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The Marija Gimbutas: Archaeomythology of a Goddess slideshow is © OPUS Archives and Research Center. Additional copyrights held by others apply to individual items displayed in the slideshow. No part of this exhibit may be used without permission of the rights holder.
About OPUS and its Collections
OPUS Archives and Research Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve, develop and extend to the world the archival collections and libraries of eminent scholars in the fields of depth psychology, mythology and the humanities. OPUS is a “living archive” and offers scholarships, research grants, educational programs, community events, and research access to the collections. The Archives are free and open to the public.
Archives and Manuscript Collections of:
Joseph Campbell | Marija Gimbutas | James Hillman
Marion Woodman | Christine Downing
Jane Hollister Wheelwright and Joseph Balch Wheelwright
Katherine Sanford | Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig
Tony Joseph | Jill Mellick
Rare Book Collections of:
William Henry Barnes | John Sanford
Marija Gimbutas:
Archaeomythology of a Goddess
January 23, 2021 marks the centennial of Lithuanian-American archaeologist, author, and UCLA Professor Emeritus Marija Gimbutas’ birthdate, an occasion UNESCO has designated among its milestone anniversary commemorations for the year, posthumously recognizing eminent personalities who have “helped shape the civilization we share by contributing to the mutual enrichment of cultures for universal understanding and peace.” In celebration of this honor, OPUS presents the year-long exhibit, Marija Gimbutas: Archaeomythology of a Goddess, featuring a variety of items from OPUS’ collection illuminating the resilient and inspired life and equally distinguished and controversial work of the self-designated “archaeomythologist” (1921-1994). On view are edited typescripts, notes, photographs, excavation maps, personal memorabilia, and archaeological illustrations spanning from her early studies of Lithuanian folklore, to her groundbreaking “Kurgan hypothesis” regarding the transformation of Old European civilization, to her passionate and impactful theories on the sovereign worship of a multifaceted Mother Goddess in pre-patriarchal cultures.
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994) was a Lithuanian-American archaeologist and archaeomythologist and Professor Emeritus of European Archaeology and Indo-European Studies at the University of California Los Angeles from 1963-1989. Her work focused on the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of Old Europe.
She was born in 1921 in Vilnius, Lithuania. She received her MA in 1942 from the University of Vilnius where she studied archaeology, linguistics, ethnology, folklore and literature. In 1946 she earned a PhD in archaeology at Tübingen University in Germany for her dissertation on prehistoric burial rites in Lithuania. In 1949 Gimbutas moved to the United States. She worked for Harvard University at the Peabody Museum from 1950-1963 and was made a Fellow of the Peabody in 1955. Her work included translating archaeological reports from Eastern Europe, and her research focused on European prehistory. In 1963 she became a professor at UCLA in the European archaeology department.
Gimbutas is best known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of “Old Europe,” a term she introduced. Old Europe referred to both the geographical area and social structures that existed before the Indo-European influence, as reflected in her work on the cross-disciplines of archaeological artifacts, linguistics, ethnography, and folklore. This led her to posit the thesis that the European prehistoric culture was female-centered and worshiped a Mother Goddess as giver of all life.
Gimbutas conceptualized an interdisciplinary approach to scholarship that she named "archaeomythology" in order to describe her research methodology, which bridged archaeology, linguistics, and folklore with mythology and
symbolic studies. Her most well-known books include Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (1974), The
Language of the Goddess (1989), and The Civilization of the Goddess (1991).
Marija Gimbutas Papers and
Collection of Books
The Marija Gimbutas Collection at OPUS includes her papers and personal library. The papers focus on her professional life during the years she lived in California and taught at UCLA. They cover her teaching and research through extensive lecture and research notes, photographs, slides, maps, manuscripts, and figurines from her personal collection.
Gimbutas’ intensive research on European prehistory is evident in her research files on the European Neolithic cultures and symbols of Old Europe, including: Ancient Symbolism in Lithuanian Folk Art, Slavic Religion, Religion of Old Europe, Lengyel & East Balkan, Cucuteni, Linear Pottery Culture, Çatal Hüyük (in Anatolia, Turkey) and the work of James Mellaart, Culture Studies of Tisza, the Achilleion Site (with excavation notes, articles, and illustrations) and Scaloria Cave Site (with information on shells and excavation notes).
