The dwellings of the Goddess by Cristina Biaggi
Venexia Editrice, The Owls - The Wise Men - 2022
di Arianna Carta
A fascinating book written by an eclectic and courageous scholar who, inspired by the work of archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, above all by the hypothesis of an egalitarian society in prehistoric Europe, writes an essay on the presence and forms of female divinities.
Of artistic training, Biaggi obtained a research doctorate which forms the basis of this essay, in which he analyzes the iconographic aspects (symbols, engravings and constructions) of the cults dedicated to the Goddess of life, death and regeneration. Specifically, Biaggi studies temples, sanctuaries, prehistoric tombs analyzing their connections and looking for traces of the veneration of female divinities from the island of Malta to the Orkney and Shetland islands, along the northern coast of Scotland.
It is a passionate and engaging text, which also describes a personal and spiritual journey that takes shape through photographic images and drawings made by her.
Although not a strictly academic text, the observations are precise and illuminating when they recognize the representation of the body of the Goddess in the plans of sacred buildings and show the wide diffusion that reaches the coasts of Northern Europe from the Mediterranean.
Some of the main questions driving Biaggi are: why was the great Goddess dethroned? Where and how is it possible to find traces of the cults that have been dedicated to her for millennia?
And he tries to answer through the unveiling of tangible traces: clues present but not very visible or hidden, signs of cultures that have left no written sources but works of enormous significance that speak to those who know how to listen, to those who can decipher their symbols. Why did the Neolithic peoples employ so much energy, strength, materials, precious for the time, to build such large sepulchral and temple structures? Constructions and symbols that, in their basic elements, we find from the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic? Spirals, double axes, chevron and zig-zag patterns, all symbols of the Goddess, as Gimbutas has speculated.
The author, also through a rich section of images, accompanies us on an intimate and universal journey to discover the female cults celebrated by the populations of the European Neolithic with a language of symbols and signs that crosses the sea and arrives in distant lands to offer all its grandeur and majesty in the buildings dedicated to it.
I will not reveal the way in which burials and temples were linked and interconnected like the letters of the same alphabet, I will leave it to the reader to find out for himself.
Not a purely academic text, I said. But not because it is not rigorous and well documented but because Biaggi, like the authentic artists and (re) researchers, had the courage to follow an intuition, to explore the clues and to carry it to the end, giving us a story that makes us think and it has a lot to teach us. For all these reasons I recommend reading this book.
Arianna Carta – March 2022
