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Ancient Peoples and Places
The Balts
This is a fascinating study of the ancient peoples that lived in the Baltic Sea area. The book has hundreds of drawings and photos of various archeological finds, all of which are extensively discussed. The author, a Lithuanian by birth, is world famous for her ground-breaking studies on the origin of the Indo-Europeans, and especially for her unique theory of a Goddess-centered Old European culture.
286 pages, Nook
First published January 1, 1963
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About the author
Marija Gimbutas
43 books188 followersMarija (Alseikaite) Gimbutas (Lithuanian: Marija Gimbutienė), was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological interpretation, but earned a mixed reception by other professionals.
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July 15, 2014
Marija Gimbutienė, anksčiau dirbusi mokslinius darbus Harvarde, profesoriavusi garsiajame Kalifornijos universitete Los Angeles (UC LA).
Knyga "The Balts" yra pirmasis šios rūšies veikalas archeologinėje mūsų literatūroje. Ji parašyta su dideliu moksliniu įžvalgumu. Archeologiniai klausimai joje sprendžiami labai argumentuotai, įtikinamai ir aiškiai. Autorei priklauso didelė padėka ir pagarba už tokio kruopštaus archeologinio veikalo parašymą. šios knygos įvade pirmiausia ji duoda trumpą, bet taiklią etnografinę lietuvių ir jų žemių (taip pat faunos ir floros) charakteristiką. Nusako baltų kultūros pobūdį ir jos sąlytį su kitomis tų laikų tautomis (skitais, keltais, gotais, fino-ugrais) Prof. M. Gimbutienės apskaičiavimu, dabartinė Lietuva sudaro tik vieną šeštadalį priešistorinės teritorijos, kuri prieš slavų ir germanų ekspansiją priklausė baltams.Aprašydama bronzos ir ankstyvąjį geležies amžius Pabaltijy, autorė cituoja tą Homero "Odisėjos" vietą, kurioje minimas gintaras. Iki šiol, rodos, niekas neabejoja, kad mikėnų kultūros gintariniai papuošalai buvo iš atgabento Baltijos gintaro. Pagal autorę, baltų kultūros "aukso amžius" trukęs nuo antrojo šimtmečio prieš Kr. iki penkių šimtų metų po Kr. Tuo laikotarpiu išvystyta žemdirbystė ir prekyba. Slavų ekspansija į baltų žemes prasidėjusi nuo IV a., o švedų (vikingų) — nuo 650 m. Vikingai puldinėjo Apuolės ir "Sea borgo" (arti Liepojos) tvirtoves, tačiau net per 200 m. jiems nepasisekę kolonizuoti kuršių, kurių būta labai drąsių ir narsių vyrų. šie kuršiai dažnai apiplėšdavę danų ir švedų valstybes, išsigabendami iš ten varpų bei kitų dalykų. Užtat danų bažnyčiose 1051 m. buvo įvesta speciali malda: "Didis Dieve, apsaugok mus nuo kuršių!".
Ebook opensource:
https://archive.org/details/TheBalts
Gimbutienė Marija
Baltai priešistoriniais laikais: etnogenezė, materialinė kultūra ir mitologija
1985 Lietuvių kalba "Mokslas", 191 psl.
Knyga "The Balts" yra pirmasis šios rūšies veikalas archeologinėje mūsų literatūroje. Ji parašyta su dideliu moksliniu įžvalgumu. Archeologiniai klausimai joje sprendžiami labai argumentuotai, įtikinamai ir aiškiai. Autorei priklauso didelė padėka ir pagarba už tokio kruopštaus archeologinio veikalo parašymą. šios knygos įvade pirmiausia ji duoda trumpą, bet taiklią etnografinę lietuvių ir jų žemių (taip pat faunos ir floros) charakteristiką. Nusako baltų kultūros pobūdį ir jos sąlytį su kitomis tų laikų tautomis (skitais, keltais, gotais, fino-ugrais) Prof. M. Gimbutienės apskaičiavimu, dabartinė Lietuva sudaro tik vieną šeštadalį priešistorinės teritorijos, kuri prieš slavų ir germanų ekspansiją priklausė baltams.Aprašydama bronzos ir ankstyvąjį geležies amžius Pabaltijy, autorė cituoja tą Homero "Odisėjos" vietą, kurioje minimas gintaras. Iki šiol, rodos, niekas neabejoja, kad mikėnų kultūros gintariniai papuošalai buvo iš atgabento Baltijos gintaro. Pagal autorę, baltų kultūros "aukso amžius" trukęs nuo antrojo šimtmečio prieš Kr. iki penkių šimtų metų po Kr. Tuo laikotarpiu išvystyta žemdirbystė ir prekyba. Slavų ekspansija į baltų žemes prasidėjusi nuo IV a., o švedų (vikingų) — nuo 650 m. Vikingai puldinėjo Apuolės ir "Sea borgo" (arti Liepojos) tvirtoves, tačiau net per 200 m. jiems nepasisekę kolonizuoti kuršių, kurių būta labai drąsių ir narsių vyrų. šie kuršiai dažnai apiplėšdavę danų ir švedų valstybes, išsigabendami iš ten varpų bei kitų dalykų. Užtat danų bažnyčiose 1051 m. buvo įvesta speciali malda: "Didis Dieve, apsaugok mus nuo kuršių!".
