(2:25) We know about giants, they're in all our myths, all of our legends , all of our stories,,, In Greek mythology you have the gigantes, and they were according to Greek mythology,,, the big tall, the Roman Titans, sort of the same thing. They are the offspring of a god called Tartarus,,, and a goddess named Gaia. Now you might recognize those two names. Tartarus just happens to be one of the Greek words used in the Bible that is translated as hell. In fact the word tartarus gives this idea of the lowest part of hell, or like the bottomless pit.As I sit pondering this bit of video, my mind keeps returning to, “There is a goddess all around the earth, she is always worshiped the same way through fertility.” I’m a bit stuck on that statement, but I don’t know why. In part, I believe that Hoggard is cherry-picking Greek mythology to conform to his idea that there is a connection between the “giants” and the worship of the feminine deity/fertility goddess.* But yet it’s not that simple and I believe my discomfort goes much deeper to what I perceive as a lack of knowledge and understanding of Greek mythology as a whole; the role that it played in ancient Greek culture and religion. Even further back, the role of women in religion, the fertility of the earth as represented by goddess worship.
Gaia, you probably heard this before, Gaia is the earth goddess, she is the goddess of fertility; we have talked about her several times before. She has gone by different names Ashtoreth, Ishtar, Isis, Venus and so on. There is a goddess all around the earth, she is always worshiped the same way through fertility. And so,,, the Greeks had this idea that a god from the lowest part of the earth mated with Gaia, some sort of goddess creature, and they created these very very tall gigantic creatures that they call,,, our word gigantic and giant actually come from this particular word,,,
[,,,]
(5:08),,,the giants of Greek mythology had like one eye,,,they were called the cyclops. Think that is interesting and might fit into something,,,
(*I’m jumping ahead here but later in the video he does allude to some interesting claims: the church, specifically the RCC, is equated with the feminine, which is equated to the “whore of Babylon.” In another statement, the giants worshiped Ashtoreth which Hoggard equated to Gaia in this clip.)
So down a rabbit hole we shall go!! I have no idea were this is going to lead or if it is related to my study of the Nephilim. I do know we are going to find that many people (lay people as well as scholars) believe the worship of the feminine deity/fertility goddess predates Greek myth and what we now understand as religion. But what I would like to know, is this assigning of fertility and/or goddess status to these representations of women the only means of interpretation? That is my big question, which ultimately leads me to wonder, are "we" putting a 21st century spin on ancient culture to support a current ideology?
If there are other viable interpretations, what happens to statements or assertions like Hoggard's that "there is a connection between the giants and the worship of the feminine deity or fertility goddess?" What connection is he trying to make by ignoring other theories concerning the feminine/fertility/goddess aspect? What insinuation is proposing?
I have a presupposition forming in my head that this is a backhanded way of supporting the idea of the Serpent Seed/Two Seed doctrine which by some is used to buttress not only their misogynistic view of women but also the strong anti-Catholicism that seems to run rampant through the Nephilim crowd. Instead of blatantly stating HIS view (at least in this video) he is subtly injecting that viewpoint by using repetition when speaking about this "enemy." Hoggard is trying to drive certain associations into the listener's mind to force them to see a scenario he wants them to believe. The first part of which divine women are evil!!
Let's see if we can throw a kink into his thought process,,,
Women always have been part of our relationship with the Divine but a hidden aspect in our religious history. Bettany Hughes in her BBC presentation Divine Women: When God was a Girl (2012) states, "to understand the full story of human history and the nature of religion itself, I think we have to follow the trail of these little women." (Hughes is referencing an earlier part of her presentation concerning the numerous female figurines un-earthered worldwide.) In that, I agree with Hughes, to understand Greek myth and by proxy Gaia, one needs to understand its/her predecessors. In Hoggard's work, this is something that is lacking, he does not take consideration of the 30,000+ years of history.
