All language subtitles for Ancient Civilizations Rise and Fall of the Wise Woman 1080p

>> The idea that there have been
ages where women once ruled is

not new.

Archaeologists
have found evidence

pointing to several
examples of societies

that were matriarchal.

And yet for many
mainstream historians,

this concept is
still unsettling.

In a 2017 study, a
team of scientists

led by Archaeologist Douglas
Kennet of Pennsylvania State

University found evidence
of a matrilineal society

in New Mexico's Chaco Canyon.

The remains of 14
women were discovered

beneath a dazzling cache of more
than 15,000 turquoise necklaces

and pieces of shell jewelry.

The remnants of these
women were found

in an elite series
of burial chambers

that marked them as among the
most noble members of Chacoan

society.

And astoundingly, under
closer examination

it was revealed that no fewer
than nine of the individuals

shared the exact
same matrilineal

DNA, which is passed only
from mother to child,

concluding that power and
influence was passed down

through the female line.

Archaeologists are
now finding that there

have been many
ancient cultures that

once worshiped female deities.

>> There clearly was a time
in remote antiquity when

the feminine, the female was
regarded as the single most

important aspect of humanity.

And you have going back
at least 30,000 years deep

into the Upper
Paleolithic these that are

referred to as goddess figures.

These are large-breasted,
large-hipped female figures.

They're the dominant
iconography of that period.

And that iconography
continues all the way down

through the Upper Paleolithic
and into the Neolithic.

There was a time when
our ancestors venerated

the goddess, not the male god.

>> In places like Central Asia
and Siberia where the female

shaman or shamaness,
if you wish,

was one of the
great power sources.

And obviously, to
different saints

and holy women of places
like China and India

and within other
societies like Norse

tradition, where
there were very fierce

shield maiden and
things like this

that would go out in
battle and be more

powerful than the many men.

But probably the last
vestige of this female role

came down to us
through Greek tradition

as the Amazon, these incredible
warriors, this warrior

caste that supposedly
only contained females.

The Amazons weren't a
single tribe, though.

They seemed to be a
buzz word for a number

of different female
societies that

survived in various parts
of the ancient world.

For instance, there were
Amazons in the Sahara.

There's lots of stories to do
with their great deeds there.

There were Amazons in
the area of the Caucasus,

what today is Georgia
and the Russian steppes.

There were others in the
Urals and the Altai Mountains.

So they weren't
necessarily all one tribe.

But what they
seemed to represent

was the last vestige of
this female caste that

were the rulers, if you like,
of their domain, of their world.

And it was something
that they did

without the necessity of men
other than for reproduction

purposes.

I think that they
key to understanding

this is that the role of
the female in the past

was much, much more
powerful, much more stronger

than we give it credit for.

And it could well
be that when we

look at the builders of
Gobekli Tepe or the Anunnaki

or those who built Stonehenge
were mainly female priesthoods.

And it's difficult to even
conceive of it in a way,

but it is strongly possible
so we should never roll out

and we should always
be genderless as far

as those ancestors who
gave us this legacy

of the ancient wisdom.

>> Could it be possible that
references in ancient texts

allude to a mother goddess
before the first civilization?

>> When we take a look at the
first chapters from the Book

of Genesis about the creation,
the garden, et cetera,

many events are not
in the biblical texts.

Sumerian texts give incredible
additional information,

whether it is in gnostic ones
or in the "Enuma Elish," which

is the Babylon text
about the creation.

What's interesting
is that they all

mention a mother goddess
that comes from the depths.

Sophia is the
mother of the abyss

because, as the
story goes, she went

to the deepest
point of the abyss

in order to create the
world as we know it.

In gnostic, Sumerian,
even Egyptian texts,

the abyss is always linked
to the process of creation--

all mother goddesses were.

>> Sophia really comes
from a Greek term, sophis,

which means wisdom.

In the beginning
before there was even

a god or a creative force,
everything was dark,

nothing existed.

And because gods and
wisdom and knowledge

are simultaneous
with each other,

they figured, well,
if that's the case,

then wisdom must have
existed in the dark.

