Mythical Representations of “Mother Earth” in Pictorial Media

Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Rethinking symbols and images, art and artefacts from history and prehistory Edited by G. Terence Meaden BAR International Series 2389 2012 Published by Archaeopress Publishers of British Archaeological Reports Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED England bar@archaeopress.com www.archaeopress.com BAR S2389 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages: Rethinking symbols and images, art and artefacts from history and prehistory © Archaeopress and the individual authors 2012 ISBN 978 1 4073 0981 1 Printed in England by 4edge, Hockley All BAR titles are available from: Hadrian Books Ltd 122 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7BP England www.hadrianbooks.co.uk The current BAR catalogue with details of all titles in print, prices and means of payment is available free from Hadrian Books or may be downloaded from www.archaeopress.com Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ in Pictorial Media Nikos Chausidis University of Skopje, Institute for History of Art and Archaeology, Macedonia. Abstract. This paper summarizes our past researches of the pictorial representations of the Mother Earth myth and the separation of the basic iconographical types. Generally, the paper is not geographically cultural or chronologically limited. This means that we approach the phenomenon in its wider aspect, searching for its universal (transhistorical and transcultural) features. This is justified by the simple fact that the Mother Earth phenomenon itself possesses such a character, being universal for the bigger part of mankind. Yet, beside this principal openness, the focus of our research points toward the archaic cultures, i.e. those that had never, or not in a sufficient degree, entered the spheres of the cultures that are today regarded as civilizations. Here we have in mind the cultures of the Neolithic, the Age of Metals and the later centuries BC. We have divided the corpus of the pictorial representations of Mother Earth into several categories based not so much on the appearance but on the basic semiotic concept that generated them: namely (i) A female figure in a determined posture; (ii) Reduction and partition of the female figure; (iii) Geometrisation of the female figure; (iv) Zoomorphisation of the female figure; (v) Woman that appears from the earth. Key words: Archetypes, Birth-Giving Goddess, Mother Earth, pictorial representations. Introduction represented stylized/schematized, in some of the birth giving poses—with stretched legs, or a spreading and a bending at the knees (Pl. I: 5,7,8) (Čausidis 2005, 133-137; Chausidis 1994, 155-163). Breastfeeding is the second function that determines a mother. According to this, it could as well encode the function ‘mother’ in pictorial media in both ways: i.e. either explicitly, as a representation of a woman who nurses a child; or implicitly, as a representation of a woman whose breasts appear emphasized in different ways (through their hypertrophisation, nudity, showing, touching or holding, i.e. through their offering with the hands) (Pl. IX:3,6) (Čausidis 2005, 137, 200-203; Chausidis 1994, 84-89). Within the basis of this research lies the question: “how could archaic man represent the mythical character Mother Earth in pictorial media”? The results that are exposed here represent a brief synthesis of our past detailed researches previously published as separate studies in journals or as chapters of monographs. An answer to the question raised can be offered by the medium of language. If our starting point is the way in which the term and the meaning of the mentioned mythical character is formed inside this medium (lecsem “mother” + lecsem “earth”), rather than within the pictorial media, it too should be constructed in an analogous way—through the merging of the pictorial motifs of both elements: the picture of a mother plus a picture of an earth. Because of this, we believe that in the beginning it would be necessary to determine how archaic man could pictorially represent these two elements. How could archaic man pictorially represent the second mentioned element? It seems that archaic cultures did not develop concepts for objective pictorial representation of the earth as a material, i.e. structure. Nor did they articulate concepts for naturalistic, i.e. realistic, representation