Ebook opensource:
https://archive.org/details/TheBalts
Gimbutienė Marija
Baltai priešistoriniais laikais: etnogenezė, materialinė kultūra ir mitologija
1985 Lietuvių kalba "Mokslas", 191 psl.
July 24, 2025
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ............................................ 6
Foreword ...........................................................
Introduction .......................................................
11
13
I Linguistic and Historic Background ................. 21
II Their Origins ..................................................... 37
III The Bronze and the Early Iron Age of the
Maritime Balts ................................................... 54
IV The Bronze and the Early Iron Age of the
Eastern Balts ..................................................... 91
V The “Golden Age”............................................. 109
VI The Baltic “Middle Iron Age” .......................... 141
VII The Balts Before the Dawn of History .............. 155
VIII Religion ............................................................. 179
Notes ................................................................. 205
Bibliography ...................................................... 214
Sources of Illustrations ...................................... 224
The Plates .......................................................... 227
Notes On the Plates ........................................... 269
Index .................................................................. 277
Chapter I Linguistic and Historic Background The designation “Balt” can have two different meanings, depending upon whether we use it in a geographical or political sense, or in a linguistic or ethnological sense. The first embraces the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — on the eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea. Before World War II, these three states were independent and their population numbered about six million. In 1940, they were incorporated in the Soviet Union. In this book, however, I shall not be speaking of the modern Baltic states but of people who belong to one linguistic group of the Indo-European family, that is, of the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Old Prussians, along with their kin tribes, many of which disappeared during the course of prehistory and history. The Estonians will be excluded since they are FinnoUgrians, speaking an entirely different language from the Indo-European and being of different origin. The name “Balts,” deriving from the Baltic Sea, Mare Balticum, is a neologism, used since 1845 as a general name for the people speaking “Baltic” languages — Old Prussian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Curonian, Semigallian, and Selian. Of these, only Lithuanian and Lettish are living languages. Old Prussian disappeared around 1700 due to German colonization of East Prussia. Curonian, Semigallian, and Selian disappeared between 1400 and 1600. These were either Lettonized or Lithuanized. Other eastern Baltic languages or dialects became extinct in the protohistoric or early historic period and are not preserved in written sources. At the beginning of this century, another name for these languages — “Aistian” — was coming into use. This was taken from the Roman historian Tacitus, who, in his work Germania, A.D. 98, mentioned Aestii, gentes Aestiorum, a people living on 22
......
From Tacitus in the first century, we learn that the Aisti were the only people collecting amber and that they cultivated crops with a patience rarely found among the lazy Germans. In religion and appearance they resembled the Suebi (the Germanic people) but had a different language, more like that of the Bretons (Celtic people). They worshipped the mother goddess and wore boar masks which protected them, and ensured the safety of the worshipper even among his enemies.1About 880–90, King Alfred’s voyager Wulfstan, who came by sailing boat from Haithabu in Schleswig through the Baltic Sea to the lower Vistula area, the River Elbing and Frisches Haff, described the land of the Aisti (which he called “Eastland,” “Estum”) as very large and containing many towns, each with its own king. They fought many contests among themselves. The king and the richest men drank mare’s milk, the poor and the slaves mead. There was no ale brewed among them for there was enough mead.2 Wulfstan then gives a long description of burial rites and the preservation of the dead by freezing, to which I shall return in the section on religion. The first Christian missionaries who entered the lands of the ancient Prussians usually referred to them as “stubborn pagans.” “Sembi or Prussians are a most humane people (homines humanissimi),” wrote Archbishop Adam of Bremen around 1075. “They go out to help those who are in peril at sea or who are attacked by pirates. Gold and silver they hold in very slight esteem. ... Many praiseworthy things could be said about these peoples with respect to their morals, if only they had the faith of Christ whose missionaries they cruelly persecute. At their hands Adalbert, the illustrious bishop of the Bohemians, was crowned with martyrdom. Although they share everything else with our people, they prohibit only, to this very day indeed, access to their groves and springs which, they a....
