This year has been rich in events commemorating the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas, with many conferences, exhibitions and lectures held in Lithuania and abroad. The Lithuanian Folk Art Institute hosted a lecture in early October on her book Ancient Symbols in Lithuanian Folk Art. It will soon be available online on the Institute’s website, ltfai.org.
In Vilnius, “Istorijos namai” (The House of History) is currently honouring her with an exhibition called “Goddesses and Warriors”, which continues until March 2022. In the US, the third Marija Gimbutas Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Ruth Tringham of the University of California, Berkeley. The first two memorial lectures dealt with Marija’s Kurgan Hypothesis concerning the origins of the Indo-European culture.
This lecture will instead focus on what was most dear to Marija, the Mother Goddess. Professor Tringham’s extensive archeologic and anthropologic research puts her in a position of being the pre-eminent expert in this subject.
The title of her presentation will be: Old Europe: House, Fire, the Goddess, and Ambiguity. Professor Tringham is not only a scholar, but also an accomplished singer. With her choral group she performed a Lithuanian (Žemaitiška) folk song, “Pjaun Bernielis Lonkuo Šeina”, which can be seen on YouTube. The memorial lecture will take place Wednesday, December 1, 2021, at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, at 7 PM. The lecture will be streamed live on the Oriental Institute’s YouTube channel. You can log into this program up to a week before the presentation. The first two Memorial Lectures by Lord Colin Renfrew and
Professor Petra Goedegebuure can be accessed at https://www.youtube.com/c/TheOrientalInstitute.
Info from Dr. Audrius Pliopys at Artistic Explorations of Thought
