Inspired by the Goddess

Carol P. Christ writes about the rebirth of the Goddess, feminism, ecofeminism, feminist theology, societies of peace, and the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form

WOMEN ARTISTS AND RITUALISTS IN THE GREAT CAVES

When I first saw the images of handprints in caves that were sites of worship during the paleolithic era, I suggested that women might have blown red ocher around their hands to leave their marks in prehistoric caves. At the time I thought this was a rather bold suggestion.

Had I been asked why I thought the images were made by women, I might have said that people have understood caves to be the womb of the Great Mother, the Source of All Life, from time immemorial. I might have added that those who performed rituals in the caves cannot have been performing simple “hunting magic,” but must also have been thanking the Source of Life for making life possible for them and for the great beasts they hunted.  Still I am not certain that I imagined women as the artists in the paleolithic caves.

According to anthropological archaeologist Dean Snow, the paleolithic cave artists may indeed have been women.  Snow spent a decade gathering and analyzing photographs of the handprints left in caves. The scientific fact that women’s first and ring fingers are generally of the same length, while men’s ring fingers are generally longer their index fingers, led him to the conclusion that ¾ of the handprints in the caves were made by women! If women were painting their hands on the caves in larger numbers than men, then isn’t likely that they were also painting the images of the great beasts on the walls of the caves?

This is Snow’s conclusion. His findings contradict the widely held theory that male hunters were the sole creators of the cave paintings of the Paleolithic caves such as Lascaux and Chauvet. Feminist interpreters of the cave paintings have long noted that pregnant animals which no hunter would ever kill are also portrayed on the walls of the caves. This suggests a wider purpose for cave rituals than hunting magic.

Lascaux-France-Cave-Painting-2-c15000BC

Still, comfortable assumptions that support widely held gender stereotypes are not easily dislodged. “Man the hunter” remains the popular image of “cave man,” while the image of “cave woman” being pulled by her hair by “cave man” sticks in the mind.

fred flintstone

Despite decades of feminist theorizing about caves as the womb of the Great Mother, Snow refused to speculate about the meanings “cave women” might have given to the images within the caves. Could it be that he had never even encountered the idea that the cave symbolizes the womb of Mother Earth? Did this idea simply not “make sense” to him? Is the idea of expressing gratitude to the Source of Life alien to him?  Or did he have difficulty imagining that the Source of Life is located in the earth–not in heaven?

Marija Gimbutas has written that progress in archaeology has been hindered by the “indolent assumption” that the worldviews of ancient cultures must have been similar to our own. 

Indolent assumptions make it difficult:

  • to imagine women as the creators of great art;
  • to imagine women as the initiators of important religious ideas;
  • to imagine the Source of Life as a great womb;
  • to imagine women, men, and children gathering together to thank the Great Mother for the gift of life in the depths of caves.

Indolent assumptions are beginning to change.

skoteino cave

Carol P. Christ  is anticipating the spring Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete when she will again give thanks for the gift of life in the cave wombs of Mother Earth.  Space is available on the spring and fall pilgrimages for 2014.  Carol can be heard on a WATER Teleconference.  Carol’s books include She Who Changes and Rebirth of the Goddess and the widely-used anthologies Womanspirit Rising and Weaving the Visions.

Last modified on
Carol P. Christ is a author of the much-loved books Rebirth of the Goddess, She Who Changes, Weaving the Visions, and Womanspirit Rising, and forthcoming in 2016. Goddess and God in the World and A Serpentine Path. She leads the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete in spring and fall.

Comments

  • Travis
    Travis Sunday, 11 May 2014

    This is cool. It sounds a little silly, but it never occurred to me to think that paleolithic women wouldn't be painters. Im not sure if that's progressive or ignorant haha.

  • Carol P. Christ
    Carol P. Christ Sunday, 11 May 2014

    Verrrryyyy progressive...

  • Susan Hicks
    Susan Hicks Wednesday, 14 May 2014

    Wonderful. Progress in the academic thinking is incredibly slow. Academia is filled with dogma and prejudice. I find it remarkable that Snow even conceived of questioning the assumption that the cave hands and art were male in origin. Thank you for sharing this with us.

  • nolongerhere
    nolongerhere Thursday, 15 May 2014

    Thank you very much for this.

    I have always loved the ancient cave paintings, finding warmth and elegance in their simplicity, but in art history classes was not shown the pregnant animals. Women painting them would explain some of the basic emotional appeal to me as rapport, as much that is characteristic to women's art is not part and parcel of the standard artmaking methods still taught in North America (in everything from sketching style to subtler experimental and textural techniques a quick survey of the Museum of Women's art in Washington D.C. will tell you are not anomalous).

    So these assumptions apply to not only ancient art, but contemporary art as well.

    Cheers from a modern icon painter!

  • Please login first in order for you to submit comments

Additional information