A Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve, 1978/79-1. (Szeged, 1980)

Hegedűs, Katalin: Two New Enthroned Idols from Szegvár-Tűzköves

The hollow construction of the body can be explained in mundane terms ; the practised potter surely was aware of the basics of his medium the clay. A statue of this size fashioned from sand-tempered clay must perforce be hollow in order to mediate against rupturing in the oven. This perhaps explains why the potter chose the safer, albeit more complicated technique. 3. Nearly the complete inventory of cultical artifacts appear as early as the beginning of the Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin.

12 Included here are such objects as figurines, altars and anthropomorphic vessels of all shapes, sizes and perhaps even functions. Still it is undeniable that the Tisza culture represents the peak of an artistic and quantitative expression for these phenomena. Most worthy of note is the monumentality, if not in size, then in presentation of the enthroned male and female gods and goddesses.

13 The predecessors of these early deities can be seen among the finds of the Middle Neolithic Szakáihát group which is almost certainly the direct lifegiver to the Tisza culture. In support of this it should be mentioned that such enthroned figurines are either missing, or they are rarer in the other contemporaneuos groups.

14 12 Kutzián, I., A Körös kultúra Diss. Pann. II. 23. Budapest (1944) See also Höckmann, О. Die Menschengestaltige Figuralplastik der Südosteuropäischen Jungsteinzeit und Steinkupferzeit. I—II. Hildesheim (1968). 18 There are differing opinions as to the status of the sickle bearing figure, namely /. Csalog, beleived (Acta Arch Hung. XI (1959) 29: „Da es sich um eine Art Gottheit handelt wirkte in diesem Fall zweifellos die naheliegende Vorstellung irdischer Herrscher, allenfalls Stammes Fürsten auf die Darstellungsart des kultisch verehrten überirdischen Wesens. „Additionally Csalog did not believe that the figure bore a sickle but rather some imaginative status symbol (Krummschwert). — I think that /. Makkay (Arch Ért (1978) No. 2. 166) most satisfactorily identified both the tool as a sickle and the beater as a god. — Another interpretation was offered by /. Ecsedy (Two Neolithic Idols from Eastern Hungary, FA 27 (1976) 50—52) which seems to the present author overly obscure. 14 Aside from a single idolfragment of the Körös culture (see Racky, P., Újabb adatok a Közép 292 Fig. 1.