of the landscape, and in that way for the earth as its part as well. Unlike us, these cultures did not posses objective, i.e. scientifically based, representations of the shape of the earth, so that every culture formed personal representations regarding this question, based on the characteristics of the local environment and the specific treatment of the culture towards it. According to one of the most typical archaic representations in the universe, the earth was imagined as a square plate above which the circular sky in the shape of an arch or vault arose (Pl. I:1). This form of the planet does not rely on any of its realistic features, but on the inner human perceptive and orientating apparatus, which is constituted along two axes, namely four directions (in front, behind, left, right). Such spatial structures of the universe appear In pictorial media the function ‘mother’ could have been represented through a figure of an adult woman with clearly articulated gender features. But this could be accomplished more explicitly and more impressively through the representation of the birth-giving act itself, i.e. the emergence of the baby from the uterus of the woman, or actually the very moment in which she receives the function of a “mother” (Plate I: 6,9). It should not be overlooked that for the members of archaic cultures it was not that simple to represent this scene, because the concepts of the realistic, i.e. naturalistic, articulations of reality were not completely elaborated inside their vicinities. In one such constellation it appeared simpler, as well as more economical, to evoke this complex scene only through the figure of a woman 5 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate I. Figs. 1-4. Three-dimensional models of the space and their two-dimensional transpositions (Čausidis 2005, A5, A12); 10-13. Personalization of the geometric pictures/ideograms of the earth (Čausidis 2005, V13); 5. Osijek (Croatia), Neolithic; 6. PreColumbian America; 7. Mochica (Peru); 8. Perugia (Italy), c. 500 BC; 9. Luristan (Iran). 6 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ that would denote the given meaning. The presence of the component ‘earth’ could be accomplished through the articulation of these representations ‘using earth’, where we literally mean the plastic form made of any kind of earth, like mud or clay, which was afterwards dried or baked, i.e. transformed into ceramic. According to this, we cannot exclude the possibility that Mother Earth was represented by different archaeological objects on which a woman is pictorially represented (in a pose of giving birth or breast feeding, but also in some more usual pose), especially if they are made of unbaked earth/clay or ceramic. If we have in mind that the stone also represents a part of the earth, i.e. belongs to the lower cosmic zone, then this group could potentially enclose the pictorial representations of the mentioned types that were made of stone. as descriptions in verbal mythical forms, but also in the elements of the material culture such as architecture and sculpture, mostly those having a ritual character. But in the pictorial media these three-dimensional representations had to be compressed into two dimensions—usually through a ‘flattening’ or ‘intertwining’ of the two mentioned shapes. As a result, schematized geometrical pictures appeared, in which base the square was shown (= horizontal projection of the earth plate) and above it the circle or the semicircle (= horizontal or vertical projection of the heavenly arch/ vault), both connected through some elongated vertical element (= cosmic axis) (Pl. I:2). There were also variants in which the earth was represented by the rhombus, the reason for which should be looked for in two places (Pl. I:3). On one side, the rhombus, as well as the square is again with four angles, while on the other side, with its shape it resembles an open vulva, thus coding the “female”, i.e. the productive, aspect of the earth. The two-dimensional flattened projection of this variant is the rhombus—earth, surmounted by a semicircle—or a circle for the sky, among which a vertical segment stretches, representing the cosmic axis (Pl. I:4) (Čausidis 2005, 30-37). 