What is Myth: An Archaeomythological Perspective By Joan M. Cichon, Ph.D
- Feb 27
- 12 min read
WHAT IS MYTH? AN ARCHAEOLYTHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Joan M. Cichon Ph.D.
As a countdown to the 2026 Mythologium Myth Conference, we are exploring the question "What is Myth." Our guest mythologists delve into the nuanced and encompassing ways to define myth from differing cultures and disciplines.
The Mythologium takes place March 13-15 online. You can register here.
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As an eleven-year-old child, I was fascinated by Classical mythology, especially Edith Hamilton’s work which was required reading in my grade school at the time. As I grew older, I “forgot” about my interest in mythology and turned my attention and enthusiasm to history and archaeology instead. My renewed interest in mythology stems from my study of archaeomythology, and my use of archaeomythology as a methodology to investigate Bronze Age Crete (c. 3200-1070 BCE), a society which has left us no deciphered written records. Marija Gimbutas, the founder of archaeomythology, defined the discipline as a “combination of fields—archaeology, mythology, linguistics, and historical data—which provide the possibility for apprehending both the material and spiritual realities of prehistoric cultures.”[1] In my quest to understand the society of ancient Crete and the role of the Goddess and women in that society, I have found mythology, along with archaeology, history, linguistics and folklore, invaluable aids in furnishing a “text” to the “pictures” that are all that remain at this time of Bronze Age Cretan civilization.
Although in modern day society the term myth has come to mean something that is not true, I prefer the view of Professor of Religion Donald E. Miller: “in religious terms a myth is any powerful and evocative story that dramatically reveals something about the underlying meaning and purpose of creation, nature or history;” as well as his observation that: “myths are the oldest forms of religious reflection, usually passed on orally from generation to generation, and providing the central themes for a culture’s self-understanding and self-definition.”[2] I also appreciate Miller’s statement that sacred myths “involve recounting the moments and places where people believe they have glimpsed . . . something of the fundamental nature of reality.”[3] The well-known mythographer Alan Dundes has defined myth as “a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form.”[4] He has noted that “myth may constitute the highest form of truth, albeit, in metaphorical guise.”[5] The renowned theorist of myth, Mircea Eliade, in his essay, “Toward a Definition of Myth,” gives a six-part definition which he sums up by saying: “. . . Myths reveal that the world, man and life have a supernatural origin and history and that this history is meaningful, precious and exemplary.”[6]
Understanding the Past
Used in conjunction with the other disciplines of archaeomythology, I believe myths can give us important clues to events and to the cultural and social institutions of ancient societies. Like Mycenologist Thomas G. Palaima, who argues that the Homeric poems “may be more useful in preserving some form of authentic memories of Bronze Age religion than it is now fashionable to accept,”[7] in that same vein, I would suggest that Greek myths may preserve more about Bronze Age Cretan religion and society than is commonly acknowledged. Like archaeomythologist Susan Carter, I believe that “continued analysis and/or interpretations of . . . myths are needed,”[8] based, as she emphasizes, on an understanding of the history and culture of the society that produced the myths and on the history and culture of the societies that transmitted and altered them.
In my interpretation of myths, I follow a feminist hermeneutical approach. That is, I follow Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza’s four-part method in which she utilizes a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” a “hermeneutics of remembrance,” a hermeneutics of evaluation and proclamation,” and a “hermeneutics of creative actualization.”[9]
I would suggest that Greek myths may preserve more about Bronze Age Cretan religion and society than is commonly acknowledged.
Beginning with a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” I start with the understanding that, like the biblical texts that Schüssler-Fiorenza analyzes, myths and their interpretation are “androcentric and serve patriarchal functions.”[10] I also understand that a feminist “hermeneutics of suspicion” requires that I question “the underlying presuppositions, androcentric models, and unarticulated interests of contemporary [mythological] interpretation.”[11] Utilizing a “hermeneutics of remembrance” I keep in mind that myths might well preserve a pre-patriarchal element, and that patriarchy was not necessarily an inherent ingredient of ancient Cretan society. As Schüssler-Fiorenza explains it: “Rather than understand the texts as an adequate reflection of the reality about which they speak, we must search for rhetorical clues and allusions that indicate the reality about which the texts are silent.”[12] A “hermeneutics of evaluation and proclamation” requires that one analyze those myths that are related to Bronze Age Crete and identify those elements that are sexist and patriarchal as well as recognize those that “transcend their patriarchal contexts.”[13] Finally, a “hermeneutics of creative actualization” seeks to retell myth from a feminist perspective; and, as Schüssler-Fiorenza puts it, “to create narrative amplifications of the feminist remnants that have survived in patriarchal texts.”[14]
one can learn a great deal about the ancient culture of Crete, its Goddess, and the role of women, by studying the ancient mythology.
