Agria 41. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2005)

Domboróczki László: A háromszögletű AVK-fejek szimbolikája

Taking this idea one step further, looking at the similarities with the other ALP idols it is possible that the other idol heads can be interpreted as being bull's heads, making the idols bull-headed figures rather than symbols of ancestors.*

1 Thus it is that they also symbolise fertility in some related aspect of it.

42

" (László DOMBORÓCZKI 2003. 37-38.)

43 To develope further some of the ideas expressed earlier and to write this article we were inspired first of all by Pál Raczky and Alexandra Anders's excellent summary.

44 When reading their paper a few new ideas sprang to mind, which allowed us to add substance to some of the suggestions we had already made. The abovementioned authors, apart from assembling all the inscribed and painted pictorial representations of human figures from the mid-Neolithic, localising those frequently reoccurring motifs (the arched lines found on the foreheads of figurines and facepots, the bands found on the backs of the bodies, as well as the "M" motifs found on face-pots), also made the important conclusion that the artefacts in question all bore feminine characteristics. Pál Raczky and Alexandra Anders suggest that because female breasts feature on some of the artefacts, the triangular-headed figurines and the face-pots were probably all representations of women despite their formal differences.

45 Although we agree with their conclusions overall, we believe there is still a lot more to be said on the subject of the iconography used. In our opinion the triangular head form and the "M" motif on the face-pots express both male and female principles at the same time, and by doing so creating an iconography symbolising nascent birth too. We believe therefore that what we have here is a complex symbolic system working on three levels, whose meaning taken as a whole is fertility. As the male principle lying behind the triangular heads (the bull aspect) is something we have already referred to in earlier studies, we would now like to turn our attention to the female principle, as well as representations of nascent birth. The bull has long since been a symbol of male potency.

46 The bull's head is basically triangular, and as Dorothy Cameron noted so ingeniously,

47 it is a form 41 Alasdair WHITTLE 1996. 66. 42 Although we haven't been able to work this idea through completely, a short summary has been published (László DOMBORÓCZKI 2000. - unfortunately allusions to this had to be deleted from the article). 43 Taken from an article originally published in English. 44 Pál RACZKY-Alexandra ANDERS 2003. 45 Pál RACZKY-Alexandra ANDERS 2003. 166. 46 Mircea ELAIDE 1995. 46. 47 This was an interpretation given further credence by Marija Gimbutas in a number of studies: Marija GIMBUTAS 1991. 256. 25