2. Personalization of the geometrical pictures of earth The square as a picture, symbol and ideogram of the earth encoded only the humans` representations of the form of the earth, i.e. the shape of the “earthly plate” (Pl. I:1,2). The rhombus went deeper, because alluding to the vulva it connoted the generative / creative functions of the earth (Pl. I:3,4) (Čausidis 2005, 93-130). But neither of the two represented one essential aspect—the conceptions that the earth is a living being and that it is a person, a deity. The archaic mythical consciousness spontaneously compensated for this lack in a very simple way—by anthropomorphization of the mentioned geometrical images, i.e. by adding certain elements of the woman’s body. One of these ways is realized though articulation of the rhombus and the square with a human (female) head, i.e. face, which will lead to a personalization of these images (Pl. I:10,11). Thus, both geometrical forms receive the character of elements of the body of the represented mythical character, while the added head or face becomes a feature of its personality (Čausidis 2005, 148-160). After we have represented the visual manifestations of the two components that construct the syntagma ‘motherearth’, the need appears for yet another summing of the question “Why is the woman, i.e. the mother, equated to the earth?” We are convinced that the archaic consciousness (which perceives and valorizes more functionally than morphologically) paid attention to the spatial interference between the two functions of woman and those of the universe. Namely, in both cases, the birth-giving, i.e. the creating (of the child and the plants), is realized by their lower zones, while the nurturing is realized by the upper zones. In this context, the genital organs were equated to the earth from which plants grew, while the breasts from which milk flows were equated with clouds and rain. Because of these functions, there appeared a mythico-symbolical equalization of the earth and the lower part of the female body. This gradually led to their global identification and even to personalization of the earth with a female mythical character with emphasized generative functions. Thus the symbol and the deity Mother Earth was formed, where inside the frames of the oppositional concept the sky was given the husband/spouse character, which, with its dynamical components (sun, rain, light, warmth), fertilizes, i.e. provokes its creativity. Such examples can be identified in different cultures all around the planet. The variants with the square and the rectangle for the time being seem rare and more typical for the prehistoric (Müller-Karpe 1974, Taf. 344; Gimbutas 1989, 238) and the more contemporary archaic cultures (Pl. II:1-4,8,9). They survive in the more advanced cultures from late prehistory and the Ancient Century, but were usually reinvented within the frames of one naturalistic conception. During this, the geometrized (un-anthropomorphic) body of the Goddess-Earth receives the shape of her corpulent torso, which is usually covered with some wide dress, garment, i.e. tunic (Pl. II:5-7,10). We consider that regarding the given detail of the early medieval fibula (Pl. V:3) a compromising solution was reached by using a polygon which alludes to a geometrized earth, but also to a schematized birth-giving pose of the goddess. From the Neolithic to the Antique Period a variant can be followed where the face of the goddess is marked inside the rectangle that represents the earth (Pl. V:2,4,5). The variant with the anthropomorphized rhombus is in a way more convenient. We find her on a sacral stone which was placed in the shrine near Obuhiv After the elaboration of the basic components that compose the mythical character “Mother Earth”, we can approach the elaboration of its basic symbolically-iconographical types. 1. Mother made of earth The three above-mentioned representations of the mother (as a figure of a woman, of a birth-giving woman, or of a breast-feeding woman) could, within the frames of some archaic culture, represent the goddess Mother Earth, yet not by themselves, but accompanied with the verbal traditions 7 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate. II Fig. 1. Lapithos (Cyprus), Eneolithic; 2. Vounous (Cyprus), Eneolithic; 3,4. Cabeco de Arruda (Portugal), Neolithic; 5. Vadastra (Romania), Neolithic; 6. Surroundings оf Athens (Greece), 6th-century BC; 7. Boeotia (Greece), Archaic Period; 8,9. Nasca (Peru); 10. Gonur (Turkmenistan), Third millenium BC. 8 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ in Ukraine, which existed during the first half of the first millennium