Ilon Gábor: Százszorszépek. Emberábrázolás az őskori Nyugat-Magyrországon (Szombathely, 2007)

Kalicz Nándor: Az őskori agyagszobrászat kezdetei a Nyugat-Dunántúlon (Kr. e. 6000–Kr. e. 3000)

AZ ŐSKORI AGYAGSZOBRÁSZAT KEZDETEI A NYUGAT-DUNÁNTÚLON DIE ANFÄNGE DER URGESCHICHTLICHEN Classical phase, Keszthely group: Keszthely-Dobogó At Becsehely II a large-scale excavation was also carried out between 1999-2000 where, apart from the older phase, the younger or classical phase was also represented by features among which traces of houses were also revealed. This classical phase is called Keszthely group after the site of Keszthely-Dobogó in south Transdanubia. The site at Keszthely-Dobogó represents the material culture of this phase only. At the early stage of research small-scale excavations dominated such as at Becsehely I, Balatonmagyaród, Kustánszeg, Kisunyom, Dozmat, Győrszemere and Kúp-Egyes than at the beginning of 2000's large-scale excavations revealed finds from the period such as at Petrivente, Becsehely I, Muraszemenye and Sormás. Young phase, Zseliz culture: Győr-Pápai vám In the northern part of Transdanubia finds from the Keszthely group are not present. In this, region the so called „Notenkopf ' and somewhat later the Zseliz cultures lived that are considered to be independent archaeological units. Among the first excavations in northern Transdanubia the already mentioned Győr-Pápai vám was where the first remains of house foundations were found. Later on the excavations at Győrszemere and Kúp revealed further finds from the independent "Notenkopf

' culture. In the 1990's large-scale excavations were also carried out in Győr-Moson-Sopron County among these excavations the one at Mosonszentmiklós is the most significant. At this site an extensive part of a settlement was revealed with postholes indicating the outline of 18 houses of the Zseliz culture. Survey also revealed several hundreds of sites representing the whole chronological sequence of the TLPC. The end of the TLPC was around 5000/4900 ВС. The figurines and human-faced vessels of the Transdanubian Linear Pottery Culture (TLPC) Large, middle and small-scale excavations of the TLPC revealed figurines from all the phases of the cultural group, but it must be emphasised that the number of figurines is very small. This phenomenon is not characteristic to the Transdanubian region only but to the whole distribution area of the culture. From the older phase of the culture there is only one torso from Zalavár, which does not have a head, arms, or legs. Its body is oval, :N IN WEST-TRANSDANUBIEN THE BEGINNING OF PREHISTORIC НШ SW

C IN WESTEFCT WJBIA, HUNGARY almost circular in cross section. It has a circular incised line on the waist perhaps representing a belt. Despite that it is not steatopygic and it does not have breasts without a doubt it is a female figurine because its groin area shows female characteristics. The features of the torso indicate that the figurine was carefully made. There are a few figurines known from the Keszthely group as well within the examined region (Becsehely II, Petrivente, Sormás-Török földek, Balatonmagyaród, Kisunyom, Torony). Their characteristics are partly similar to that of the Zalavár figurine but they also show differences from each other. The cross section of their bodies is circular, flat, or oval. Their heads are triangular and bent backwards. Only the eyes and the nose are depicted, the mouth is not. There are also figurines with rounded heads where the mouth is shown but the faces of these figurines are flat. The heads, in many cases, show protruding faces and noses which lend an animal appearance to the heads. This way of forming the head will later be characteristic. In most cases the head is joined to the body without a neck. The head is mostly circular or oval in cross section. In a few cases, where the arms remained, this is accounted for by the fact that they are represented by short, horizontal stumps. Their bottoms are bulging but not over represented but when the gender of the figurine is depicted, those figurines are always females. In many cases the figurines are asexual. On the body different asymmetrical incised lines appear, the meaning of which is unknown. Such representation is observed on a figurine from Petrivente. No undamaged figurine has been found so far but mainly figurines the arms and legs of which are missing. In most cases the head is also broken off. An appearance of a uniform belief system, covering a large geographical area is also represented on figurines from this period. Such representation is shown by an incised motif executed in different ways on the backs of the figurines. It is a fish bone motif with a vertical incised line or impression in the middle. The meaning of this motif may have been uniform from eastern Transdanubia through Lower Austria to Moravia, moreover to middle and south Germany. Similarly known incised decorative motifs were the ones on the torso of Petrivente which has analogies in Germany. The fish bone motif is often considered by some researchers to represent the backbone and ribs. This interpretation is not widely accepted by other researchers who argue that in this period people did not have such detailed anatomical knowledge. Today we cannot determine what Neolithic people meant by these representations but it can be assumed that they had an appropriate anatomical knowledge to recognise human bones. This is considered to be a plausible argument even when the decorations were not meant to depict parts of a skeleton. Hair representation appears within the whole distribution area of the culture. Hair details are recognisable even