science · 22 December 1815 · 209 years ago
birth
Born 22 Dec 1815; died 25 Nov 1887 at age 71.
Swiss jurist and cultural anthropologist best known for his study of ancient matriarchies, Das Mutterrecht (1861; "Mother Right"), in which he desribed his finding that the matriarchy existed among all primitive peoples. He studied ancient civilizations in Italy, Greece, and Spain with a particular interest in the laws, customs, and rituals of ancient societies. He interpreted the spiritual and social worlds of ancient societies not only through analysis of myths, but also by the archaeological artifacts, and the information he drew from the iconography of funeral urns (though in this latter skill, his exactness may have sometimes strayed with his imagination).
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