The research files also include original illustrations and page proofs for Bronze Age Cultures, The Language of the Goddess, and The Civilization of the Goddess and proofs and drafts for The Living Goddesses (published posthumously). Gimbutas’ index cards of bibliographic citations form a significant part of her research notes.
The Gimbutas collection contains over 12,000 slides, as well as illustration materials for her books on prehistoric sacred figures, archaeological and historical maps, charts, and blueprints.
A selection of artifacts includes pottery shards and samples from archaeological sites, replicas of Goddess figurines, and mementos from Lithuania. You may search the catalog records of the Marija Gimbutas Papers
in the OPUS Database.
Marija Gimbutas Papers and
Collection of Books
OPUS also holds the personal library of Marija Gimbutas, housed along with the Joseph Campbell Library on the Lambert campus of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her library is comprised of over 1,500 volumes which includes an extensive collection on archaeology, as well as numerous volumes about religion, anthropology, linguistics, mythology, folklore, and art. Along with her books, select artifacts are also on view.
Go to the Marija Gimbutas Library tab at https://catalog.my.pacifica.edu/ to search her personal library.
Pictured at top left: A view of the entrance to the Joseph Campbell and Marija Gimbutas Library.
Pictured at lower left: A bust of Marija Gimbutas on view in the library.
Display 1
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Archaeomythology
I am used to chronology and stratigraphy, so I see the layers
– Marija Gimbutas
(unpublished transcript of interview with Joan Marler, 1991, p. 83)
Marija combined her unique skills as an archaeologist, a linguist (she was reader-level proficient in 25 languages), and a mythologist (well-versed from childhood in European folklore) to create a new interdisciplinary and synthetic field that she deemed archaeomythology.
Vilnius, Lithuania: Origins & Eternal Returns
Pictured Above: Photograph of Marija Gimbutas in traditional Lithuanian attire. Date unknown.
On January 23, 1921, Marija Birute Alseikaite was born in Vilnius, Lithuania to parents who were both medical doctors and active participants in a community of artists and intelligentsia seeking national revolution. Despite the Polish occupation of her home country, Marija experienced an idyllic childhood, steeped in nature and pagan folklore. “I have heard stories about the Goddess who is still alive,” Marija reminisced. “People around me were still believing in Fates, and the witch was a true Goddess. There were goblins and other things which I now find in the archaeological materials” (Marler 1990, p. 6).
Pictured Above: Ornament depicting Vilnius, from Marija Gimbutas’ personal memorabilia collection
In 1940, while Marija was a student at the University of Vilnius, Soviet forces
invaded Lithuania. To escape the extermination so many of her friends and fellow
citizens suffered, she took refuge with her mother in a remote summer home in the
Kaunas forest. In 1942, Marija earned her Masters from Vilnius with a dissertation titled “Life and Death in the Beliefs of Prehistoric Lithuania.” In 1944, she fled to Austria with her new husband, Jurgis Gimbutas, cradling her dissertation and infant daughter in her arms. Marija carried on her studies even in wartime, earning her PhD from the University of Tübingen, Germany in 1946. In 1949, she and her young family emigrated to the United States. She returned to Lithuania with a warm welcome and distinguished honors on several occasions years later and felt strongly that she was giving back to her homeland a glimpse of their ancient culture.
Archaeological Excavations
Pictured at right: Cigar boxes containing soil samples from Marija Gimbutas’ archaeological excavation at Achilleion, Greece, 1973-1974
Pictured at left: Pottery shards, including Impresso Ware shards, from Mezzana, Italy (likely from surface scatter collected near Scaloria Cave) and Pottery shards from various sites in south and east Europe
Marija Gimbutas was Project Director of five major excavations co-led by UCLA archaeological teams, each focused on Neolithic sites in Yugoslavia and Macedonia. The National Science Foundation sponsored her excavations at Obre, Bosnia/Yugolavia (1967-68) and Achilleion, Greece (1973-75), and the Smithsonian her excavations of Photolivos (Sitagroi) in Greek Macedonia (1968-69) and Anza, in Yugoslavian Macedonia (1969-71). She was also Project Director for an excavation of the Scaloria cave sanctuary in Southeast Italy (1977-80).
