What happened to our goddesses and grandmothers? Meet Max Dashu, founder of Suppressed History Archives, who since 1970 has been compiling one of the most comprehensive cross-cultural collections of documentation on female heritage throughout human history. Her research digs into archeological records, petroglyphs, paintings, iconography, orature, and other visual testimonies to women as culture makers and agents for the earth. Listen as we unpack her newest work, Women in Greek Mythography: Pithias, Melissae and Titanides, and learn about oracular women and priestess traditions that preceded the Olympian pantheon. Max unearths older, nature-based matriarchal societies across the world that existed before ideas shaped by colonialism and statehood dominated the cultural imagination. We explore ancient manifestations of snake women, bird women, bee women – not as portends of trickery, but as portals of truths and divine forces of nature. She traces the way sexual politics and patriarchal representations limited what female forms and their stories could be: as sacral, venerated, lifegiving potency. Explore how her work prevents the erasure of women and their contributions. Join us to reroot, recontextualize and restore women’s legacy from the misdemeanors of history.
4 things you will learn in this episode:
We traverse the Paleolithic to Roman and Classical periodsand find compelling visual evidence of women’s contributions throughout time.
The Melissae women were connected to divine forces of nature through the bees.
How Venus Impudique got its name and how the iconic Venus of Willendorf represents so much more than just fertility.
How the female form was sculpted in the paleolithic period versus the defensive positioning depicted through the renaissance.
See her articles, webcasts, and open-access videos to go deeper.
