The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power

by Vicki Noble

The first book to seriously study the double goddess that figures prominently in Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures.

• Offers an important symbol for modern women seeking to reconnect with their ancient, integral sense of self and wholeness.

• Presents an archetype for the sacred potential of female bonding, whether between mother and daughter, teacher and student, friends, or lovers.

• Illustrated with 149 examples of double goddess images.

Numerous figures depicting two women in intimate relation with one another, or as a single body with two heads, have been discovered in important centers of early civilizations such as Catal Huyuk and Gozo. These have been routinely ignored by scholars or dismissed as mere dolls with no sacred connotations whatsoever. Vicki Noble shows, to the contrary, that this double goddess is an ancient icon that can considerably expand our understanding of female sovereignty, as well as provide contemporary women with a way to reconnect with the integral sense of self and wholeness enjoyed by their ancestors.

Ancient Goddess religion was informed by the organic cycles of nature--the dual poles of Life and Death. The double goddess represents phenomena such as the Earth-Moon pair, the Upper-Underworld pair, the Summer and Winter poles of the seasonal year, and the dual poles of the female biological reality of menstruation and ovulation--the dark and the light. The double goddess in all her varied forms also depicts the vast array of potential relationships women can form with themselves and each other. This book is a celebration of an archetype that not only empowers women, but also teaches them how to share that power with each other.

Genres: Spirituality, Goddess, Feminism, Nonfiction, Mythology, History, Womens

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2003

Reviews

[Laura Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't sure what to expect when I first picked up this book and began to read, but I ended up enjoying it more than I expected. The author's main thrust is the re-identification of the huge number of doubled or twinned female figurines and images that span centuries of ancient art and are found all over the world. These "double goddess" images have long labeled as part of a "fertility cult," that dismissive label archaeologists slap on so many pieces of ancient spirituality when they threaten to put the Divine Feminine in the spotlight. But what Vicki Noble suggests in this book, and I think her argument is a reasonably convincing one, is that these works of art reflect not only a concept of a twinned goddess but also a real-world sharing of power between women in leadership positions in some ancient societies. Whether this doubled role meant two leaders sharing the office at the same time, or something more like the Chief and the Tanist, or a secular leader and a religious one (or, to take a modern example, the CEO and the COO), is unclear. Still, it's an interesting proposition, and one that takes us into the realm of cooperation ahead of competition, something this world could certainly use more of.

I will admit that I have some trouble with Noble's view of the pre-patriarchal world as somehow magically peaceful and Golden Age-y. The archaeological evidence is pretty clear that, from at least the Neolithic onward, there has always been a certain amount of violence in human societies, though it took some time for us to build up to the vast scale of the wars of recent centuries (not exactly our greatest achievement). But I do think Noble is on to something about the way leadership worked in matrifocal cultures, with human institutions reflecting the mythology and vice versa. This is a subject that could do with more exploration, to be sure. And I very much enjoyed the way she links the Mediterranean world with the areas farther east via the Silk Road, a connection many archaeologists and historians seem to miss in spite of the overwhelming evidence of contact going back many, many centuries.

The book includes extensive illustrations of the double goddesses from the archaeological record, which I found fascinating. This isn't a theory built on a couple of pieces in a back corner of a museum somewhere. There are hundreds, possibly thousands of these doubled female images in the art going back millennia. I find it hard to believe that such a widespread and ancient symbol set has no meaning, and this book helped me realize the extent to which archaeologists and historians have selectively ignored these figures because of what they might represent. All in all, this is a fascinating read, well researched and heavily documented. Whether or not you end up agreeing with Noble's ideas, you'll come away having acquainted yourself with a segment of our history that is often glossed over or dismissed but that deserves a great deal more attention.

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book. The research done by the author is very good. It offers a different view onto those "female figurines" that most status quo archeologists can't seem to figure out.

[Louise Hewett · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Double Goddess: Women Sharing Power by Vicki Noble was promising and offered a good overview of the way the past was shaped by moving frontiers in Europe and Eurasia, obviously with a great deal of reference to the female imagery and artifactual evidence available. I was disappointed with the chapter on Sacred Sexuality however, which seemed to contradict the earlier parts of the book. Women being able to do, and doing all kinds of activities including inhabiting roles of leadership, resistance in battle, and the skills ranging from athletics and martial arts, to "shamanic" roles of spiritual leadership was now contradicted in that they must have been different "genders" - whatever that means. Even radical feminists were described as being a different "gender." I read "gender" in this case as "personalities," whilst normally thinking of "gender" as the sex-role system which is different in most cultures, while in male-dominated cultures is stricter and requires different categories for those who rebel against their own cultural sex-role system. But the unfolding of the feminist backlash and proliferation of queer theory and identity politics in the twenty-plus years since this book was written does not help women accept themselves and be women who can-do all manner of things, including think outside of the patriarchal box of horrors. So I ended the book on a somewhat sour note, whilst finding most of the book fascinating and inspirational.

[Julien DuBrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

I based a lot of my story line in The Goddess Chronicles on Noble's work. This is a must read for anyone interested in the TRUTH about the history of the Goddess. Noble shares both historical and anthropological insight in an accessible manner. She pieces together a very fresh approach to understanding the phenomenon of the double goddesses (female statues) found all over the world.

[Joanne Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learning more about the little talked about Double Goddess figures spread through out the ancient world. There were double queens...women ran societies once and shared power.