. To me, the “female goddess” seems to have either emerged or become prominent around 11,000-10,000 years ago or so, losing the majority of its once prominence around 2,000 years ago due largely to the now favored monotheism “male god” that grow in prominence after 4,000 years ago or so. 

My Thought on the Evolution of Gods?

Animal protector deities from old totems/spirit animal beliefs come first to me, 13,000/12,000 years ago, then women as deities 11,000/10,000 years ago, then male gods around 7,000/8,000 years ago. Moralistic gods around 5,000/4,000 years ago, and monotheistic gods around 4,000/3,000 years ago. 

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope’s Art

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

Axiological Atheist, Anti-theist, Anti-religionist, Secular Humanist, Rationalist, Writer, Artist, Jeweler, Poet, “autodidact” Philosopher, schooled in Psychology, and “autodidact” Armchair Archaeology/Anthropology/Pre-Historian (Knowledgeable in the range of: 1 million to 5,000/4,000 years ago). I am an anarchist socialist politically. Reasons for or Types of Atheism

My Website, My Blog, & Short-writing or Quotes, My YouTube, Twitter: @AthopeMarie, and My Email: damien.marie.athope@gmail.com