Civilizations of Old Europe

The old man, withered skin loose around his gaunt body, was the hardest worker among all of his people. Concentrating on his work with a face that saw another world, he chipped and ground and pounded stones into compliance, working them into the ever-important shapes he gave them. It was his task to protect the world in this way; only by creating these images of the world he saw could that world be controlled and saved from drought, flood, and fire.

I believe it was the function of the artist in ancient civilizations to preserve the world. Most peoples have believed that by holding an image of something in your hands, you had a sort of control over it, and that control is important for taming an entire world full of dangers. Just like the power contained in words (especially in the celtic traditions, where a poet himself could bring down the destruction of a king), the power in images was awesome, because a representation of something is almost as good as the real thing. For this reason, I’ve chosen to look at the research and speculations of Marija Gimbutas on the many sculptures, buildings, minuatures, and other pieces of art left behind by the peoples of Old Europe (map), a term she herself coined for this time period in European history. Carbon-dated from about 6000 BC to about 3000 BC, these artifacts are all we have to interpet for information on the civilizations that came before the Minoan civilization, influencing it and the Greek civilization that came after it. Providing the reader with pictures and illustrations of artifacts along with her extensive descriptions and explanations, Gimbutas gifts us with a glimpse of the religious meanings behind these works of art. What I am doing with this information is speculating (rather freely) about what kinds of stories might have been told in these cultures. I am also attempting to create a smoothly-flowing set of stories, so the information is not necessarily seperated by era and individual culture.

To introduce each story, I created an old artist, himself creating the artwork that I pair with the story that I’m telling, and in order to be sure that my readers can be clear on what information actually came from Gimbutas’ book, I have created the list below for each story; the last thing I wish is for people to misunderstand what was real and what came from my head. The first couple of sections are just about the artist himself; they were inspired by various pictures alone, and really require no explanation. The sections of the website that I am interested in clarifying are the next ones, which actually do expand upon things found in the book The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe: Myths and Cult Images. (For information on my sources, click here)

	"The Old Man" The introduction to the entire set of stories. Without knowing the old man, the context I have put them in is lost.
	"The Mask" This is a follow-up of the old man, describing in detail the process of creating one of the most common images to Old European art.
	“The Creation of the Land and Sky by Snake” In this story I used the following real information: in the cult images of the peoples of Old Europe, two images are repeated quite often, especially in conjuction with another. The image of an egg surrounded by water, most likely “the primordial egg,” and the image of a snake, which in several images is either wrapped around the egg or is on top of it, etc. Another image that is repeated often is that of a snake with horns. So, with a general knowledge of the value of water, eggs, and snakes and horns in mythology, I created the myth that is now on my page out of these beginning pieces of information.
	“Snake Creates the Rain” Imagery seems to really focus on women shaped either like a bird or like a snake, and this imagery usually includes markings generally associated with water by Gimbutas (whose inference I find no reason to disagree with). Both snakes and water birds are often used in mythology as symbols of great power because of their abilities to cross both in water and on land, and each has a third dimension to her travels; birds fly in the sky and snakes tunnel through land. Their images seem to indicate two different groups of worshippers, but I grouped them as sisters because I wanted to represent both in my story. In addition, the water markings often grouped with them are three vertical lines, which seem to symbolize rain. They usually have breasts, which also (especially on vases and jugs) are associated with rain because of milk, and so I combined all of this rain imagery into one story.
	“The Daughters of Snake Defeat Bear” This idea came from a much more simple combination of images: the bear also was sometimes associated with rain, so I thought a rivalry between the daughters of snake and a bear would be interesting to write; also, I found an image that could be interpetted, according to Gimbutas, as either a bird or a snake goddess, but which to me could perhaps be a combination, because heaping symbols upon symbols has been a common way to add power to something.
	“The Great Goddess Defeats Snake” This idea comes from the many images of a woman with exaggerated breasts, hips, buttocks, and most importantly, pelvis. She seems to be a symbol of fertility, and Gimbutas calls her the Great Goddess, the name I also give her in my stories. Since it is impossible to have two creators, she must defeat snake to take her rightful place.
	“The Great Goddess Creates Rebirth” This idea comes from two reasons: first, the Great Goddess image is found in many tombs, sometimes one, sometimes many, which associates her with death; second, in many tombs, especially those of infants and children, the bodies are arranged in fetal positions, and perhaps surrounded with a sack, symbolizing the womb. Both these indicate a belief in rebirth, probably through the womb of the Great Goddess. I had the brother killed by a bull because I thought that death by such a symbol of life would be ironic and fun.
	“The Great Goddess Creates the Lady Moon” and “The Dog’s Great Heritage” Generally, the moon is a symbol of rebirth and fertility, both because it has a monthly cycle and because it was found to have the same basic cycle as a woman’s menstruation cycle. I took those general factors and altered them to be just a timer for the Great Goddess because the Moon Goddess does not seem to play as large a part in the Old European art. I personally have seen no actual pictures of her herself, but many of her representative, the dog. She is most likely associated with dogs because of their tendency to howl at the moon, and they are generally portrayed in Old Europe art along with a crescent moon. I made these two stories out of those two concepts.
	“The Sorrowful God” This is mostly based upon pictures of a man who sits sorrowfully thinking, and upon Gimbutas’ suggestion that he is a sorrowful god who creates death as the counterpart of the Great Goddess. Because the winter is generally seen as a death in most mythology, I felt it was only appropriate that he be the maker of winter.
	“The Great Goddess is Reborn” This story was enjoyable because of the rhythm of the words I wrote for the priestess’s chanting. It is based upon the many, many images of the double axe, butterfly, and bee images connected to the Great Goddess in Old European art. The double axe represents the butterfly because of its shape, and the butterfly symbolizes rebirth for the simple reason that it is reborn, changed from a caterpillar to a butterfly. The bee symbolizes rebirth as well, but for a less scientific reason, according to Gimbutas. She explains that the bee was seen by the Minoans (and therefore probably by their predecessors) as coming from the bull; apparently, if you buried a bull caracass, the bees would come from the area you buried it. Hence, bees are born from bulls, so the death of the bull gives way to new life. Death to birth can often be equivocated with rebirth, so the bee tends to be a symbol of the Great Goddess, who is life and death and rebirth all in one.