Matrix of semiotic markers and rules.._02
Sunday, 3. February 2008, 23:02:27
4. How to point out difference between signs of the Danube script and
ornamental motifs
4.A. Decorations undoubtedly ornamental
A semiotic-archaeological research on Neo-Eneolithic-Copper age aesthetics in
South-eastern Europe is more than a study of marks and patterns of ancient
ornamentation. Very significant was for example the artistic talent in the design of
architecture, the experiments in beauty with stone axes shapes, or the aesthetics of
deposition concerning how the deliberate burial of artifacts and other materials
occurred. However as key ingredient of a complex aesthetics, a knowledgeable and
skilful fashion of decorative shapes, patterns and design played a key role, mainly
symbolic but not exclusively, in the art of the Danube civilization.
The fixation of the boundary between ornament and symbol is among the most
arduous tasks (Riegl 1893) also in the Danube civilization. I utilize the distinction
between “pure decoration” and “emblematic (symbolic) decoration” where most of
the scholars agree that the pivotal role was acted by the second one.3 Echoing
Haddon, one can state that in the Danube civilization almost every line or dot, from
any ornamentation, possesses a meaning, but in many instances we do not
understand it. We have eyes but we do not see (Haddon 1895).
Concerning the marks/patterns/design of decoration and the
signs/inscriptions/organization of writing, these codes appear to have been quite
distinct in the minds of those making them as one can see in an uncountable series
of artifacts bearing a blueprint which is unequivocally ornamental. In fact
decorating processes developed peculiar techniques considered proper and
efficacious (e.g. polychromy, graphite...), styles with regional variations and
chronological sequences.
It is important to underline that I am not dealing with the whole range of
decorations in the Danube civilization, but only with the distinct ornamental motifs
which could be misunderstood for signs of a system of writing. Indeed, in a number
of instances, the blueprint employed geometric elements, linear marks, and an
abstract rhythm that in some way could recall a sign-like occurrence; nevertheless,
its pure or emblematic decorative nature is evident. For example the design based
on alternate upward and downward chevrons is unmistakably ornamental on a
Neolithic vessel found in 1912 at Vinča (Republic of Serbia) by Miloje Vasić
(Vasić Handscrift 1912: 09 04str89).
Also decorative, although with deep spiritual significance, is the abstract
meander motif drawn by Vasić when, in the same year, he recreated a Vinča altar in
style of a Greek one, inclusive of a double axe erected between an idol for worship
and a fireplace for offerings (Vasić Handscrift 1912: 09 05str91-2). Indeed numbers
of unearthed altars, statuettes and vessels bearing linear geometric motifs that
reminded him the inscriptions found on the archaic Greek vessels from Lesbos,
Troy and Melos, led him to the assumption that the Vinča settlement belonged to an
early Greek colony of the 7th and 6th centuries BC, such as those of southern Italy
(Vasić 1910).
Some spindle-whorls from Turdaş (Transylvania, Romania) have clearly
ornamental marks, even if Winn inserted the spindle V.9277 among the inscribed
objects due to the presence of a chevron and a “meander symbol” (Winn 1981: 376,
note 10).
Evidently decorative are the parallel lines on the exterior and the net-shape on
the interior of an unpublished zoomorphic altar found at Tărtăria (Transylvania,
Romania) at a deep of 1.2 meters.
The above presented objects are “obviously” decorated with abstractgeometrical
patterns according to the common sense and indeed they are. Therefore
they can be discerned without great difficulty from the artifacts bearing signs of the
Danube script. Unfortunately in the Danube civilization the decorative nature of an
abstract-geometrical mark or a combination of this kind of marks is not always
palpable as in the above examples. As I will put on display in the next paragraph,
there are many instances when one is looking to an artifact that it is not very
comfortable to detect if the incisions or paintings are elements of an ornamental
design or units of a written text. How to distinguish with a plausible amount of
assurance between signs/inscriptions of the Danube and ornaments / decorative
patterns?