AD (Pl. III:1) (Kravchenko 1998). We believe that it represented Mother Earth, where ritual sacrifices presumably took place. Even from ancient written sources we learn about certain stone plates (probably similar to the mentioned one) or about different pieces of stone which symbolized the great Mediterranean Goddesses: Juno, Arthemis, Kybela (Dumezil 1997, 35; Srejović / Cermanović 1987, 203). Rhombic iconographic variants are found in different epochs and regions (examples: PL. III: 2,3). We intercept them on the elongated part of the early medieval two-plated fibulae (6th-7th century) which are connected to German cultures (Kühn 1940; Koch 1988) and Slavic cultures (Korzuhina 1996, PL. 82:1) (Pl. III:4-6). The mentioned significance of these pictures neatly fits into the cosmological iconography of this jewellery, in whose frames its elongated plate represented the lower zones of the universe (Čausidis 2005). 362; Gimbutas 1989, 102—Fig. 166), where the anthropomorphisation of the earth is not accomplished by adding a head but by metamorphising the circle into a lower part of a female figure which is reduced to its enlarged hips and legs (Pl. IV:4,5). One example from Siros (Pl. IV:4) clearly points that it is the lower part from the body of the Goddess Earth, in the midst of whose hips, inside the wavy sea, floats a boat with paddles. The surrounding zigzag margin—also present on other objects of this type—could represent the mythical river Oceanus which surrounded the lower cosmic zones. The productive function of the Goddess is marked with a vulva (a triangle in the middle), to which in this case is added a pair of branches on the sides as symbols of its fertility (Čausidis 2005, 150, 151). 3. Mother Earth appearing behind the horizon Cultures possessing a more developed sense of realistic pictorial expression tried to replace the abstract scheme “square / rhombus + female’s head” with a more natural variant in which the head or bust of the goddess peeks/ appears/ emerges from the horizontal line which marks the surface of the earth, viz. the horizon (Pl. V:8-10). The appearance of this variant usually understands the loss, i.e. the forgetting of the meaning, of the above-mentioned geometric ideograms of the earth. This conception is confirmed through numerous antique examples in which the name, i.e. identity, of the so articulated goddess can be determined. The Gigantomachy from the Pergam Altar is one of those examples where the figure thus represented can be identified as Gea (Pl. V:9), but there are others which have been identified as Demeter or Tellus (Pl. V:1,2,8) (Baring/ Cashford 1993, 306—Fig.2; Marazov 2003, 243). If by this conception we conceive the form “bust” / “half-long representation”, then a hypothesis could be suggested according to which it appeared as a form of representing the Goddess-Earth, whose lower part of the body cannot be seen because she is drowned, i.e. equalized with the earth (Pl.V:1). Such examples can be identified in the frames of Egyptian civilization also (Pl. V:10), but it remains undetermined for us as to whether the emerging head and hands belong to Geb or some other character that personified the earth (Čausidis 2005, 152-154). This iconographic conception is also found in two more variants in which the squares alternate with a triangle or a circle (Čausidis 2005, 150, 151) (Pl. I:12,13). We consider that in both cases these geometrical elements also functioned as ideograms for the earth. Similar to the rhombus, the triangle gained this role based on the identification (but this time only functional and not morphological) between the earth and the female genitalia or precisely the Venus area / the pubis as its most visible part. This merging of the triangle and the human (female) head is found on one Neolithic sacrificial altar from Hungary (Pl. IV:8) (Gimbutas 1974, 130; Fig. 108, 109), but also on one category of amulets from the Middle east (Pl. IV:6,7) (Müller-Karpe 1974, Taf. 163; Holmberg 1996, 117). In a more hidden way we also detect it in the structure of concentric triangles which is present on a Neolithic female idol from Bulgaria (Pl. IV:9,10) (Todorova-Vajsov 1993, 207). It should be pointed that, besides the representations of earth as a rectangle, those in which it was imagined as a circle (e.g. circular plate or some other circular object) are quite common in the world. It should be emphasized that these traditions quite