...........
Chapter II Their Origins
“Dievas davė dantis; Dievas duos duonos” (Lithuanian) “Devas adadāt datas; Devas dāt (or dadāt) dhānās” (Sanskrit) “Deus dedit dentes; Deus dabit panem” (Latin) (“God gave the teeth; God will give bread”).
New horizons for the explanation of Baltic origins opened with the discovery of Sanskrit in the eighteenth century. Lithuanian and Sanskrit words were compared even before Franz Bopp established in 1816 the foundations for comparative linguistics of the Indo-European language. Similarities between these two have been frequently mentioned as examples for illustration of the widespread dissemination of the Indo-European languages and of their very close interrelationships. As the most archaic of all living Indo-European languages, Lithuanian strongly attracted those studying comparative linguistics. A. Schleicher published his grammar of the Lithuanian language in 1856, and a year later the Handbuch der litauischen Sprache; Lithuanian, too, played an important role in his compendium of the comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages of 1861, as it did in other works by prominent linguists such as K. Brugmann, A. Meillet, F. de Saussure, and A. Leskien. Sanskrit and Baltic are the two linguistic poles between which the languages of the Indo-European homelands are “found.” Along with the comparative grammars there have appeared volumes of comparative Indo-European antiquarian studies. Reconstruction of the prehistoric eras of Indo-European nations was attempted by using language as the key. These homelands were sought in a temperate zone, because of the existence of names for the four seasons, within an area where there are no tropical or subtropical flora and fauna, and inland
List of Illustrations ............................................ 6
Foreword ...........................................................
Introduction .......................................................
11
13
I Linguistic and Historic Background ................. 21
II Their Origins ..................................................... 37
III The Bronze and the Early Iron Age of the
Maritime Balts ................................................... 54
IV The Bronze and the Early Iron Age of the
Eastern Balts ..................................................... 91
V The “Golden Age”............................................. 109
VI The Baltic “Middle Iron Age” .......................... 141
VII The Balts Before the Dawn of History .............. 155
VIII Religion ............................................................. 179
Notes ................................................................. 205
Bibliography ...................................................... 214
Sources of Illustrations ...................................... 224
The Plates .......................................................... 227
Notes On the Plates ........................................... 269
Index .................................................................. 277
Chapter I Linguistic and Historic Background The designation “Balt” can have two different meanings, depending upon whether we use it in a geographical or political sense, or in a linguistic or ethnological sense. The first embraces the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — on the eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea. Before World War II, these three states were independent and their population numbered about six million. In 1940, they were incorporated in the Soviet Union. In this book, however, I shall not be speaking of the modern Baltic states but of people who belong to one linguistic group of the Indo-European family, that is, of the Lithuanians, Latvians, and Old Prussians, along with their kin tribes, many of which disappeared during the course of prehistory and history. The Estonians will be excluded since they are FinnoUgrians, speaking an entirely different language from the Indo-European and being of different origin. The name “Balts,” deriving from the Baltic Sea, Mare Balticum, is a neologism, used since 1845 as a general name for the people speaking “Baltic” languages — Old Prussian, Lithuanian, Lettish, Curonian, Semigallian, and Selian. Of these, only Lithuanian and Lettish are living languages. Old Prussian disappeared around 1700 due to German colonization of East Prussia. Curonian, Semigallian, and Selian disappeared between 1400 and 1600. These were either Lettonized or Lithuanized. Other eastern Baltic languages or dialects became extinct in the protohistoric or early historic period and are not preserved in written sources. At the beginning of this century, another name for these languages — “Aistian” — was coming into use. This was taken from the Roman historian Tacitus, who, in his work Germania, A.D. 98, mentioned Aestii, gentes Aestiorum, a people living on 22
......
