Anatolia, Türkiye: In the Footsteps of Ancient Goddesses

tiffanihr
Sep 19
6 min read

In early spring of this year, I embarked on a journey across the Anatolian peninsula in search of traces of the veneration of the feminine cult. Not the feminine understood as a hierarchical power within a specific society, but rather in an attempt to understand what a matriarchal or matrifocal society truly means.

Anatolia, located in present-day Turkey, holds strategic geographic importance as a bridge between Asia and Europe, facilitating the exchange of peoples, cultures, and goods throughout history. As a crucial point on the ancient Silk Road, it enabled the transit of valuable goods between East and West. Its central position and control over vital straits, such as the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, attracted the attention of empires such as the Hittites, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, and Ottomans, cementing the region as a multicultural and commercial hub for millennia.

In Antiquity, especially in the pre-Hellenistic and Hellenistic periods, this region was marked by strong cultural influences that oscillated between devotion to the feminine and the prevalence of patriarchal structures.

Before the consolidation of the Greco-Roman patriarchy, Anatolia was home to important cult centers dedicated to female deities. One of the most notable examples was the Temple of Artemis in the city of Ephesus, considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Although Artemis is known in the Greek pantheon as the goddess of hunting and virginity, in Ephesus she was venerated as a mother goddess, protector of fertility, nature, and life cycles—reflecting older and deeply rooted traditions of feminine worship. Her multi-breasted image symbolized abundance and creative power.

Another important example is Pergamum (modern-day Bergama), which, although it became a Hellenistic and Roman center, preserved traces of older cults associated with the Great Mother. The goddess Cybele, for example, had her cult spread throughout Anatolia, especially in the region of Phrygia, where she was revered as the Mother of the Gods and a symbol of the fertile and wild land.

In these contexts, religious practices and forms of social organization reflected matrifocal characteristics. The presence of these goddesses in monumental temples suggests that, for long periods, there was a recognition of the creative power of the feminine, both spiritually and communally.

With the arrival of the Greeks and, later, the Romans, social and religious structures underwent a significant transformation. The process of Hellenization and Romanization brought with it male deities and a more patriarchal political and social organization.

During the Hellenistic era, Anatolia became the scene of the rise of warrior gods and dominant male deities, as the spirit of the land shifted from a feminine-centered reverence to a landscape in which divine and political power intertwined with the masculine. Pergamum, once touched by the essence of the Great Mother, now rose as a vital sanctuary of Zeus and Asclepius—a testament to the changing order, in which force and domination replaced care and nurture as sacred ideals.

This transition also reflected a symbolic restructuring: Artemis, who once symbolized fertility and the protection of the earth, was reinterpreted in many contexts as a more distant goddess, associated with virginity and the control of natural instincts. The integration of Cybele's cult into the Roman pantheon also diluted her matrifocal character, making her a more marginal and exotic figure within the dominant culture.

The rise of Christianity marked another profound transformation: as it consolidated its presence in the Roman Empire, many ancient goddesses were gradually absorbed or reshaped into the figures of Christian saints and martyrs. This shift from the cult of the Great Mother to the veneration of the Virgin Mary in certain regions reveals a subtle yet powerful reconfiguration of the sacred feminine.

With the rise of patriarchal monotheistic religions, goddess worship was suppressed, reconfigured, or even demonized. Women ceased to be sacred and began to be seen as sinners. The body became a prison for the soul. Sexuality became taboo.

Collectively, we have lost our connection to the cycles, to the Earth, to the intuitive knowledge that once flowed through priestesses, healers, midwives, and artisans. The silence imposed on the feminine was not just historical and political—it was spiritual.

Long before the great patriarchal religions shaped the world with their celestial gods and linear laws, the womb of the Earth was the first temple, and the female body, its most sacred reflection. During my immersion in the mountains and caves of Anatolia, especially in stunning Cappadocia, I contemplated the radical shift that led humanity from an era of harmony with the earth and its cycles to an incessant quest to dominate it.