by chance coincide with contemporary knowledge of the circular, i.e. the ball shape of Planet Earth. Reversibly, they are usually treated as most archaic representations in which the concept of orientation by two crossed axes (which will lead to the appearance of the representations of the four-sided earth) has not yet been applied (Čausidis 2005, 16-32). Through numerous variants, this conception is followed on the Eneolithic stone representations from Kultepe (Pl. IV:1-3) (Müllerkarpe 1974, Taf. 296; Aydingün 2003, 35-39), where the earthly meaning of the circle is coded by the middle triangle (Pl. IV:2,3) or by other elements which represent “scenes from life on earth” (Pl. IV:1), while personalization was accomplished by one, two or three anthropomorphic heads (= hypostases of the goddess-earth). On the Eneolithic cult vessels from the Cycladic Islands one finds other variants of this same conception (Müller-Karpe 1974, taf. 4. Mother Earth as an anthropomorphic mountain The ground surface, when undetermined in form and dimensions, is such that archaic conciseness demands some explanation for it, basing it on how it could project its understandings of the ground as a goddess. Hence, the focus usually falls on the mountain, which erupting from the earth as an object with a material volume and shape, becomes a representation of Mother Earth. The Goddess, as a representation of the mountain and at the same time of the earth, was adopted by numerous cultures. One of the most famous is the Phrygian Kybela. Early iconographical prototypes of these mythical images are not known to us, but we learn about them indirectly through their medieval or modern versions originating from Western Europe (Pl. VI.9; 9 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate III Fig. 1. Obuhiv (Ukraine), 1st-5th-century ; 2. Caucasia, 15th-11th-century BC; 3. Phoenicia, 8th-century BC; 4. Dept. Aisne, Early Middle Ages; 5. Müngersdorf, Köln (Germany), Early Middle Ages; 6. Stepancy (Ukraine), Early Middle Ages; 7. Sardinia; 8. Lepenski Vir (Serbia), Neolithic; 9. Ireland, Early Middle Ages; 10. Illustration from the manuscript Openheim, 17th-century ; 11. Zakro (Crete), Mycenian period; 12. Priene (Asia Minor), 5th-century BC. 10 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ Plate IV Figs. 1,2,3. Kültepe (Turkey), Eneolithic; 4,5. Syros (Greece), Eneolithic; 6. Tel el Adjuna (Israel); 7. Ugarit, 1400 BC; 8. Kökenydomb (Hungary), Neolithic; 9,10. Černa (Bulgaria), Neolithic. 11 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate V Fig. 1. Paleokastro, Crete, 3rd-2nd-century BC; 2. Eleusina, Greece; 3. Early Medieval fibula, German cultural sphere; 4. Dolnoslav, Plovdiv (Bulgaria), Neolithic; 5. Demeter Sanctuary, Mesembria (Greece), 4th-century BC; 6. Sanctuary of Apollo Alaios, Southern Italy, 6th-century BC; 7. Sanctuary at Veii (Italy), 6th-century BC; 8. Museo Nazionale delle Terme, Rome; 9. The altar of Zeus, Pergamon (Asia Minor), 2nd-century BC; 10. Tomb of Ramesses VI, 1150 BC. 12 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ 10). Although in most examples this character displays features of the Virgin, there are other examples where it still goes under the name of Tellus – the ancient Goddessearth (Lowden 2003, 22-29). In the examples indicated she is metamorphosed into a mountain, where in some cases the nurturing functions typical for the Mother Earth are accentuated (Čausidis 2008, 275-284; Zorova 2009). (Pl. IX:1,2,4). There are variants where both legs merge into a unique back part with a flipper (Pl. IX:4), but examples also exist where the fishes’ pair are not entirely assimilated into the goddess’ body (Pl. IX:1). In different cultures the legs of the goddess are metamorphosed into protomes of different animals, which inside the local surroundings, possessed the functions of chthonic symbols or were given some more general sacral character (a horse, a goat, birds of prey etc.) (Pl. VII; PL.VIII) (Čausidis 2005, 170-191; Chausidis 1994, 184-190). 