Folia archeologica 27.

István Ecsedy: Két neolitikus idol Kelet-Magyarországról

Folia y \rcbaeologica XXVII. 1976 Budapest TWO NEOLITHIC IDOLS FROM EASTERN HUNGARY István ECSED Y In the archaeological collection of the Munkácsy Mihály Múzeum, Békéscsaba, two Neolithic clay figurines are kept; both of them come from the Körös region, more exactly from along the river Sebes-Körös. Their modelling makes it evident that they were made in the period subsequent to the Körös culture but anterior to the Tisza culture, being productions of the people of the Alföld Linear Pottery culture. 1. Find place: Szeghalom-Kovácsdomb. The statuette (Fig. 1) was found in the course of earth moving on the territory of the well-known Neolithic tell.

1 A schematic female figure; made of well-burnt, reddish-brown clay; its form is oval, divided at the place corresponding to the throat by a horizontal line. The front widens at the temples, the nose is plastically raised, eyes, nostrils and mouth are marked superficially, with slight indentations. The face is framed by an incised linear decoration. The surface of the body is decorated with incised zig-zag lines, indicating the dress, and surrounding the slightly raised breasts and the vulva, this latter indicated by a deep incision. The incised lines on the upper part of the torso, starting from the horizontal line marking the neck part and converging between the breasts in an acute angle indicate probably a necklace. The extremities are not represented. The incised linear pattern covers both sides of the statuette, while its rear part is undecorated. No traces of a fracture are discernible on the rear, so that we cannot presume that the figure had been attached to a vessel. (This later possibility had to be taken in considerance, for also the lower part of the figurine is rounded, consequently not fit for standing unpropped.) 1 The stratigraphical relations of the insular tell-settlement between the Sebes-Körös and the Berettyó, once enclosed by their inundations, were cleared by the excavation of Kornél Bakay, in 1969. The settlement contained stratum series of the younger section of the Alföld Linear Pottery culture (Szakáihát group), surmounted by finds of the Tisza culture, and in the uppermost, ploughed stratum by those of the Tiszapolgár culture. Bakay, K., SMiMK 1(1971) 135-153.