Throughout these excavations, Gimbutas found over 500 figurines, at least ninety-five percent of which were female in form. The excavation at Achilleion, focused on a site of ancient Sesklo culture, was, in Marija’s words, a “historical event” in her life (unpublished transcript of interview with Joan Marler, 1991, p. 121).
Kryziai (Crosses)
From an edited typescript of “Lithuanian Crosses: A Study on the Ancient Symbolism of the Folk Art” by Marija Gimbutas circa 1958:
“There is in North-eastern Europe, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, a region sometimes called ‘The Land of Crosses.’ Not long ago the Lithuanian countryside was dotted with beautifully ornamented crosses or poles capped by roofs, whose symbols radiated brilliant “sunlight.” The landscape exuded the religious spirit. These monuments replete with ancient symbols are most characteristic representatives of the Lithuanian folk art, expressing the people’s view on life and the ability in artistic creation. Roofed-poles and crosses were encountered not only in places such as cemeteries or crossroads, but practically anywhere - in front of homestead, at the edge of the village or amid fields, by ‘holy’ spring or in the forest. They were erected on the occasion of a person’s marriage, serious illness, in commemoration of an untimely death, during epidemics among men or animals, or the ensure good crops. They rose from the earth, as the folk song had risen, as various customs had risen, out of religious beliefs that challenged definition in artistic creation.”
The pagan imagination of Lithuania influenced and inspired Marija throughout her life’s work. Even prior to any official university education, Marija approached life itself as a university. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, she collected hundreds of folklore stories from Lithuanian elders. One particular Lithuanian folk custom that Marija explored in depth was that of kryziai, elaborately crafted wooden and iron crosses placed outside homes, along roadsides, and in cemeteries for the sake of honoring sacred locations and instilling spiritual protection.
Pictured above and surrounding title: examples of illustrations of Lithuanian kryziai
Culture Files: Overview
Pictured at left: Postcard with “Figurine symbolizing the moon. Burnt clay. Turdas-Vinča culture (about 3,000 BC)”
Pictured at right: Postcard of “Clay model of a house with figurines. Neolithic period. Larisa Museum”
Over the course of Marija Gimbutas’ extensive work in studying the artifacts and symbols of European prehistory, including hands-on work in the archaeological field, she accumulated rich files on ancient Cucuteni, Hamangia, Sesklo, and Vinča cultures. These items are a mere glimpse into her valuable collections of photographs, illustrations, slides, and notes regarding each of these enigmatic cultures.
Samples of postcards included in the Culture Files featuring various ancient sites and artifacts
Archaeological Artifact Replicas
Collected by Marija Gimbutas
Pictured at left:
Replica of a terracotta bear offering vessel, Syros, Cyclades, circa 2,000 BCE;
Replica of a stone bird figure, Athens, Greece, 490 BCE;
Replica of a psi figure, Mycenaean culture, 1,300 BCE;
and a photograph of various figures on display, exhibition/date unknown
Pictured at right: Replica of a double-headed figure
Serbia, Vinča culture
5,000 BCE
Marija Gimbutas’ archive at OPUS includes a vast array of imagery in photographic, cartographic, and illustrative forms, as well as a fascinating collection of artifacts. Some of these artifacts are unique, original pieces (primarily pottery shards and soil samples from her excavations) and many are replicas of highly-significant archaeological discoveries—images that one could hold presently in the hand and yet which brought millennia of human history with them.
Kurgan Hypothesis
Marija Gimbutas’ most widely-recognized and validated academic contribution is her “Kurgan hypothesis,” a watershed moment fusing archaeology and linguistics, first presented at the International Congress of Ethnological Sciences in 1956 and more recently confirmed by Stanford University geneticists. Gimbutas hypothesized that Old European civilizations were dramatically altered by and assimilated into the ideologies and ritual practices of the “Kurgan tradition.” “Kurgan” is her term for war-oriented, patriarchal, pastoralist horsemen from the Eurasian steppe region, who colonized Old Europe in three waves between 4,500 and 2,500 BCE. Technically, the term “kurgan” is applied to the burial mounds of this same culture.
