Kreiter et al: Bucrania revisited: Exploring the chaîne opératoire of bucranium figurines of the Körös culture from the 6th millennium (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
In the southern part of the Danube-Tisza interfluve (Hungary), a dense Early Neolithic, Körös culture settlement was identified during the excavation of Szakmár-Kisülés. Among several unregistered finds was a unique, mostly intact, clay horned figurine often referred to as a clay horn, bull representation. However, female genitalia is represented on the figurine, indicating that the objects is a female symbol. The practice of cattle keeping and secondary products are important economic topics in the Early Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin. The broken base of the figurine suggests that at one time the object was attached to a four-legged altar. Importantly, its base reveals that the figurine was created with multiple layers of clay. The various techniques for characterizing the figurine open new avenues of interpretation concerning how the object was made. A broken section of the figurine shows three distinct layers of manufacture and in order to better understand its construction computed tomography (CT), ceramic petrography, geochemical analyses (LA-ICP-MS and XRD), and phytolith analysis were applied. The results indicate that the figurine was made from three clearly identifiable layers, created during three distinct manufacturing episodes. The results suggest that after each manufacturing episode the figurine was fired again, implying that it also was utilized after each building phase. The raw materials from the different manufacturing episodes are similar petrographically and geochemically, indicating that the figurine was made from similar raw materials. Nevertheless, the raw materials of the different manufacturing episodes show differences in organic temper supporting our contention that the figurine had three distinct manufacturing episodes. The utilization of multiple interdisciplinary methods highlights the complex biography of the figurine.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 44 (2014) 136-147
"In the southern part of the Danube-Tisza interfluve (Hungary), a dense Early Neolithic, Körös culture settlement was identified during the excavation of Szakmár-Kisülés. Among several unregistered finds was a unique, mostly intact, clay horned figurine often referred to as a clay horn, bull representation. However, female genitalia is represented on the figurine, indicating that the objects is a female symbol. The practice of cattle keeping and secondary products are important economic topics in the Early Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin. The broken base of the figurine suggests that at one time the object was attached to a four-legged altar. Importantly, its base reveals that the figurine was created with multiple layers of clay. The various techniques for characterizing the figurine open new avenues of interpretation concerning how the object was made. A broken section of the figurine shows three distinct layers of manufacture and in order to better understand its construction computed tomography (CT), ceramic petrography, geochemical analyses (LA-ICP-MS and XRD), and phytolith analysis were applied. The results indicate that the figurine was made from three clearly identifiable layers, created during three distinct manufacturing episodes. The results suggest that after each manufacturing episode the figurine was fired again, implying that it also was utilized after each building phase. The raw materials from the different manufacturing episodes are similar petrographically and geochemically, indicating that the figurine was made from similar raw materials. Nevertheless, the raw materials of the different manufacturing episodes show differences in organic temper supporting our contention that the figurine had three distinct manufacturing episodes. The utilization of multiple interdisciplinary methods highlights the complex biography of the figurine. "
Journal of Archaeological Science 44 (2014) 136-147
""In the southern part of the Danube-Tisza interfluve (Hungary), a dense Early Neolithic, Körös culture settlement was identified during the excavation of Szakmár-Kisülés. Among several unregistered finds was a unique, mostly intact, clay horned figurine often referred to as a clay horn, bull representation. However, female genitalia is represented on the figurine, indicating that the objects is a female symbol. The practice of cattle keeping and secondary products are important economic topics in the Early Neolithic of the Carpathian Basin. The broken base of the figurine suggests that at one time the object was attached to a four-legged altar. Importantly, its base reveals that the figurine was created with multiple layers of clay. The various techniques for characterizing the figurine open new avenues of interpretation concerning how the object was made. A broken section of the figurine shows three distinct layers of manufacture and in order to better understand its construction computed tomography (CT), ceramic petrography, geochemical analyses (LA-ICP-MS and XRD), and phytolith analysis were applied. The results indicate that the figurine was made from three clearly identifiable layers, created during three distinct manufacturing episodes. The results suggest that after each manufacturing episode the figurine was fired again, implying that it also was utilized after each building phase. The raw materials from the different manufacturing episodes are similar petrographically and geochemically, indicating that the figurine was made from similar raw materials. Nevertheless, the raw materials of the different manufacturing episodes show differences in organic temper supporting our contention that the figurine had three distinct manufacturing episodes. The utilization of multiple interdisciplinary methods highlights the complex biography of the figurine.""
Southeast European Neolithic figurines: beyond context, interpretation, and meaning (2017)
Published in In T. Insoll (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Prehistoric Figurines, pp. 823-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press., 2017
In this article, I review recent work on figurines from Neolithic southeastern Europe and suggest an alternative approach. I argue that we should abandon searches for explanation and for meanings of figurines as pieces of the past. The alternative is to work with figurine material in the present, disarticulated from prehistory, and to make new work that recognizes figurines’ position in the present.
Prehistoric Society Research Paper Volume 8, Oxford. Oxbow, 2019
This study explores and demonstrates processes of cultural change in the first half of the 6th millennium cal BC, among the Körös and Starčevo groups of the northern marginal zones of the Balkans. Within this period and zone, which forms the southern part of the Carpathian basin, clay was the fundamental and most abundant building block of material culture, architecture, everyday life and cult practices. Clay walls, furniture, ten thousands of vessels, hundreds of clay figurines and other cult objects accumulated as huge piles of clay debris in every settlement. Traditional system of subsistence patterns ceased to fully function when these first farmers occupied cool and wet hilly forested landscapes: the environmental and cognitive challenges gradually led to the decline of this clay-centred orbit. At the same time, these changes gave birth to a no-less stunning world constructed more of timber and stones, with transformations in subsistence, material culture and rituals. This transition is inextricably bound up with the formation of the first farmers’ communities of Central Europe, the Bandkeramik (LBK). The need for new elements of subsistence involved the increasing significance of cattle over caprinae: this shift infiltrated into ritual activities. The newly identified large horned cattle figurine type, acting as the cornerstone of this study, is an embodiment of the last instance among the South-East european communities of the clay world, while changes in the depictions already reflect the transformation of lifestyles. The role of cattle and their monumental depictions, found in domestic contexts, define methods for unfolding this phenomenon. In this fascinating new study, Eszter Bánffy takes a holistic approach to the definition of monumental early Neolithic clay figurines, analogies over South-east Europe, and the reconstruction of rituals involved in the making and using figurines. She reviews a broad scope of environmental and (social) zooarchaeological analyses to examine the concomitant development and significance of early dairying. The target is to present one possible narrative on the fading of the South-east European ’clayscapes‘, towards the birth of the LBK and the Central European Neolithic.