Subject: “Only Women Bleed”
I have visited your NYC office/library in the C.G.Jung Center several times.I wondered if youhave personnel who might comment on the following idea?
Grey Holme
Diagram on left: From page 244, Marija Gimbutas, The Civilization of the Goddess, Harper, ©1991 --“An even more esoteric symbol of the womb of regeneration is the bull’shead or skull (bucranium). The similarity of the bucranium with the shape ofthe woman’s uterus and fallopian tubes was noticed by the artist DorothyCameron while working with James Mellaart (in 1960-65) at Catal Huyuk (townin Anatolia [Turkey], c. 7000 BC) . A great deal of information on thesymbolic role of the bull’s head is revealed by the wall paintings fromCatal Huyuk. In many, the bucranium is shown in place of the uterus in thebody of the Goddess. This is a plausible if esoteric explanation for theimportance of this motif in the symbolism of Old Europe, Anatolia, and theNear East.”
Center photo: from Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. © 1994-2001 -“Bucranium - decorative motif representing an ox killed in religious sacrifice. The motif originated in a ceremony wherein an ox’s head was hungfrom the wooden beams supporting the temple roof (italics ed.-see next);this scene was later represented, in stone, on the frieze, or stone lintels,above the columns in Doric temples. The motif has been found on painted pottery in Iraq dating from 5000 BC. It was later imported into Bronze Age Crete as part of the bull anddouble-ax cult, where the bull’s head was decorated with a garland of bayleaves. In Roman examples, the garland of bay leaves was omitted.”
Photo on right: from New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV, Oxford Press, © 1994 -John 19.16,34 “So they took Jesus: and carrying the cross by himself, hewent out to what is called The Place of the Skull (Greek: craniou topos), which in Hebrew (Aramaic) is calledGolgotha. There they crucified him...one of the soldiers pierced (Jesus’s) side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.”
Dear Grey Holme
Thank you for your letter and evocative images! I
am afraid we don’t have the time to do research of this kind,
however intriguing it might be. I hope
you can come in and do this yourself. These
are just some things I remember from our files -
there is a
connection in Egyptian imagery between uterus and cow horns - nut bull
horns,
as far as I know. There is a connection
between Christ’s wound and a bleeding (or at least red-colored) vulva
suggesting the womb from which the Church was born. We have several
images like
that.
All best wishes, Ami Ronnberg, Curator
ARAS (Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) NYC, NY
From text provided by ARAS with image (at left)from the Bible
Moralisee(c.
1250): (5Ek.010) “The sleep of Adam is the death of Christ. The side of
the
first man constitutes the woman, as the wound in the side of Christ on
the
cross signifies the Church (Ecclesia), the wife of Christ, the blood
and the
water of baptism. The comparison between Adam’s sleep and the death of
Christ
on the cross, the creation of Eve from the rib taken from Adam’s side
and the
birth or creation of the Church (the Lord’s Bride) from the wound in
Christ’s
side while He was on the cross is an old typological comparison first
made by
the earliest Christian theologian: Tertullian, Augustine, Jerome and
Avitus.
(from 5Ek.573) In Christian iconography, the wound becomes the
spiritual
vulva-womb from which Christ is shown literally giving birth to His
Church,
thereby strengthening the concept of the androgynous mature of Christ,
which
was suppressed by the church authorities.”