From Tacitus in the first century, we learn that the Aisti were the only people collecting amber and that they cultivated crops with a patience rarely found among the lazy Germans. In religion and appearance they resembled the Suebi (the Germanic people) but had a different language, more like that of the Bretons (Celtic people). They worshipped the mother goddess and wore boar masks which protected them, and ensured the safety of the worshipper even among his enemies.1About 880–90, King Alfred’s voyager Wulfstan, who came by sailing boat from Haithabu in Schleswig through the Baltic Sea to the lower Vistula area, the River Elbing and Frisches Haff, described the land of the Aisti (which he called “Eastland,” “Estum”) as very large and containing many towns, each with its own king. They fought many contests among themselves. The king and the richest men drank mare’s milk, the poor and the slaves mead. There was no ale brewed among them for there was enough mead.2 Wulfstan then gives a long description of burial rites and the preservation of the dead by freezing, to which I shall return in the section on religion. The first Christian missionaries who entered the lands of the ancient Prussians usually referred to them as “stubborn pagans.” “Sembi or Prussians are a most humane people (homines humanissimi),” wrote Archbishop Adam of Bremen around 1075. “They go out to help those who are in peril at sea or who are attacked by pirates. Gold and silver they hold in very slight esteem. ... Many praiseworthy things could be said about these peoples with respect to their morals, if only they had the faith of Christ whose missionaries they cruelly persecute. At their hands Adalbert, the illustrious bishop of the Bohemians, was crowned with martyrdom. Although they share everything else with our people, they prohibit only, to this very day indeed, access to their groves and springs which, they a....
...........
Chapter II Their Origins
“Dievas davė dantis; Dievas duos duonos” (Lithuanian) “Devas adadāt datas; Devas dāt (or dadāt) dhānās” (Sanskrit) “Deus dedit dentes; Deus dabit panem” (Latin) (“God gave the teeth; God will give bread”).
New horizons for the explanation of Baltic origins opened with the discovery of Sanskrit in the eighteenth century. Lithuanian and Sanskrit words were compared even before Franz Bopp established in 1816 the foundations for comparative linguistics of the Indo-European language. Similarities between these two have been frequently mentioned as examples for illustration of the widespread dissemination of the Indo-European languages and of their very close interrelationships. As the most archaic of all living Indo-European languages, Lithuanian strongly attracted those studying comparative linguistics. A. Schleicher published his grammar of the Lithuanian language in 1856, and a year later the Handbuch der litauischen Sprache; Lithuanian, too, played an important role in his compendium of the comparative grammar of the Indo-European languages of 1861, as it did in other works by prominent linguists such as K. Brugmann, A. Meillet, F. de Saussure, and A. Leskien. Sanskrit and Baltic are the two linguistic poles between which the languages of the Indo-European homelands are “found.” Along with the comparative grammars there have appeared volumes of comparative Indo-European antiquarian studies. Reconstruction of the prehistoric eras of Indo-European nations was attempted by using language as the key. These homelands were sought in a temperate zone, because of the existence of names for the four seasons, within an area where there are no tropical or subtropical flora and fauna, and inland
December 13, 2019
4-4.5/5
April 25, 2014
A well written tome on the archaeology of the Baltic regions.I was hoping to find material on the oral and written traditions of Lithuania etc but unfortunately this resource wasn't utilised by the author.
Much of the text is scholarly in nature - largely describing artifacts and their historical and cultural settings - only occasionally does the author venture into the interpretative realms. And then it was only to identify various symbols and designs as being 'sun symbols'. My problem with this was the basis upon which these identifications were made was not even argued out, let alone demonstrated.
All in all, a useful book if you are interested in the prehistory of the Baltic regions.
Much of the text is scholarly in nature - largely describing artifacts and their historical and cultural settings - only occasionally does the author venture into the interpretative realms. And then it was only to identify various symbols and designs as being 'sun symbols'. My problem with this was the basis upon which these identifications were made was not even argued out, let alone demonstrated.
All in all, a useful book if you are interested in the prehistory of the Baltic regions.
November 29, 2022
Great book. What I would expect from Gimbutas.
May 10, 2020
Radau, aprašytą Senosios Europos (priešindoeuropinės) Baltų simboliką, kuri yra seniausia, atėjusi iš senosios matrilinearinės (patriarchalinė atėjo su indoeuropiečiais) priešistorinės kultūros: vandens paukščiai, gyvatės, žalčiai, briedės, meškos, pelėda ir Baltų deivės:Laima, Ragana, Žemyna. Vietinė baltų kultūra nebuvo išnaikinta indoeuropiečių ir vėliau krikščionybės kultūroje.
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