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The Epoch at which the Divine Mother was worshipped as a supreme deity represents one of the most enticing problems of the history of civilisation as well as of various religious creeds and the birth of myths. It embraces her first appearance in the fantasy of mankind, the circumstances and duration of her rule within diverse groups of man, and finally the period of gradually fading away of her authority owing to her repression by male godheads. Obviously this would lead us to a search for the reasons that brought about her partial or total destitution, and it has scarcely to be mentioned that if the fact and principal motives of such a destitution process would be discussed, much new light could be thrown upon the evolution of the cultic trends of the peoples involved. Moreover, being acquainted with the fact of her repression within a definite cultural zone, it might be possible to infer from certain symptoms encountered in the religious rites of other peoples which had invaded the same zone and come into close contact with its inhabitants that the symptoms were brought about as a consequence of the displacement of the goddess in that very zone. This inference may be justified even in case that no concrete proof of a substitution by the male god who was actually swaying the sceptre over the people prior to its invasion could be produced and no previous rule of the Divine Mother over it revealed at all. This is exactly the case with the people of Israel after it invaded canaan.
One of the cultic symptoms we are bearing in mind is