The most exciting find of this particular dig season was a life size statue of Artemis, found up on Area A. She had been lying just under the surface of the dirt, and was actually discovered by a couple of local workers who had been taking a break over where she was found. One of the younger guys who was sitting on some big rocks over in an area where no one was digging (they were all chatting and drinking their noonday glasses of hot tea), noticed a lump in the dirt. Jumping down off the rock to take a closer look, he brushed some of the dirt away to find this gleaming white marble statue. Excitedly he started calling out to everybody, "Come look! Come look!" Of course
J was estatic! We all were! There had been evidence on the coins minted at Abila that there had once stood a Roman temple at this site, but no one had as yet any evidence of where that temple might have stood, or to whom it might have been dedicated. Now it seemed certain that Area A, which was the highest point of Abila, and thus an obvious choice for a temple, was most likely the site of the temple depicted on the the back side of many of the coins, and that Artemis was the city's honored deity. Of course, the images of Athena (probably to pay homage to Athens) and Tyche (the goddess of fortune, who appears more often on Decapolis coins than any other deity) both appear on coins minted at Abila, with Herakles being the male god depicted most often. It appeared that he was the chief
god of Abila, as well as of many other Decapolis cities, especially Philadelphia (or modern day Amman), where a temple to Herakles had been excavated and partially restored up on the city's citadel. But to find that there might have been a chief
goddess worshipped at the temple of Abila was unbelievably exciting!
The Greek god Herakles was known to the Romans as Hercules, probably
the most famous hero of Greek mythology, idealized for his courage, his strength, and his skill in the face of adversity. He was called "the defender of the earth," receiving very little help from the gods, nor seeking the glory, fame, power, or eventual immortality that he acquired. He did what he did for one reason only, not because he wanted to (at first he refuses his labors), but because it is a divine command! He was the son of Zeus and a
mortal woman. Out of his great love for Herakles (
Hera +
Kleos: glory), Zeus promises to make him immortal, but in order to please his wife, Hera, he agrees that his son will have to perform 12 labors for King Eyrystheus of Tiryns, doing whatever he commands. For eight years he labors, until his 11th request from the King finds him taking on the task of holding up the world for Atlas, who has asked him to do so temporarily, but then leaves him with the awesome burden. His 12th and final labor takes him into the Underworld, a kingdom ruled by Hades. For this task he is given help by Hermes, the wayfinder, who leads the shades of the dead down into the Underworld, and thus must lead Herakles. Of course, Hades will only let Herakles pass through if he does him a favor, which he does in order to complete his 12th and final labor for the King. Eventually, Herakles goes on to live his life and have many more adventures. Unfortunately, many years later, when Herakles' wife gives him a tunic laced in a poison that is supposed to make him love only her (so Herakles' enemies have treacherously led her to believe), the heat from his body activates the poison, causing the tunic to stick to his skin and burn it. In agony he tears off the tunic, tearing his skin off as well. He is in such excruciating pain that only death will relieve him, and so he builds a funeral pyre, lays down on it, and waits until someone happens by who agrees to light the pyre for him. However, just as the torch touches the wood, a bolt of lightening flashes in the sky. A cloud immediately descends into the roaring heap of flames, envelopes Herakles, and carries him up to Mt. Olympus. Zeus has kept his promise, and Herakles is made immortal.
What's intersting about this story is that it contains elements that can be found in both the Old and New Testament stories. (And of course most readers of the Bible know that Paul addressed a crowd in Athens, explaining to them the meaning behind their own statue to an unnamed god, a god that, once explained to them as representing Jesus Christ, many pagans were poised to accept. Their own mythologies, stories that reflected their spiritual foundations, had prepared their hearts and their minds to believe that such a God as Christ could indeed come in the flesh in order to save mankind, and that he could be born of a mortal woman!) What's interesting about the story of Heracles/Hercules is that most likely he existed in a matriarchal culture. The Hebrew Bible is written to address a very patriarchal culture, and by the time of the New Testament, matriarchal cultures had all but been demoted or swallowed up. And while both Jewish and Christian theologians point out that God is formless, neither male or female (and even God says, "I am that I am"), in truth, we have never been able to speak about God without using symbols and images. We have no other way of relating to the Divine, and while knowing that every image we
do use to describe the Divine is transcended by the Divine, we have mostly created male forms, used male language, and male metaphors. Thus we have embedded into our belief system that God is really male, leaving us with no Divine Feminine imagery.