When looked at in light of the above observations and definitions, it becomes apparent that one can learn a great deal about the ancient culture of Crete, its Goddess, and the role of women, by studying the ancient mythology. Cretan mythology is buried, however, under layers of Mycenaean and Classical Greek mythology. Fortunately, a number of scholars, including classicist Martin Nilsson, Greek scholar Ronald F. Willetts, archaeologists Marija Gimbutas, Adonis Vasilakis, Jacqetta Hawkes and others have dug down through the layers and brought to light some of the Bronze Age myths that preserve their pre-patriarchal elements. The work of these scholars illustrates the important part mythology can play in arguing for the pre-eminence of the Goddess and women in Bronze Age Crete.
This is so because the mythology left to us by the Classical Greeks contains much that is in all probability pre-Mycenaean, as indicated in part by linguistic analysis. As Gimbutas explained, the Bronze Age Cretans not only gave the Mycenaeans the names of many of the Goddesses and gods they venerated in the Linear B tablets, they also gave the Mycenaeans many elements of their culture. The Mycenaeans represent, according to Gimbutas, “an importanttransitional phase between Old European gynocentric culture and the classical Greek culture.”[15]
Eventually the Myceneans themselves fell to other Indo-European invaders and for a period of three hundred and fifty years (c. 1110-750 BCE) Greece descended into a Dark Age. Despite the cultural decay, Gimbutas notes that Mycenaean elements “shifted to later Greek cultures in several ways.”[16] Among those ways were language and religious activity. The Greek culture that arose at the end of the Dark Ages was vastly different from the Mycenaean and yet, strong Goddesses remained.
By examining the written texts depicting Greek goddesses, we can gain valuable insight into the Old European forebearers, since archaeology alone does not preserve details comparable to the comments of ancient writers. Some of the deities were clearly continuous with Neolithic and Minoan times. We should remember that the amalgamation of Indo-European and Old European culture . . . engendered the goddess and gods of classical Greek religion.[17]
As Gimbutas indicates, it is the mythology, as well as the archaeological artifacts, that one must use to understand Bronze Age religion and society. In interpreting myth, I consider the interpretations of earlier mythographers who studied ancient Crete: Gimbutas, Hawkes, Vasilakis, Nilsson, and others. I also look at how my and their interpretations of myth can be corroborated by shrines, frescoes, and artifacts used in religious rituals. I look for consistencies and congruencies, as well as incongruencies between myths, artifacts, and linguistics.
The Triple Goddess of Bronze Age Crete
I would like to turn to a concrete example of how I have used mythology as a component of archaeomythology in my research. The focus of my work is to provide a plausible argument that Bronze Age Crete was a society in which a Mother Goddess in her Triple Aspect of Life-Giver, Death-Wielder, and Regeneratrix, and One with all of Nature, essentially the Mother Goddess as Gimbutas defined her, was the primary Cretan deity and that she was worshipped for thousands of years, within a society that was Goddess-centered, woman-centered, and probably matriarchal as well.
In order to support the first part of my hypothesis, that the Goddess was the central deity of ancient Crete and was worshipped in Her triple aspect described above, I analyze a number of statues, statuettes, frescos, and seal rings portraying the Goddess throughout the Cretan Bronze Age. In doing so I also look not only at the artifacts themselves, but at their find spots, their attributes, the symbols on and with them, and the mythological, and or/historical, and/or linguistic evidence related to them.
The one that I have chosen to discuss here dates from the Early Minoan II period (c. 2650-2300 BCE) and is called the Koumasa I Goddess. Named after the place where she was found and numbered because there were three other Goddess who resembled her found in the same area, she was discovered in a cemetery (a sacred site), between a tholos tomb and an ossuary, in an area of central Crete known as the Mesara valley. The Mesara was the most important and prosperous area of Crete in antiquity (with the exception of Knossos) and includes within its boundaries most of the tholos tombs of the early Cretan Bronze Age, as well as prosperous settlements, sanctuaries, and cemeteries. It should be noted here that cemeteries were the ritual focus of communities during the Early Minoan Period (c. 3200-2000 BCE). Archaeologist Keith Branigan has argued that dancing often took place in the paved areas of the Mesara cemeteries, and these areas were the location “of rituals and ceremonies which were concerned with the vegetational cycle and fertility.”[18]
The Koumasa I Goddess is fifteen centimeters high, she has an almost bird-like face with a very beak-like nose, breasts, and a bell-shaped body. She cradles a small jug in the crook of her arm. The front of her body is decorated with X’s down the center, and to each side of the X’s, representations of the tree of life. A snake runs from her hand to her shoulder on each side of her body, appearing to wrap itself around her neck as well. Both her body and the snake have red markings on them. There is a handle on her back for holding her as one pours the liquid offerings—wine, honey, water, or milk—which would have been contained inside her.
