Prehistoric Figurines

A collection of over 60 small objects of unbaked clay was found in a Khabur Ware period layer at Tell Arbid. The assemblage included a variety of object types: “spools”, “tokens” and discs (some decorated with the same cross-and-dots motif, some with punctuations), tetrahedrons, round model tables and others. The objects were found in situ and had clearly been used together as a set. Parallels for individual objects and an overview of interpretations of other sets of unbaked clay objects from Northern Mesopotamia and neighboring regions are considered in an attempt at establishing the function of the discussed assemblage. However, its interpretation remains open to discussion.

Context is paramount. It is only when scientifically conducted excavations recover archaeological materials in their stratigraphic context that valid inferences can be made about the circumstances in which they were buried, about their chronology and about their function.
Unfortunately, however, most of the marble Early Cycladic figurines and vessels, and many other Early Cycladic atrefacts, now kept or exhibited in the world’s museums apart from the state museums of Greece (as well as nearly all those in private collections) are the product of clandestine excavations. Their findspots are unknown. The circumstances of their discovery are lost: in what circumstances they were found, with what materials they were associated at the time of their discovery are not recorded. Consequently they can add little to our knowledge and understanding of the distant Cycladic past. The looting of Cycladic antiquities represents a tragic loss of knowledge.
    The looting of the Early Cycladic cemeteries and the subsequent sale of their grave goods, marble figurines in particular, is an aspect of illicit activity which has had a continuous presence in the Cyclades since at least the late 18th century. The need of the great museums in Western Europe to form their collections resulted in the quest for art treasures in Greece. Along with the remains of the classical Greek world other antiquities, including Cycladic marble figurines, although sometimes described as ‘barbarian’ or ‘ugly’, were most welcome.
Early Cycladic sculpture was not greatly esteemed until the early twentieth century. Then, however, the modernist movements, as represented by such sculptors as Picasso, Braque, Brancusi, and Giacometti, created a new aesthetic, in which the striking simplicity of Cycladic sculpture came to be greatly appreciated. From that time these sculptures were no longer regarded as mere curiosities, but as works of art, and began to be priced accordingly. It has, indeed, been argued by Colin Renfrew that all Early Cycladic sculptures of unknown origin, and therefore lacking secure context, which have emerged on the market after the early 20th century, more specifically after the year 1914, should be regarded as of doubtful authenticity. Since that time it is clear that numerous replicas have been produced with the intention to deceive.
    Ιt was in Paris in the year 1970 that the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was adopted. Although it was not ratified at once by all the participating nations, it has now been very widely ratified and accepted and establishes a number of fundamental principles.
    The world’s major museums, guided by the International Council of Museums (ICOM), have now gradually adopted ethical acquisition policies, but some still do not enforce them with rigour. One might have hoped that in the light of the apparent reform in museum ethics, this perspective would be communicated to private collectors, and that demand for unprovenanced Early Cycladic sculpture on the open market would recede. However such is not the case. Auction houses widely considered respectable continue to offer for sale Cycladic antiquities which certainly have no collecting history extending back as far as 1970. The implication must certainly be that these are illicit antiquities, illegally excavated.
When the public sale of illicit antiquities continues in auction houses in London and New York it is clear that the battle against looting is not yet won. Nevertheless, if museums and private collectors would refrain from acquiring any Early Cycladic material which has come to light since 1970, the year of the UNESCO Convention, ongoing looting might be diminished.

Resumen: En el verano del año 2006 se produjo en el yacimiento La Orden-Seminario de Huelva el hallazgo de dos depósitos votivos compuestos por 33 objetos de finalidad religiosa o ritual entre los que abundaban unas pequeñas figurillas o imágenes de culto prehistórico: los ídolos. Destacan siete ejemplares decorados del tipo denominado cilindro "oculado" por presentar ojos y cejas enmarcados por unos haces de líneas quebradas denominadas "tamajes faciales", representando de esta manera un rosrro de rasgos anrropomorfos. Están datados en el III milenio a.C.

Gudum north of Slagelse on Sealand is one of five place-names in Denmark that derive from the compound Gudhem, meaning ‘home of the gods’. The name indicates that the site might contain traces of a pre-Christian sanctuary, resembling the rich Iron Age settlement at Gudme on Funen. At the conference “The Gudme/Gudhem Phenomenon” in Schleswig in 2010, the topographical and archaeological sources from Gudum were analysed. The then available archaeological evidence gave no indications that Gudum on Zealand comprised a ‘home of the Gods’. A few years later, the fields surrounding Gudum Church were subjected to comprehensive detector surveys, uncovering several hundred bronze, silver and gilded artefacts from the Late Iron and Viking Age. These finds reflect activities at a rich settlement and production site and thereby shed new light on the character of the site. Among the finds is an anthropomorphic figure, 9 cm high, found as two fragments c. 25 m apart. It is shown en face with a round head and a parted hair-style, large eyes, chubby cheeks and an open mouth with protruding tongue. It wears a neck ring and what appears to be clothing, with sleeves and trousers marked. The hands are placed on the abdomen. There are no traces of legs. Parallels date the figure to the Migration Period. There are no traces of soldering or other fastening techniques. It is proposed that the figure may have adorned a baldric, though other uses can be discussed too.