Pictured: First page of a three-page annotated typescript summarizing the impact of the Kurgan arrival on Old European civilizations, by Marija Gimbutas
Kurgan Hypothesis Controversy
While Marija’s Kurgan hypothesis has been widely upheld and embraced, opinion regarding her theory of sovereign Goddess worship in Old Europe has been contentious. Archaeologists have largely criticized the theory as driven by personal interpretation rather than proven by scientific method. However, her theory has also received significant popular support and praise from eminent twentieth century mythologists such as Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade (Campbell compared Marija’s work to the monumental decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics). The most enthusiastic reception of Marija’s Goddess work came from artists, therapists, ecological activists, and feminists, among whom Marija became something of a Goddess figure herself.
Marija was a practitioner and advocate of interdisciplinary approaches toward understanding cultures so distant in time that their true nature can only be approximated by interpreting evidence from multiple angles. Though a professional archaeologist herself, she did not believe lab techniques could tell the whole story; what was also needed was a perspective based in story—the perspective of mythology. If not provable, her work on The Goddess nevertheless provides, as Richard D. Lyons writes in his New York Times obituary of Marija, “an imaginative alternative to male-centered explanations” of human history.
Kurgans
Pictured at right: “A plan of a kurgan from the Yamna period, lower Dnieper basin. [2.25 m high, 34 m across] 1. Child’s grave covered with stone slabs and equipped with a beaker, surrounded by other graves in a concentric ring. 2, 7, 9, and 10 double graves of a woman and child (mother and child buried together). Only six graves included grave gifts: either a dish or a beaker, or dog’s teeth and bone beads and sheep bones.” - archaeological illustration
In archaeological terms kurgans are burial mounds constructed of earth and stone built over a grave or graves and found in eastern Europe and central Asia.
Pictured at Left: Archaeological illustration states “Reconstruction of a kurgan at Verbovka on the L.Dnieper”
Pictured at lower right: Archaeological illustration of “Hedgehogs” states “(spiny balls) of wood and painted red, called ‘uteri’, were found deposited in graves and churches as late as the beginning of the 20th century in southern Tirol.”
Baltic Culture
Pictured at left: Annotated draft combined with research materials about Baltic solstice rituals from Marija Gimbutas’ research on Baltic mythology
In addition to her extensive knowledge of Lithuanian myth, Marija also engaged in deep study of Slavic and Baltic mythologies, especially their goddesses. She published a much-translated work regarding ancient Baltic culture, and from 1980-1982, she served as President of the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.
Pictured at right: Os Baltas (Portugese, 1991) and I Baltici (Italian, 1967)
Both are translations of The Balts: Ancient Peoples and Places
The Language of the Goddess
Harper & Row, 1989
“It is hoped [Language of the Goddess] will open avenues to folklore treasures as a source for the reconstruction of prehistoric ideology. Prehistoric folklore is a field as yet unexplored by archaeologists (and vice versa; rich archaeological sources are hardly touched by folklorists or mythologists) in spite of enormous possibilities” – Marija Gimbutas (Language annotated draft, p. v).
Pictured at left: Illustration description states “An avatar of the Birth-giving Goddess, the deer is also associated with aqueous symbolism; this doe from a cemetery burial is covered with net, checkerboard, and zigzag motifs. Greek Geometric (Grave 10, Kerameikos cemetery, Athens; 925 - 900 B.C.).”
Pictured at right: Illustration description states “A motif that appears for millennia in Old Europe is the Snake-striped Madonna with infant, seated on a chair or throne. Diagnostic features include snake arms and tri-lines. Late Helladic III (Mycenae; c. 14th century B.C.).”
Examples of Archaeological illustration masters
The Great Goddess
Marija’s Kurgan hypothesis implied that prehistoric settlements in the European region were transformed by the gradual invasion of male-dominated warrior cultures from north of the Black Sea. What then was the nature of these ancient European societies? In pursuing this question, she found herself increasingly compelled by evidence suggesting these cultures were nonviolent, egalitarian, earth-centered and Goddess-worshipping. Despite common assumption, Marija expressly did not propose that these cultures were matriarchal, but rather matrilineal and concerned with worshipping a regenerative power that they located in Goddess images.
