Mas d’Azil goats

This is one of the most amazing artefacts I have ever seen...Carved from a sperm whale tooth, it depicts two climbing Ibex goats...Found in Mas d’Azil cave (Ariège, France), Middle or Late Magdalenian (13000-10000BC), Piette collection, Musée D’Archéologie Nationale...

"What's so exciting about this depiction of two goats?", I can hear you say. "I mean the cave was full of amazing animal depictions carved in bone...Like this horse head for instance"...

Well...Did you notice that under each goat, there are two groups of 6 incised lines? 12 in total...Why would they be there, I wonder...Could they be representing 12, 29 days moons (like this one depicted on moon shaped boar tusk), of the solar year? 

I talked about these early lunisolar calendars in my post "Calendar"

Hmmm, why would the notches be under Ibex goats depicting climbing a mountain??? Well...Ibex goats in Europe ascend to mountain tops during their mating season, which starts in December, and ends in January typically lasting around six weeks... 

I talked about this in my post "Goat".

Right in the middle of the mating periods of Alpine Ibex is Winter Solstice, 21st of December. And the day after the winter solstice is the beginning of the Capricorn (goat) period, which last from December 22 

If you wanted to have a proper calendar, then that calendar has to be lunisolar...It has to have a beginning fixed in a solar year from which you count your moons...Otherwise it begins to slip as 12x29 = 348, 17 days less than the full solar year of 365 days...

Winter solstice is one such event which occurs every year at the same time and which can be, and was, used as a lunisolar calendar anchor...To prevent your calendar from slipping, all you need to do is determine the day of the winter solstice, and then count 12 moons...

How do you do that. Well that is not really that difficult. 

You find a clear flat piece of high ground from which you can observe sunrises and sunsets. The observatory. You stick a pole into the ground to mark the observation spot. Then as the year passes, every morning and every evening you stand next to the observation pole and observe sunrise and sunset. As you are observing the sunrises and sunsets, you notice that the point where sun rises is not the same as the point where sun sets. The sun rises on the left side of the horizon, travels across the sky from left to right and sets at the opposite right side of the horizon. As days pass you realize that the point where the sun rises moves along the horizon. So does the point where the sun sets. You notice that the sunrise point moves during the spring further and further to the left and the sunset point further and further to the right. So the sun needs to travel longer across the sky and the day is longer and longer and hotter and hotter. Then at some point during the summer the sunrise and sunset points start moving in the opposite direction. The sunrise point starts moving to the right and sunset point starts moving to the left. They get closer and closer to each other, so the sun has to travel shorter distance between the sunrise and sunset and the day is shorter and shorter and colder and colder. 

The point when sun rises in the same place 2-3 days in a row is one of the solstices. Winter solstice if your nuts are frozen solid while you are watching the sunrise, summer solstice otherwise (if you are in continental Europe that is)...

Easy...

Then watch the skies carefully during the extra days after "the end of calendar", wait for the next winter solstice, rejoice and throw a wild solstice party, and then start counting moons again...I talked about these "extra days" in my post "The end of time"

But if you are not fussy and don't care about the exact time of the winter solstice, you can always rely on Ibex goats to start climbing to the mountain tops to start their mating season around the same time every year...All you have to do then is count 12 moons from then...

Soooo....This is why I was so excited when I saw this image...Is this a lunisolar calendar with the Ibex as the beginning of the solar year marker???

The faceless one

Kostenki is a very important cluster of Paleolithic sites on the Don River in Russia. Dated to after 25 000 BP, these were settlements of mammoth hunters who lived in dwellings made of mammoth bones...

And they loved making "Venus" figurines from mammoth ivory...

The figurines bodies are all anatomically perfect and different, definitely modelled on real probably pregnant women from the community. But they are all the same in one respect: they are all faceless...

In my recent article about faceless "Palaeolithic venus figurines" from Europe I argued that these figurines were deliberately made faceless to emphasise the they were symbols of fertility, of fertile earth, Mother Earth, and not depiction of real women...

I concluded that this was a proof that Palaeolithic people were able to invent, transmit and understand complex symbols and their meanings...

Then someone replied that I was wrong, and that most likely the reason for making these figurines faceless was that there was a taboo on depicting human faces. Considering that we have lots of depictions of anatomically perfect animal faces.

When I replied that we have found both faceless figurines and figurines with perfectly depicted human faces (both male and female) on same archaeological sites, the same person replied that maybe there was a taboo on depicting only the face of the goddess...

This got me thinking. The thing is The Goddess has no face. Fertility, Fertile Earth, Mother Earth has no face. Putting any face on The Goddess would demeen her and "desecrate her" in the most literal sense of this word...

Our Palaeolithic ancestors seem to have understood this.

Our Neolithic ancestors also understood this, as a lot of the early Neolithic Goddess figurines don't even have a head...

Like this one from Tappeh Sarab, Kermanshah ca. 7000-6100 BCE, Iran

Or this one from Cucuteni–Trypillia, 5500-3000 BCE, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine

Those figurines that have heads are either faceless, like this Cycladic female figurine, from Amorgos, 5300 – 3200 BC...

Or look like they have masks over their faces, like this Vinca culture figurine dated to 5000 - 4500 BC.

I talked about these Vinca culture masked figurines in my post "Mask from Belo Brdo".

If you were a priestess playing the role of the Goddess, wearing a mask would transform you in the eyes of the observers from a mare woman to a Godddess personified...

Masked figurine from Gumelniţa culture, 4700BC-3950BC Bulgaria, Romania

This is very important, as we can see soon in this thread...

Of course, there were also figurines which had faces. But most of these were just outlines of human faces, usually just noses on blank face with or without eyes. Like this figurine from Starčevo culture, 6200-5300 BCE, Serbia

But eventually all Goddess (and God) depictions were made with human face.