http://www.archeo.ru/izdaniya-1/vagnejshije-izdanija/izdaniya-po-godam/pdf/2018Nemirov.pdf

Смирнова Г.И., Вахтина М.Ю., Кашуба М.Т., Старкова Е.Г. (Приложения: Калинина К.Б., Закосьцельна А., Кершнер М. и Моммзен Х., Хаврин С.В.) Городище Немиров на реке Южный Буг. По материалам раскопок в ХХ веке из коллекций Государственного Эрмитажа и Научного архива ИИМК РАН. Санкт-Петербург: ГЭ; ИИМК РАН; НКТ, 2018. 336 с.
Smirnova G.I., Vakhtina M.Ju., Kashuba M.T., Starkova E.G. (With the Supplements by Kalinina K.B., Zakościelna А., Kerschner М. and Mommsen H., Khavrin S.V.) Nemirov Hill Fort on South Bug River. According the excavation materials of the 20th century from collections of the State Hermitage Museum and documents kept in IHMC RAS. St. Petersburg: The State Hermitage Museum; Institute for the History of Material Culture RAS; Neva Book Printing House, 2018. 336 p.
The collective monograph is devoted to the famous archaeological site – Nemirov hill-fort on South Bug. At the basis of investigation are the materials from the excavations of the settlement in the 20th century kept in Scientifc Archive of the Institute for the History of Material Culture RAS, Archive and collection funds of the Department of Archaeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia of the State Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg). The book reviews the history of the excavation of the site by S.S. Gamchenko (1909), A.A. Spitzyn (1910), and M.I. Artamonov (1946–1948). The book gives a detailed account of two periods of the occupation of the settlement: in Eneolithic time (Trypillia culture) and Early Iron Age (Scythian culture). The authors showed the signifcance of the hill-fort in the Early Iron Age, when two impulses reflected in its culture ― Hallstatt (in the broad meaning of the term) and early contacts with the Greeks. The general scheme of development of the material culture of the hill-fort in different historical periods ― from Eneolithic time till modern epoch ― has been suggested. The book consists of the six parts and nine supplements, which include the catalogues
of individual fnds of Trypillia culture, Greek Archaic pottery and the results of natural-scientifc analyses of Trypillia pottery, East-Greek pottery and of the surface of the bronze mirror handle. A lot of archive materials and fnds kept in collections are published for the frst time. The book is destined to archaeologists, historians, specialists in related sciences, students and all interested in archaeology and history of the ancient Northern Black Sea and Europe.

