Magna Mater

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Hittite representation of the Cybele or Kubaba from Karkemiš (850–750 BC)

The name Magna Mater (Latin for Great Mother ) is used in the archaeological literature almost exclusively for the ancient goddess Cybele (Greek Κυβέλη), the Great Mother of Gods (Megále Meter) from Mount Ida (Latin Mater Deum Magna Ideae , Magna Mater for short ) , used.

In some religious-historical or archaeological writings, the term is sometimes extended to the mother goddesses of the Mediterranean Neolithic .

The author Manfred Kurt Ehmer uses the term in his popular scientific writings for a cross-cultural interpretation in the sense of a far-reaching “eco-spiritual” new religious interpretation, which understands the earth as the embodiment of the Magna Mater or as mother earth .

Mater Deum Magna Ideae

Relief representation of the Magna Mater Temple ( Villa Medici , Rome)

The name Mater Deum Magna Ideae (Latin, German: "Great Mother of Gods from Mount Ida"; for Mount Ida see Psiloritis ) was given to the Phrygian goddess Cybele after the cult of Cybele and Attis was introduced in the Roman Empire in 205/204 BC. Given. The name Magna Mater Deorum Idaea ("Great Mother of the Gods from Mount Ida") and the spellings Magna Mater deum Idea and Mater Deum Magna Ideae are also passed down .

In addition to the official Kybele-Attis mysteries, the folk religiosity of Asia Minor has always worshiped the Cybele as a “great mother” outside of a mystery cult (cultic celebrations with a core that remains secret). Cybele was originally considered in Asia Minor and, after the Hellenization, also by the Greeks as the producer of life, as mountain and earth mother, as protector of cities and as fertility goddess and goddess of the female sex.

Harald Haarmann: Adoration in the Neolithic

Sleeping Lady of Malta, 4th millennium BC Chr.
Female statuette from Samarra, 7th millennium BC Chr.

The linguist and cultural scientist Harald Haarmann connects the worship of a magna mater with the so-called Neolithic revolution , when people first turned to agriculture and often settled down. The Neolithization began in Asia Minor v about 10,000. BC, reached from about 6500 BC. Southeastern Europe and the rest of Europe in the following millennia. The women are said to have been responsible for planting and harvesting, while the men continued to hunt. As a result, the idea of ​​a female deity is said to have spread.

Written evidence from this period is missing, even if the Vinča symbols found in the Balkans , possibly from the 6th millennium BC. B.C. , are interpreted by Haarmann as dedicatory inscriptions , which, however, have not yet been deciphered. In the area between the Balkans, the Danube and up to the present day Ukraine, an area that Marija Gimbutas referred to as Old Europe , thousands of statuettes from this period were found, which are characterized by breasts, pubic triangles and sometimes excessively wide hips. However, there are no representations that indicate birth scenes or mother with child. There were only a few male representations among them (in Vinča there were 581 female and 17 male figures, in a younger layer from the 4th millennium BC, over 90% of the 83 figures were female, in Sitagroi in northern Greece all 250 figures were female). A total of over 20,000 female statuettes were reported from the Neolithic Age. Such figures were also found in Anatolia, among other places, in the large Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük , where they are dated to the 8th millennium BC.

Earth and fertility goddess

Haarmann assumes that the Great Goddess was worshiped as the giver of life, the mistress of the vegetation and the patron saint of agriculture and the guardian of animal and human fertility , also with regard to sexuality . She was considered omnipotent and stood above earthly life. Haarmann deduces from their importance that Neolithic societies were also matrifocally organized, in which the children live with the mother and inheritance and family ties are matrilineal , i.e. based on maternal ancestry. Others go further and deduce from this the existence of matriarchally organized societies. However, these interpretations are scientifically rejected.

In archeology, however, the interpretation of anthropomorphic female representations as goddesses is not supported. Some of the figurines e.g. B. in Çatalhöyük also depict men, other pieces are zoomorphic or show no gender-specific characteristics. Only five percent of the approximately 2000 figures found are clearly female.

Forerunner of female deities

Haarmann tries to derive many ancient goddesses from the "Magna Mater", such as the worship of Aphrodite in Cyprus about 5000 years ago. According to Haarmann, the Sumerian , Babylonian and Phoenician goddesses such as Inanna , Ištar and Astarte also go back to an older Magna Mater. Some archaeologists have found the female statuettes of Samarra on the east bank of the Tigris in Iraq from the time 6500-6000 BC. Considered forerunners of the Sumerian goddesses and representations of the Great Mother. Gerda Weiler also wants to find signs of early veneration of a great goddess in the Old Testament . In Asia Minor there is the worship of the great goddess as Cybele , who was known under the name Mater Deum Magna Ideae (Great Mother of the Gods of the Mountain Idea) in 205 BC. BC came to Rome and from here spread throughout the Roman Empire (see also: Temple of the Magna Mater ) . The name of the primeval mother, which is common today, is derived from this Roman naming as Magna Mater. In the 19th century, Cybele was often depicted as an allegory of the earth.

