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The gate of horn: A study of the religious conceptions of the stone age, and their influence upon European thought Unknown Binding – January 1, 1946

by Gertrude Rachel Levy (Author)

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Print length

349 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Book Collectors Society
Publication date

January 1, 1946
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G. Rachel Levy
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Monica Sjoo
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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0007HDYTU
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Book Collectors Society (January 1, 1946)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Unknown Binding ‏ : ‎ 349 pages

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Top reviews from the United States

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cheryl

Wonderful

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 16, 2021

Verified Purchase

The book arrived a little late but it was well worth the wait!! It was in was in great condition.

One person found this helpful

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Sidney L. Davis, Jr.

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 16, 2014

Verified Purchase

Outstanding good book. Good condition as described.

One person found this helpful

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sklaw5

The Gate of Horn

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 10, 2013

This is one of the most brilliant and interesting books I have ever read. Levy actually delivers on her promise to provide a convicing discussion of the how stone age thinking effected modern thinking. It is hard to imagine one person having read so much during one lifetime.

8 people found this helpful

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P. W. Miles

A fascinating account of religious origins, grounded in archaeology and the classics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 8, 2014

Verified Purchase

(Gertrude) Rachel Levy (1884-1966) was librarian of the Societies for Promotion of Hellenic and Roman Studies, which are administered within the University of London - an important position in the world of learning. I could find little about her on-line, and she seems to be largely forgotten and her ideas dismissed. However, she wrote from first-hand experience of archaeological digs in Iraq in the 1930s. Just before the Second World War she got a grant from the University enabling her to visit megalithic sites in South-West Europe, including the famous caves of the Dordogne of which she gives some graphic descriptions.

The book's theme is the growth of religious conceptions from the Stone Age onward. Though Levy writes from within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the treatment - if perhaps a little dated - seems to me in line with modern anthropological ideas. The impulse behind the cave-paintings was, she writes, "a participation in the nature of the beasts which was of the nature of religion itself". Thus, identification with animals (which seems very understandable, considering the intimate relationship between hunter and prey) leads to their invocation in rites of passage and totemistic practices generally.

The further development - including the vexed question of Goddess-worship - is far too complicated for me to summarise. However, I found great interest in Levy's account of the Greek drama and its beginnings in the cult of Dionysus. Like most scholars of her time, she thought the Dionysus-cult (which is portrayed in Euripides' play "The Bacchae") a relatively recent, "Eastern" importation. It had a "stamp of excess", it was "effeminate", and (by implication) it was thoroughly un-Greek - a point of view which might perhaps be questioned.

Another theme is the "magical defence", embodied in so-called Troy-Town mazes. There is a very ancient maze of this kind at Saffron Walden in Essex, and I heard recently that the practice of dancing around it, mentioned by Virgil in connection with the founding of Rome, is still carried on there.

She gives an interesting account of Thales. The "water" of which he said the world is made is, according to Levy, the "one original soul-substance". Thales' further dicta (perhaps only half-understood by Diogenes Laertius, from whom we receive them) are: The All is alive; the All is full of daemons, which are the agents of activity of the soul-substance. It seems to me a deliberately limited speculation, a practical man's mysticism if you will, but illuminating the tendency to monotheism which occurred across the Near East after 1000 BC.

I can't possibly do full justice to the book, but I should like to recommend it as fascinating and well-written, and also (though a work of deep scholarship) accessible and clear in its ideas.

2 people found this helpful

P. W. Miles

A fascinating account of religious origins, grounded in archaeology and the classics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 8, 2014

Verified Purchase

(Gertrude) Rachel Levy (1884-1966) was librarian of the Societies for Promotion of Hellenic and Roman Studies, which are administered within the University of London - an important position in the world of learning. I could find little about her on-line, and she seems to be largely forgotten and her ideas dismissed. However, she wrote from first-hand experience of archaeological digs in Iraq in the 1930s. Just before the Second World War she got a grant from the University enabling her to visit megalithic sites in South-West Europe, including the famous caves of the Dordogne of which she gives some graphic descriptions.

The book's theme is the growth of religious conceptions from the Stone Age onward. Though Levy writes from within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the treatment - if perhaps a little dated - seems to me in line with modern anthropological ideas. The impulse behind the cave-paintings was, she writes, "a participation in the nature of the beasts which was of the nature of religion itself". Thus, identification with animals (which seems very understandable, considering the intimate relationship between hunter and prey) leads to their invocation in rites of passage and totemistic practices generally.

The further development - including the vexed question of Goddess-worship - is far too complicated for me to summarise. However, I found great interest in Levy's account of the Greek drama and its beginnings in the cult of Dionysus. Like most scholars of her time, she thought the Dionysus-cult (which is portrayed in Euripides' play "The Bacchae") a relatively recent, "Eastern" importation. It had a "stamp of excess", it was "effeminate", and (by implication) it was thoroughly un-Greek - a point of view which might perhaps be questioned.

Another theme is the "magical defence", embodied in so-called Troy-Town mazes. There is a very ancient maze of this kind at Saffron Walden in Essex, and I heard recently that the practice of dancing around it, mentioned by Virgil in connection with the founding of Rome, is still carried on there.

She gives an interesting account of Thales. The "water" of which he said the world is made is, according to Levy, the "one original soul-substance". Thales' further dicta (perhaps only half-understood by Diogenes Laertius, from whom we receive them) are: The All is alive; the All is full of daemons, which are the agents of activity of the soul-substance. It seems to me a deliberately limited speculation, a practical man's mysticism if you will, but illuminating the tendency to monotheism which occurred across the Near East after 1000 BC.

I can't possibly do full justice to the book, but I should like to recommend it as fascinating and well-written, and also (though a work of deep scholarship) accessible and clear in its ideas.

2 people found this helpful

See all reviews

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The gate of horn: A study of the religious conceptions of the stone age, and their influence upon European thought Unknown Binding – January 1, 1946

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