And in order for it
to be procreative,

it has to be feminine.

So they created this concept
of a divine feminine person,

the woman, who embodied the
whole perfection of the wisdom

and all the sum knowledge
of everything that

exists in the universe.

So the Greeks show up and
they called her Sophia,

based on sophis,
the term for wisdom.

>> If wisdom emerged from the
darkness and its procreative

nature was feminine by
some early accounts,

then why at some point was
it forgotten or switched?

In the biblical stories of
the Garden of Eden, Yahweh--

or God-- for bids to
humans in the garden

to partake from the
forbidden tree of knowledge.

When a serpent seduces Eve to
eat an apple from this tree,

it leads to mankind's
expulsion from the garden

and thereby from eternal life.

But according to Anton
Parks, the Sumerian texts

interpret this
story differently.

They suggest that the
serpent approaches the woman

as if she is the teacher.

>> In the Book of Genesis, we
know that before patriarchy

came about, there
was a matriarchy.

When these gods arrive on Earth
and settle in Eden on Karzek

Mountain, they were all
under a matriarchal system

and Enlil was their queen.

The very interesting tablets
of Eden express that.

The woman is collecting
fruits for the colony,

and we understand that the man
who was doing more manual work.

The text states that the secret
was given by the serpent.

The serpent tells the woman and
then she goes to tell the man.

The so-called secret
that the serpent

is going to tell the woman,
found in Sumerian tablets,

is the secret of
toolmaking, quite simply

the tool which is expressed
as niche in Sumerian

means tree and tool.

One could wonder
why Enki insists

on getting this particular
secret through to the humans.

Well, he has a desire
to set them free.

It is very clear,
you can see it well.

He wants to liberate them.

I think that he didn't enjoy
watching slaves working

in the fields serving Enlil.

The woman's
intelligence is often

mentioned in gnostic
texts about the garden.

The woman is generally
wise, intelligent.

She is enlightened from
motherhood, from the origins,

and has the intelligence
and wisdom of the serpent.

If we read the original
Sumerian texts,

the woman only passes
on the information

that was given to
her by the serpent.

The civilizing
tool for mankind is

to become self-sufficient
and free itself from slavery.

What's more, in Sumerian
tablets of Eden, when the woman

messenger is mentioned,
she is very often

called the wise woman.

>> If there was a wise woman,
where did she disappear to?

Researchers like
Freddy Silva had

discovered that
other stories that

empower women in
ancient evolution

have been omitted
from the Bible.

>> One of the greatest examples
of the shift from matriarchal

to patriarchal society really
revolves around the story

of Jesus, believe it or not.

It's a huge construct.

And we know this because two
of the most important pieces

of evidence, which were the
Gospels of Philip and Thomas,

were banned by the church
until they were inconveniently

found by two goat herders in
the desert at Nag Hammadi.

And the idea was that when
you joined a secret mysticism

school, you joined
as a son of a woman.

When you graduated
from that, you

went up to another
level of understanding,

you graduated as
the son of a man.

If got to the next stage,
you became some of the gods.

And then, and this is the
most interesting part,

when you actually went into
the final initiation process--

and initiation means
to become conscious,

that's what the word means--

you undertook an
out-of-body experience.

It was an induced
near-death experience

where you took a narcotic,
almost like a poison which

lowers your heartbeat
down to a point where

you are virtually comatose.

Back in those days,
those sects held

that the women had the
highest level of initiation.

They actually were
responsible for the initiate

while he or she undertook
this out-of-body experience.

They were called the bees or
the watchtower, the flock,

which is actually Mary
Magdalene's name, Magdel Ebet,

the watchtower of the flock.

Your soul leaves the body
anywhere between three to seven

days.

When you come
back, in your body,

a little bit groggy, and you
are taken out by the priestesses

onto a mound.

And the first thing
you see is the rising

of Venus, the morning star,
at the spring equinox.

That's why Jesus compares
himself to the morning star.

So did Osiris in Egypt, who
was also a disembodied man who

gets chopped up by 72 people.

Of course, he
reconstitutes himself

which is the symbol of the
resurrected human being.

