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

Sorry for a stupid mistake in my previous message.
The remark on the cycle of four volumes was not
by Joan Marler but Kim Engels, and the books are:

The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, 1973
The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 1982/96

The Language of the Goddess, 1989

The Civilization of the Goddess, 1991

The Religion of the Goddess, (1993)

Marija Gimbutas worked on the last book in 1993,
when she was already seriously ill. She attended the
opening of the Wiesbaden exhibition in June of 1993,
and gave a series of lectures on the subsequent evenings.
Joan Marler, her editor since 1987, held a speech at the
opening (four pages in the catalogue from 1994), wherein
she says that one should just stroll through the exhibition
and get a feeling for the art of that old civilization, moreover
she announced evening courses on ritual dances - she
herself had been dancing since 30 years, and dancing,
she finds, is a perfect way for finding access to those
ancient symbols. Her interests are the language of art
and dance. You can do a Google query on her. She is
lecturing at Sebastopol, California, and has a background
in linguistics, but from what I read by her she is interested
in the language of art, visual language. You find 1,170
Google entries for

"joan marler" gimbutas

but only 2 for

"joan marler" "vinca script"

and the two results are not linked, they are two separate
messages, one concerning Joan Marler, the other one
the Vinca script. Not one single text includes Joan Marler
and the Vinca script.

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

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

I have the English version of The Goddesses and Gods of
Old Europe, UCLA Press 1996 (a book you don't know, as
you told me), and I know her voice well from that book. The
same diction is present throughout her book The Civilization
of the Goddess from 1991, including chapter 8, The Sacred
Script.

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.

What about the title Sacred Script? Marija Gimbutas says quite
clearly and unmistakably that the Vinca signs are a sacred script,
2,000 years prior to the Sumerian invention of writing. Everybody
can read her book The Civilization of the Goddess, and chapter
8 on the Sacred Script, and have a look at the comparative tables
of Old European signs on the one hand, Cypriotic and Linear A/B
signs on the other hand.

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

She was an editor, _and_ she was responsible for the graphics
of The Civilization of the Goddess, with the help of two designers.

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

You can interpret the signs on two levels. Pictures and images
convey messages, they are a language of their own, a "meta-
language" in the diction of Joan Marler. But then a picture can
go over into actual writing, as was the case with Sumerian
and Egyptian hierogylphs, and may also have been the case
with the Vinca script, where the signs are emerging from
decorative patterns of the Upper Paleolithic on the one hand,
and from natural and physical objects, for example from the
female body. I found Y for Nae, derived from the female Y
(pubis and tighs), and an arc for Os, especially the arc of
the female womb as shown on several Vinca figurines,
yielding Nae Os for a sanctuary: the sanctuary was then
the womb of the goddess, origin of all life. Ki is represented
by a cross, and may have been derived from a double stola
worn by a priestess. Combine Ki and Nae and you get Ki Nae
or gynae, woman. A Vinca duck is covered with a decorative
pattern that gives way to signs on the breast, namely the
signs arc, ypsilon, bar, cross. Now you can combine them
in several playful ways: cross bar angle X I > for Ki Ri Ke,
name of the Bird Goddess; cross ypsilon X Y for Ki Nae,
gynae, woman; ypsilon arc Y ) for Nae Os, sanctuary ...

As usual, it ends up all about you.

I was saying that Maria Gimbutas came quite close to
a deciphering of the Vinca script when she considered
angles and cross as the insignia of the Bird Goddess.
From there it was just a little step to my attempt at
deciphering her Sacred Script. I honored her by saying
that she almost got it, and if my work should hold, I owe
it to her.

Franz Gnaedinger

.

Relevant Pages

  • 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
    ... 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
    ... Marija Gimbutas published some twenty books, ... The Gods and Goddess of Old Europe, ... The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, ... The chapter on the Sacred Script is contained in the second ...
    (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)