ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND FERTILITY IN EARLY CULTURES AND THE INDUSTRIAL AGE

A. KATSIVELAKI1 AND C.E. SEKERIS2 1 National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Department of Pathology Spyrou Merkouri 14, Athens 11634 GREECE 2 Institute of Biological Research and Biotechnology National Hellenic Research Foundation Vassileos Constantinou 48, Athens 116 35 GREECE

Summary Archaeological excavations performed in various places around the world have shown that the earliest depictions portraying humans are feminine figures with exaggerated features of their sex. The feminine image has remained dominant in human culture, presenting deep continuities across space and time regarding her role as the mighty Mother of Nature, as the source of life. Striking commonalities recur in the way she was created and worshipped, in her symbols and ritual objects in diverse cultures from Stone and Bronze Ages to even more recent indigenous societies in Africa, parts of Asia, the Americas and Polynesia. Woman's profound experience of herself as a creator of life helped to define the image and the qualities of a Great Mother Goddess or Earth Mother Goddess, across time, as Nature herself, who could protect, nourish, contain and transform life in all its forms. This primordial concept of the Great Mother Goddess was the foundation of later prehistoric and proto-historic cultures in all parts of the world. Her cult was centered on fertility beliefs and rituals, executed on a seasonal basis to reinforce Natures potential to increase reproduction of humans, animals and crops. Her identification with Nature led to the deification of natural and cosmic elements worshipped and respected as parts of her. Fertility was regarded as a holistic system in accordance with cosmic and natural elements ruled and controlled by her, strongly connected with environmental observations affecting reproductions
P. Nicolopoulou-Stamati et al. (eds), Reproductive Health and the Environment, 1-25. 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

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dynamic. The entire process of reproduction was ritualized, and its symbolism reveals how human consciousness primarily perceived the origins of life; also the manner and reason by which the source of life, when personified, was related either to images declaring environmental associations, or as such, proved to be essential in human wellbeing. On the contrary today, due to mans dramatic change of attitude towards Nature as being devoid of sacredness, the environmental impact on fertility is considered within the general context of environmental ethics in the industrial age, whereby notions are interpreted as ethical, good or valuable according to how man places himself in relation to other living beings, and to the environment. The current state of mans impact on the environment is discussed, specifically the dangers stemming from chemical pollution, in particular from endocrine disrupters and their deleterious effect on male and female fertility, leading to ethical problems. The role of governments, of non-governmental organizations and the public, which should play a more active role in the enforcement of precautionary measures, is stressed. The recent ecological deterioration, affecting human health, cannot be dissociated from the steep economic gradient between industrialized and developing countries, which must be blunted as a prerequisite for world peace and prosperity.

1.

Introduction

Early samples of artistic creation depict women to the greatest extent, and hardly any men. The creation of the female image has an enormous tradition in human culture. Primary depiction forms lasted for millennia; figurines of the Acheulian period, statuettes and bas-reliefs from the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic Age emphasize generative features, pregnancy and some on giving birth (Preziosi, 1960). By the end of the last Ice Age (13.000-12.000 B.C.), a leading catalyst for the beginning of agriculture, human consciousness evolved dramatically, identifying gradually the feminine image as the umbilical cord connecting people with Nature. Later presentations from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age give combined forms of the feminine archetype and her attributes, representing stars, plants and animals (Wolkstein and Kramer, 1983). Both periods indicate a background based on the observation of womens ability to create life that led gradually to religious formulations. Human consciousness, either as awareness or instinctive reflex, carries the whole experience of life on this planet since its formation. In the Stone and the

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early Bronze Age, woman was believed to have a magical connection with the earth. Her fertility was identified with the fertility of life on earth. In the Neolithic Age she was thought to be the pattern to which the whole of life obeyed, from the circumpolar movement of the stars to those of the tiniest creatures. Late Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age female figures speak clearly of matrixoriented religious system; written evidence confirms and specifies that the sacred feminine life creator was embodied by the image of a Mother Goddess, the fertile womb that gave birth to everything (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983). She was revered as the Almighty Mother of the earth and cosmos; she was herself the earth and cosmos. She was the numinous Goddess within all her manifest forms. Abounded shrines and temples were erected to her honor (Reade, 1991). Fertility rites were the center of her worship. Worship of fertility included fertility of all kinds: agricultural, animal and human fertility (Struhal, 1992). Most cultures performed periodical sexual fertility rites, believing that by having sexual intercourse practiced in the fields, crops could grow or flourish. Plants could reproduce their kind only through the stimulation of the union of male and female, by their real or mock marriage (Frazer, 1998). Key element in this practice was the exercise of sympathetic magic, evoking magic in the form of imitation, meaning that when humans are sexually active then gods are sexually active too. Sexual activity of gods in turn ensured fertility of animals and crops. The female principle of life was the earth or womb, out of which crops grew; thus the male element was thought to be supportive and secondary (Dalley, 1998). Public mating of a male member of the community with a female representative of the Earth Mother Goddess was a common ritual held mostly in the fields or in her temples (Frazer, 1998). Earth Mother Goddess or Mother Goddess religions preserved their character up to the Iron Age, which began about 1200 B.C. Deification of Nature and fertility was attributed now to the male element as well (Tubb, 1998). Both female and male personifications of Nature had complementary roles in the process of creation, but it was only the great goddesses of the Bronze Age that were still worshipped as late as Roman times, in the West, although in Asia, Far East, Central and South America, Africa and Polynesia, Earth Mother Goddess cults are still practiced, enhanced by various local beliefs. In the long period preceding the Modern Age, mans relation to Nature changed fundamentally due to the introduction of the scientific approach that led to the development of rampant technology and the belief that man is in control of the world. Extreme exploitation of Nature to mans own benefit followed this