In addition to the three similar-looking Goddesses, also found with the Koumasa I Goddess were several bull figurines with humans hanging from their horns, several birds, three jugs with human figures clinging to their necks, and a vessel in the shape of an egg.
It is generally agreed by archaeologists that the Koumasa I figurine is a Goddess, although not necessarily a Triple Goddess as I and Gimbutas have defined her, and that she is “an early appearance of the snake Goddess.”[19] She certainly has at least two of the characteristics attributed by archaeologists to the Cretan Goddess: the snake, considered to be a symbol of regeneration as well as death, and the bird, a symbol of the Goddess as Life-Giver. Like the other Goddesses found with her, she carries a jug to provide life-giving liquid emphasizing her Life-Giving role as well. The markings of X’s (interpreted by Gimbutas as a symbol of life-giving, and renewing and eternal earth), and the tree of life reinforce her life-giving aspects. Her breasts and bell shape connotating fertility or pregnancy do as well. The fact that she was found with bull and bird figurines, and an egg-shaped vessel argue further for her connection with life-giving. Birds and bulls are considered attributes of the Cretan Goddess—the bird representing the epiphany of the Goddess, her celestial aspect as well as her role as Protectress of Nature; the bull representing perhaps not a bull at all but a cow, and the Goddess’s powers of life, death and regeneration. The egg symbol is particularly important in regard to the continuation of life. As Gimbutas pointed out, from the Neolithic onward, burial pithoi are egg-shaped “symbolizing the womb of the Goddess from which life would re-emerge.”[20] Also, from the Neolithic onward eggs were placed as offerings in graves to ensure regeneration.[21]
To summarize the available archaeological data: the site where the Koumasa I Goddess was found, the symbols on her, the artifacts found with her, as well what they symbolize, all point to the Koumasa I Goddess as a Triple Goddess as Gimbutas defined her: a Goddess of Life, Death, and Regeneration, One with Nature. In the case of the Koumasa I Goddess, we can also use mythology (and linguistics) to bolster the argument that she is indeed Life-Giver, Death Wielder, and Regeneratrix.
The Goddess Ariadne
I said above that British archaeologist Keith Branigan, who excavated the tholos tombs of the Mesara Plain, considered that dancing often took place in the paved areas of the Mesara cemeteries and that these areas were the location “of rituals and ceremonies which were concerned with the vegetational cycle and fertility.”[22] Branigan bases these conclusions on a number of factors, one of which is mythology, and specifically, the myth of the Goddess Ariadne.
Linguists believe that the name Ariadne is found in Linear A (one of the written languages of Bronze Age Crete not yet definitively deciphered) inscriptions where she is known as Arihagne. Thealogian Carol Christ notes that Ariadne “may have been the name of the Goddess of pre-patriarchal Crete. The ending “ne” signifies that the name is not of Indo-European origin and thus predates the Greek myths.”[23]
Because Homer described the dancing ground which Daedalus made for Ariadne at Knossos; called Ariadne she “with the beautiful braids of hair”[24] an epithet reserved almost exclusively for Goddesses in Homer’s work; and described the dances performed there at Knossos, dancing in ancient Crete has long been associated with the Goddess Ariadne.
Importantly, Ariadne is a Goddess who, in early mythology, had two festivals celebrated in her honor: one of sorrow, which depicted her dying, abandoned on Naxos; and one of rejoicing, which depicted her resurrection. Nilsson has argued that the death and resurrection of a vegetation Goddess (rather than a god) is unique, known only in Crete.
Ariadne is more than a heroine of mythology; the common opinion now is that she was an old goddess of Nature venerated on the islands of the Aegean. It deserves to be noticed that the memory of her cult is not recorded by inscriptions, only by the mythographers, but those accounts show that she had very remarkable festivals. The character of her cult, her association with Crete . . . and the appearance of her cult on the islands make it probable that she is of Minoan origin.[25]
Echoing Nilsson, Willetts calls Ariadne a “vegetation goddess who seems to have emanated from the Minoan goddess.”[26] Both Willetts and Nilsson are looking under the patriarchal layers of the myth, those that portray Ariadne as a love-struck princess who is duped by her lover Theseus, to earlier myths which indicate she was originally a Triple Goddess of Life, Death, and Rebirth.