5. Phytomorphization of the female figure Plants as inhabitants of the earth are often used in pictorial media to represent and symbolize the lower universal zones. Related (whether merged or metamorphosed) with the lower parts of the figure of the birth- giving goddess, they suggest an equality with the earth and thus with the fertility of this character. In a large part of the ancient world the picture of a goddess whose spread legs are transformed into different blossomed plants with branches, leafs, flowers and fruits, is very popular (Holmberg 1996; Marazov 1992, 228-234). We offer several ancient examples from Scythia, Thrace and Macedonia (Pl. VI:5-8), for which we believe they represented Mother Earth. The same meaning could also be given to the representations where the whole figure of the woman is phytomorphized, i.e. transformed into a tree or some other plant, where it often keeps the global contours of a woman represented in a birth giving pose (Pl.VI:1-4) (Chausidis 1994, 167-176; Čausidis 2005, 143, 144, 161-163). The first of the mentioned variants – the one with snakes’ legs is frequently found within the Scythian cultural sphere. The ideal example of this type of deity is the Scythian “Goddess with Snakes Legs”, which is determined by historical sources as clearly characteristic of a chthonic deity bearing features of Mother Earth. Despite this description, in archaeological material (like luxurious appliqués made of gold and precious metals), her twisted legs usually do not end with snakes’ protomes, but with those of other animals (goats, rams, birds and undetermined species) (Pl.VII:2,3). Variants without protomes are not rare, as well as those with two or more pairs of zoometamorphized legs (Pl. VII:2-6,10). Several elements point to the chthonic character of these protomes , viz. legs. On most examples a disc supplemented with rays appears between them (Pl. VII:6,10) which we believe marks the sunrise, pronouncing its birth from the womb of the Mother Earth. On the appliqué from Vettersfeld (Pl. VII:12), the pair of animal’s protomes emerge from the back flipper of one macro-cosmic fish, on whose giant body other animals are expressed as representatives of the three cosmic zones (fishes, land animals, birds). We suggest that the hawk placed between these protomes may be understood as a symbol of the Heavenly God who is represented at the moment of fertilization of the Great Mother. This is the hieros gamos (Čausidis 2005, 174-176). 6. Zoomorphization of the legs of the birth-giving goddess As we have seen, for archaic man it was very difficult to represent and determine space with its three spatial levels—earth, ground and sky—in a pictorial level. The challenge was ably solved by the way that every zone was complemented with animals as their most typical inhabitants. Thus snakes and other reptiles came to mark the underground, while mammals represented the ground and birds marked the heavenly zone. In the same way the figure of the Great Goddess which comprises the whole universe with her body was spatially encoded, the most suitable animals for every zone placed on or by her figure (Pl.VII:1) (Čausidis 2005, 144-146). In this case we are extremely interested in the lower parts of the goddess’ body (the birthgiving organs, the abdomen, the hips and legs) which are equated with the lower spatial zones (earth, underground and earthly waters). Within the frames of this concept her legs, spread in a birth-giving pose, are metamorphosed into snakes because of the presence of these animals as symbols of earth and underground. In some cases they turn into snakes’ tails (Pl. IX:5), while in others into heads, namely snakes’ protomes (Pl. VII:7-9). The fish, as an inhabitant of the lower universal zones (the earthly waters), also participates in this concept of zoo-metamorphization of the birth-giving Goddess—Earth. The result becomes the iconographical type of goddess with spread-open legs which end in a form of fishes flippers; this is clearly confirmed as a specific mythical character in numerous world mythologies Examples of this iconographical type also appear in the Thracian area and Macedonia (Pl. VII:4,7,9), where the zoomorphic component of the birth-giving goddess is not very clearly determined. The variant with snakes` protomes is especially present on the antique bronze craters from Macedonia, Italy (Pl. VII:7-9), as well as on the famous example from Vix (France). There are clear indications that the Greek manufacturers of these vessels shaped this goddess according to the mythical conceptions of the local buyers, for which these vessels were intended. According to some sources, they probably represented the goddess Mother Earth, the founder and protector of the local ethnic groups. We have placed a hypothesis that the paradigm of the Macedonian examples could be Harmony—the wife of