4.B. Messages embedded in decorations
If the decorative framework and the system of writing appear to have been quite
distinct in the minds of those making them, being signs of literacy and artistic
motifs quite dissimilar in shape and spatial organization, they were not completely
separate without any connection in some way as we will analyze. Indeed if signs
and inscriptions of the Danube possess some peculiarities that differentiate them
from the ornaments and the decorative patterns, they are not always easy to detect
and in a number of instances it is not a confident distinction that one between
decorative marks/patterns and signs/organization of writing. If it is a difficult
distinction, it is easy to explain the reason why, as follows.
I. Writing and decoration can both be finalized to transmitting messages,
packages of information
In the Danube civilization, the decoration did not function as pure aesthetic
ornament, but it carried a symbolic meaning and message. “The whole world
outlook of prehistoric farmers was expressed in the ornament: the Land and
Underground World, the Sky, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the Plants, Animals and
People… Observant people can see complete ‘texts’ composed in ornaments: it is
raining, the grain is falling on the ground, it is sprouting...” (Videiko 2003). Indeed
“in the time before the alphabet the pottery ornamentation was a main visual
channel to hand out the tradition (specially speaking)” (Nikolov and Karastoyanova
2004: 174). The significant as well as sacred communicative role played by the
ornamentation is outlined by the fact that sometimes it was located on an invisible
part of the vessel or of the object (Nikolova on-line).
The basic raising questions are three. What is the meaning of the wide range of
decorations on the Neo-Eneolithic-Copper age artifacts? How can one analyze it?
Moreover, how can one find inside the decorative patterns evidence about the nature
of a prehistoric cognitive system regarding the belief systems and the relationship of
people with natural and supernatural world? According to this challenges and taking
into account that many of the artifacts, e.g. the vast majority of the figurines, are
without any context in which one can neatly set them having been found isolated,
some authors make an effort to understand the significance of the figurines with an
interpretation of the figurines themselves (Ucko 1968: xvi). In other words, they try
to examine them as a whole (a combination of different attributes of form, content
and context) and, in this auto-reverse decoding process, to consider typology and
interpretation of the decoration as a key for the analyze, the reconstruction and the
‘reading’ of the symbolic meaning of the statuettes how it is was understood by the
prehistoric makers and users. In this case, ornament can be used as an efficient
regional and chronologic indicator (Biehl 1996: 154-155).4
The rich and packed decoration incised on the front side of a vaulted oven
belonging to the Early Neolithic gives us evidence of how articulate could be the
message embedded within an ornament. The oven was recovered in the northern
room of a dwelling at Slatina-Sofia (Bulgaria). The decoration consists of five
zigzag horizontal lines that are 22-30 cm high and 1.90 m long because they go
along the wall from one end to the other. The upper three lines are running
horizontally close to one another and in parallel zigzags. The lower two lines are
positioned at a larger distance from each other and their zigzag is made in a manner
that forms rhombuses in-between. According to V. Nikolov: “Structure and
iconography of the entire composition remind in a way the painted ornamentation
on the Early Neolithic pottery from the Central and East Balkans, and do allow an
interpretation alike the one already suggested for that ornamentation” (Nikolov
1981).
The consequent interpretation is that “the upper part of the ornamental
composition (the zigzag lines)…probably represents the upper sky with its
fertilizing moisture, and the lower belt (of rhomb-like shapes)… should be a symbol
for the fertile earth. From the viewpoint of the religious and mythological system of
the early farming, the oven that terminated the way of the wheat by baking the
bread, presents a logically chosen place for performing the composition as it was
described. The analysis has attested the indivisible connection of a household
assemblage of utilitarian functions with the cyclic character of cosmic phenomena
as it used to be regarded in prehistoric attitude. The transformation of row material
into a baked product inside the oven undoubtedly converted this assemblage into an
isomorphic image of a womb (of the Mother Goddess) in the prehistoric thought
and in that way the oven gained a higher semantics”. (Nikolov 2001: 25).
