"A Bulfinch Press book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 207-210) and index.

Peg Streep's Sanctuaries of the Goddess is a journey into the past, a spiritual adventure into a long-buried time, that captures in glorious images and words the peaceable, generative deity of prehistory and her sacred sites. Long before Judaism and Christianity, long before the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses, the peoples of Western and Central Europe and the Near East worshipped a Goddess, seen in many guises, who encompassed both the awesome power of nature and the forces of life and death. The far reaches of her power found their expression in artifacts, sculptures and carvings, and at the sites where she was venerated - caves, sanctuaries, and temples - that have slept for thousands of years. Sanctuaries of the Goddess brings once-holy places dramatically back to life and recaptures their numinous power. The spiritual and archaeological significance of these ancient sites and their artifacts is conveyed in glowing photographs, from the caves of Lascaux in France to the awe-inspiring underground chambers of the Hypogeum on Malta, the mysteries of Ireland's Dowth and Knowth, and the mountain sanctuaries of Crete. The accompanying text takes readers deep into the past, offering glimpses of rites and rituals half-hidden in the shadows of history and illuminating the mysteries of the ancient Goddess for the present day.