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anthropocentric arrogance. Environmental ethics have then progressed admirably, often following a philosophically abstract path; however, they are increasingly confronted with pressing environmental attacks, threatening the well being, and potentially, the survival of man. Environmental ethics certainly affects our reactions to environmental threats. However, the variety of prevailing ethical viewpoints hinders the development of uniform policy and action to these threats. If man is indeed the protagonist on this earth and if his well being, the preservation of the life-style of a bulk population depends on the exploitation of Natures resources leading to deforestation, species extinction, etc., then such actions are ethical, valuable, good and right. If man is just one species surely on top of the evolutionary ladder amongst the millions and regards the variability in Nature as a gift and a precious component of his presence in this world, then deforestation, species extinction, etc., are bad, immoral, wrong. However, if deforestation could help in rising the economic status of a population to an affluence that could channel wealth to introduce environmental friendly technology, then a decision on what is ethical, good, valuable, could be difficult. If the increase of the planets inhabitants to levels compromising the worlds food and leading to catastrophic air and water pollution were realistic, then family planning of various sorts, including abortions, could be valuable and perhaps justified. But if man is destined to multiply and conquer the world or if a family in a developing country needs hands to work in the farm or fish for food, then family planning is bad and wrong. The aim of this chapter is to show how human consciousness initially perceived the environment as a sacred whole, considering man as a part of it. Focus was given to increasing reproduction whereas today, the human impact on the environment is harming it, mainly due to the danger of chemical pollution and its pestiferous effect on fertility. And given mans current detachment from Nature, any evaluation of his impact on the environment only leads to a complex maze of ethical dilemmas.

2.

Acheulian period

Regardless of place, stage, and variety of tools, it is first the feminine figure that comes from the very remote past, carrying the visions of our distant ancestors. Her history is traced in the very early specimen of artistic creation, and reveals her route over thousands of years in human culture. She appears with the beginning of art, in

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the first efforts to carve stone in Africa and Middle East. The oldest known figurine in the world is 330.000 years old, attributed either to Homo erectus or Archaic Homo sapiens. It was found between two layers of volcanic flow, aging 800.000 to 233.000, at Berekhat Ram on Golan Heights (present Israel) (Marshack, 1995). It was carved out of a piece of basaltic tuff and represents a 35 mm greatbreasted female figure with featureless head (Marshack, 1997). She is considered to be a fertility symbol, named the Acheulian Berekhat Ram figurine or Goddess. Another figurine 58.2 mm long, with a slight female form and modified by precisely the same treatment is the Tan-Tan Venus found in southern Morocco. It was made of a moderately metamorphosed quartzite and discovered in sediments of Middle Acheulian deposit, aging 500.000-300.000 years (Bednarick, 2003).

3.

Palaeolithic Age

Her traces are lost for an enormous period of time, till she is found again in the Upper Paleolithic. She appears in a most prominent way, created as a divine robust figure with emphasis on its genetic characteristics, with or without synchronous symbolic codices, defining her manifestations. A reasonable number of more than 200 female figurines with exaggerated corpulence are found over a broad geographical area ranging from France to Siberia.

a. Venus of Gagarino

b. Venus of Willendorf

c. Venus of Dolni Vestonice

d. Venus of Avdeevo

Figure 1. Paleolithic figurines a. Venus of Gagarino, b. Venus of Willendorf, c.Venus of Dolni Vestonice and d. Venus of Avdeevo are (drawn by Alexandra Katsivelaki from the original Museum statuettes).

They were carved from stone, bone and mammoth ivory and are depicted having enormous breasts, protruding belly, very pronounced vulva, prolonged buttocks and

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thighs, tapering legs and no facial features (Sandars, 1992). They date from about 30,000 B.C. to 11.000 B.C. And are known as the Venuses of the places found (Pfeiffer, 1982); of Dolni Vestonice (Figure 1c), Willendorf (Figure 1b), Laussel, Lespugue, Monpazier, Sireil, Savignano, Balzi Rossi, Gagarino (Figure 1a), Kostienki, Avdeevo (Figure 1d) (Gvozdover, 1995), and others. Most of them depict mature women in various stages of the reproductive cycle: either not pregnant or in various stages of pregnancy. The basic forms are common; they are very small items, focusing mainly on generative organs, no matter the distance of their origin. They are considered to be cultic objects, idols or amulets reflecting ideas of maternity and fertility, implying a religious belief strongly connected with fertility. Venus of Laussel, a Perigordian limestone bas-relief, was carved at the entrance of an overhang cave in Dordogne, South France (Lalanne, 1912). She is graven on a fries, together with other women and only one man, keeping one hand on her protruded belly, possible pregnancy, while the other holds a bull or bison horn in the form of a crescent moon (Giedion, 1962). Her fingers point towards her vulva, her head inclines towards the horn or crescent that has 13 vertical cuts representing possibly the 13 lunar months in a solar year, or the thirteen days of the first crescent to the full moon (Marshack 1972). She retains traces of red ocher indicating most probably the correspondence between the lunar phases and menstruation (Knight, 1991). Dating between 27.000- 22.000 B.C. she was created by hunter-gatherers closely attuned and dependant on the cycles of seasons, and therefore able to observe that monthly bleeding was connected to special lunar phases. The cave was potentially a ritual place where women could gather in safety away from their group, presuming that in close proximity their menstrual cycles would possibly synchronize and thus facilitate their nomadic wandering.

