Ancient Anatolia
This course consists of a three-part video, with commentary on archaeological finds over a 10,000-year-long period.
Part I: From the pre-neolithic to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the classic sites of Çatal Höyük, Hacilar, and the lesser-known but important Kosk Höyük. Female figurines and painted ceramics. Shown, limestone statuette circa 4200 bce. (54 minutes)
Part II: Bronze Age to Iron Age (3000 bce to 300 bce) Hittite empire. Sun goddess Wurusemu. The hasana wisewomen, patriarchal codes, and court repression of priestesses. Troy: magical spindle whorls and motherpot urns. The goddesses Kubaba and Shaushka at Karkemish. Rock-cut goddess shrines on mountainsides and beside waters. Matar Kubileya, the Phrydian Mother of the Mountain, also known as Kybele. The pillar goddesses: Artemis of Perge, Sardis, and Ephesos. Figurines in the foundation deposits at Ephesos and at Bayindir Tumulus D. Changes in the Ephesian temple. Coins depicting Artemis Ephesia, Hera Samion, Atargatis and other pillar goddesses. Black Diana. (43 minutes)
Part III: Classical and Hellenistic
Priestesses. Kybele enthroned with lions and drum, a goddess of ecstatic dance and chant in Nature. Amazon coins: Myrina, Smyrna, and the wolf-hooded Pontic women. Coins of Nemesis, and of the Erythraean sibyl Herophile. The colossal statues of Tykhe-Bakht at Commagene, and Medusa taken from Hellenic temples into the cistern at Hagia Sophia: spatial subordination and supercession by the christian regime. (22 minutes)
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Your Instructor
Max Dashu founded the Suppressed Histories Archives in 1970 to research and document women's history and heritages from the most ancient times to the present, globally. www.suppressedhistories.net She is internationally known for her expertise on iconography, matricultures and female spheres of power; medicine women, witches, and the witch hunts; and the interconnections between patriarchy, conquest, and systems of domination.
She is the author of Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Culture, 700-1100 (2016) and Women in Greek Mythography: Pythias, Melissae and Titanides (2023). Her unfolding open access book, Magna Mater, Paulianity, and the Imperial Church (2024-25) looks at the origins of church-state authoritarianism and persecution. Her videos include Woman Shaman: the Ancients (2013) and Women’s Power in Global Perspective (2008), along with an extensive videography at https://www.youtube.com/@maxdashu/videos
Max blogs daily on the Suppressed Histories Facebook page, followed by 254,000 people internationally. She teaches online courses and visual webcasts, and has guest-lectured at scores of universities and international conferences.