The fate of planet Earth mirrors the fate of the feminine, and it is remarkable to witness how this evolution unfolds. From the ancient reverence for nature—its rivers, forests, and life cycles—we have moved to a relentless drive for control and exploitation. We see the emergence of armies and new belief systems that have subjugated the feminine, stripping it of its freedom and voluptuous sensuality, once celebrated as the source of life in all its splendor, to recode it as possession, a threat in the eyes of the dominating mentality.

We passed through the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük, where powerful images are preserved: female figures seated on thrones flanked by felines, with generous bellies and full breasts—symbols of fertility, protection, and abundance. These statues, dating back over 7,000 years, were not mere decorative objects. They were expressions of reverence for the Earth as Mother, for the cycle of life and death, for the generative force that inhabits the feminine.

In the absence of temples, the woman's body was the temple. The womb was the sacred center, the connection between Heaven and Earth, between the visible and the invisible.

This goddess cult was not exclusive to Anatolia. In other parts of the ancient world, we find echoes: in Mesopotamia, Inanna (or Ishtar) was the goddess of love, fertility, and war—an archetype unafraid of her shadows. In Egypt, Isis represented mystery, regeneration, and divine motherhood. In Hindu tradition, Durga, Kali, and Lakshmi manifest different facets of feminine power (Shakti): protection, transformation, and abundance.

In India, despite being a patriarchal society, the philosophy of tantra offers one of the most profound expressions of the sacred feminine: Shakti, the creative energy that permeates all existence. Shakti is not just a goddess: she is the very movement of life, the flow of nature, the vibration of sound, the heat of desire, the dance of the soul.

In tantra, the body is not sinful. It is an instrument. It is sacred. Pleasure is a bridge to the divine. The union of Shiva (consciousness) and Shakti (energy) symbolizes the balance between the masculine and feminine principles—within us, between us, and in the cosmos.

When approaching these cultures, the question arises: did matriarchal societies exist? Not necessarily in the sense of female domination over men, but as more horizontal structures, in which the feminine was the symbolic and spiritual axis of social organization.

Lithuanian-American archaeologist and anthropologist Marija Gimbutas (1921–1994), renowned for her extensive research on the subject, proposed that many prehistoric European cultures were guided by a Goddess-centered cosmology, in which gender balance and respect for the cycles of nature prevailed. Patriarchy, with its verticalized power structures, would emerge later, along with the cult of war and possession.

In these ancient societies, symbolic and social power was centered on the female figure, but this did not necessarily mean that women dominated men. Life in these communities was rooted in agriculture and crafts, focusing on the fertility of the land and abundance, and there was little evidence of violence or warfare. The cult of the feminine was at the center of spiritual and cultural life, and the main deity was the Great Mother, symbol of the earth, fertility, and the cycle of life. The iconography of these cultures was rich in symbols, such as small, rounded female figures representing fecundity and continuity, as well as motifs of serpents, spirals, birds, bees dripping honey, and bulls carrying their horns like crescent moons above their heads, reflecting rebirth, eternity, and the interconnection between life and death.

The arrival of Indo-European tribes from the Central Asian steppes around 3000 BC brought profound changes to these societies. According to Gimbutas, these peoples were nomadic, warlike, and hierarchical, promoting a patriarchal model that replaced the ancient social and spiritual structures. The figure of the Goddess was then relegated to lesser roles or even demonized, while male deities associated with power and war came to dominate the pantheon. This transition also led to the fragmentation of the feminine archetype, now divided between the pure virgin and the seductive vulgar woman, disrupting the symbolic unity that once embraced woman as creator and nurturer.

The return of the Goddess is not a battle against the masculine. It is an invitation to integration. Shiva and Shakti, heaven and Earth, reason and intuition—they must dance together. By looking back and reclaiming the symbols, rituals, and values of cultures that celebrated the feminine, we open space for a more integrated present and a more compassionate future.

May this memory awaken in us not only knowledge, but experience. May the body become a temple again, and may the soul recover its fertility.