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As prehistory gives way to history, and men and women start to write down the stories of their lives we begin to learn the names of some of these divine women. Isis, Ishtar, Innana, the Queen of Heaven. They actually come in all shapes and sizes. But a notable number share two key traits. These are still creatures in charge of both life and death, of conflict and fertility. They inspire awe and they are terrifying.

I'm going to the wild highlands of central Turkey in search of one of them, to see how delaying the women evolved as small societies grew into vast kingdoms.

In the first millennium BC, people called the Phrygians lived on this mountainous frontier. Blasted by a long, hard winter's own border by the great warrior and powers of the Near East, life was a constant battle for survival. They worshipped a great goddess who would be revered and feared across three continents. She was known as Kybele, or Mater, the Mother.

But this goddess was not very maternal, She stands on her own in wild and savage places. This is where you'll find one of the most mysterious monuments to the goddess in the East, Because this is the place where she was thought to emerge from the mountain home. The Phrygians believed that at monuments like this, the mother would appear from a doorway in the side of the mountain to be worshipped.

The goddess originally stood in the middle here, and you can probably just make out that she's flanked on either side by two lions. The terrible thing is that up until a couple of years ago, she did still stand here.

But treasure hunters have hacked her out of the rock. For close on 3000 years, the goddess protected this mountain. And now she's just a pile of fragments. Solitary crumbling shrines like this give us tantalising glimpses of a powerful ancient goddess in danger of disappearing from the landscape, and from history.

Following her trail, I'm going to the most important Kybele site in Phrygia. The holy city dedicated to her worship.

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Midas city is named after the kingdom's most famous ruler, whose touch was said to turn everything to gold. I am meeting Professor Taciser Sivas to find out what this goddess meant to her people.

Why do you think she was always worshipped in mountains and high places like this?

Professor Sivas. "The high places are where the main sanctuaries for the mother goddess are because she controlled the nature. She controls the animals. She controls the wild world."

It's almost as if without her nature is an enemy, not an ally?

Professor Sivas. "Yes. Without the goddess mother, there's a wild nature here and dangers. So the mother goddess was the protector of the people."

Do you think they really believed this goddess inhabited these rocks, that this was her earthly home?

Professor Sivas. "Yes. They shaped the rocks as temples, open-air temples."

This doorway, it's obviously a doorway into a home in the rocks. Could it be a doorway between life and death?

Professor Sivas. "Yes. She is responsible for life and afterlife."

That's a pretty powerful position to be in.

Professor Sivas. "Yes, sure. She's the mother goddess."

This goddess who controlled life and death seems to have a lot in common with those semi--divine figures we saw back in Catalhöyük. But she's evolved. As societies developed in scale and got more sophisticated, the goddess has got bigger. She's no longer the diminutive little figurine in Catalhoyuk. Now she's kind of dominatrix, guarding and ruling over a vast landscape.

But the domination of Kybele and other powerful goddesses like her wouldn't go unchallenged. The goddess would have to deal with a new pretender to the throne.