4.

Neolithic Age

In the Neolithic, a deep relation was formed among people with the earth through sowing, tending and harvesting the crops and breeding domestic animals. Plow and wheel were invented then, around 5.500 B.C. in fertile valleys of Mesopotamia (Balter, 2005). Woman was believed to have a strong connection with the earth, cosmos, and the rhythm of Nature. A Mother Goddess-oriented cosmology was invented by all cultures of that time. Many images, felt to belong or to describe her, were made at that time.

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Excavations in Europe, the Near East and at Asikli, atal Hyk and Hacilar in Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, China and South America brought cultures to light, dating as early as 8.000-2.700 B.C. (the Neolithic was not experienced at the same time throughout the world), echoing a strong relationship with an almighty Mother Goddess. She was a Mother Goddess with many aspects, concentrating in her the profoundly experienced process of birth, death and regeneration. Sky, earth, and underworld were unified in her being (Kramer, 1963). Animals, serpents and birds were all her epiphanies, expressions of her hypostasis (Campbell, 1983). Plants and trees were escorting her image, attributes of her nature. Mountains, hills and groves became sacred, and were devoted to her; springs and wells became places of her blessed healing. This was the phase in human evolution when magical rituals were established to please her wishes and demands, to reinforce her fertility and to propitiate the Goddess with offerings that would bring protection and abundance. Countless feminine images and ritual objects from the Neolithic, relics of her cult keep coming to light all over the world showing a steadily amazing similarity in form and concept (Ucko, 1968). A terracotta statuette of the Mother Goddess, dating between 6800-5000 B.C (Mellaart, 1965), was found in atal Hyk, a large Neolithic settlement, near Konya in Turkey. It is considered, after Jericho, to be the worlds oldest village 9000 years old, with (approx.) 10,000 inhabitants. It was a shocking discovery, since it begged the questions of how, or even why, this periods rudimentary agriculture led so many people to gather in houses, abandoning their hunting and gathering nomadic life in the processes. Clay figurines of obese women were excavated in a temple at the site (Mellaart, 1975). It is the earliest figure found to portray a female sitting on a throne, guarded protectively on both sides by two leopards. She was found in a shrine, located in a grain bin, and is depicted in the process of giving birth; the head of the baby is visible, coming out of her tummy (Balter, 2005). Bullhorns were placed all around her. Bullhorns were found in all houses of atal Hyk, laid in a ritual way (Mellaart, 1965). It is interesting that bullhorns were always connected with the Goddesses of fertility of that time, as well as later periods, and over extended geographic areas of Europe, Africa and Asia. In the period 6500-5500 B.C. a farming society appeared in Northern Mesopotamia and Syria, known as the Halaf Culture, that gave numerous terracotta or unbaked clay female figurines made for religious or magical purposes (Collon, 1995) connected with fertility. They display strong stylization with emphasis on sexual features. Their faces are pinched out to form a large nose or chin. They sit with

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exaggerated thighs extended, supporting heavy breasts with their arms (Reade, 1991). Their stylized depiction of the feminine form, standing or seated, remained an artistic convention for several millennia in Northern Mesopotamia, Syria, Anatolia, Egypt and the Aegean. The late Neolithic period displayed more objects of the divine feminine image. The Greek islands offered marble to the stone-age carvers who created marble figures between 4500-400 B.C., the Cycladic idols (Fitton, 1999) with abundant flesh, swelling lines suggesting fertility, and nourishment. Their hands are joined under their breasts, keeping to the old tradition of the area. The Ubaid culture from Ur in Southern Iraq produced the so-called Lizard figurines of about 4500 B.C., portraying women often suckling a child (Wooley, 1995). Their name is owed to their stylized type lizard head (Collon, 1995). Found in the cemeteries of Ur and Eridu, they represent symbols of fertility or votive objects (Reade, 1991). Amuq Plain, a fertile area in Anatolia that attracted farmers for thousands of years attributed figurines from around 4500 B.C., which once again emphasize sexual features, large breasts and heavy thighs (Collon, 1995). At 4000 B.C. the Badarian culture, in predynastic Egypt, gave female images found in burials, focusing on eyes, breast, pubic area and hips (Spencer, 1993). Their hands were kept on their bellies, made out of stone, hippopotamus bone, wood and clay. Their association with fertility was linked with the rebirth and regeneration of the deceased in the Afterlife. Naqadas burial mound discoveries revealed naked female representations with emphasized sexual organs and large striking eyes. (Shaw and Nicholson, 1995) They are thought to have provided magical support for rebirth and regeneration as well (Hart, 1991). Around 4000-3500 B.C. ceramic figurines appeared along the coast of Ecuador at Valdivian sites, the earliest in the Americas. They continued the regions earlier stone figurine tradition. The majority is female, but there are some displaying both female and male attributes. Emphasis falls again on breasts and sexual organs that were only the ones depicted bare. They represented fertility figures, serving reproductive purposes (Metropolitan Museum). They were used in unknown fertility rituals carried out at harvest time. The same form of depiction is also to be seen in a China Venus, a 6.7 cm jade figurine from the Hongshan Neolithic culture dating from 4500 to 2250 B.C. The

