Ebook: Sacred display: divine and magical female figures of Eurasia

Introduction -- Female figures in Eurasian Neolithic iconography -- Goddesses of the Ancient Near East -- The power of the vulva: the woman lifts up her skirt -- Anasyrma -- Frog display figures: fertile frogs, fertile women, and the bringing of the rain -- Erotic and ferocious female figures of South and East Asia -- Goddesses and monsters of Ancient Greece and Rome -- Irish and British Sheela na gigs and other Irish female figures -- A Scandinavian giantess and the goddess of lust -- A Scythian great goddess and fairies of Eastern Europe -- Conclusion.;This book discusses erotic and magical goddesses and heroines in several ancient cultures, from the Near East and Asia, and throughout ancient Europe; in prehistoric and early historic iconography, their magical qualities are often indicated by a magical dance or stance. It is a look at female display figures both cross-culturally and cross-temporally, through texts and iconography, beginning with figures depicted in very early Neolithic Anatolia, early and middle Neolithic southeast Europe--Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia--continuing through the late Neolithic in East Asia, and into early historic Greece, India, and Ireland, and elsewhere across the world. These very similar female figures were depicted in Anatolia, Europe, Southern Asia, and East Asia, in a broad chronological sweep, beginning with the pre-pottery Neolithic, ca. 9000 BCE, and existing from the beginning of the second millennium of this era up to the present era. This book demonstrates the extraordinary similarities, in a broad geographic range, of depictions and descriptions of magical female figures who give fertility and strength to the peoples of their cultures by means of their magical erotic powers. It also contains translations of texts which describe these ancient female figures, from a multitude of Indo-European, Near Eastern, and East Asian works. The "sexual" display of these female figures reflects the numinosity of the prehistoric divine feminine, and of her magical genitalia. The functions of fertility and apotropaia, which count among the functions of the early historic display and dancing figures, grow out of this numinosity and reflect the belief in and honoring of the powers of the ancient divine feminine.