Due to the physical properties of fired clay objects, the Neolithic, unlike the Paleolithic era, left behind a significantly larger quantity of material evidence, allowing us to fathom the economic, social, spiritual and artistic trends of the populations of the New Stone Age. Figurines stand out as one of the most remarkable features of Neolithic material culture, reflecting the image of Neolithic man and his style of life in a very direct and impressive way. Through various forms and stylizations, figurines reveal details about the clothing, adornment, hairstyle or physical appearance of an individual, while their functional and spiritual character remains a burning issue in archaeological debates.
In European Neolithic era, the culture of Vinča stands out as the one characterized by superior craftsmenship in clay modeling, its most prominent aspect being figurative sculpture, one of the most outstanding artistic achievements of the Neolithic era. Although figurative sculpture is present in all phases of Vinča culture (5400- 4500 BC), it could be claimed that its diversity, profusion and high artisanship culminated in the centuries around 4800 BC (Тасић 2008: 144). It is assumed that such flourishing of art is connected with the continual existence of the settlements and stable economy, followed by an organized social system with a developed belief system and established ritual practices.
The sample chosen for the statistical analysis of the sex or any other detail is limited to the specimens with preserved body parts on which it is possible to notice the existence of the required element. Thus, if we are interested in the sex of the figurine, the analytical sample will only be comprised of the specimens with preserved body parts on which sex attributes could be expected. The procedure is similar if we are interested in the number of bracelets shown on female figurines, in which case the sample will include only the specimens with defined sex and at least one preserved arm. Such sampling procedure was followed consistently in all the statistical analyses of the presence of certain elements on the figurines.
The total of Neolithic and early Eneolithic figurines from northern areas of the Central Balkans is 359 specimens of figurative sculpture, collected from fifteen sites from four narrow geographical areas, marked as Župa aleksandrovačka, lower section of Južna Morava, Ponišavlje and Toplica. The number of sites and figurines per area varies considerably from one area to another; thus, in Župa aleksandrovačka, only one site with twenty-three figurines has been registered, while only seventeen figurines have been collected from four sites in Ponišavlje. On the other hand, 225 specimens from five sites in Toplica were included in the sample for analysis, and only ninety-four specimens from the same number of sites registered in the lower section of Južna Morava entered the catalogue. Such irregular concentration is connected with the degree to which these areas have been researched, but also with the inference that the highest concentration of figurines has been noted between the lines Vinča- Gladnice and Starčevo – Pavlovac. More precisely, the concentration of figurines decreases with the increase of the distance between Vinča’s settlements and these lines.
The total sample showed that the largest number of specimens is incomplete and can be classified into some of the categories according to the preserved elements (Table 1). The specimens with only heads preserved are the most common ones (152 items or 42%), while the fragments which represent only preserved body parts are much less frequent (64 items or 18%), followed by headless figurines (58 items or 16%), complete figurines (46 items, 13%), busts (22 items, 6%) and limb fragments (17 items, 5%). Some researchers noted that the fragmentation of figurines is related to deliberate breaking and mutilation of certain body parts. This thesis is based on the fact that complete figurines are most commonly found in the remains of Neolithic houses, while a much larger number of figurines’ fragments are found scattered across the site or thrown into the garbage pit (Porčić 2011, 2012a). Hence, it is assumed that deliberate breaking of figurines was a part of a widespread ritual which used to define or regulate the complex social relations among the members of Vinča’s communities (Chapman J. 2000; Porčić 2012b; Лазић 2015).
The fragmentation of the zoomorphic figurines allowed sex analysis in seventeen items (52%), while 16 items (48%) had no preserved body parts where the attributes for sex recognition would be expected. Thus, in the chosen sample of zoomorphic figurines, there are three items with a clearly defined male sex organ (18%), while it was impossible to clearly determine the sex in the rest.
An interesting characteristic of the figurines from the sample is that the heads on the male and sexless ones are preserved in the majority of cases (64% and 65%), while the percentage of female figurines with preserved heads is much lower and amounts to 23%. Such statistic supports the thesis that figurines without clear sex characteristics are also male representations. If we take into account the assumption that each figurine represents an individual from the community (Лазић 2015), as well as the fact that complete figurines are mainly found in houses (Porčić 2011, 2012a; Porčić and Blagojević 2014), we can assume that the majority of male figurines actually used to represent the head-of-household, i.e. the protector of the family.  Although family relations in the communities of Vinča culture remain unknown to us, the long established thesis of complete absence of matriarchal societies throughout the entire history of humankind (Vezel 1983) could point to this possibility. However, such conclusions do not necessarily negate the importance of women in religion, cult and ritual practices. Observing their artistic beauty, representations and frequency, it could be assumed that certain female figurines justifiably represented an infinite source of inspiration for the study of Neolithic religion, where fertility cult and woman as a supreme deity of the Neolithic pantheon, with names such as Mother goddess, Great goddess, or the proto-mother, have always been emphasized.
The practice of keeping male anthropomorphic figurines may have been preserved through the cult of ancestral spirits, so this type of figurines was passed down from generation to generation as the idol and protector of the home. In relation to this, the reason for generally lower frequency of male statuettes on Vinča sites should be looked into. Potential scenarios which emerged from the analyses of the figurines found in a precisely registered context present us with several possibilities, but the assumption that each household had a figurine whose duration equalled that of the household itself or one generation (Porčić 2011) is the most well-argumented one. Activities connected to ancestor worship lead to the development of a belief system which could have evolved into concepts of heroes and gods in the course of time. The notion of ancestor cult and common history of a society limited the process of social differentiation through inherited power, authority or status, thus lowering social tensions (Insoll 2011). That way, male or sexless figurines can also be interpreted as status symbols of family's origins.
On the other hand, the sample showed that female figurines were broken more often, which could be related to a certain ritual during a woman's marriage and leaving the family home, but, since there are no insights in the structure of Neolithic society, this thesis remains just a bold assumption. We must note that such interpretation of Late Neolithic anthropomorphic figurines cannot be applied to all items in the sample, since it contains figures which represent babies, hermaphrodites, as well as individuals or groups in various scenes from the life of the community.

Zusammenfassung: Das Tollensetal in Nordostdeutschland ist bekannt für die Zeugnisse eines Gewaltkonfliktes aus dem frühen 13 Jh. v. Chr. (Nordische Bronzezeit, Periode III). In diesem Aufsatz wird ein Neufund aus der jüngeren Bronzezeit vorgestellt, den Ronald Borgwardt im Sommer 2020 im Fluss an einer bereits bekannten bronzezeitlichen Talquerung (Fpl. Weltzin 13) entdeckt hat. Die Bronzefigur (Länge 14,7 cm) zeigt u. a. einen eiförmigen Kopf mit prominent geformter Nase, geschwungene Arme, einen Halsring, zwei Knubben für die Brüste, einen Gürtel, eine Markierung des weiblichen Geschlechts und zwei leicht unterschiedlich geformte Beine. Im 19. Jh. wurde eine ähnliche weibliche Statuette einige Kilometer entfernt bei Klein Zastrow entdeckt, aber die meisten Figuren dieser Art sind von Seeland und aus Schonen bekannt. Nur Statuetten der Insel Seeland und aus Vorpommern haben einen Gürtel und dies spricht für eine enge Verbindung der Figuren aus diesen Gebieten. Typologische Argumente datieren die Statuette aus der Tollense in die späte Bronzezeit (Periode V-VI). Vor einigen Jahren wurden die Figuren als mögliche Gewichte diskutiert, aber ihre