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Hongshan were located between Inner Mongolia and present days Liaoning and Hebei provinces (Nelson, 1995). The amazing sophisticated jade carving presents a female again, with enormous breasts, supported by her hands and pronounced belly. Before the rise of Indus civilization, female terracotta figurines in various shapes and forms were made at Mehrgarh (7000-2000 B.C.), at periods between 7000-4800 B.C. on the hills of Baluchistan in India. They were the first in South Asia, and portray seated nude deities with exaggerated breasts and buttocks and exquisite hairdressing (Jarrige, 1988). They were used in fertility rituals to ensure fecundity of humans, animals and a rich harvest. The Altyn-depe settlement in todays Turkmenistan offers, in the late third millennium, high-quality clay terracotta figurines, excavated close to or inside tombs, related to ideas of fertility and rebirth (Masson, 1998). They carry high headdresses; they have realistically formed breasts. Triangles indicate outstretched arms. Their long, narrow waists lead to broad hips. Their lower halves are bent, creating the impression of a seated pose. Chalcolithic Cyprus at the end of the third millennium (Tatton-Brown, 1997) gives a remarkable terracotta image related to local fertility cults, representing a goddess or a woman milking both her breasts into a basin placed on her thighs (Louvre Museum). The late Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages provide us with additional information about the character of the Mother Goddess, since written sources from these times have been decoded and read.

5.

Bronze Age

It is only from the Bronze Age that hymns were discovered addressing the great Goddesses of Sumer and Egypt, inscribed on the sun-baked clay tablets of the Sumer or in hieroglyphs on the walls of Egyptian temples (Wilkinson, 2000). They reveal a rich mythology concerning the images of the Mother Goddess that carries forth Neolithic traditions enhanced by contemporary attitudes towards Nature and social values (Black and Green, 1992). It is in the Bronze Age that the feeling for the sacredness of Nature is clearly expressed in words and transmitted through prayers to the goddesses or through the voices of the goddesses themselves. They announce themselves to be the fertile womb, which eternally regenerates plants, animals, human beings; the life force, which attracts the male to the female; the power that creates, destroys and transforms itself (Harper, 1901).

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Various goddesses, variants of the Great Mother Goddess, are presented as the source and embodiment of all instinctive processes: Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Anat, Cybele and Hathor are the supreme Goddesses of Sumerian, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Canaanites and Egyptians (Sags, 1995a) . They are few among many other goddesses of love, sexuality, motherhood and fertility of men, animal and crops all over the world (Kramer, 1963). They were complex goddesses, and many of them also had martial aspects. They were the benevolent Almighty Mother Goddesses but also tremendous warriors against their enemies. In India, before the Aryan invasions around the 14th century B.C, the Vedic sages described with amazing clarity their image of the Mother Goddess in the magnificent poetry of the Vedas and the Upanishads, expressing a deeply passionate devotion to her (Brians et al., 1999). In the northern areas, people named their great mountains in her honor and worshipped her as the dynamism of the creative principle, always seen in an eternal embrace with her divine consort.

5.1.

Inanna, a Sumerian Goddess of fertility

Inanna was the most important goddess of the Sumerian pantheon, a goddess of love, fertility and war. Variations of her name mean either queen of the sky or personification of the planet Venus. Her symbol was the eight-pointed star, representing the planet Venus (Dalley, 1998). Her Temples were in Uruk, Zabalam and Babylon. She was a goddess associated, in terms of symbolism, with the crescent moon, the planet Venus and the serpent. Wings and serpents adorned her shoulders, traces of the ancient Neolithic Bird and Snake Goddesses . The goddess figures prominently in various myths, such as in the Cycle of Innana, a collection of poems concerning her in her life and death relation to her brother and lover, the vegetation-god Dumuzi or Tammuz; also figuring her in the magnificent lunar myth of her descent and return from the underworld that was inscribed on clay tablets at around 1750 B.C. (Wolkstein and Kramer, 1983). In this particular myth she travels to the realm of the dead and claims to be its ruler. Her entry to the underworld was celebrated by the onset of the after harvest period. Her sister Ereshkigal, who rules the place, sentences her to death. With Inanna's death, however, Nature died with her and nothing would grow anymore. Through the intervention of the god Enki she could only be reborn if another person would take her place. Inanna chooses her beloved consort Dumuzi. She attends the death rites of the Sacred Bull of Heaven, and then she comes back to the earth. After her return, Dumuzi is chased by demons and loses his possessions, his genitals and his