Marija’s primary method of discovery was the careful and comprehensive analysis of symbols adorning archaeological artifacts, which in effect formed a written language much more ancient than Sumerian. These symbols were sometimes animal in form and very often abstract (net patterns, zigzags, chevrons, bi-lines, tri-lines, and so on). The repetition of these motifs across hundreds of figurines, cult objects, and ancient pottery convinced Marija that this was not mere geometric adornment, but an “alphabet of the metaphysical” (Language annotated draft, p. 1a). In her reading, this metaphysical alphabet spelled out—in many different and yet fundamentally related iterations—the language of a Goddess of Birth, Death, and Regeneration. It is this symbolic lexicon that she explores in Language of the Goddess,
a work she hoped would “illumine the Jungian ‘depth structure’” and “enlighten the
studies of myths, dreams, and archetypes” (Language annotated draft, p. vi).
Pictured above: Archaeological illustration from Language of the Goddess. The description states “The worship of the Snake Goddess continues during the Bronze Age, particularly on Crete.”
The Great Goddess cont.
Marija’s vast collection of symbol research is comprised of thousands of images organized in support of her thesis. Life-giving symbols include insignias suggesting fluidity (serpentine lines, wavy patterns); pronounced breasts and vulvas; pregnant figures; and symbols of birth, motherhood, and lifeforce, such as frogs, sows, flowers, and eggs. Symbols of death and regeneration include “stiff white nude” figurines, owls, dogs, bucranium, moons, and burial sites made in the shape of the Goddess’ body.
“I agree with Joseph Campbell that the worship of the Goddess was both polytheistic and monotheistic,” Marija writes. “Although she was worshipped under different forms and names, her worship was also monotheistic in the sense that we can properly speak of faith in the Goddess in the same way we speak of faith in God” (“Before the Dawn of Heroes” lecture notes).
Pictured at right: Archaeological illustration from Language of the Goddess. The description states “This late double goddess may represent sisters, a mother and daughter, or a pair of major and minor aspects of the same deity. In any case, the two figures are clearly differentiated by headdress, clothing, and symbolism. Greek Geometric (Boeotia, Greece; c. 700 B.C.).”
Display 2
“Before the Dawn of Heroes”
Marija presented the lecture “Before the Dawn of Heroes” on March 24, 1984 at a UC Berkeley symposium honoring her colleague, Joseph Campbell and reflecting on his notion of the Hero’s Journey.
Pictured at left: program for the “Joseph Campbell at 80” symposium
Pictured Above: Pages from Marija’s lecture notes for the event
“Before the Dawn of Heroes”
Marija presented the lecture “Before the Dawn of Heroes” on March 24, 1984 at a UC Berkeley symposium honoring her colleague, Joseph Campbell and reflecting on his notion of the Hero’s Journey.
Pictured at left: program for the “Joseph Campbell at 80” symposium
Pictured Above: Pages from Marija’s lecture notes for the event
Civilization of the Goddess
Harper, 1991
Examples of Archaeological illustration masters
Pictured Above Left: “Mistress of Animals” terracotta figurine. Hacilar, Neolithic Antonia. Early 6th millennium BCE.
Pictured Above Right: Description on illustration states “The comb, a related symbol, is still worn by European peasants for healing and protection in the
same way as is shown on this old European figurine. Cucuteni B
(Bilcze Zlote, upper Dniester, Ukraine; 4000-3500 B.C.).”
-from illustration
Pictured at Left: Marija’s handwritten notes and drawings of ancient Old European script and signs for “The Sacred Script” chapter of Civilization of the Goddess
“A fully illustrated, authoritative, and unequivocally stunning compilation of evidence showing the existence of a neolithic goddess-centered culture in prepatriarchal Europe.”-- Cover
Los Angeles Times article
December 25, 1968
Display 3
Culture Files: Cucuteni
Pictured above: Photograph of example of Cucuteni B pottery
Image label states “Red and black on white. End 19th century excavation. Courtesy of Archaeological Museum, Cracow, Inv. 261”
From an edited draft regarding Cucuteni pottery:
“The classical Cucuteni (Cucuteni A) culture is marked by the appearance of the first bichrome (white on red combined with incised decorative motifs) and then trichrome ceramics (painted white, dark brown, and red but without incision).
Dark brown on buff painted pottery came into fashion at the end of Cucuteni A and continued for the remainder of this culture.”
Culture Files: Hamangia
Pictured at left: Photograph of Hamangia culture figurine from archaeological site at Cernavoda, Romania. From Bucharest Institute of Archaeology. Original figurine circa 4,000 BCE
From an edited draft regarding Hamangia culture ceramics:
“The finest specimens of Hamangian ceramics have come from graves, not from domestic debris.
