In Search of the Lost Feminine Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization

by Barnes, Craig S.

• ISBN13: 9781555914899
• ISBN10: 1555914896
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-01
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press - Fulcrum

Summary

Here, for the first time, threads of truth explaining the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures-in which women and the environment were at the center-have been woven together to illustrate this loss which has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of western history. The ancient world had not only treated women with respect but had been more resistant to war, more attentive to earth's cycles, more ecstatic. Then suddenly the whole culture vanished. The loss was ushered in by volcanoes and poets, gods of death and caricatures of maddening women, Scylla, Charybdis, Medea, and Calypso-all of whom were intended to discredit an old civilization and install a new order. That new order secured patriarchal property, installed male gods, and established a requirement that respectable women be either virgin or married. It is this history that creates the foundation of the Da Vinci Code mysteries. Craig Barnes investigates history to uncover the metaphor of the Holy Grail.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction
Rewriting the Story of Western Civilization	1	(8)
Minoan Artifacts Challenge the Inevitability of Patriarchy	9	(58)
The Mystery of Minoan Civilization	13	(10)
An Expectation of Rebirth or Immortality	23	(10)
Time as a Circle Rather Than a Line	33	(11)
The Troubling Question of War	44	(8)
Crete and the Issue of Female Sexuality	52	(8)
The Ecstatic and the Divine as Inseparable	60	(4)
Five Values Dramatically at Odds with Patriarchy	64	(3)
The Collapse of the Minoan World	67	(24)
The Invasions of 1600 BCE: A War Culture Emerges	68	(3)
The Theran Explosion: The Loss of Faith in Mother Earth	71	(8)
The Growth of Trade: The Diminishment of Daughters	79	(3)
The Great Civil War over Marriage: The End of Women-Centered Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean	82	(9)
A Warrior Civilization Emerges	91	(104)
Four Hundred Years of Chaos Sets the Stage	91	(5)
Values Shaped by Storytellers	96	(6)
An Exaggerated Feminine Is Made Monstrous	102	(6)
Mother Earth Is Overthrown	108	(5)
Jason Resists the Many Shapes of Seductive Women	113	(11)
Odysseus Rejects Calypso	124	(12)
Homer Poses the Choice between Love and Property	136	(9)
Clytemnestra Is Sacrificed on the Altar of Marriage	145	(6)
Marriage Destroys the Mother-Daughter Bond	151	(6)
Daughters Die for Civic Good	157	(4)
A Multitude of Myths to Tame, Punish, and Disparage Women	161	(8)
Oedipus, the Lost Son	169	(6)
A Glorious Monument Enshrining the Subordination of Women	175	(12)
Biblical Patriarchs Match the Greek Story	187	(8)
Objections to the Warrior Civilization	195	(36)
Jesus Carries Forward the Eleusinian Symbolism of Grain and Wine	197	(6)
Jesus Takes On the Threat of Military Destruction	203	(6)
Ancient Beliefs Spring Up among the Celts	209	(2)
A Short-Lived Islamic Challenge	211	(3)
The Metaphor of the Holy Grail	214	(6)
Devil Talk and Witch Burnings	220	(6)
Closing the Book on the Patriarchy	226	(5)
History as a Choice of Stories	231	(16)
Women Coming Home to Dignity	233	(5)
The Declining Utility of War	238	(3)
Another Story All Along	241	(6)
Appendix: Success and Failure in Women's Wages and Employment in America	247	(2)
Endnotes	249	(16)
Bibliography	265	(6)
Index	271	(15)
About the Author	286