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life (Wolkstein and Kramer, 1983). Male principle was viewed as periodically being slaughtered and buried, planted as seed to ensure the success of seasonal planting. Inanna laments her decision and searches for him. She finds him and ensures his resurrection, so that he could be back for half a year to enable fertility of womb and soil. This myth has some relations to the Greek Demeter myth as well as to Celtic beliefs. During the time of growth, that was autumn in the Near East when the first rain after the long summer fell, the Sumer celebrated the Hieros Gamos (Sacred Marriage) of Inanna and Dumuzi singing ecstatic, erotic hymns to encourage their union. It took place yearly, at the autumnal equinox, as the New Years Festival that brought the land fertility and growth again. This was due to Dumuzis returning from the underworld and making love with Inanna again (Kramer, 1969). Being explicitly a goddess of sexuality and fertility, Inannas worship included sacred rites to potentiate the sexual activity of the goddess. Early fertility cults had incorporated in their ceremonies a variety of ritualized sexual behaviors involving priests, priestesses and worshipers (Frazer, 1998). The first written law system, the Code of Hammurabi created between 1792 - 1750 B.C. and now in Louvre Museum, certifies the roles of the priestesses. Law 181 refers to the dowry rights of four types of female cultic personnel: the hierodules, sacred prostitutes, lay priestesses and devotees to goddesss temples. In laws 144 147 all types of sacred women appear to be highly protected. During and after the decline of the Sumerian kingdom, she was replaced by the Semitic goddess Ishtar who became an incarnation of Inanna to be invoked at Inanna's original temples at the cities of Erech, Kish and Ur.

5.2.

Ishtar, a Mesopotamian Goddess of fertility

Ishtar was the supreme Mesopotamian Goddess, the Akkadian/ Babylonian Great Goddess of sexuality, fertility and warfare. She is a later and more complex development of Inanna whose myths were adapted in her worship. Apart from their common aspects she became the one bestowing the ancient kings with the right to rule over her people. She is depicted with symbols of fertility such as the date palm, with the planet Venus on her crown as an eight-pointed star, and the crescent moon (Collon, 1987). She appears often on relief carvings and seals as a strong warrior, or as an almighty Mother Goddess. The Hittite and Hurrian people of Anatolia, Sumer, Egyptians and the Assyrians revered her in grandiose temples at Nineveh, Arbela,

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and Uruk (Layard, 1849). The most important street in Babylon was the Processional Way leading from the inner city through the Ishtar Gate to Bit Akitu the House of the New Years Festival. The world famous Ishtar Gate was a glazed-brick building decorated with images of bulls and dragons. North of the gate, the street was lined with figures of striding lions, sacred animal of Ishtar, to serve as guides for the ritual processions to the Temple (Marzahn, 1992). She was the Scharrat Schame (Queen of Heaven) (Wolkstein and Kramer 1983) and the mother who gave birth to the world She Who Begets All. She was renowned for her power of creation, desire, prophesy, healing and divine rulership (Luckenbill, 1927). She is described in texts as a beautiful figure having sweet lips and Babylonian scriptures call her Torch of Heaven and Earth, Opener of the Womb, Exalted Light of Heaven

5.3.

Hathor and Isis, Egyptian goddesses of fertility

The main pro-dynastic Egyptian goddess associated with love, birth and rebirth was Hathor. She appeared as a woman with a sun disk between a pair of cow horns on her head, with or without a pair of feathers (Quirke, 1992); another incarnation was that of a woman with a cows head, or as a cow with the solar disk. She was worshipped in her role as goddess of fertility, women and childbirth at Dendera. At Thebes she was regarded as goddess of the dead, as Lady of the West, associated with the sun god Re on his descent below the western horizon. Her cult eventually merged into the one of Isis, the prominent fertility deity and divine mother of later periods. Isis revived her consort, the slaughtered Osiris for long enough to conceive a child (Putnam, 1990). She was often depicted with her child Horus on her lap and by extension regarded as mother and protectress of the pharaohs. Renewal of fertility and regeneration of life for both living and dead were important concepts in Egyptian religion. Kingship and priests performed daily rituals to maintain the balance of the Universe, while ordinary people worshipped their gods at home shrines and religious festivals (Shafer, 1991). Isis larger temple is at Philae in the Nile. Her worship spread outside Egypt to Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. Temples of Isis were built in Galatia, Spain and along the rivers Danube and Rhine.

6.

The goddess Kuan Yin

In Chinese mythology there was a Mother Goddess who existed before heaven and earth. Her image was connected with the oral inheritance to the Bronze Age and the shaman tradition, which later evolved into Taoism. Legends describe her as the

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Mother, or Grandmother; the cosmic womb of all life, the gateway of heaven and earth (Kohn, 1993). Taoism kept alive the feeling of relationship with Nature, of being a primordial mother. The essence of Taoism is expressed in the Tao Te Ching (Kohn, 1993). The word Tao means the fathomless Source, the One, the Deep. Te is the way the Tao comes into being, growing like a plant from the ground. Ching is the slow shaping of that growth through the activity of a creative intelligence, expressed as the organic patterning of all life. The Mother Goddess was particularly close to women, who prayed to her for a safe child delivery, the protection of their families and the healing of sickness. She was present in their homes, shrines and temples, on the sacred mountains, in the valleys and vast forests. Yet, like the goddesses in other early cultures, she also had cosmic dimensions. She was the Spirit of Life itself, the Protectress of Life, and above all she was the embodiment of love, compassion and wisdom (Brians et al., 1999). Although she had many names and images these eventually merged into one goddess who was called Kuan Yin (she who hears, she who listens), whose cult spread all over China, Korea and Japan and exists still today.

