Friday, March 14, 2008

Women in Archaeology: Marija Gimbutas

In honor of Women's History Month: From About.com Lithuanian born archaeologist Marija Gimbutas was a respected scholar in Indo-European studies of the Bronze and Neolithic periods. She is probably one of the best known scholars in this field, primarily for her news-making theories concerning evidence for a woman-focused religion six thousand years ago, called the Goddess cult. She conducted archaeological work at sites such as Sitagroi, Anza and Achilleion. A prolific writer, Gimbuta's work included a melding of language, myth, ethnography and archaeology. Trained at Tubingen and Harvard universities, Gimbutas was a fellow of the Peabody Museum at Harvard, and taught and conducted research at the University of California at Los Angeles. Although her theories are considered speculative, particularly by researchers such as Ruth Tringham and Peter Ucko, there is no doubt that her fearless emphasis on the potential for female headed cults has influenced the study of ancient Bronze and Neolithic cultures. I did a quick search at Amazon.com - here are some interesting titles written (or co-authored) by Marija Gimbutas:

There are also videotapes of lectures given by Gimbutas, and various papers in compilation with others.

Wikipedia biograpy.

An interview with Marija Gimbutas, October 3, 1992 (I don't know who the interviewer is; scroll to bottom of page for link to interview)

Joseph Campbell & Marija Gimbutas Library at the Pacific Graduate Institute

Obituary from The New York Times

Signs Out of Time - The Story of Archaeologist Marija Gimbutas (great graphics too)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

...odd, my goddess was Lithuanian and yankee=yani/yancuic(N)=fresh/new.
and one of my Russian teachers was
a Galitzin=galitza/iron glove,
a Lith-ua-nia=T/lil/th(letra)=
Tlil(Nauatl)=black,=lethe(river),
quite lethargic,=Lilith, a roué
who taught us, Nil, chain smoker,
rotten teeth, but loved cars,
which he never stopped talking about,
a classroom Nuvolari. always thought
he was a double agent for high and
low society.
Etymology foxed on the name,
as all of reality's pretenders,
who is not?
Gali/Calli tzin-tli(N)=Saintly
House, actually the Honorific,
Honorable House, better.

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