Agria 41. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2005)
Domboróczki László: A háromszögletű AVK-fejek szimbolikája
possible that the male (bull) god iconography only came into being at the very beginning of the ALP period. 54 To summarise what has been said above, in the early phase of the ALP, during the period of the Szatmár Group, something new appeared in the symbolism relating to fertility. Already the Körös figurines reflected hermaphroditism representing both phalluses and steatopyg women, while a new element was added to this bipolar symbolism with the appearance of Szatmár-ALP figurines by also introducing the baby's birth into this iconography. The new, triangular face, as bull and sexual triangle, as earlier, designated both male and female attributes at one and the same time, but above all also the future offspring was incorporated into this image. The whole composition is made up of an expressive face containing a distinctly anthropomorphic character, capable of embodying fertility's all encompassing power. For the moment one cannot be sure whether we have here the birth of an iconography based on a concrete (male-bull) god or just some kind of personalisation of an abstract animist notion connected with fertility. The face could have, however, been applied to all kinds of things requiring the strength of this transcendental power. At the same time as the development of ALP the areas lying south of the Körös Culture also experienced a change in the symbolism associated with fertility. One just needs to look at the Vinca representations. The faces similar to the triangular ALP heads suggest a similar underlying meaning. Indeed, our explanations for the symbolism of the ALP faces are probably equally true for the the Vinca faces. Here too one can make out the bull, the sexual triangle and the embryonic associations in the face. In addition the face unquestionably refers to a "mask" which has been applied to the human head, of a kind which certainly appeared in the ceremonies of the time as one of the attributes of the new, divine substance being born. To return to the history of our region, later, during the most developed period of ALP this new symbolic system developed further. Although manifested in different ways, depending on whether they occurred in the northern or southern part of the region, they for the most part expressed the same things. The formal differences are best seen in the face-pots. In their study, to which we referred earlier, Pál Raczky and Alexandra Anders make a distinction between the northern 54 Here one does not have to think of the birth of the male god, because I. Pavlû's "birth of the bull" (Ivan PAVLÛ 1966. 711-712.) is already present in the Çatal Hüyük iconography (Table 1. ill. 2.), from which one can conclude it was an Anatolian rather than a local invention. Instead, what we have in mind is the emergence of a "boy" god as part of a local iconography. That one is dealing here with a male god, the reference comes in the form of a triangular bull's head. This has also been suggested by others on the basis of the engraved markings on the idols and face-pots: Nándor KALICZ-Judit KOÓS 2000a. 20. 28