the mythical Cadmo (Čausidis 2005,176-179). Such a zoomorphised goddess is also present on the famous bronzes from Luristan – precisely on the cultic objects that experts call “standards”. In the intertwining of several parallel iconographic layers, deposited by the centurial existence of these objects, one which suits to the 13 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate VI Fig. 1. Thebes (Egypt), 1290 BC; 2. Imotski, Dalmatia, Croatia, Middle/New age; 3. Mainz (Germany), Roman period; 4. Folk embroidery, Slavic cultural area; 5. Tomb in Sveshchari (Bulgaria), 3rd-century BC; 6. Etrurian civilization; 7. Panticapes, Krym, (Ukraine), 1st-century; 8. Pella, (Greece), Helenistic period; 9. Mountain Mother, Allegory of Chastity, by Hans Memling, 1475 AD; 10. Exultet roll, Rome, ca. 1300 AD. 14 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ Plate VII Fig. 1. Cosmisation of the female figure through animals. Metal application, Scythian culture: 2. Boljšaja Cimbalka; 3. Kul-ob; 5. Hersoness; 6. Aleksandropolj; 10. Hersoness; 12. Vettersfeld. Applicatons for bronze vessel (6th-5th. cent BC.): 7,9. Trebenište (R. of Macedonia); 8. Armento (Italy); 11. Folk embroidery, 20th-century (R. of Macedonia); 13, 14, 15. Luristan Bronze (Iran), first half of the first millenium BC. 15 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages here-noted iconographical type (a goddess who holds her spread legs that end like animals` protomes) can be detected (Pl. VII:13-15). Her birth-giving function is also coded with the motif of an open vulva which is represented in the lower zone of the objects (Pl. VII:13) (Čausidis 2005, 60-67, 176). also appears within the sphere of the medieval German cultures, here it often receives masculine features (Pl. VIII:11). As a motif she is also represented in Romanic church plastic (Pl.VIII:12). Very clear traces of the hererepresented iconographical types are followed even in the folklore ornaments of some European and Asian populations, for example those from Siberia, Caucasus and the Slavic regions (Pl. VII:11; Pl. IX:10-12) (Čausidis 2005, 180-184) The figure of the goddess with zoomorphised legs is also clearly followed on the early medieval jewelry from Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. She is especially clearly present on the Slavic fibulae of the Dnepr type (Pl. VIII:5-10). On the elongated plate, which represents the lower universal zones, in different prototypes appear specific iconographical variants of this mythical character. Most represented are the horse protoms, goat protoms and those of some other unidentified animals, where in some cases metamorphoses of the horse protomes into birds` protoms can be followed. The female gender of the figure is also marked with the two perforations which signify her breasts (Pl. VIII:5,7,9). On this and on some other medieval examples of jewelry we can also identify a variant in which the hands / arms of the figure are zoomorphised in the same way (Pl. VIII:16). The iconographic similarity of these and the presented Scythian examples is very indicative (compare (PL. VIII:5-10 with PL. VII:2,3,5,6,10), especially if we have in mind that the partial core of distribution of these fibulae matches with the ancestry Scythian territories (Čausidis 2005, 195-197; for this jewelry: Rodnikova 2006; Rodnikova 2006a). The same motif, this time with legs in a form of birds` protoms, also appears on one other similar type of early Slavic fibulae. That is the type named “Maros Gambas Pergamon”, which is present from Romania and Hungary, through Macedonia, all the way to Asia Minor (Pl. VIII:1-4). Within the frames of this type appears a variant with one (Pl. VIII:3,4) and with two pairs of birds` protoms (Pl. VIII:1,2), which also corresponds well to the represented Scythian and Thracian examples (Pl. VII:2-5) (Čausidis 2005, 193-195; for this jewelry: Gavrituhin 1991, 131-134). 