Why?

Because if the Goddess (or God) has a human face, we can reason with her (him). We can plead to her (him). We can argue with her (him). We can bargain with her (him). We can (try to) cheat her (him)

If you are staring at an expressionless blank face, all you can do is submit and accept your faight...

Interestingly, by the time we get to the Ancient Greece, the only deity still (sometimes) depicted without a face is the dreaded Goddess of the Underworld: Persephone...

Not Hades, the god of the underworld...

Why?

Well, because it is the Goddess, Mother Earth, is the mother who eats her children...And as our return to the Mother who gave birth to us is unescapable, there is no need to put a face on it. We can't plead, argue, bargain, cheat our way out of it...

Believe or not (again) this faceless Persephone could be preserved to this day by Sorbs (Baltic Serbs)...

Every year, just before Christmas, the oldest unmaried girl in a village gets dressed as a "bride", puts on a faceless mask, and visits the houses accompanied (orginally) by two other girls bringing good luck, good fortune and presents. She never speaks...

I talked about this custom in my post "Bescherkind".

She is "the maiden", "the bride", "the giver of gifts" (all epithets of Persephone as Kore, the Young Spring Earth). Her two female companions are most likely the summer and autumn earth, bountiful Demeter, and winter earth, the "old lady", "the witch" Hekate...

But wait, the winter is in Slavic folclore the part of the year rulled by Morana, the Goddess of Death, the old hag...Why do we then have a faceless maiden wander oround villages in mid winter giving presents to little children?

Because Morana (winter), Vesna (spring) and Mokosh (summer, autumn) are just three faces of The Goddess, Mother Earth. In Serbian mythology she is known as Dajbaba (Giving Mother), the wife of Dabog (Giving God, Giving father)...Da+Mater (Give, Allow + Mother in Serbian)...

Morana, believe or not, was by Slavs also imagined as a white maiden.

Her effigies, were ceremonially burned (heating up the earth) or drawned (thowing the earth) at the beginning of February, beginning of Spring...

These effigies were originally made of sheafs of grain over which a white maiden robe was put on. She was often decorated with necklaces made of egg shells...

The meaning of this effigy was: "spring emerging from under the snow (from underworld, dead part of the year, winter)"

And remember how Serbs believe that all good luck, good fortune, good harvest are all the gifts of their dead ancestors. Which is why the dead are majorly spoiled by the living with constant prayers and sacrifices...Especially during the winter. I talked about this in my post "Wolf feast".

So who better to represent this role of the dead, but the "giver of gifts", "giving mother", the faceless Mistress of the underworld, the land of the dead, the dead time of the Year, Persephone...

Persephone, who was to Minoans known as "pe-re-swa" Interestingly (again) "pe re swa" in Slavic languages means "One who was before all others"...

Fitting name for The Goddess, the Mother Earth, the mother of gods, the one who came before all other gods...

But maybe this is just a coincidence...

Palaeolithic Venus figurines

The other day I came across this image

The comment that accompanied it read: "Archaeologists have unearthed a figurine from the early Upper Paleolithic at the prehistoric site of Renancourt in Amiens, northern France. She was found in a layer with organic remains that has been radiocarbon dated to 23,000 years ago"

Again no face (in this case deliberately replaced by geometric abstraction) and a fat exaggerated body. Without arms. Only the "important" bits: butt, pussy and tits...Sorry, couldn't resist it... 

This is not a woman. This is "Fertile Mother Earth"...

The Venus of Willendorf is an 11.1-centimetre-tall (4.4 in) Venus figurine estimated to have been made 30,000 BCE.

The Venus of Hohle Fels, unearthed in 2008 in Hohle Fels, a cave near Schelklingen, Germany. It is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago

Venus of Dolní Věstonice is a Venus figurine, a ceramic statuette found at the Paleolithic site Dolní Věstonice in the Moravian basin south of Brno, dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE

Deliberately making these figurines faceless, by people whom we know were perfectly able to depict human faces in detail, means that this is not a depiction of any one person, but a depiction of a concept: fertility...

This is what a Palaeolithic depiction of an actual woman looks like. 

The Venus of Brassempouy, a fragmentary ivory figurine from the Upper Palaeolithic. discovered in a cave at Brassempouy, France. About 25,000 years old

And this is what a Palaeolithic depiction of an actual female body looks like. Actual female body depiction found with the Venus of Brassempouy, wearing a belt of sorts. Lean, as you would expect a hunter gatherer woman to be... 

Final proof that Palaeolithic Europeans were perfectly able to depict facial features of real women, can be seen from this small ivory head. 

Found on the the same archaeological site, Dolní Věstonice, where the above faceless black "Venus" figurine was found, it is a very detailed depiction of a female face. 

What is amazing about this figurine is that we know that it is actual portrait of a woman who lived in the settlement. We know that because the figurine depicts the disfigurement on the woman's face. The same disfigurement was found on a female skeleton found at the site...

So we know that the people from Dolní Věstonice were able to depict human faces. Yet they made the above large fat figurine with huge breasts and hips faceless. Why? 

If we look at any of these Palaeolithic faceless figurines, you can see that the bodies are depicted in incredible detail. They are anatomically perfectly depicted. Why would the artists then omit the face? Because with the face they become individuals. Without, they are symbols.

Individual creativity can be seen from the fact that these figurines are all different except that they are all depicting faceless fat woman. What we can conclude from this is that all these people probably shared the same belief system depicted using the same symbol system...

BB King once said that when he was a kid, he was always hungry. And all he ever dreamed about was to one day be "fat and happy"... I think that Palaeolithic hunter gatherers probably shared his dream...