Winner of Sarasvati Award for the Best Nonfiction Book in Women and Mythology!

"[This] work illustrates well the powerful synergies that are so often generated within world history scholarship by collaboration between specialists in different regions and different scholarly disciplines ... The range of figures and myths surveyed is very broad ... Anasyrma, or the ritual display of genitalia, can be interpreted as a rite of fertility and a reminder of the return of life, but the authors also offer many examples of its use to instil a sense of both shock and fear ... learned a lot from this book’s extensive catalogue of such figures ... if such figures were truly global, then they were clearly pointing to very deep archetypes within human culture, myth, and religion. What is important about this book is the extensive evidence it presents for their pervasiveness." – Journal of World History

“In an age when too many authors depend on ‘intuitive wisdom’ or just invent ‘facts’ to support their ideas, here is a welcome book of authentic scholarship … The book includes maps of Eurasia describing where the figures originated, forty-eight illustrations and over three hundred notes that do more than merely cite sources … These are notes worth reading. … Recommended for Goddess studies researchers and laypeople alike.” – SageWoman

Miriam Robbins Dexter holds a PhD in ancient Indo-European languages and linguistics and a BA in classics, both from UCLA. Her doctoral dissertation, Indo-European Female Figures, along with comparative mythology courses she has taught and is still teaching at UCLA, evolved into her book, Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book. She is the author of over twenty scholarly articles and nine encyclopedia articles on ancient female figures, and she has edited and coedited sixteen scholarly volumes; she edited and supplemented Marija Gimbutas’ The Living Goddesses (University of California Press, 1999). She has also taught courses in Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit language and literature.

About Victor H. Mair

Victor H. Mair is professor of Chinese language and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds a PhD from Harvard University and an MPhil from the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. Professor Mair is the general editor of the Cambria World Sinophone Series, as well as the editor of Sino-Platonic Papers and of the ABC Chinese Dictionary Series at the University of Hawaii Press. He is the coauthor of The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West (2000), the author of The Art of War: Sun Zi's Military Methods (2007), and the editor of The Columbia History of Chinese Literature (2001).

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Female Figures in Eurasian Neolithic Iconography

Chapter 3: Goddesses of the Ancient Near East

Chapter 4: The Power of the Vulva: The Woman Lifts up her Skirt

Chapter 5: Frog Display Figures - Fertile Frogs, Fertile Women, and the Bringing of the Rain

Chapter 6: Erotic and Ferocious Female Figures of South and East Asia

Chapter 7: Goddesses and Monsters of Ancient Greece and Rome

Chapter 8: Irish and British Sheela na gigs and other Irish Female Figures

Chapter 9: A Scandinavian Giantess and the Goddess of Lust

Chapter 10: A Scythian Great Goddess and Fairies of Eastern Europe

Chapter 11: Conclusion

Bibliography

Index