Marija Gimbutas

“Archaeological materials are not mute. They speak their own language. And they need to be used for the great source they are to help unravel the spirituality of those of our ancestors who predate the Indo-Europeans by many thousands of years.”
― Marija Gimbutas

“The reason for the great number and variety of Old European images lies in the fact that this symbolism is lunar and chthonic, built around the understanding that life is in eternal transformation, in constant and rhythmic change between creation and destruction, birth and death. The moon's three phases-new, waxing, and old-are repeated in trinities or triple function deities that recall these moon phases; maiden, nymph, and crone; life-giving, death-giving, and transformational; rising, dying, and self-renewing. Life-givers are also death-wielders. Immortality is secured through the innate forces of regeneration within Nature itself. The concept of regeneration and renewal is perhaps the most outstanding and dramatic theme we perceive in this symbolism.
It seems more appropriate to view all of these Goddess images as aspects of the one Great Goddess with her core functions-life-giving, death-wielding, regeneration, and renewal. The obvious analogy would be to Nature itself; through the multiplicity of phenomena and continuing cycles of which it is made, one recognizes the fundamental and underlying unity of Nature. The Goddess is immanent rather than transcendent and therefore physically manifest.”
― Marija Gimbutas, The Language of the Goddess