Crop Domestication and Gender j 4545 45
(a)
(b)Figure 3.6 Neolithic “Goddess” figurines from Sha’ar Hagolan (~8000 bp).
From Garfinkel, Y. (2004), The Goddess of Sha’ar Hagolan. Israel Exploration Society, Jerusalem.Freikman and Garfinkel have emphasized that, in contrast to the zoomorphic figurines
found at the site, which were schematically and crudely executed, the female figurines “are
among the highest achievements of the Neolithic Period in the Near East, being made with
great care and with much attention to detail.”^36 The authors concluded that “the anthro-
pomorphic items were indeed used as venerated cultic items, representing supernatural
powers.”
Freikman and Garfinkel’s hypothesis doesn’t exclude the presence of other additional
deities or cultic figures. For example, some ithyphallic male figurines have also been recov-
ered from the site, although male images are extremely rare. It is also possible that other
entities were formally worshipped in dedicated shrines or temples by multiple households.
So far, no public cult buildings dating to the Neolithic have been found at Sha’ar Hagolan.
In addition to portable objects such as figurines, human images were engraved on stone,
painted onto pottery, and painted on walls and floors. Garfinkel has interpreted a vast body
of human representation in art from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, as
ritual dancing, which he believes played an important role in maintaining social coherence
and group identity once people began to live in permanent settlements.^37 Some examples
of possible dancing rituals painted onto pottery are shown in Figure 3.7A, and a gallery of
female dancers taken from many such examples is shown in Figure 3.7B. While both men
and women are depicted, women account for some 75% of the dancing figures during the