7.

Nature elements as symbols of the Mother Goddesses

A group of images was associated with the Great Earth Mother Goddess as the creator and transformer of life. The cave was her womb, the place where the tribes held their sacred rites in the Stone Age (Marshack, 1972). This was extended to gardens, forest glades and certainly temple precincts, as civilizations developed later. The circle, triangle and the egg-like oval described her womb and her vulva. Other forms like the wavy line, the meander and the spiral were, as early as the Paleolithic, connected with her. These were found on the walls of the caves, on rocks, stones and dolmens (Pfeiffer, 1982). The spiral form is intrinsic to water. The wavy lines were the rain and river water. The rivers, that have their origin in the mountains and end in the sea, moving at their own pace following a meandering course, resemble the coils of an enormous serpent moving across the earth. The serpent-like spiral, the meander and the labyrinth were the hidden pathways of the life force. Later from the Neolithic, rounded or egg-shaped pottery vessels symbolized her body. These basic forms, so familiar to ancient cultures everywhere, trace their descent through subsequent civilizations all over the world, East and West. It is from the Neolithic era that we have inherited all the images related to her, presenting her as the one who obtains the energy to bring life into being, maintain and transform it, and potentiate rebirth or regeneration. The moon is perhaps her

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most ancient symbol but the sun and the planet Venus were always escorting her image in later depictions during the Metal Age. The association between the changing phases of the moon, the seasons of the year and the womans life cycle was the foundation of a mythology inspired by the moon. Organic life on this planet is strongly influenced by the magnetism of the moon and in the Bronze Age mythology of Sumer and India, the Mother Goddess was imagined as the primordial watery abyss, personified by a great serpent. The association of water and goddess is very strong and she is imagined as the Water of Life, or the one who offers it (Wolkstein and Kramer, 1983). Fertility Goddess Kuan Yin in the Far East is also goddess of the sea, and protects all who sail on her. Greek Aphrodite was born from the sea foam. Isis was called Star of the Sea. In both East and West shrines to the goddess were built at the springs, and at certain times of the year were ritually decorated to invoke the continued blessing of the Mother Goddess. Three animals in particular always signified her presence or power: the cow, lion and the snake (Campbell, 1983). Anthropomorphic and animal features often melted in fertility goddess (James and Davies, 1983). Inanna in Sumer, Hathor and Isis in Egypt were called "the Great Cow or Celestial Cow". Her temples in Sumer were adorned with enormous horns. Hathor was often depicted as a woman with a cows head (Pinch, 1993). Both Egyptian goddesses were depicted crowned with bullhorns surrounding the disk of the sun or the moon (Reade, 1991). Images of Ishtar in Babylon, Durga in India and Anat in Egypt stand on a lion . Cybele rode on a chariot drawn by lions. The Earth Mother Goddess of Minoan Crete carries snakes on her bare torso and hands, and is praised as "Lady of the Beasts. The snake had a very important role, but also other associations. The snake and its abstract derivative, the spiral dominated religious art during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (Gimbutas, 1974). It is an age-old symbol of healing. Important were also many birds sacred to the goddess in the Neolithic, up to Roman times; amongst them, the crane, the swan, the goose, duck, owl, as well as smaller birds, like the dove and the swallow. The bee and the butterfly also belonged to the mythology of the Mother Goddess (Sakelarakis, 1989). There were also some other animals that became associated with her variants, because of their abundant fertility: rabbit for Aphrodite and the Mayan Ixchel, and the sow for Demeter. There are many images of food and nourishment that have always belonged to the mythology of the Earth Mother Goddess. The Tree of Life stands prominently in this chain of images (Woolley and Moorey, 1982). A tree in many different cultures was sacred to the goddess; sacred trees were planted in the precincts or inside her temples in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete, India and China. Wheat, barley, corn and pomegranates were part of her rituals, or connected with her various depictions

ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND FERTILITY (Saggs, 1995).

15

The Great Earth Mother Goddess, whether as Nature without or within, had a beneficent, nurturing, supportive aspect. Demeter in Greece, and Ceres in Rome, are the last goddesses in the West to remind us aspects of her: mostly the ancient connection between the Mother Goddess, the Earth and the food the earth offers. Greek and Roman goddesses, although they had moved closer to the concerns of civilization, still carried through the cosmic dimensions of the older Mother Goddesses.

8.

The transition to Industrial Age

The transition from the deification of natural and cosmic elements to their examination through the philosophical approach is a supreme intellectual accomplishment of the ancient world. Presocratic philosophy, for the first time, postulated natural elements as the cosmic material comprising the universe, whereas Hippocrates formulated and systemized the environmental impact on health. The philosophical approach, however, was reduced to silence in the Middle Ages by theocratic doctrines and dogmatism. The Enlightenment revived the quest for knowledge, and the introduction, as well as the application, of the experimental method as a means to understand and manipulate physical phenomena, led to explosive advances in Technology, heralding however the deleterious effects of man on his environment.

9.

