Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke


Peter T. Daniels wrote:
Franz Gnaedinger wrote:

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

*The Civilization of the Goddess* (1991), $30 pbk., has one chapter
entitled "Sacred Script," in which it is suggested that they represent a
pre-IE language, some of the signs may have phonetic interpretations,
and the possibility exists that a bilingual with an IE language may
someday be found!! However, the name of an "editor" is prominent on the
cover of this book, and it seems highly unlikely that after working on
the first volume for ten years (as she says), she suddenly changed her
mind a few months after it was published. It seems much more likely that
those thoughts were inserted by the "editor" and Gimbutas had little to
do with the later book.

Marija Gimbutas published some twenty books, among them

The Gods and Goddess of Old Europe, 1974

edited again as

The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 1982/96

(I got the reprint from 1996, UCLA Press). Her last books
were intended as a cycle of four volumes:

1) The Language of the Goddess, 1989
2) The Civilization of the Goddess, 1991
3) ???
4) The Religion of the Goddess

The first and second volume have been published, while
the third and fourth volume may be unfinished. In 1993,

Considering the huge sales of the first and second, if _anything_
salvageable of the other two existed, HarperCollins would have brought
it out long ago.

when she was already ill, she worked on the fourth volume.
The chapter on the Sacred Script is contained in the second
volume, the language is pure Marija Gimbutas, her voice is
recognizable even through the German translation, clear and

Don't be ridiculous. You recognize the voice of the translator.

lucid, nothing forced, artificial and faked about it, nothing at
all that may indicate her editor imposed her will on Gimbutas
and introduced that chapter, which is part of a logical sequence
of chapters.

No one suggested that Gimbutas did not plan that chapter there.

The only suggestion that Vinc^a script is a writing system is on the
first page or two of that chapter.

"The primary advocate of the idea that the markings represent writing,
and the person who coined the name "Old European Script", was Marija
Gimbutas (1921-1994), an important 20th century archaeologist and
premier advocate of the notion that the Kurgan culture of Central Asia
was an early Indo-European culture. Later in life she turned her
attention to the reconstruction of a hypothetical pre-Indo-European Old
European culture, which she thought spanned most of Europe. She
observed that neolithic European iconography was predominantly female
- a trend also visible in the inscribed figurines of the Vinca
culture - and concluded the existence of a matristic (not
matriarchal) culture that worshipped range of goddesses and gods.
(Gimbutas did not posit a single universal Mother Goddess.) She also
incorporated the Vinca markings into her model of Old Europe,
suggesting that they might either be the writing system for an Old
European language, or, more probably, a kind of "pre-writing" symbolic
system. Most archaeologists and linguists disagree with Gimbutas'
interpretation of the Vinca signs as a script: it is all but
universally accepted among scholars that the Sumerian cuneiform script
is in fact the earliest form of writing."

http://www.answers.com/topic/old-european-script


Joan Marler signs as editor. She was responsible
for the graphics, and she did a marvellous job, revealing the
spirit of the Vinca figurines, freeing them from their somewhat
crude appearance and elevating them into the sphere of high
art, and a most appealing art. Joan Marler did a great job,
and as the graphics make out 2/3 of those large volumes
she is justly mentioned on the cover.

Graphics people do not "sign as" editor. (If they did, why is there not
a similar credit on the first volume?)

I take it that Marija Gimbutas intended her cycle of 4 volumes
as legacy, wherein she said it all, and felt free to stay to all her
opinions, including the one about the Vinca signs that she
considered an actual script, predating the Sumerian invention

Then why is there not the slightest hint of this nonsense in the first
volume, the one devoted to interpreting the signs?

of writing by two millennia, and a sacred script, as those signs
appear on religious figurines and objects, whereby she relies
on the dissertation on the Vinca script by Shan M.M. Winn
from 1973.

Agroup of women organized an exhibition on the Language
of the Goddess at Wiesbaden in 1993. Joan Marler wrote
a text of five pages for that exhibition in honor of Marija
Gimbutas, wherefrom I got the information about the cycle
of the four volumes: presently (in 1993) Marija Gimbutas
is working on the fourth book of her cycle, The Religion
of the Goddess, despite her illness. In her text, Joan Marler
calls the Language of the Goddess a meta-language with
a grammar and syntax of its own. She doens't mention the

Exactly. JOAN MARLER calls it that, not Marija Gimbutas.

Vinca signs at all. If Marler had pushed the Sacred Script,
whe would have mentioned it in those five pages, but no,
not one word. The object of her fascination is that meta-
language (may be a term of hers).

No, it may not.

The Wiesbaden women published a small book on the
exhibition from 1993, in memoriam Marija Gimbutas, 1994.
Joan Marler's text is found in that book. There are several
photographs of Marija Gimbutas attending the exhibition.
She is looking very pleased and bright, although she has
been ill by then. She must have been a strong personality.
Nobody could possibly impose her will on Gimbutas, and
least of all in her legacy, those four intended volumes.
I rather assume that she felt free to say it all near the end
of her life, without any restraints anymore.

An appendix of the 1994 book on the Wiesbaden exhibition
explains a series of Vinca signs in the frame of the above
meta-language, beginning with the cross and angles as
the insignia of the Bird Goddess. Once I had identified
Homer's Kirkae as the goddess of old it was a short step
from cross and angle as insignia of the Bird Goddess to
cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke as the name of the Bird Goddess.

As usual, it ends up all about you.
--
Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke
    ... Marija Gimbutas published some twenty books, ... The Gods and Goddess of Old Europe, ... 'In her work Gimbutas reinterpreted European prehistory in light of her ... European civilization. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke
    ... The Civilization of the Goddess, ... Joan Marler, her editor since 1987, held a speech at the ... Her interests are the language of art ... and the Vinca script. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke
    ... The Civilization of the Goddess, ... Joan Marler, her editor since 1987, held a speech at the ... and the Vinca script. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke
    ... Numbers are part of every language, ... you read chapter 8, The Sacred Script, of The Civilization ... The Language of the Goddess is about symbols "only." ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Vinca script, cross bar angle - Ki Ri Ke
    ... I would have preferred the English versions of the two ... of the Goddess, since the English title of the second book ... sacred script in The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, ... not exactly a scholarly publisher. ...
    (sci.lang)
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