Ancient Trenches

Check it out. Looks like it might be useful for info and connects.

 

http://www.ancienttrenches.com/

Thanks for the much needed encouragement, it's been a bit of a struggle to even get any feedback.  The site is still under construction and i will be adding more information in an easier to access format, especially local mines, trade routes, military operations.  I am trying to use verifiable information from reputable sources, makes life easier for everyone. I think we've been up to the same things for quite some time. 

si si da sola

I would add the story of Ishtar going to the Underworld to save her lover, Tammuz http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/texts/classic/ishtardesc.htm
She was required to give at every door toward the Underworld one of her protective amulets, and she complied, even though she knew that she wouldn't have anything to protect her and she would die - but she did it anyway, all for love. She was Inanna, and as such she was the first living person in the Western tradition /that started with Sumer/ who dared to enter the realm of the dead, and sacrifice her life for her lover - in other words, before Jesus there was Ishtar.

"...To the Land of No Return, the realm of Ereshkigal,
To the dark house, the abode of Irkalla
To the house which none leave who have entered it,
To the road from which there is no way back,
To the house wherein the entrants are bereft of light,
Where dust is their fare and clay their food,
Where they see no light, residing in darkness,
Where they are clothed like birds, with wings for garments,
And where over door and bolt is spread dust.

When Ishtar reached the gate of the Land of No Return,..." Ibid.

In my view, Ishtar is one of the manifestations of the Great Goddess Mother, and passed into ancient Egypt as Isis, in Anatolia as Cibele, in Thracia as Cotys, in Greece as Hera/Aphrodite/Persephone/Demeter - and each one of those aspects bore a feature of her,, all stacked like cards behind each other, everyone of there may have a story about her told, with pictures etc - all up to the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, who are also aspects of the Mother-Goddess. Ishtar is a cultural archetype, and one of the oldest faces of it - manifestation of Mother-Nature, as such one can jump to Jung and his archetypes, one of which is the mother one:

"...The mother archetype is a particularly good example. All of our ancestors had mothers. We have evolved in an environment that included a mother or mother-substitute. We would never have survived without our connection with a nurturing-one during our times as helpless infants. It stands to reason that we are "built" in a way that reflects that evolutionary environment: We come into this world ready to want mother, to seek her, to recognize her, to deal with her.

So the mother archetype is our built-in ability to recognize a certain relationship, that of "mothering." Jung says that this is rather abstract, and we are likely to project the archetype out into the world and onto a particular person, usually our own mothers. Even when an archetype doesn't have a particular real person available, we tend to personify the archetype, that is, turn it into a mythological "story-book" character. This character symbolizes the archetype.

The mother archetype is symbolized by the primordial mother or "earth mother" of mythology, by Eve and Mary in western traditions, and by less personal symbols such as the church, the nation, a forest, or the ocean. According to Jung, someone whose own mother failed to satisfy the demands of the archetype may well be one that spends his or her life seeking comfort in the church, or in identification with "the motherland," or in meditating upon the figure of Mary, or in a life at sea...."

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/jung.html

Or, staying on the prehistory-theme, I would go with Gumbitas and her Bird-Woman, /but staying away from the idea of the universal matriarchal organization during Paleolithic, I root for egually-gendered society in the Prehistory/, and follow this to Isthar, through Gobekli Tepe, Malta, /you already mentioned Catal Huyuk/.

Anyway, this is a very richly layered stack of material one can elaborate on. Even the fairies, nymphs and mermaids are connected with the variety of female cults - the many Ishtars from all kinds of places. So, I don't want to come across like some pushy old croneyou are running a very interesting site, cudos for that. Count me as a fan.

Edited by Don Quixote - 15-Feb-2012 at 23:26

i am trying to link this idea that exploratory groups with a complete set of knowledge went out in search of resources as much as land to eventually settle.  much the same activities continued and still do...  populations appear with husbandry, agriculture, cosmology, philosophy, sophisticated architecture (this is my focus with the megaliths), etc....