The shift from matriarchal
the patriarchal

really happens around the
time that the Catholic Church

is beginning to find its roots,
when fundamental Christianity

splits from gnostic Christianity
and the fundamentalists

were killing all the
gnostic Christians.

>> Could it really be true
that details about the ages

of matriarchal rule were
censored from some ancient

texts?

Freddy Silva has
discovered a similar text

to the gnostic story
about Mary Magdalene that

is written in the Quran.

>> Two most important people,
John the Baptist and Mary

Magdalene, are basically given
very minor roles in the Bible.

And now we know why, because
we have the patriarchal system

that takes away the
concept of the matriarchal

being the most important
part of initiation and then

they went off and killed
everybody around the Middle

East that could say otherwise.

That's the one thing that all
the sects have in common--

including early
Islam, by the way,

it says exactly the same thing,
that the actual crucifixion

didn't really take
place and the person

that actually was
crucified in the real event

was actually not Jesus, it was
a guy called Simon or Simeon.

This is the Quran saying this.

So, the church
annihilates everybody else

that was saying the
complete opposite,

and that's why we have a
patriarchal system instead

of the matriarchal system.

So that's how easily this
concept gets taken apart.

>> I think in the past, female
cultures have been given a bad

press.

We know about kingship, we
know about great battles fought

by men, and we know
that whole civilizations

seemed to be focused around
patriarchal societies.

But clearly, that was not the
case in prehistoric times.

It would seem as if the female
had a much stronger role

in society and may even
have been the controlling

influences governing the places
of power, which would have been

seen as the axis mundi,
the axis of the Earth,

possibly having a seat of
power, the origin of what

we call the throne today.

So in many ways, they
was the first kings.

They were the embodiment
of life itself.

From them, all life
came, of course,

as it's only women
that can bear children.

And this was understood by
men; recognized and honored

by men, who had a
different role in life.

As to exactly what
that was, we don't

want to stereotype
any of these images.

But something changed over time.

>> If this is, indeed,
true, what has changed since

the early ages where a
matriarchal society governed

our planet peacefully?

Anton Parks believes that
the rise of patriarchy

began when humans decided
to go out on their own

and start building cities.

According to his research,
the Sumerian texts

show us how the war
between Enki and Enlil

is reflected in the origin
of the struggle for power

between men and women.

>> If you try to distinguish
between the two energies that

drive matriarchy and patriarchy,
we can then find it in all

the texts that speak of this.

It is constantly the fight
between Mars and Venus,

war and peace, finding a
balance between the two.

With my research
on Sumerian Eden,

I found a historical event.

We're not speaking
about legends here,

but of the history of Sumer.

It is about the two cities
who were fighting each other.

Both of them are part
of the realm of Umma.

The two towns were situated in
front of the realm of Surulere,

which means the bird
of eternal youth.

The Surulere realm
is led by Enlil.

If you translate the
Sumerian term Uma na,

you get the following
definition: the people of Umma

or the people of the wise
woman because Uma means

the wise woman in Sumerian.

Here's the idea of
wise woman again,

of the woman who
passed down the secret.

Thanks to this
definition, we understand

that Umma was under the
guardianship of some goddesses

that were associated with
Enki and with the knowledge

of the gods because in
French, a wise woman--

literally, sage-femme--
is a midwife.

And for Sumerians,
it is the woman

in charge of the genetics,
the one in charge

of the artificial matrices.

The play on words is between
sage-femme, midwife, and femme

sage, wise woman.

Therefore, it is the realm led
by the mother goddess and Enki.

Between the two realms is a
stretch of land, a palm grove.

It is a sort of small garden
called the [NON-ENGLISH]..

This can be translated as
the frontier of the plane.

In this historical battle
between the two realms,

we find many elements that can
be linked to the Sumerian Eden.

Through this story,
we understand

that the dispute
between Enki and Enlil

never really had an end.

Even if you study the
text very thoroughly,

it is impossible to know what
put an end to these conflicts

between Umma and Surulere.

The one thing we know
is that one city of Umma

was wiped out quickly.