Industrial Age

Mans predicament is his own nature, his unlimited trend to explore the unknown, to unlock the earths mysteries and to apply without restraint the acquired knowledge (Razis, 1996). The horrendous effects of our societys activities on the environment, the continuous reduction of unspoiled land in favor of cities and infrastructures, the unendless increase in transport modalities and in industrial output, including those of life-saving pharmaceutical establishments, result from mans ingenuity and creativity. However, this unlimited growth can be mans predicament. Focusing on the chemical industry, the synthesis of thousands of chemicals for a variety of applications satisfies mans thirst for more leisure at home, for ever more rapid transportation by speedier cars and planes, for better communication, for more food,

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less pain, less disease. However, this huge increase in new molecules coming directly or indirectly in contact with humans, animals and plants, is a constant threat to man and his environment. Among the chemicals that pose a major threat on health and the environment are the endocrine disrupters (Nicolopoulou-Stamati et al., 2001). These agents, affecting mainly reproduction, derange the endocrine system in various ways, by competing with endogenous hormones for binding sites on the respective receptor proteins, and by affecting the synthesis, secretion, transport or catabolism of the hormones. The endocrine disrupters mainly affect steroid hormones, and as they represent principal regulators of growth, developmental and metabolic processes, the consequences of their disruption are grave, especially on fertility (McLachlan et al., 2001; Brevini et al., 2005). Several chemically unrelated substances belong to the category of endocrine disrupters (Soto et al., 1995). Human exposure can occur in a variety of ways, by food or water intake, by skin absorption or inhalation. However, for the majority of chemicals, the main source of exposure is by food. Particularly endangered are the foetuses by way of the placenta, as has been demonstrated by blood samples from the umbilical cord, identifying therein DDT, hexachlorbenzene, PCBs, DDE and dioxins, amongst many other toxic substances. These chemicals have also been detected in the mothers milk and can be passed to the nursing infants (placenta, milk). The developing organism has not developed through the ages the effective mechanisms that would provide protection against toxic chemicals and, indeed, growth retardation, behavioral problems such as poor attention, hyperactivity and decrease in the intelligence quotient have been observed in children. This was due to exposure to dioxins, PCBs and other endocrine disrupters, but also to toxic substances, such as lead and methyl mercury, either in the womb, or during early childhood. Effects on the immune system have also been reported after exposure to DDT and DES, and the role of endocrine disrupters in carcinogenesis has received due attention (Bagga et al., 2000; Romieu et al., 2000; Kogevinas et al., 2001). Female and male reproductive processes, intricately controlled by the interplay of several steroid and protein hormones, are strongly affected by endocrine disrupters. The effects on fertility of endocrine disruption were recognized initially by chance observations (Colborn et al., 1993; Oetken et al., 2004); later by animal experimentation and epidemiological studies. After administration of high doses of estrogenic chemicals to rats, reduced fertility and structural abnormalities of the reproductive system was observed; the same observations were made after exposure of the animals to very low levels of dioxins in the wombs.

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The use of the synthetic estrogen DES in the 1950s as a drug combating spontaneous abortions of pregnant women led to the birth of girls which later developed vaginal cancer, reduced fertility and structural abnormalities of their reproductive system (Herbst et al., 1971; Swan, 2000). Genital defects were also observed in the male offspring (Gillet et al., 1977; Stillman, 1982). A considerable increase of several reproductive disorders has been described in males during the last years. Significant is the decrease of sperm count and motility (Carlsen et al., 1992; Auger et al., 1995; Adamopoulos et al., 1996; Storgaard et al., 2002), the increase of boys born with genital abnormalities, e.g. cryptorchidism (Skakkebaeck et al., 2001) and the increase in testicular and prostate cancer. It is believed that these disorders have their beginnings during the fetal and early life due to the presence of endocrine disrupters in the environment. Recently, it was demonstrated that two widely used toxic compounds, vinclozolin and methoxychlor, a fungicide and a pesticide, respectively, show endocrine disrupter effects (Anway et al., 2005), the first by blocking the action of androgens at the level of the androgen receptor, the second acting as an estrogen. They cause fertility defects in male rats, which are passed down to nearly every male in the subsequent generation. This is reminiscent of the action of DES on the offspring of pregnant, previously discussed. The alarming decrease in fertility, particularly in many Western developed countries, has rendered in vitro fertilization a routine procedure, something very new for mankind. Although this mode of procreation is now accepted the world over, it raises major ethical problems. For that part of humanity which regards the fertilized ovum as a human being endowed with a soul, the destruction of unused super-numerous embryos is equal to manslaughter. Although the reduction of ova used in each attempt of IVF was introduced to overcome this problem, it has not basically eliminated it. Furthermore, the psychosomatic union of the parents attained in the act of procreation, which is regarded by a part of the population as extremely important for the seminal event of bringing children to life, is absent in IVF. Although it is generally assumed that children born by IVF are in no way medically inferior compared to those born by the natural way, some reports have indeed suggested an increase in the occurrence of certain genetic diseases in the former category. The sensational biological breakthrough of the cloning of an animal by the transfer of a somatic nucleus to an enucleated ovum, negating the dogma of the irreversibility of the differentiated state, has led to the application of this procedure

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for the cloning of a variety of mammals. The possibility of cloning human beings, although universally rejected and condemned as unethical, nevertheless is a potential possibility that could cross the ethical barriers, provided the overcoming of the medical problems observed in many of the cloned animals. It is worth remembering the initial outcries against IVF, which abated after the ascertainment that the method is medically safe, without causing late effects in treated women.

