The Great Goddess of Anatolia and her Greek Daughters: Late Bronze Age Origins in Rituals, Architecture, and Iconography

Abstract

This contribution focuses on the materialization of cults of the Anatolian goddess in her various guises. It offers a preliminary investigation of Late Bronze Age roots of later ritual practice in the major sanctuaries of the great goddess of western Anatolia and the Aegean Islands. Thus, it is an exploration of what Walter Burkert has called “eastern contexts of Greek culture, and Greek contexts of Anatolian culture”- in essence, a field study of the nature and transmission of cult tradition and the conservative power of ritual.