Kings always mentioned
the divine protection

given by Enlil and his
son and royal text,

always reducing the inhabitants
of Umma to simple workers.

They were only good to
serve the realm of Lagash

and to submit to the
patriarchal gods.

>> Could there be more evidence
of this throughout history?

>> About 5,000 years ago, when
you get the emergence of--

at least in our timeline--
the first great cities,

that seems to be when this
testosterone-driven male

aggression and anger start
to take everything over.

We still have goddesses,
but they're not

running the world
anymore the way

they appear to have done in
much, much more ancient times.

There's a clear
change of emphasis

and we start having male gods.

And they're often very
angry and aggressive

and domineering
male gods, and they

want to go take
other people's stuff.

It's as though some
sort of mental virus

has entered the world and we've
become these creatures fizzing

with testosterone making
war upon one another.

You'd be hard put to
find evidence of warfare

in the Upper Paleolithic, when
the goddess ruled the world.

There was no warfare.

These people were
hunting animals,

but they weren't killing each
other-- not in large numbers,

at any rate.

They may have had the odd fight,
but they weren't making war

upon one another.

When you come down
into the Neolithic,

as we begin to see the
goddess cult trailing off

and male gods taking
their place, and warfare

becomes a very key
element of human behavior.

And so I think that an old ethic
and an old way of doing things,

which was harmonious
and beautiful

and was sustained for tens
of thousands of years,

was overthrown by the
upsurge of the male ego.

And I would tie that
very much at its worst

to that the time of the
emergence of the first cities

in our historical timeline--
ancient Sumer, for example.

>> As patriarchy
took over matriarchy,

women lost their
place in society.

Their role as goddesses
and spiritual leaders

was undermined by
a new perspective.

Women were indoctrinated as
untrustworthy seductress.

Sean Stone describes
how this point of view

marked an era of separation
between men and women.

>> In the old tradition, there's
really a joint male-female

partnership.

Over the course of
Sumerian time, we

recognize that Enki seems
to have been considered more

of that trickster
character, more of the devil

in the garden who essentially
gives humans knowledge

when Enki gives humans the right
to procreate with each other

without the permission
of the gods.

That's when Enlil
and the other gods

feel that their reign is being
threatened by the humans.

So, Enki seems to
have become the devil,

he's cast in the devil role,
and perhaps women as well

as a result, because that whole
concept of man and woman, Enki

and Enlil working together
to fashion humankind is lost.

So, by the time you come to the
Jewish tradition, for example,

you've lost any notion
of a female role

in the spirituality of religion.

The god Jehovah is a male god.

You see no female rabbis
in any Jewish tradition

until about the
16th, 17th centuries.

The same, obviously,
within the Catholic Church,

the notion that there really
could be no female pope,

no female cardinals or bishops.

It's a very masculine control
of the religious inclination.

Another important example
of the complete takeover

of society by patriarchs
has occurred by the time

of the Greek civilization.

Basically, by 500 BC and
thereafter all the way

through Rome, women are
second-class citizens.

They have no right to vote, they
have no real voice in anything

beyond the household,
they are essentially

outside of the society.

You can see basically
step by step

this descent away
from the notion

of a man and woman working
in conjunction to fashion

humanity, to essentially
guide humanity.

It becomes more and more the
assertion of the male energy,

the male totem basically.

And that ultimately,
I would say,

manifests itself in the
overall nature of our society.

If you look at what Tesla
was looking, for example,

at the nature of energy
creation and production,

he was pointing out that what we
have is explosive energy, which

is basically a male exertion,
whereas the female energy is

considered more vortical.

So, only a few of
the scientists that

were looking into alternative
forms of energy that basically

was more vortical, what
people describe by UFO

craft for example and the way
that their propulsion systems

work, that is essentially
a female style of energy

where it ideally
recycles itself.

>> When you look at
the origins of warfare,

and this is organized warfare,
you don't actually find any

good evidence for it until
somewhere roughly between about

9,000 and 6,000 BCE.

That's when real organized
warfare seemed to start.

And of course, that was after
the Neolithic Revolution.

