Free 02 _ Maltese Goddess, The by Lyn Hamilton Page B

became the presiding deity of every aspect of life. At least forty temples, the oldest freestanding structures in the world, older than the Great Pyramid of Egypt, older than Stonehenge, were built to honor Her. Hagar Qim, Gigantija, Tarxien, names you know well.
    “The tools that built these massive structures have been found. Remnants of the huts and cave dwellings of the workers and worshippers have been uncovered. What we do not find from that time period is archaeological evidence of weapons. What does this mean ? Quite simply that these people lived in peace with their neighbors, in harmony with nature, secure in the workings of the universe. That they knew their place, part of the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. That they understood the interrelationship of all things. That they saw life and all things of it as a circle, not a line.
    “But even as She flourished here, Her worship was under threat elsewhere.
…”
    Maybe he was following me. Maybe right this minute, as I sat in the darkness, he was watching me, or outside watching my car, I thought. Or perhaps he was back at the house doing something even more awful than before. Try to get a grip, I told myself. Your imagination is running away with you. Think this one through logically.
    I tried to do that. Either it was a coincidence that our paths kept crossing, or it wasn’t. Either way, there had to be some rational explanation, a missing piece of information that would make it all make sense.
    “What happened to the Goddess? Where did She go? Around about the fifth millennium b.c.e., a new group of people moved into the area which later became known as Europe. These people, some historians have called them Kurgans, brought a different belief system, a different religion. They worshipped what have come to be called sky gods, gods not of the Earth as the Goddess was, but rather deities, usually male and warlike, who ruled humankind from another place, a place without. Like Mount Olympus, for example, or the Elysian Fields, or more recently and perhaps closer to home, Heaven.
    “Gradually these people, warlike like their gods, began to take over. In some cases, they lived in coexistence with the people of the Goddess, but by the time of the ascendancy of Greece, and even earlier, active attempts were made to stamp Her worship out, attempts that would ultimately be successful. Here in Malta, isolated in many ways from the rest of the Mediterranean world, the Goddess ruled supreme, omnipotent, long after Her worship had vanished elsewhere. Longer, but not forever. Suddenly, about 2500 B.C.B., the part of Malta’s history that belongs to the temple builders abruptly and mysteriously ends.”‘
    Maybe, I thought, I needed to know more about the places where I had seen him, the places built by Gerolamo Cassar. I had the guidebook Anthony had chosen for me, and had already started reading it, in part because I thought he might quiz me later and I didn’t want to appear to be a total ignoramus where his country was concerned, but also because I was beginning to find the history of this tiny island absolutely fascinating. If I could do some study on the places Anthony had taken me to, I might find a connection. At the very least, it should take my mind off the morbid thoughts I was having about the Great White Hunter and his intentions toward me. I resolved to do that.
    “While we may not know exactly what happened to the Goddess here in Malta, we can find hints as to what happened elsewhere in the stories, the epic poems, the mythology of those times. Many say myths are born of fantasy, but I believe they often have an historical basis, and that a careful reading will give us clues to the political and religious events of the day.
    “And many tell of the replacement and subjugation of the Great Goddess and those who worshipped Her by ‘heroes’ of invading peoples. By the time we reach the world of classical Greece, we have an active attempt to rewrite the