>>>... before you started actually dancing, taking classes, and learning about this, what did you think of bellydance? Where did you think it came from? >>>

Well, I always experienced it as a seductive form actually. I was introduced to bellydancing at a young age by an Egyptian lady who lived in our neighborhood. She was a mother, a wife and a very 'lively' person with a great sense of humour where sexuality was concerned. Her husband used to refer to her as his little "afrita" which means "devil". It was cute and charming to see them always 'cooing' with eachother. She would often stress the idea that bellydancing was 'the ultimate art of seduction' and that in order to be good at it, you first had to know how to make yourself very glamourous and alluring [ie perfectly coiffed hair, eyes and lips made up, nicely perfumed and costume well fitted, showing the right amount of cleaveage and leg [and it had to be lavishly expensive]. Then she showed how to move the body, hips and torso in the most enticing way, with utmost control and smoothness, and attention to the most minute details ie hand gesticulations, arm placement ...where are the eyes looking?...What are your lips saying?...How are you breathing?.... I'll never know for sure [as I never thought to ask her]... but she may have actually been a pro dancer back home in her country.

Some time later, while taking folk dance lessons at a club in Hollywood CA called "Cafe Hadarim", I saw the most beautiful bellydancer, a chocolate brown beauty with long black hair [down to the back of her knees!] and the most perfect [bombshell] body...shimmering across the floor, in her guilded dress like some magnificent creature from another world. I was so captivated by the spectacle of her, her beauty, the magic surrounding her....that I knew right then and there that I would give anything just to be HER, even for a moment! I never knew her name and never have I seen anything like her since. But she became my own personal archetype of the "perfect bellydancer" and still lives on if only in my memory.

Heck, I never questioned whether bellydancing was about sexiness & enticement. But I was surprised and bewildered when I learned later on that many in the bellydance community rejected this idea so completely [and so vehemently] and had replaced it with this "mother goddess & childbirth" stuff. Not that I have a problem with this concept which is also just as beautiful. I just don't believe it.

Eisler's work is mostly propaganda, barely any better than Gimbutas in the invention of "facts." A better middle ground would be "The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why An Invented Past Will Not Give Women a Future" by Cynthia Eller but even there you'll have to weed out the massive amount of "face saving" done by the author to get any kind of thought provoking information. Personally I would avoid gender bias or blatant advertisements for gender in the titles of books as the authors really don't do a good job presenting the material without attempting to make a sensationalist point.

I found "After the Ice" by Steven Mithen to be extremely thorough. It's an excellent starting position to begin further research into your specific areas of interest. From there you can put whatever spin you want on history but I personally think it's better to start out knowing the basics of the archaeology that's out there and the theories that are at work today before exposing yourself to the slippery slope of faulty research and sensational oppinion.

~*Spoon*~

>>>Can you give me the names of these papers, I doubt they are as accurate as you might believe. >>>

Which papers are you referring to?