Alba Regia. Annales Musei Stephani Regis. – Alba Regia. Az István Király Múzeum Évkönyve. 10. 1969 – Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei: C sorozat (1969)

Tanulmányok – Abhandlungen - Makkay János: The Late Neolithic Tordos Group of Sign. X, 1969. p. 9–49. t. I–IV.

Neolithic of Greece, in the material of Sesklo A

—B

49 (e.g. A22, 35). Since this very complicated pattern shows the same variations at Tordos as in the Prehistoric Mesopotamian whirl patterns, we are justified in suggesting that the direct or indirect influence of the whirl pattern of Samarra pottery is apparent at Tordos too. Consequently it is probable that a part of the Tordos whirl patterns may be dated already to the Vinca A period. As to the remaining whirl patterns from the period Vinca Bl — 2 we must suppose either the influence of variations surviving in the 'Ubaid, or even in the Uruk periods (B22, 19) or the impact of the Samarra whirl pattern with a justifiable chronological delay

50 at Tordos. (Throughout the entire South-East European Neolithic and Chalcolithic the Near Eastern influences appear as a rule with such a chronological delay.) Naturally there is a possibility of elements of Samarra, 'Ubaid or early Uruk origin (having arrived with a major chronological delay) meeting diffusions of a later origin but travelling very quickly (felt almost without any delay) in the Vinca Bl—

2 material (such the pictographs of the Tärtäria tablets). This statement is essentially valid for the relations between the signs A18 —B18 and the symbols resembling the Maltese cross (A21 — B21). In South-Eastern Europe they are almost exclusively restricted to Tordos or the Vinca culture respectively, while in Mesopotomia they are related to the Samarra — Halaf — 'Ubaid pottery signs and motives or the signs of somewhat later seals. The situation of the goat motive is similar. Not only is it the most frequent figurai, sometimes even incised pattern (in the latter case a pottery sign) of the Near Eastern Chalcolithic painted wares, it is also extremely frequent among the Tordos signs (A23 — B23). It is important that a special Tordos variety (A24, 1) has an almost perfect Mesopotamian parallel (goats turning their behinds or backs towards each other: B24,

1 resp. 2). Motive A29 —B29 presents an attractive analogy without a possible interpretation, but the connection may hardly be denied in the case of motive A31 — B3

1. The latter might be a portrayal of a human face. There are good parallels in motive A30 — B30, among the representations of human eyes in the first place. Also the symbol resembling the letter M is familiar in Mesopotamia. This one plays an outstanding role in the Szakáihát group of the Linear Pottery, datable to the period Vinca Bl, and partly in Vinca pottery (A32 — B32). In our judgement the enumerated parallels (having regard to the fact that the Tordos signs have no contemporary European parallels at all) are much closer than to allow an explanation by coincidence or general similarities which might arise anywhere. As early as in the period Vinca A their appearance belongs to the framework of Near Eastern influences ("Kulturtrift"), being connected to a feature of the Vinca culture, unique among the South-East European cultures: the very close Anatolian relations, in fact the Anatolian origin of some elements.

51 In other words, even during the period Vinca A, perhaps in its beginning, such influences of Anatolian background and partly of Mesopotamian origin, directed towards the Danube region, « Cp. J. MAKKAY: Orientalia 37 (1968) 274, note 6, with further literature. 60 See on this problem our manuscript study. 6i R. J. RODDEN: The Spondylus-shell Trade and the Beginnings of the Vinca Culture. To be published in the Acts of the VII

th Int. Congress of Prehist. and Protohist. Sc, Section IVa. Manuscript. have to be reckoned with,

52 and these were accompanied by the appearance of pottery signs and ornamental motives very similar to, even somehow connected with the Mesopotamian ones. This should apply to the whirl pattern in the first instance but also in part to the goat motives and the Maltese cross. The reason is that they had disappeared in Mesopotamia by the time of the Mesopotamian pictographs (or had changed their character, as the goat motives), and so wide variations of the whirl pattern which are noticed at Tordos too may have come here, i.e. into Vinca pottery, through the influence of the Samarra motives alone. This means at the same time that the entire Tordos sign group cannot be regarded singularly as the result of the phenomenon which imported or produced the Tärtäria tablets. In fact the Tordos sign group is a summary of general Anatolian

—Mesopotamian impacts partly earlier than Tärtäria and direct Mesopotamian influences which produced the Tärtäria tablets.

53 There are also Tordos signs types which possess fine pictographic and Tartarian parallels (see the comparative tables!). They make up that part of the Tordos sign group which may have become known in Transylvania through Tärtäria or the Tartarian impact. In particular signs A10, 1, A12, 1-7, A15, 15, 35, A16, 1—5, A20, 7, A25, A37, 1 belonghere. (The complexity of the problem is illustrated by the fact that most of these signs have parallels also among the prehistoric motives and sign-like pictures preceding the pictography in Mesopotamia). This it is by the discovery of the Tärtäria tablets that some of the Tordos signs of a pictographic character and the restriction of the signs to the Vinca culture can be explained. The Near Eastern relationship of the Tordos signs was already recognized by Zsófia Torma, in fact the explanation of this fact was presented by her on the level of the archaeological knowledge of her age.

54 It is a great pity that the promised comprehensive summary of her Tordos collection has never been published. Lacking such a contemporary summary we may only suppose that extremely important Tordos clay objects may have gone astray between Zsófia Torma's death and the survey by Márton Roska. This is borne out by the words of Zsófia Torma, referring to the following finds: "A symbolical support of an altar with a globe, similar to the Khorsabad specimen, ... a clay cylinder of Babylonian origin, like the Hissarlik one, decorated by a sign of Troy which, in Sayce's judgment, is derived from Asia Minor; a symbol similar to one in Troy, resembling the Akkadian ideogram of the God Anu.

. ."

55 It is hardly possible to identify these pieces with the available Tordos finds and representations, since we do not have alls of the illustrations made by Zsófia Torma. Some of the finds published by Roska may be identical with the pertinent data of Zsófia Torma. One thing is certain : the above-mentioned clay "cylinder seal" is missing from the finds published by Roska. This is the more deplorable since this clay cylinder, the character of which and its presumable 52 V. POPOVlC : Un problème de méthodologie archéologique : l'origine de la culture de Vinca-Tordos sur le moyen Danube. Manuscript; D. SREJOVIC: Archaeologia lugoslavica 4 (1963) 5 — 17; cp. the criticism of M. Gar a — äanin on the earlier ideas of V. Popovií: BRGK 39 (Berlin 1959) 19, note 94. 53 J. MAKKAY: Orientalia 37 (Roma 1968) passim. 54 On the planet-cult of Dacia before the Roman Rule. (In Hung.) Erdély Múzeum IV. (Kolozsvár 1887) 73-78. 55 Ibid. 76. 14