10. Approach to the problem Two main approaches for the protection of peoples health from the hazardous substances synthesized en masse by the chemical industry are now followed: prevention and regulation. Prevention from harmful effects of chemicals involves measures to ban the production and use of such compounds. It implies, however, that these have already exerted their harmful effects, and thus have been recognized as dangerous to public health. On the other hand, regulation of the production and release of chemicals necessitates the knowledge of the potential effects of the agents on human health, and the allowable rates of release of a chemical, i.e. risk assessment (Hens, 2001). This methodology is riddled with uncertainties and limitations, but is nevertheless serving to significantly reduce the release of harmful chemicals in the environment. To overcome the problems inherent in this approach, the Precautionary Principle has been introduced, requiring that chemicals are to be released in the environment only if they have been proven harmless. Although this represents an ideal principle, its application to the thousands of chemicals, many with potential endocrine disrupter action, is a time consuming and almost Herculean task. Furthermore, in the field of pharmaceutics, it can lead to the delay in the use of potentially beneficial drugs. In spite of the difficulties in its application, the Precautionary Principle should be a goal to be strived for. It is quite unfortunate that the people recognizing the dangers stemming from chemical pollution and other environmental problems have little power to enforce the obvious remedies. This in spite of the various United Nations resolutions proclaiming the fundamental right of man to adequate conditions of life in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well being, along with many other resolutions of various agencies to preserve the ecosystem and ensure a healthy environment. A classical case illustrating this impasse is the refusal of the United States the sole superpower with unique possibilities to shape world events to undersign the Kyoto agreement, which, if enforced, could provide a hope for avoiding the catastrophes of global warming. Nevertheless, steps to combat environmental hazards facing, not only industrialized, but also developing nations,

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could be implemented by regional authorities, better amenable to a knowledgeable public influence. Europe could be an example, and hope for implementing measures to tackle the increasing health and environmental dangers of chemical pollution. The European Unions policy on health and environment is straightforward, stresses the need to preserve it and to promote measures to deal with regional but also worldwide environmental problems, and has introduced legislation in this direction. Although the European industrial lobby is not insensitive, it is a hindering factor on the implementation of the proposed measures by influencing governmental decisions. Important is the mobilization of public awareness by scientists and group of informed laymen, known for their combativeness and drive, with the goal to apply pressure on their national decision markers, but also intergovernmental and international organizations controlling global health and environmental policy convergence, for more effective and drastic legislation. Although the national government is the protector of its states environment, it is under the highest pressure for legitimization by the general public and the media, and in this respect the role of non-governmental organizations, along with other nongovernmental agencies, is invaluable.

11. Conclusions During the first periods of human evolution, broadly defined as the Paleolithic and Neolithic eras, humanity lived instinctively as the child of a Mother Goddess, the personification of deified Nature and Cosmos, and knew life and death as two modes of her divine reality. Through the ages humans developed a different relation to their environment based on their critic approach to physical phenomena and on the experience of their innovative potential. Man is the sole species capable of shaping his destiny. It is therefore crucial to understand why he is following now a path jeopardizing his existence and endangering his survival. One seminal answer should be sought in his human nature. History, past and present, teaches us that mans path on earth was a series of great achievements, but also of horrendous acts performed in periods of brutal, totalitarian regimes, but also in periods of democracy, such as the present one. Dominance and survival were, and are, the main forces in these acts. The minority of this world, bases its well being on dominance, whereas the majority is still in the phase of survival. Both antagonistic worlds, contribute, for varying reasons, to the problem of

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environmental deterioration, increasing pollution, compromising health, the ecosystem, biodiversity, and the values of life on this planet. The new millennium is witnessing the advent of globalization, a system not so new or recent, which is generating unprecedented wealth; however, a mal-distributed one. In part as a consequence of this system, one and a half billion people still live in conditions of extreme poverty. Environmental dumping, recent technological and social developments in agriculture, the creation of a global consumer culture, are major mechanisms linking issues of global growth to poverty and ecology. The reversal of the current ecological deterioration passes through the blunting of the steep economic gradient between industrialized and developing countries, a prerequisite for world peace, in which a humane regime of global regulations is a prerequisite, and is urgently needed (Razis, 2003). If the values of life on this planet, the ecosystem, diversity, environmental ethics, cannot be accepted, treasured and incorporated in our socioeconomic systems, if the world frantically continues an ever-growing pace of unsustainable growth taxing our health and the environment, if it fails to understand that a viable equilibrium must be established between growth and quality of life (human and of the environment), then the future looks bleak. If societies cannot prevent forthcoming events threatening man himself, they will be forced to curatively cope with the ensuing calamities. The challenge, in the historical perspective, has a don quixotic taint: education, public awareness, changes of attitudes, lifestyles and involvement of youth are important ingredients in the fight for an environment supporting peace and progress for all human beings (Mouzelis, 2003). As reproductive health is essential for the maintenance of the human being, it is obvious that we have to reconsider our attitudes, and behaviour, to environmental issues. Current ethics should be revaluated to assure human survival and evolution in an environment not threatened by mans own arrogance and aggressive actions.

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