..did I mention that the middle east has some kind of feminist religions that were prevalent before Islam. Generally involved snake worship. The Gods were actually brought into Helenism, but demoted in importance (which is how the Greeks paid tribute to foreign cultures). Medusa was actually an important lead deity that was demoted by the Greeks because she was a threat to their power structure. my source is actually Joseph Campbell... who a lot of people talk about, but rarely read or at least they don't admit they don't read him.(Times Of Israel)A prehistoric stone fertility object in the shape of a phallus, found on the route of a planned rail line in northern Israel (photo credit: Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority) Archaeologists have uncovered remnants of a Stone Age culture on the route of a planned rail line in northern Israel, including obsidian arrowheads and fertility objects like a stone phallus and a carved depiction of female genitalia.
Archaeologists have uncovered remnants of a Stone Age culture on the route of a planned rail line in northern Israel, including obsidian arrowheads and fertility objects like a stone phallus and a carved depiction of female genitalia.The oldest ruins at the site date to 9,000 years ago, the Israel Antiquities Authority said, but it was still inhabited thousands of years later. The location was excavated in a salvage dig ahead of the construction of new train tracks from Haifa to Carmiel.
The findings include the most complete buildings from that time discovered so far in Israel, and some of the oldest evidence of organized legume agriculture in the Middle East, archaeologists Yitzhak Paz and Yaakov Vardi said in a statement.
The objects discovered at the site also show that residents traded with faraway cultures, they said.
“The large number of tools made from obsidian, which is not found in Israel, shows trade ties with Turkey, Georgia and other areas as long ago as this period,” read the statement, released earlier this month.
The fertility objects, like the small stone phallus, “also represented the fertility of the land,” they said. The archaeologists link those findings to a civilization that existed in what is now Israel between 5500 and 4500 BCE.
The civilization, known as the Wadi Rabbah culture, was named for the first site at which it was discovered northeast of Tel Aviv in the 1950s