Hamangian figurines are strongly stylized, characteristically a standing or seated female, with well-developed breasts and buttocks with a columnar or phallic neck and head lacking facial features.
Sculptures show some similarity with the Hacilar figurines of Central Anatolia, but their local production cannot be doubted.”
Culture Files: Sesklo
Pictured above: photograph of Marija Gimbutas and colleague at site of ancient Sesklo, Greece settlement, 1971.
Label reads: “view from the tell of Sesklo. Standing at the stone foundation of Sesklo houses from 5900-5800 B.C. From left: late D. R. Theocharis (the excavator of the settlement between 1958 and 1976) and author in 1971.”
Pictured: Slide (above) and 4 photographs (left) of Sesklo culture figurines excavated by Marija Gimbutas’ archaeological team at Achilleion, Greece, 1973
From an edited draft regarding Sesklo figurines:
“At Achilleion, in an excavated area little more than 100 square meters, over 200 clay figurines came to light (more than from all other Sesklo sites together).
It is safe to say that the majority of figurines were kept in groups from five to twenty in a special, probably sacred, corner of the house, usually on a dais. Almost always they were found in association of fine ware, sacrificial tables, zoomorphic figurines or vessels with zoomorphic protomes, lamps, ladles, and seals.
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Culture Files: Vinča
Pictured at left: Photograph of masked Vinča figure
Image label states “Possible leather straps may have been worn in ceremonies as this masked figurine reveals. White encrustation marks the black bands. Fiver perforations are in the crown of the black pentagonal mask which has perforations at the “ears”. 12.5 cm. Vinča. From Selevac near Smederevska, Palanks, c. 5000-4500 B.C.”
From an edited draft regarding Vinča ceramics, figurines, and ritual objects:
“The origin of the Vinča black-burnished wares need be sought no further afield than the Marica valley of central Bulgaria. Channeled black-polished wares occur early in the Karanovo sequence. They diffused westward during the Karanovo III phase when the remarkable artistic development of the Vinča culture was marked by an increase in the quality and number of figurines and other ritual objects. The figurines are characterized by an angular face-mask and disproportionately large head and eyes. These symbolic figures are a key to the understanding of religious ceremonialism and mythical imagery.”
Display 4
Teaching & Academia
Pictured above: Marija Gimbutas at podium. Unknown time and place.
Pictured at left: A reader from Indo-European course 131: The Neolithic of Southeast Europe. Each chapter includes multiple images that can also be found in the OPUS Archives. Publication date and university unknown.
When Marija Gimbutas arrived in the United States as a refugee in 1949, she worked as a maid before approaching Harvard University. From 1950-1955, Harvard employed her (though it did not always pay her) as a translator of Eastern European archaeological publications and, later, a writer on texts of European prehistory. In these years, she was barred from the males-only library and not permitted in the Faculty Center without a male escort. In 1955, she was made a Research Fellow of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
served as curator of Old World Archaeology at the Museum of Culture History. Later in her life, Gimbutas was the recipient of honorary degrees from several academic institutions.
Marija went on to forge a significant career in academia. She received a Fulbright scholarship to lecture in USSR-controlled Lithuania, was sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation for her work on European prehistory, and, in 1960, was made Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. In 1963, she separated from her husband and accepted a position as Professor of European Archaeology at UCLA, a position she held until 1990. There, she created an interdepartmental archaeology program, co-developed the department of Indo-European studies,
Midterm from Baltic and Slavic Mythology course at UCLA
Fall 1986
Could you have passed the test?
According to the directions for this section, you must answer Yes or No and should complete it within 10 minutes.
Published Materials
1. Bengelsdorf, I. (1968, December). Dr. Marija Gimbutas: Her purview is the prehistory of Europe. Los Angeles Times, pages � unknown.
2. Gimbutas, M. (1958). Ancient symbolism in Lithuanian folk art. In Memoirs of the American Folklore Society (Vol. 49).
Philadelphia: American Folklore Society.
3. Gimbutas, M. (1967). Baltic [The Balts: Ancient Peoples and Places]. (Rocchetti, Luigi, Trans.). Milan: Il Saggiotore.
