Magna Mater

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The name Magna Mater (Latin for Great Mother) is used almost exclusively in archaeological literature for the ancient goddess Kybele (Greek Κυβέλη), the Great Mother of God (Megále Meter) from Mount Ida (Latin Mater Deum Magna Ideae, short Magna Mater).

In some religious or archaeological writings, the term is sometimes extended to the mother goddesses of the Mediterranean Neolithic.

The author Manfred Kurt Ehmer uses the term in his popular scientific writings for a cross-cultural interpretation in the sense of a far-reaching “eco-spiritual” new religious interpretation, which conceives of the earth as the embodiment of the Magna Mater or as Mother Earth.

Mater Deum Magna Ideae

The name Mater Deum Magna Ideae (Latin, German: “Great Mother of the Gods of Mount Ida”; for Mount Ida see Psiloritis) was given to the Phrygian goddess Kybele after the introduction of the cult of Cybele and Attis in the Roman Empire in 205/204 BC. The name Magna Mater Deorum Idaea ("Great Mother of the Gods of Mount Ida") and the spelling Magna Mater deum Idea and Mater Deum Magna Ideae are also handed down.

In addition to the official Kybele Attis mysteries, there has always been a veneration of the Kybele as “Great Mother” outside of a mystery cult (cultic celebrations with a secret core). Kybele was originally considered in Asia Minor and after the Hellenization also among the Greeks as the producer of life, as a mountain and earth mother, as protector of the cities as well as fertility goddess and goddess of the female sex.

Harald Haarmann: Worship in the Neolithic Age

The linguist and cultural scientist Harald Haarmann associates the veneration of a Magna Mater with the so-called Neolithic Revolution, when people first turned to agriculture and often became sedentary. Neolithization began in Asia Minor about 10,000 BC, reaching from about 6500 BC. Southeast Europe and in the following millennia the rest of Europe. The women were said to have planted and harvested, while the men continued to hunt. As a result, the idea of a female deity is said to have spread.

Written evidence from this period is missing, although the Vinča signs found in the Balkans, possibly dating back to the 6th millennium BC, are interpreted by Haarmann as ordinations, which could not be deciphered yet. In the area between the Balkans, the Danube and up to the present-day Ukraine, an area that was called by Marija Gimbutas as Old Europe, thousands of statuettes from this period have been found, characterized by breasts, pubic triangle and partially overwide hips. However, representations that indicate birth scenes or mother with child are missing. Male representations were found