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)

34 AZ ŐSKORI AGYAGSZOBRASZAT KEZDETEI A NYUGAT-DUNANTULON DIE ANFÄNGE DER URG when the figurine is roughly made. It can only rarely be determined whether the figurine was sitting or half sitting/lying or when it held something on its lap. Seated figurines appear from the oldest (Bicske, Fejér County) to the latest phase of the culture. The legs were usually made separately, but leg representations made from one block of clay also appear. In some cases it appears that the lower body of the figurine was attached to something. Are they similar to the "centaurs" known from the Great Hungarian Plain and from the Vinca culture? There are hardly any figurines from the northern part of Transdanubia. There is only one found in a Zseliz settlement at Győr-Pápai vám. This figurine differs greatly from the ones discussed above. It has no triangular head but its head is long, flat and rounded. The face is painted in pastose red and yellow. Pastose red painting of figurines is a common practice in Europe and within Transdanubia from the oldest to the youngest phases. It is obvious that red colour emphasises the representation of life. In the northern part of Transdanubia within the Zseliz culture there are also anthropomorphic representations but they differ from the ones in the Keszthely group. Within the whole Zseliz area the use of smaller and larger but more often larger "face pots" are common. Their main characteristic is that on the neck part there is a triangular-shaped face with eyes, nose and mouth within an M like sign. Another characteristic is the pastose red painting, rarely complemented with yellow and white colours. Similar face pots rarely occur within the area of the Keszthely group (Andráshida). Research cogently proved that the origin of the face pots lies in the southern part of the Great Hungarian Plain in the contemporary and partly older Szakáihát culture. There is an undeniably relatedness between the figurines within a large area. Their appearance was the result of the spread of a notion behind their production through an extensive communication network. The acquisition of different raw materials, for example stone tools, may have played a role in the development of an extensive relationship between different communities within a larger area. The Alföld Linear Pottery Culture (ALPC) differs from the TLPC not only in its material culture and belief system but in the number of figurines as well. Mainly in the oldest and the following old period of the Szatmár group the number of human representation is many times more than in the TLPC. Even though the human representations are similar between the two regions the differences in their number may represent differences in the symbols of the communities who used human representations. "-TRANSDANUBIEN THE BEGINNING OF PREHISTORIC FIGURINE MAKING IN WESTERN TRANSDANUBIA, HUNGARY TRANSITIONAL PERIOD BETWEEN THE MIDDLE AND LATE NEOLITHIC AND THE LATE NEOLITHIC (5000-4500 ВС) SOPOT CULTURE Petrivente-Újkút-dűlő and Becsehely I (Bükkaljai-dűlő) Seated figurines of the transitional period Around 5000 ВС at the transition between the Middle and Late Neolithic periods communities moved from the region between the Drava and Sava to south-western Transdanubia and established their distinctive culture. From its first settlement found in Croatia it is called the Sopot culture. The Sopot culture adopted many characteristics of the Vinca culture that was older but also partly a contemporary with the Sopot and played an important role in the north and middle Balkans. It must be noted that the Vinca culture also played an important role in the Balkans earlier than the appearance of the Sopot culture. The people of the Sopot culture even reached the area of the Garam River in south Slovakia. In Transdanubia it extensively changed the belief system and material culture of the local communities. The first small-scale excavation revealing the finds of the Sopot culture in Zala County was at Becsehely I in the 1970's. At the turn of the new millennium large-scale excavations at the same site and at nearby sites such as at Petrivente, Sormás-Török-földek and Sormás-Mántai-dűlő revealed surprising results towards the better understanding of the Sopot culture. The Sopot settlements are often surrounded by characteristic multi-ditch systems and the material culture shows Vinca influence. Human representations are apparent by their uniformity but do not appear in great numbers. The main characteristic of the figurines is that they are always seated with a straight upright body. Their body is flat, the head is rounded. The arms are folded across in front of the body below the breasts or are held on the lap. Vinca characteristics are mostly represented by these seated figurines because the most well known seated Vinca female figurines appear in both the northern and southern territories of the cultural group. Even though seated figurines were made in every periods in the Balkans, since the beginning of the Neolithic the most artistic human representations are dated to the end of the 6"' millennium and first half of the 5"' millennium ВС. Seated figurines are present in the four discussed sites in Zala County. The majority of the figurines from the Balkans are decorated. From Zala County two of them are decorated while two are undecorated, thus they are naked. Their gender cannot be assessed, although perhaps their female characteristic is represented by two small protrusions