(Original work published 1963).
4. Gimbutas, M. (1991). Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe. San Francisco: Harper.
5. Gimbutas, M. (1992). Die ethnogenese der europäischen Indogermanen. Innsbrucker Beiträge zur Kulturwissenschaft.
Innsbruck: Institut für Sprachwissenschaft der Universität Innsbruck.
6. Gimbutas, M. (1975). Die Neolithische Jäger-und Fischerkultur Nordosteuropas. Jüngere Steinzeit und Steinkupferzeit: fruhe
bodenbau und viehzuchtkulturen series: Handbuch der Urgeschichte (Vol. 2). Tübingen: Francke Verlag.
In her lifetime, Marija Gimbutas published 20 books and over 200 articles on European prehistory and folklore. Her most well-known books are Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (1974), Language of the Goddess (1989), and Civilization of the Goddess (1991). As Richard D. Lyons wrote in his New York Times obituary of Marija, these three monumental works present “an interpretation of the Neolithic period of Europe that challenged traditional views of prehistoric societies.”
The following bibliography reflects only a fraction of her work and represents what is currently on display. A more complete Bibliography of Marija Gimbutas’ works can be found on the OPUS website.
Published Materials continued
Pictured above: Photograph of Marija Gimbutas accompanying the article “The Goddess Theory” in the Los Angeles Times Magazine from 1989.
7. Gimbutas, M. (1997). The first wave of Eurasian Steppe pastoralists into Copper Age Europe. Journal of Indo-European
Studies (Vol. 5).
8. Gimbutas, M. (1989). The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper and Row.
9. Gimbutas, M. (1981, Fall). The “monstrous Venus” of prehistory or goddess creatrix.
Comparative Civilizations Review (No. 7).
10. Gimbutas, M. (1992). Os Baltas [The Balts: Ancient Peoples and Places]. (Petraitis J. E.,
Trans.). Rio de Janeiro: Frederich A. Praeger Inc. (Original work published 1963).
11. Leslie, J. (1989, June). The goddess theory. Los Angeles Times Magazine, 22-23.
12. Lituanus: The Lithuanian Quarterly (Vol. 37:2, 4, 3; 40: 4; 42:1-4; 43:1).
13. Livingstone, F.C. (1969 April). The grapes of antiquity. Science News (Vol. 95), 407.
14. Lyons, R D. (1994 February 4). Dr. Marija Gimbutas dies at 73; archaeologist with
feminist view. New York Times. page unknown
15. Marija Gimbutienė bibliografinė rodyklė 1938-1995 (1995). Vilnius: Vilniaus Universitetas.
16. Marler, J. (1990 Fall/Winter). An interview with Marija Gimbutas. Woman in Power (No. 15), 6-15.
17. Marler, J. (1995 Winter). A vision for the world. ReVision (Vol. 17, No. 3), 41-48.
18. Palytėta, L. (2002). Marija Gimbutienē. Vilnius: Leidykla Scena.
19. Reed, D. (2003) Signs out of time: The story of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas [DVD]. Belili Productions.
Display 5
Archaeological Artifact Replicas
Collected by Marija Gimbutas
Pictured in center: Marble replica of “stiff white nude” figure. Original figure from Cyclades circa 3,000-2,3000 BCE
Pictured at right: Replica of bucranium figurine evoking the shapes of a human torso, bull skull, and bee goddess (outline). It was likely broken in the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
Replicas on view include these two touchstones regarding the cycles of death and regeneration.
Display 6
Map of Neolithic Copper Locations
Pictured Left:
Portion of large grid paper map of copper locations in the Balkan Peninsula
From Marija Gimbutas’ map collection
Date unknown
Map Key:
* = Copper Source
• = Site: Copper Artifacts
•* = Site: Evidence of Copper Processing
“Signs of Civilization” Poster
Pictured (detail in two parts):
"Signs of Civilization" poster depicting illustrations of archaeological artifacts in the locations they were excavated
Created for the International Symposium of the Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe in Novi Sad, Serbia
May 25-29, 2004
Neolithic Balkan Cultures Map
Pictured:
Portion of map outlining regions inhabited by the Neolithic Starčevo, Szatmár, and Dniester-Bug cultures in the Balkan Peninsula
From Marija Gimbutas’ map collection
Date unknown
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