1. Your first paragraph should be Armstrong’s Neolithic chapter (starts page 19

1. Your first paragraph should be Armstrong’s Neolithic chapter (starts page 19 in PDF provided). Foci might include agricultural earth-based religion, evidence for a Mother-goddess, and comparisons and contrasts of Neolithic goddesses discussed by Armstrong such as Inanna, Isis, Anat, and Demeter, and corresponding Green Man gods such as Dumuzi, Osiris, Baal, Dionysus and Adonis. What mythic motifs (or mythemes) make the potentially Neolithic origin of these goddesses plausible or implausible in your opinion (i.e. despite the fact our evidence for their worship comes from much later periods)? What do you make of relative secondary status of male gods in this reconstruction?
2. Your second paragraph should focus on the goddess Isis (starts page 571 in link I will send tutor), and especially on Plutarch’s account of the myth of Isis and Osiris. Possible foci include further analysis of the Ennead myth, the character of Isis, the conflict of Osiris and Seth, the deaths and rebirths of Osiris, the mourning, anger, wanderings, struggles, and mercy of Isis, the influence of Isis in antiquity, and syncretism of Isis and Demeter. Make sure in this paragraph to quote Plutarch’s actual text and the lecture (I will send a link of the lecture to tutor) in discussing myths of Isis and her character as a goddess.
As usual, a satisfactory DF contribution will include 2 paragraphs of minimum 8 lines each on two assigned materials, some substantive engagement with the professor’s lecture or lecture notes in each paragraph, as well as one substantive reply to a student peer of minimum 4 lines.