Branigan posits, based on the clues he finds in the mythology, that cemetery areas were the proper locations for rituals of life, death and regeneration in Ariadne’s honor, especially in the Early Minoan Period when the temple-palaces with their central courts and other areas that could accommodate dancing had not yet been built. He further posits, again based on the mythology, that perhaps two festivals each year were celebrated at the tombs, one in the spring and one in the fall. Branigan’s use of the available mythological clues underscores not only the Death-Wielding but the Life-Giving and Regeneratrix aspects of the Goddess which I have demonstrated above is evidenced in the archaeological artifacts, the symbols, and the site itself.
Using mythology to enhance my understanding of the Goddess and her role in ancient Crete brings me back to my younger self and my fascination with mythology. As I try to put together the pieces of this ancient puzzle, the role of the Mother Goddess in Bronze Age Crete, mythology adds important clues, albeit ones that the archaeomythologist must dig deeply to find. For me it is an exciting and worthwhile pursuit for it can restore the Mother Goddess as Life-Giver, Death-Wielder, Regeneratrix, One with Nature, to her original position in the cosmology of ancient Crete and can thus help the modern person to understand this ancient society which was so unlike our own in its honoring of the Goddess and women.
[1] Gimbutas, Civilization, x.
[2] Miller, Writing and Research in Religious Studies, 7.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Dundes, “Introduction,” in Sacred Narrative, 1.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Eliade, “Toward a Definition of Myth,” 5.
[7] Palaima, “Mycenaean Religion,” 355.
[8] Carter, “Amaterasu-O-Mi-Kami,” 53.
[9] Schussler-Fiorenza, Bread not Stone, 15-22.
[10] Ibid., 15.
[11] Ibid., 16.
[12] Ibid., 112.
[13] Ibid., 19.
[14] Ibid., 21.
[15] Gimbutas, Living Goddesses, 152.
[16] Ibid., 153.
[17] Ibid., 154.
[18] Branigan, Dancing with Death, 135.
[19] Ibid., 136.
[20] Gimbutas, Language of the Goddess, 213.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Branigan, Dancing with Death, 135.
[23] Carol P Christ. “A New Glossary for Crete: the Power of Naming and the Study of History.” Feminism and Religion (blog). September 9, 2013. www.feminismandreligion.com/2013/09/09/a-new-glossary-the-power-of-naming-and-the-study-of-history-by-carol-p-christ-/.
[24] Homer, Iliad, 590-593.
[25] Nilsson, Minoan-Mycenaean Religion, 524.
[26] Willetts, Everyday Life in Ancient Crete, 176.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Branigan, Keith. 1993. Dancing with Death: Life and Death in Southern Crete, c 3000-2000 B.C. Amsterdam: Adolf M. Hakkert.
Carter, Susan Gail. 2001. “Amaterasu-O-Mi-Kami: Past and Present. An Exploration of the Japanese Sun Goddess from a Western Perspective.” PhD diss., California Institute of Integral Studies. ProQuest (3004465).
Christ, Carol P. “A New Glossary for Crete: the Power of Naming and the Study of History.” Feminism and Religion(blog). September 9, 2013. https://feminismandreligion.com/2013/09/09/a-new-glossary-the-power-of-naming-and-the-study-of-history-by-carol-p-christ-/
Dundes, Alan. 1984. “Introduction.” In Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth, edited by Alan Dundes, 1-3. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Eliade, Mircea. 1992. “Toward a Definition of Myth.” In Greek and Egyptian Mythologies, compiled by Yes Bonnefoy, 3-5. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gimbutas, Marija. 1991. Civilization of the Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
_____. 1989. The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.
_____. 1999. Living Goddesses. Edited and Supplemented by Miriam Robbins Dexter. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Homer. 1956. The Iliad. Translated by Emile V. Rieu. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Classics.
Miller, Donald E. 1992. Writing and Research in Religious Studies. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentiss Hall.
Nilsson, Martin P. 1949. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and its Survival in Greek Religion. 2nd rev ed. London: Biblio and Tannen.
Palaima, Thomas G. 2008. “Mycenaean Religion.” In The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age, edited by Cynthia Shelmerdine, 342-361. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1984. Bread not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press.
Willetts, Ronald F. 1969. Everyday Life in Ancient Crete. New York: Putnam.
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