Cybele, the Mother of the Gods

Goddess Figurine, Catalhoyuk, 5750 B.C.E.
(Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara)

Since it's mother'day today I thought it would be a great opportunity to take a look at the ancestors of what we have defined as the image of motherhood for centuries. Cybele, Magna Mater, Meter, the Mother of the Gods was an Anatolian deity with many attributes and symbolism we are still trying to figure out to this day. As Bettany Hues reveals quite dramatically in her BBC documentary Divine Women there was a time "When God was a Girl," and some of her ancestors lived in Anatolia...
There is a figurine from the sixth millenium B.C.E. excavated in Catalhoyuk at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara of the first archaeological evidence of what has been identified as a Mother Goddess. She sits enthroned between two feline figures giving birth.

Orthostat of a Mother Nursing her Child, Karatepe, 8th century B.C.E.

A Special Birthday Greeting for My Mom

Today is my mother's birthday! As I was trying to figure out how to say "Happy Birthday" in a special way from so many miles away, I started to recall the visual images imprinted in my mind from all my studies and museum visits with "mother and child" themes.  There are so many to choose from starting with religious themes of Madonna and Child to more recent 19th century renditions of domestic scenes by Mary Cassatt or the idealized, romanticized impressions of the interaction of mother and children by Renoir. After much deliberation I decided to use this touching scene I had encountered at my last visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  This little detail I took of the Spanish artist Ribera's work seems to be the perfect visualization of the affection between a mother and child, there is a sense of warmth, care and protection, all the attributes we would need from a mother figure... Anyone who has experienced the same kind of loving from their own mother would be able to relate to this painting on a personal level but...  when we look at it from art historical view, we know that it is so much more than that...


"Happy Birthday Mom"