KYBELE, QUEEN OF EVERYTHING

Kybele (kee-bày-lay – English equivalent to Sybil)

Kybele is all about woman. She is the mother of Earth, but also born of Earth. Strength, wisdom, fertility, continuity, nurturing, regeneration, family.

My introduction to Kybele was in Ankara’s Museum of Anatolian Civilizations – the national archeological & anthropological museum of Turkey. Here sits a 2-foot tall ceramic rendition of the Queen of Everything. She’s a very impressive figure: matronly, regal, voluptuous, seated on her throne flanked by lions – an 8-thousand year old ceramic embodiment of all things powerful, in feminine form. No wonder she is omnipresent in Anatolian/Turkish art & culture.

 

A recent rendition of the museum piece graces the studio of my friend, ceramic artist Erdogan Güleç, in Avanos, in Turkey’s central region of Cappadocia. 

In my humble opinion, Kybele’s back-side is equally impressive as her front. Get a load of that bum! & those arms!  From her pose on her throne, you just know  that she knows she’s the Queen.  There’s nothing tentative about her: she knows who she is, and she’s great.

Of course, there are many renditions of Kybele.  Several ancient ones have been unearthed in various locations throughout the high Anatolian Plateau that covers most of western & central Turkey, and also other locations further to the south & east. Whatever her poses, Kybele has that ample, regal, confident air about her.

Kybele’s image is not to be found in Ottoman art.  She predates, and has survived, religions as we know them today.  She still finds her way into images, sculptures, and everyday pottery from regions like Cappadocia, where people proudly retain their attachment to their Hittite & earlier roots.

Kybele is often stylized almost beyond recognition.  But something identifies her: her voluptuous hips, her proud demeanour, her nurturing breasts, or perhaps just the proximity of the animals and people over whom she reigns.

So now, I’m thinking of what Kybele would look like where I live.  Surely her presence can be felt.  Aside from her more obvious feminine capacity of reproduction, and her ample & shapely figure, what does she look like on our North American West Coast? There are no lions, of course: but perhaps eagles? Bears? Orcas? Or some more docile or less majestic creatures? And what about the trees?

One thing I am feeling these days is that, for all her confidence, Kybele would not be very proud of us.  We have not been very careful custodians of her legacy.  So for now, the Kybele figures growing in clay from my hands seem to all have their heads bowed in sadness, or turned quizzically to the side.