Although I will be referring to Hughes’ presentation, she is by no means my only source of information. Let's just call her the inspiration for delving a bit deeper into this subject. As we do so, one must keep in mind that how we interpret the meaning of these prehistoric artifacts seems to reflect more on our present day culture than on any possible objective analysis. We are going to begin our journey through history with what some scholars refer to as the “mother of us all.”
Venus/Woman of Willendorf
Though surrounded by controversy and speculation the mis-named Venus of Willendorf offers us our first glimpse into anthropomorphic figurines
,,,they claimed that the objects started off as celebrations of the female form, then later became symbols that tied together a growing human society.
[,,,]As I sit writing this many questions come to mind. Questions I won't be able to answer fully, but maybe enough to pique your interest into digging for more. It is these questions and more that many scholars and researchers also ask and speculate upon; and as we shall see not all are in agreement.
It's an overtly sexual, earthy style: Many of the intricately carved figurines share features such as large, pendulous breasts, huge buttocks, and chubby legs with no feet. They display "female nakedness in all its splendor," said presenter Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser,,,
The Willendorf figurines, they argue, represent the overall idea of femaleness, but the emphasis is on individual women, represented by the many differences among the figurines,,, [s]uch a symbolic system, in which both individual and group identity were expressed simultaneously, might have been suitable for the earliest modern humans who colonized Europe about 40,000 years ago—and who probably lived in small, close-knit groups, especially as Ice Age glaciers spread across Europe and forced them to cluster together in warmer refugia,,, [5]
One thing that is clear, by giving her the name Venus (the Greek goddess of love), "we are assigning a meaning to her--a meaning of her being a goddess figure and somehow associated with fertility." [6]
- How did she acquire the name the "Venus" moniker?
- Is it art? A self representation or modeled?
- A fertility symbol?
- Was she a goddess?
- Why no facial features?
- Why such exaggerated features?
- Was she a religious icon such as the Virgin Mary or and expression of a religious/spiritual belief?
- Is she an example of the role or elevated status of women in Paleolithic society?
- Or, as some speculate, the first evidence of porn?
As mentioned above, the moniker "Venus of Willendorf" originated with her discovery in 1909. But the roots of this moniker to describe nude female figurines began in 1864 by the Marquis de Vibraye when he named a prehistoric nude female figurine a Venus Impudique (indecent Venus), which is a pun on the Roman Venus Pudica. With the true meaning of the Venus figurines unknown, many speculate that in the hunter and collector society of those days, their corpulence stood for prosperity and fertility. The Woman of Willendorf bests all other Venus figurines in its corpulence. [7]
The ironic identification of these figurines as "Venus" pleasantly satisfied certain assumptions at the time about the primitive, about women, and about taste. Venus, of course, was the Classical goddess of sexual love and beauty.So what exactly is Miss Venus of Willendorf?
[,,,]
To identify the Willendorf figurine as "Venus," then, was a rich, male joke that neatly linked the primitive and the female with the uncivilized and at the same time, through implicit contrast with the Classical Venus, served as a reassuring example to the patriarchal culture of the extent to which the female and female sexuality had been overcome and women effectively subjugated by the male-dominated civilizing process.
By naming her "Venus," a set of associations is brought to the image that influences our response to what we see. In one respect, she becomes a negative image, a "failed Venus" who, by the
standards of the Classical Venus, is not beautiful and is not sexually attractive.
