Genre: Information/Explanation

Great Goddess hypothesis The Great Goddess Hypothesis is that in Palaeolithic , Mesolithic and / or Neolithic Europe and Western Asia and North Africa , a singular , monotheistic female deity was worshipped prior to the development of the polytheistic pagan religions of the Bronze Age and Iron Age . Having first been proposed as an idea relating to ancient Greek religion in 1849 , it subsequently achieved some support amongst classicists . In the early 20th century , various historians began to postulate about the theory applying across Europe , and it was widely propagated by the archaeologist Marija Gimbutas in the 1980s . It has since been adopted by various feminist religious groups such as Dianic Wicca as a part of the mythology of their faith . The theory had been first proposed by the German Classicist Eduard Gerhard in 1849 , when he speculated that the various goddesses found in ancient Greek paganism had been representations of a singular goddess who had been worshipped far further back into prehistory . He associated this deity with the concept of Mother Earth , [ 1 ] which itself had only been developed in the 18th century by members of the Romanticist Movement . [ 2 ] Soon after , this theory began to be adopted by other classicists in France and Germany , such as Ernst Kroker , Fr . Lenormant and M.J. Menant , who further brought in the idea that the ancient peoples of Anatolia and Mesopotamia had influenced the Greek religion , and that therefore they also had once venerated a great goddess . [ 3 ] These ideas amongst various classicists echoed those of the Swiss judge J.J. Bachofen , who put forward the idea that the earliest human societies were matriarchal , but had converted to a patriarchal form in later prehistory . Commenting on this idea , the historian Ronald Hutton ( 1999 ) remarked that in the eyes of many at the time , it would have been an obvious conclusion that " what was true in a secular sphere should also , logically , have been so in the religious one . " [ 3 ] In 1901 , the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans – who in an 1895 work had dismissed the Great Goddess theory [ 4 ] – changed his mind and accepted the idea whilst excavating at Knossos on Crete , the site of the Bronze Age Minoan civilisation . After unearthing a number of female figurines , he came to believe that they all represented a singular goddess , who was the Minoan 's chief deity , and that all the male figurines found on the site represented a subordinate male god who was both her son and consort , an idea that he based partially upon the later classical myth of Rhea and Zeus . [ 5 ] In later writings in ensuing decades he went on to associate these Neolithic and Bronze Age images with other goddesses around the Near East . As Hutton pointed out , " his influence made this the orthodoxy of Minoan archaeology , although there was always a few colleagues who pointed out that it placed a strain upon the evidence . " [ 3 ] In 1903 , Sir Edmund Chambers , a respected amateur historian of the mediaeval period , published The Medieval Stage , in which he diverted from his main theme to state how he believed that in prehistory , humans had worshipped a Great Earth Mother as a twofold deity who was both the creator and the destroyer . [ citation needed ] That same year , the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison espoused a similar idea , but claimed that this prehistoric Great Goddess had been divided into three forms – she theorised this based upon the fact that in various recorded polytheistic European religions , there were a set of three goddesses , such as the Fates and the Graces . Harrison identified two of these as the Maiden , who ruled over the living , and the Mother , who ruled the underworld , and like Evans believed that a male god who was both her lover and son was also worshipped . [ citation needed ] ^ Hutton , Ronald ( 1999 ) . The Triumph of the Moon : A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft . New York : Oxford University Press . Page 33 . ^ a b c Hutton , Ronald ( 1999 ) . The Triumph of the Moon : A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft . New York : Oxford University Press . Page 36 . ^ Evans , Arthur ( 1895 ) . Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script . Pages 124 – 131 . ^ Evans , Arthur ( 1901-02 ) . The Palace of Knossos in the Annual of the British School at Athens viii .