7. The mouth of death What is symbolized by the frightening mouth of GorgonMedusa (Pl. V:6,7)—the character often represented like some of the above-mentioned iconographical types (birthgiving pose, spread-open snake legs) (Pl. I:8; PL. VII:7-9)? We are also familiar with earlier and later examples where the woman in a birth-giving pose is represented with a grotesque open mouth, accented teeth and thrusting tongue (Pl. I:6,8; Pl. III:8,9). We follow her from a beginning in Lepenski Vir (Pl. III:8), through the Hindustan Kali all the way to the western European Sheila-na-gig (Pl. III:9). There are indications that the mouth represented in such way associates to yet another opening, located in the opposite end of the woman’s body—the vulva. We also find it in the previously mentioned Luristan bronzes, where on the genital zone of the birth-giving woman, between her zoomorphized legs there is a representation of yet another head –grotesque and with wide open eyes (Pl. VII:14,15). The explicit manifestations of this allusion is represented by the mythical character Baubo, whose head and mouth are transported in the area of her stomach and genitalia (Pl. III:7,11,12). It is thought that this character, present in the Mediterranean and in Europe from the Mycenaean period to the New Century, represented a personalization of the vulva. Inside this change of the female’s openings the negative aspect of the vulva is coded and with this the negative aspect of the Birth-giving Goddess-Earth. This is “vagina dentate”—the aspect of death, constituted as the swallowing, eating and destroying of life. The word is about a function diametrically contrasted to that of the vulva. It symbolizes the destructive aspects of Mother Earth which always takes back that which she once created as a condition for its perpetual animation (Marler 2002; Neuman 1974; Devereux 1990; Chausidis 2005, 138, 139, 190, 226233, 281, 377). The mythical character of the birth-giving woman with zoomorphised legs is very present between the Eastern Slavs even after their Christianization. It appears on a category of banded bracelets (Pl. VIII:13) where its representation points to close relations with the mentioned early medieval fibulae, but also with the much older Scythian examples (compare with Pl. VII:3,5). The birthgiving woman with snakes` legs, completed with different animal heads, is present on the reverse side of one category of Russian medieval amulets (known as “zmeeviki”) (Pl. VIII:14,15), usually combined with figures of Christian saints, represented on the obverse. She is often accompanied with a written magical formula in which the personalized uterus (Histera) is mentioned as an element with certain negative connotations (malady, death). These examples also show evident relations to the older antique examples (Čausidis 2005, 180-181; Rybakov 1987, 652-656, 691736; Nikolaeva Černecov 1991). 8. Frog—birth-giving woman—earth Apart from the snake, the frog is yet another representative of the reptiles, which very often represents or accompanies the figure of the Goddess-Earth. On Siberian objects (calendars, shamanistic drums) which represent the universe, the frog is placed in a central position and stands for the earth, while the circle around it—the cosmic waters and / or the sky—with the phases of the temporal cycle (Pl. IX:14,15). The reason is the fact that it is both an inhabitant and representative of the lower universal zones. The very shape of the body of this animal, with its muscle and Although sporadically the figure with zoomorphised legs 16 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ Plate VIII Early Medieval fibulae: Fig. 1. Maros Gambas (Romania); 2. Tiszafüred (Hungary); 3. Daumen; 4. Pergamon (Asia Minor); 5,6,8,9. Čigirin (Ukraine); 7. Borovka; 10. Blažki (reconstruction of the iconography – Čausidis 2005, D31:3). 11. Aker (Norway), Middle Ages; 12. Church of St. Mary, Poatje (France); 13. Bracelet, 12th-century, National Historical Museum, Kiev (Ukraine); 14. Amulet, Medieval Russia; 15. Аmulet, Belgorod, Middle Ages; 16. Application, Kip, Floath of the River Irtyš, Siberia. 17 Archaeology of Mother Earth Sites and Sanctuaries through the Ages Plate IX Fig. 1. Prague (Czech Republic), 15th-century; 2. San Pedro di Galigans, Herona; 3. North Мesopotamia, 5th-millenium BC; 4. Floath of the River Volga, Ethnography; 5. Komarovo, Sarmatian Culture; 6. Boeotia (Greece) 5th-century BC; 7. Mesopotamia, 2nd-millenium BC; 8,9. Hacilar (Asia Minor), Neolithic; 10,11. Folk embroidery, Russia; 12. Оrnament, Ethnography of the ethnic group Nivhi, Siberia; 13. Votive figurine (Germany), Ethnography; 14. Calendar, Ethnography, Siberia; 15. Leather ornaments, Ethnography of the ethnic group Udegejcy, Siberia 18 Nikos Chausidis: Mythical Representations of ‘Mother Earth’ spread legs, alludes to the pose of the woman during birthgiving and coitus (Pl. IX:7, compare to 8,9). 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