Janus Pannonius Múzeum Évkönyve 13 (1968) (Pécs, 1971)

Régészet - Makkay, János: The Chalcolithic Male Relief from Villánykövesd and the Earliest Male Figurines in South-Eastern Europa

42 MAKKAY Two small reliefs from Tell Azmak (Bulgaria) are contemporaneous with one of the periods (perhaps A or B) of the Vinca culture. One of them (PL 4, no 7) is placed on the side of a »Late Neolithic-« vessel and may represent a man, though this is uncertain, nor is it stated by G. I. Georgiev. The other is an Aeneolithic piece (PL 4, no. 3), being so strongly schematized that it cannot be regarded either as a male or as a female. It may be a find of the Gumelnita culture. A small relief from Blejesti (Roumania) belongs to the same culture, showing the interesting feature of being recessed (Fig. 4 no. 5). Among the small reliefs known, but only partially published, from the contemporary Cucuteni culture one piece has been uncovered at Traian (PL 3, no. 7); on the whole it is identical with the former but perhaps more grossly wrought. Another piece, found at Trusesti, furnishes a most important analogy, being the nearest parallel of the Villánykövesd find among all treated above. It figures a man equally, and it is almost identical to our specimen both as to conception and execution (PL 4, no. 2). In our view it portrays a man doubtlessly, though Petrescu-Dimbovita mentions it among the small reliefs of the period Cucuteni A depicting women, while the special hand- and foot-hold are, in his judgment, »Hockerstellung, . . .die dem Schöpfungsmythos entspricht«.

17 In all probability he suggests that the background of the figuring may have been some myth connected to the mystery of childbirth. As regards the role and purpose of the female reliefs situated on large-size clay vessels, his view leads to the same conclusion, as our statement regarding the Tordos specimens in thet last resort. Should we regard the find as a male portrait, however, we ought to approach its purpose in a different way. For the rest, another male figure in relief is known too from Trusesti-Tuguieta (PL 10, no. I).

18 It is further revealed by the report of Petrescu-Dimbovita that the small reliefs uncovered hitherto (whether they present human or animal forms) are in part unpublished, so we cannot deal with this circle, showing strong relationships probably, in full detail. Therefore we close the survey of the parallels of the Villánykövesd find as a small relief in human shape with a specimen which may help us in approaching the colution of the problem of the original purpose of such »ornaments«. This find has been found at Gomolava, Yougoslavia, and it may be dated to the period Vinca В in all " Einige Probleme der Cucuteni-Kultur im Lichte der neuen archäologischen Grabungen. Symposium über den Lengyel-Komplex und die benachbarten Kulturen, Nitra

—Male Vozokany, 1967. Studijne Zvesti 17 (Nitra 1970). 18 A. Nitu, SCIV 18:4 (1967) Fig. 1,1. probability (PL 4 no. 1). Although the find is but the fragment of a larger vessel and it lacks parts of the scene itself evidently, we may take it for granted that it depicts the preparations of a man and a woman to the act the hieros gamos. Naturally its maker had an extremely rough conception on the composing of the subject and he portrayed it with a technique which may be regarded as primitive even in comparison with the small reliefs presented so far. In the last resort he applied such plastic bands which are frequent features on Neolithic coarse pottery, even outside the orbit of figurai ornaments. The validity of our conclusion regarding the sacred marriage as a subject is borne out mainly by two parallels of different character but related to and coeval with the piece dealt with. The proof is furnished by the observation that the representation of the sacred marriage was a familiar subject in the culture area of the Gomolava find. The first find comes again from Vinca, unearthed at a depth of 4,8 metres. It is a terracotta fashioned after a bed, on it »deux figures humaines couchées, malheureusement endommagées. Devant les pieds des figures, on voit un tuyau, servant comme eschara, comme aux temps mycénéens et grecs classiques.«

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" In Vasic's view the already missing original figures on the bed may have presented the »dioscurs« but we cannot agree with this definition. We prefer to conclude to the hieros gamos in this case, on the basis of the contemporary terracottas of similar subjects available to us, very scarce at any rate. (Let is be said in passing that a terracotta, similar to a bed-model but hardly shaped after a real one, with a tiny hole in one end, has been uncovered also at Vinca, at the depth of 5,8 metres.

20 It shew u human figure sitting or kneeling in front of a pit but it is broken off by now. But the interpretation of the find alludes to an act different from the sacred marriage. In European prehistoric material only a single terracotta is known on which the man and woman lying on a bed represent the sacred marriage. This is the Late Helladic small terracotta of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, probably a product of an Argolid workshop.

21 (Re19 M. M. Vasié, La nécropole de Klicevac. Starinar 3—4 (1952—53) pp. 6, 15, Figs. 4a—b; Id., Preistoriska Vinca III. Plastika, Terakote. (Beograd, 1936.) PL CXI. a—d = Fig. 514. 2U M. M. Vasié, PV III. op. cit. Fig. 512 on p. 108, no. 1252. * K. Majewski, Une terre cuite de Helladique Récent au Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts. Bulletin du Musée Hongrois des Beaux-Arts 9 (Budapest, 1956) pp. 5—11; Id., Nouvelles sources archéologiques pour hieros gamos. Omagiu C. Daicoviciu (Bucuresti, 1960) pp. 353—357; Id., Archeológia 10, 1958 (1960) pp. 148—152.