Prior to that, you do find
occasional skeletons showing

signs of violence,
just individual human

against human violence.

I mean, it's always been there.

But this whole
thing about humans

actually organizing into armies
and getting together in groups

and then let's go charge
against the other group and then

the other group having to
then respond in the same way

by forming your own little
army, that didn't actually

happen until after the
Neolithic, it by most accounts.

>> We talked about the gnostic
tradition and this issue

of precisely who
created the reality--

was it the male god,
the male demiurge who

fashioned the world or
was it the Sophia spirit,

divine spirit wisdom, who
came into the reality?

And I think that the darker
interpretations have oftentimes

given onus and power
to the male form,

whereas the older
traditions might actually

recognize and respect
the fact that it

was male and female
working in conjunction,

in unison to really create
the human existence.

Take, for example, the
Anunnaki stories about Enki.

Enki was this
chief scientist who

was trying to design the human
race on behalf of the sky gods.

But in order to do so, he
needed Ninmah, who was basically

his partner and consort.

>> Looking back
to Sumerian times,

civilizations of war seemed
to be preceded and followed

by civilizations of peace.

Perhaps it's possible that
humanity will embrace again

a future cycle of
matriarchy, a society where

we become more cooperative
and less aggressive.

>> I like to look at
statistics and evidence.

And Steven Pinker wrote
a very interesting book

called "The Better
Angels of Our Nature."

And he did a long-term
study showing that contrary

to the images we're getting
on TV of the warfare--

and of course, the images
we're getting are very real.

We need to solve that, they're
very important issues that we

need to deal with.

But overall
statistically, warfare

has been declining over
a fairly long period.

So we're seeing this
general progression

of a generally less violent,
less warlike global society.

Corresponding with that is we've
seen the role of women increase

during the same period of time.

I believe that there is a
relationship between that.

I think the more that women
have a role in governance

and equality, we're going to
see more of that trend happen.

Because back in the days
going back much earlier when

we didn't really have
organized human warfare,

they were much more matriarchal.

So shifting the power
balance to patriarchy,

there are probably all kinds
of biological reasons for that.

They were the ones who had to
go out and hunt the mastodon

while the woman is giving life.

And so that shift between
what we have in our DNA as men

and as women because of
that whole role probably

then affects the level of
violence in our society.

>> The disappearing
wise woman, to me,

refers to our loss of intuition,
our heart, intelligence,

which should be
our guiding light.

To be whole, we need
both intuition and logic,

which is kind of the feminine
and the masculine principles.

You need some structure
to your intuition,

or else you could get delusional
without some structure.

We've been cut off from
the heart intelligence

and all we have is this
logical, irrational, egoic mind.

And that's when we start really
going down the path of error.

And I do believe there
are signs now that we're

starting to hopefully
correct the situation as more

and more people are returning
to that kind of inner voice,

the light of conscience really.

It's light of conscious
I think we'll get back

to a state of wholeness.

>> If wholeness is the meaning
of joint feminine and masculine

energies in the world
ruling by partnership,

then what is our next step?

Could ancient history lead us
down a new path of thinking?

If we as the
current civilization

are, indeed, returning
to our inner voice,

then could this inner
voice be leading us

to a much older civilization
that has now just emerged

from the ice?

>> You get reports occasionally
of structures emerging out

the ice in Antarctica.

Just recently, there was
one which took my attention

to do with what was described
as almost like an embanked area

like a hill fort that was found.

And That struck my attention.

It's different to all
the other stories.

>> Anybody who is a pure
blooded Indian or native person

in the Americas, their whole
haplogroup or genetics are A,

B, C, or D. But we've tested
three of these so far,

and they are not A, B, C, or D.
They show ancestry either from

Europe or the Middle East or
the Middle East people who moved

to Europe.

So that completely
blows the theory

that there was only one
way to get to the Americas

in pre-Colombian times.

>> Could new evidence of a
civilization much older than

that discovered at Gobekli Tepe
be emerging from a desolate

continent?

Up next, the code unravels--

or should we say melts--

from Antarctica to reveal
a possible new species

on this planet?