The name "Venus" also encourages us to judge her as a piece of sculpture against the standards of idealized Greek, Roman, and Renaissance art, where she again fails miserably. [8]
Her abundant breasts and hips seem to indicate fertility as well as indicating that the Great Mother Goddess was not only the provider for Her people but that She also represented life itself. [9]
Instead, I will aim to prove that it is worthwhile to regard the Venus figurines as more than just fertility symbols, understanding them instead as representations of womanhood, rather than of motherhood alone. [10]
The overwhelming variety and diversity among the figurines themselves is reflected in the theories that have developed about them. Since the late nineteenth century, the meaning and purpose of these Venus figurines have been interpreted over and over again. Some of the theories directly reflect the biased thoughts of their time, some are religious and symbolic, and still others have a narrowed scientific focus and rely upon detailed technological analysis. The variety of both the figurines themselves and their interpretations has been overlooked as an important part of understanding these very old and widespread carvings of women. [11]
The Primordial Goddesses of the Pleistocene can only be inferred to represent symbols of fertility. While the sexual accent is clear, it is the larger context of the fines that makes for a more compelling story. The Pleistocene world is one of change for Homo Sapiens Sapiens. It is a world that is coming alive with cave art, technological change, and geographic expansion. It is, in the words of Jared Diamond, a "great leap forward". [12]
This study explores the logical possibility that the first images of the human figure were made from the point of view of self rather than other and concludes that Upper Paleolithic "Venus" figurines represent ordinary women's views of their own bodies,,, the size, shape, and articulation of body parts in early figurines appear to be determined by their relationship to the eyes and the relative effects of foreshortening, distance, and occlusion rather than by symbolic distortion,,, As self-portraits of women at different stages of life, these early figurines embodied obstetrical and gynecological information and probably signified an advance in women's self-conscious control over the material conditions of their reproductive lives. [13]
What I have discovered through all of this, from the first discovery of this artifact, pre-historians have felt compelled to explain the meaning and the origin of Miss Willendorf. During the nineteenth century, the notion of "art for art's sake" was promoted. Later, various hypotheses were put forward, based on a simplistic interpretations of ethnological data and the history of religion. These theories attempted to interpret the supposedly primitive mind of Paleolithic societies. Such hypotheses led to the portrayal of these statuettes as "mother goddesses."
So to answer my initial two questions, is this assigning of fertility and/or goddess status to these representations of women the only means of interpretation? NO!! Are "we" putting a 21st century spin on ancient culture to support a current ideology? I believe we do have an answer, at least in regards to the Woman of Willendorf, and it is a big resounding YES!!
As we depart from the Paleolithic era and travel a little closer to our time period, I leave you with three of the more "famous" Venus renderings; I include them for comparison. Though separated by approximately 7,000+ years, the similarities are striking and makes one ponder the possibilities.
It is for this reason I do believe that the Woman of Willendorf is a combination of all the differing theories. However reasonable these theories may seem though, we must remember that these attempts at interpretation were almost always formulated on the basis of a singular sample, light of data, frequently taken out of context and then placed in a context emanating from recent societies.
Next up Gobekli Tepe, religion forming/creating society?
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2] http://willendorf.org/the-first-goddess
3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Willendorf
4] http://www.all-history.org/2-3.html
5] http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2013/02/seeking-meaning-in-the-earliest-.html
6] http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/nude-woman-venus-of-willendorf.html
7] http://72.52.202.216/~fenderse/Venus.htm
8] ibid
9] http://www.rise-of-womanhood.org/earth-mother.html
10] http://umanitoba.ca/publications/openjournal/index.php/mb-anthro/article/viewFile/32/34
11] https://digital.library.txstate.edu/bitstream/handle/10877/3202/fulltext.pdf
12] http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/anthro2003/legacy/goddess/mothergoddess.html
13] http://www.ucmo.edu/art/facstaff/documents/Self-RepresentationinUpperPaleolithicFemaleFigurines.pdf
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Videos consulted/watched:
1] Bettany Hughes, BBC presentation Divine Women: When God was a Girl (2012)
2] Dr. Steven Zucker & Dr. Beth Harris, "Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf)"
http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/nude-woman-venus-of-willendorf.html
3] Dr. Nigel Spivey, BBC presentation How Art Made The World (Part 1)
For a review of the above BBC presentation Jane Chafin's Blog - How Art Made the World
4] Professor Kenny Mencher, Prehistoric Art in Europe
5] Victoria Taylor-gore, Prehistoric Art (Part 1 & 2)
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