Haarmann assumes that as a result of the Indo-European settlement thrusts postulated by Gimbutas between 4500 and 3000 BC. BC the Indo-European polytheistic pantheon with predominant male deities superimposed the idea of ​​a mother deity in which female deities stand alongside the male gods, but without questioning male dominance. However, Gimbuta's postulate has been questioned by numerous archaeologists.

Manfred Ehmer: New Religious Interpretations

The first traces of neo-pagan / natural religious movements can be found in the 18th and early 19th centuries as an alternative to the rationalist worldview of the Enlightenment. In the 1970s, the idea of ​​a primordial or all-mother , who is attributed to the appearance of the great goddess , was taken up in order to describe so-called holistic approaches to understanding the earth as a separate being; in Wicca , in eco- spiritual and eco-feminist movements, in spiritual feminism and in matriarchal theories . See also: Hypotheses on the religion of historical matriarchies

In the interpretation of Manfred Kurt Ehmer - the author describes as the focus of his activity eco-religion / eco-spirituality - in the Neolithic the rhythm of life dictated by agriculture promoted the idea of ​​the earth as a self-sufficient being, that with its forces, which are in the development of fauna and flora , but also of humans, showed how great mother (Magna Mater) or primordial mother of all being was worshiped. According to Ehmer, as a result of the transfer of these fruitful properties to the feminine, the cult of a Magna Mater is said to have developed, which symbolically stood for the "fertile womb from which all life emerges again."

He also connects this interpretation in Europe with the megalithic culture on Malta between 4500 and 1500 BC. BC, whose stone structures were supposedly interpreted as the temple of the Great Goddess. In the megalithic temples of Tarxien , Ħaġar Qim and in the hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni , androgynous and female statuettes , including the Venus of Malta (not to be confused with the Russian Venus of Malta in Irkutsk Oblast ), the Sleeping Lady and the fat lady were found . Ehmer interprets them as small representations of the mother goddess.

All earth goddesses of the ancient Aegean such as Rhea , Gaia , Demeter and Persephone are said to go back to Magna Mater ( Méter megále “great mother”) .

Cultural-historical literature

  • Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and her daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy . Olms, Hildesheim / Zurich / New York 1996, ISBN 3-487-10163-7 .
  • Maria Xagorari-Gleißner: Meter Theon. The mother of gods among the Greeks . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-447-05986-2 .
  • Barbara Kowalewski: Female figures in the history of T. Livius. Saur, Munich / Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-598-77719-1 , p. 197.
  • Jörg Rüpke: Errors and misinterpretations in the dating of the Dies Natalis of the Roman Magna Mater temple. In: Journal of Papyrology and Epigraphy. 102, 1994, p. 237. (PDF)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hanns Ch. Brennecke, Christoph Markschies, Ernst L. Grasmück (ed.): Logos: Festschrift for Luise Abramowski on July 8, 1993. de Gruyter, 1993, ISBN 3-11-013985-5 , pp. 33-34.
  2. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: The wisdom of the West. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-491-72395-7 , p. 46.
  3. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, ISBN 3-487-10163-7 , p. 20 ff.
  4. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 17
    Harald Haarmann: Universal history of writing . Frankfurt / New York 1998, ISBN 3-88059-955-6 , pp. 73 ff.
  5. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 18.
  6. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 127 ff.
  7. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 22.
  8. ^ Lynn Meskell: The Archaeologies of Çatalhöyük. In: Lucy Goodison, Christine Morris (Eds.): Ancient Goddesses. British Museum Press, London 1998, ISBN 0-7141-1761-7 , pp. 46-62.
  9. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 88 ff.
  10. ↑ Gerda Weiler: The matriarchy in ancient Israel. Kohlhammer Verlag, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-17-010773-9 .
  11. ^ Philippe Borgeaud: La mère des dieux. De Cybèle à la Vierge Marie. Editions Seuil, Paris 1999.
  12. ↑ Harald Haarmann: The Madonna and Her Daughters, reconstruction of a cultural-historical genealogy. 1996, p. 43 f.
  13. ↑ See e.g. B. Ruth Tringham: Review of: The Civilization of the Goddess: The World of Old Europe by Marija Gimbutas (1991). In: American Anthropologist. Volume 95, 1993, pp. 196-197 or Lynn Meskell: Goddesses, Gimbutas and New Age archeology. In: Antiquity. Volume 69, No. 262, 1995, pp. 74-86.
  14. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: Goddess earth, cult and myth of mother earth . Zerling, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88468-058-7 , p. 40 ff.
  15. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: Goddess earth, cult and myth of mother earth . Zerling, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-88468-058-7 , p. 24.
  16. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: The wisdom of the West. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-491-72395-7 , p. 46.
  17. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: The wisdom of the West. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-491-72395-7 , p. 46.
  18. ↑ Manfred Kurt Ehmer: The wisdom of the West. Patmos, Düsseldorf 1998, ISBN 3-491-72395-7 , p. 46 (online at the Hypersoil project at the University of Münster: Gaia and Demeter in ancient Greece ).