Enter Artemis, the archer goddess (known as Diana to the Romans), an immortal child of Zeus. She was the twin of Apollo, the god of prophecy, medicine, archery, and music, and later the god of the sun. Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, and later became goddess of the moon. It is known that she was worshipped in Western Asia Minor (the temple to Artemis in Ephesus, Turkey was one of the Seven Wonders of the World), as a goddess of fertility, and in Minoan Crete as Mother Earth. Homer called her "the Mistress of Wild Animals," and in one of his Hymns he says she loved the woods and the wild chase over the mountains. During the Hellenistic period her character was altered so that she became known as the goddess of hunting and nature, and also the protectress of youth. She was a maiden goddess to whom young girls on their wedding day often offered a lock of their hair or beloved toys. As she was the goddess of nature her sanctuaries were in plains, on mountains, near springs and rivers, and even near coasts and capes. Her most beloved domestic animals were the dog, the goat, the hare, and especially the deer, while among the wild animals she especially loved the bear, the boar, the lion, and the wolf. It is said that in one of the parks dedicated to Artemis that the wild and domestic animals lived together in perfect peace. She herself was carefree and wild.
While myths are the essence of religion, Carl Jung (and later, Joseph Campbell) said that they were part of a universal collective unconscious. I had studied this idea all throughout graduate school, writing several papers on it, as I personally tested the various mythological systems I had been taught were wrong. I had become extremely interested in the idea of the Divine Feminine, and once I converted to Christianity I wondered how the feminine in such a dominant patriarchal theological system could possibly still be manifest. Creation, according to the Greeks, moved from a mother-dominated society, in which the most important divinities were female, to a father-dominated society, in which the most important divinities were male. Gaea, who
is Mother Earth, was the first Great Goddess. The people who were living in Greece when the Bronze Age tribes invaded the land, worshipped the Great Goddess because they were farmers, and the fertility of the earth, as well as their ability to have enough children to assure the continuity of their clan, was of prime importance to them. Gaea's daughter, Rhea (or Cybele) was also known as Mother Earth, but by the third generation of gods, Zeus, a male god, becomes the dominate deity (with Hera, Demeter, and Hestia still looked to as beloved goddesses). Artemis, who is fourth generation, is still venerated as Mother Earth in some areas, but Apollo, who is her twin and originally her equal, wins out over her in most places, becoming god of the sun. She later becomes goddess of the moon, or of deep intuition. And this is what was getting to me. To the Greeks, logic and reasoning become elevated, associated with education and male "thinking," while intuition, connected to the feminine aspect, gets demoted in importance (feelings cannot be trusted), and thus another important separation occurs within the Divine, and within mankind.
Muslims (who strongly believe that God is male, and who operate within a very strict patriarchal society), refuse to allow any images of God or of man, thus when we found Artemis, it was without her head. During the Islamic Period, not only had statues been decapitated, but lots of other artwork had also been destroyed in order to maintain a strict adherence to their religious law concerning graven images. But Christians had already replaced her, and the Trinity was all male. However, the Greeks did ultimately preserve one feminine aspect of the Divine which has lasted in our texts, if nowhere else, and that was Sophia, or Wisdom. Unfortunately, the wise woman has become a crone in a society that worships youth. One book that has been published since my last visit to Jordan, Turkey or Greece, is a Christian work of fiction that has dared to put the feminine (and the non-white, non westerner) back into God. William Paul Young's
The Shack not only portrays God (the Father) as a woman, but she's a big jocular black woman! And Jesus, who has never been portrayed as being overly masculine (as a child I took issue with his Renaissance portrait as being far too effeminate for a carpenter, but who has always been much more nurturing and forgiving than His Father--two aspects of the same God), is portrayed as a Jewish/Arab hippy type guy who is very easy to hang with and talk to, while Young's portrayal of the Holy Spirit is something more ethereal (and somewhat Oriental), something more celestial, a spirit being who lives in wonder, and fun, and creativity, who lives in a state of childlikeness. And together they make up three aspects of God, the masculine, the feminine, and the genderless child, touching the hearts of millions of readers who, like me, have been searching for this lost aspect of the Divine. This was what Artemis meant to me. Losing that wild, carefree, feminine, childlike aspect of the Divine meant losing a part of God. But she wasn't lost. She had been lying there just under the dirt, barely visible, but there just the same. I'm not sure that anyone else, including
J, felt as deeply about her reappearance as I did, but Artemis, as a symbol for the divine goddess, would follow me for years to come.
