Poruciuc, Adrian,THE SHAPE OF SACREDNESS: FROM PREHISTORIC TEMPLES TO NEO-BYZANTINE CHURCHES, ReVision. Summer2000, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p27. 11p. 6
Womb and Navel Symbolism
Since the publication of Marija Gimbutas's later works (1989, 1991), consensus has been mounting that the designs of prehistoric temples and collective tombs such as those on Malta and Ireland represent the shape of the Great Mother's body. Furthermore, the linguistic connection between the Greek term delphys 'womb' and the celebrated oracular (Apollonian) site of Delphi becomes obvious in light of prehistoric womb-shrines, which mortals entered ritualistically to become initiated and symbolically "reborn" (Poruciuc 1997). The distinguished Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade made the following comments:
Delphi had a prehistory as an oracular site long before Apollo. Whatever its etymology may have been, the Greeks connected the name with delphys 'womb'. The mysterious cavity was a mouth, a stomion, a term that also designates the vagina. The omphalos of Delphi was also documented from the pre-Hellenic period. Symbol of the navel, it was laden with genital meaning, but it was above all a center of the world .... This venerable oracular site, where from ancient times the sacrality and the powers of Mother Earth were manifested, received a new religious orientation under the reign of Apollo.
Womb-symbolism per se was not recognized in classical discussions on Delphi, which was known mainly as Apollo's oracle, but the record did preserve memories of the worship of more archaic divinities. One historically minded Greek traveller and geographer, Pausanias (late second century B.C.), reported that Ge, the Earth Goddess, was the divinity originally worshiped in that place: "IT]hey say that in the earliest of times the oracular seat belonged to Earth, who appointed as prophetess at it Daphnis, one of the nymphs of the mountain" (Wycherly 1980, X, 5, 5). Pausanias also mentioned what Eliade, much later, referred to as the "symbol of the navel": "What is called the Omphalos by the Delphians is made of white marble and is said by [them] to be the center of all the earth" (16, 3).
The principle that the temples and the tombs were built in the likeness of the Goddess's body and womb is the key to understanding the megalithic structures. This principle goes back to the Palaeolithic, when the narrow passages, oval-shaped areas, and small cavities in caves were marked or painted entirely in red.. . . The red color very probably symbolized the color of the Earth Mother's regenerative organs.
In prehistory, caves provided not only shelter but also a sense of divine protection. Imbued with these associations, caves became sacred places from earliest times. According to Glotz, the primeval cave is suggested by many Aegean round huts and houses (1968,103). In addition to projecting caves-as-dwellings--and in ancient times any dwelling meant consecrated space--certain caves continued to be regarded as sacred places by classical peoples. For instance, a double grotto near Psychro on Crete includes a cave that appears to have been a "holy of holies" during the Minoan period that witnessed "a cult faithfully practised for more than 1000 years" (Glotz 1968, 257). The sanctuary was apparently dedicated to "Our Lady of the Mountain" who is depicted on a Knossos seal.
Credibly, Glotz's research, among others, makes a connection between caves, Neolithic round huts, and later eastern Mediterranean beehive-shaped (tholos) tombs. The temples on Malta from the fourth millennium B.C., however, are more elaborate and replicate the stylized outline of the Goddess's body. Architecturally, the twin temples of Ggantija on Gozo (ca. 3600 B.C.) may be defined as pentalobular (five lobes) (fig. 2). They demonstrate a superior trefoil, a combination of three semicircular apses representing head-and-breasts( n3) plus two larger, inferior lobes representing the plump legs of the Goddess. The entrance is placed between the two inferior lobes and is analogous to the stomion, or birth-door. Further female symbolism is indicated by numerous standing and seated sculptures as well as by images of "Sleeping Ladies" that belong to the temple period (ca. 3600-2500 B.C.). Textual evidence informs us that Ariadne, the wife of Dionysos, was also a sleeping-beauty,
a "court" that stands for "the space between the Goddess's open legs," whereas the passage-and-chambers beyond "are her vagina and uterus" (154) (fig. 3).
The earliest known version of such a horizontal projection of an open-legged divine mother to date is from the site of Lepenski Vir near the Danube in the Iron Gate region of Serbia (ca. 55006500 B.C.). In this site, more than fifty roughly A-shaped shrines were found showing two rows of stones (the legs of the sacred A), form a "court" and lead the way to a symbolic birth-door (fig. 4). Rituals performed in or around these shrines must have had a relationship to the large river boulders found within them. These boulders are carved with the features of an "anthropomorphic Fish-Goddess," as well as with mysterious "labyrinthine designs." Between the very early shrines of Lepenski Vir and the five-chambered tomb of West Kennet (related to the more clearly pentalobular temples of Malta and Gozo), there are two millennia of Old European traditions, centering upon the symbolism of a Great Mother who gives life, then takes it back in death, in order to give birth again.
We know that the ancients were aware of the connection between the Delphian oracle and the "vapors" rising from the entrails of Mother Earth,(n10) but no proto-Delphian shrine of a shape recalling a motherly body is known. What Pausanias saw in the remaining fragments of the classical religious architecture were the outlines of monumental megarons of a style dating back to the Mycenaean era. At Delphi, besides the dominant temple of Apollo, stood a smaller one, also oblong in shape, which was dedicated to the goddess Athena Pronoia
The sacred site of Eleusis appears to have been connected with, not only an archaic Mother-and-Daughter pair, such as Demeter and Persephone, but also with an archaic type of shrine. We can surmise this because the first sanctuary on the site to leave visible traces is dated ca. 1500 B.C., and the Mysteries were apparently celebrated there at that early time (Eliade 1978, 293). The archaeological remains of the "final" Mystery Hall built on the site of an earlier atypical building of Mycenaean times also confirm Eleusis's antiquity. It appears that on its earlier foundation an oval or apsidal temple was built A curved wall was also discovered on the Eleusinian site, which Snodgrass suggests is evidence of the existence of an oval-planned temple. Robert (1998, 55) considers that the Eleusinian Telesterion of the Geometric Age had a wall that "unlike others, was curvilinear." Although our knowledge is still fragmentary, the archaeological record allows a glimpse of an architectural plan that had a curvilinear feature. We do know for certain that the plan belonged to a sanctuary that was dedicated to a goddess of Neolithic origin, namely, Demeter, the "Goddess-of-the-Cereal-Ear." Her name, which probably meant Earth Mother,(n12) readily recalls Pausanias's comment that Earth, Ge, was the primeval divinity at Delphi.
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