According to the “Matrix of semiotic markers and rules”, the intention to narrate
a complex tripartite cyclical story using the expressive potentiality of geometric
patterns combined with iconic elements (as for example dwellings, temples or other
structures) is evident on a composite and rhythmically developed decoration from a
bowl discovered in the burial SO/17 at the Linienbandkeramik IIA cemetery at
Sondershausen (Thuringia, in central Germany) (Kahlke 2004: Pl. 7.1).
II. A number of signs of the script and decorative motifs share the same
geometrical abstract root, which is why they sometimes show identical or similar
outlines.
Difficulties arise from certain common elements between signs of writing and
decorative motifs (Čohadžiev S. 2006: 71). Deriving many signs of the Danube
script and ornamental motifs from the alike abstract graphic source, the outline of
some signs of writing appears to be a development of the schematic decorations
(e.g. on Lepenski Vir and Vlasac boulders) or an evolution of the linear
ornamentations on Starcevo-Cris (Körös). As example, I present some Romanian
decorated sherds from each phase of Starcevo-Cris (Körös): from Gura Baciului
(Starcevo-Cris (Körös) IIA); Gornea-Căuniţa de Sus (Starcevo-Cris (Körös) IIB);
Bucova III (Starcevo-Cris (Körös) IIIB); Cenad (Starcevo-Cris (Körös) IVA);
Ostrovu Golu (Starcevo-Cris (Körös) IVB).
Meanders as coiffure stretching across the forehead, triangles as magical eyes,
arches as lashes, repeated parallel lines and Vs as eyelids, bi- and tri-parallel lines
as streams from the eyes: geometry is on work in order to depict the features of a
(Serbia) (Gimbutas 1987: 105, fig. 2; 1989: 54, fig. 90).
The V and parallel lines as decorative motifs (and not as significant root-signs
of the Danube script) are well illustrated by a female figurine from northern
Moldavia and dated around the end of the fifth millennium BC. It is completely
bandaged by multiplex V and parallel lines. Having a head without face, truncated
winged arms, and a leaned forward posture, it reminds a mummy ready to jump or
to wriggle like a flash of lightning thanks to a kidney blow. The decoration is
marked deeply and re-traced with a white paste. According to Gimbutas, the
figurine might represent a Bird Goddess or a Snake Goddess (Gimbutas 1991: 110).
III. Not only the elements of writing, but also decorations follow precise rule of
standardization of their shape.
Not only the scribe or the shaman/priest focusing attention on the act of writing,
but also the decorator was not entirely free to create or select patterns and their
variants as she/he wished. In fact, she/he had to conform to the rule of
standardization inside the framework of the above-mentioned geometrical matrix,
according to a style and conforming to a shared belief system. Indeed for example
the reproduction on painted pottery of the iconographic information together with
the semantic, which is hidden behind it, and the stylistic features of motifs and
compositions required special training concerning the expertise to apply specific
rules (Nikolov and Karastoyanova 2004: 174). Contrariwise the opinion of some
authors (Biehl 1996: 155), it is reasonable to assume that in most of the cases the
person who decorated was not free to choice the aesthetic decoration even in the
instances where the presence of a great variety of ornaments is due to the fact that
they were made not by specialized potters but by different “normal” people in the
same village.
Observing that the red-slipped pottery with white-painted ornamentation is an
essential element of the material culture of the early agricultural communities in
Thrace and a main source of information about their religious-mythological system
(Nikolov 2002), V. Nikolov and Karastoyanova noticed that it represents a complex
ornamental scheme depending on certain principles (Nikolov 1983) and that the
shape of the ceramic vessel and the sacred symbolism, encoded in its
ornamentation, were both reasons for which this information was handed down
from generation to generation answering certain rules and not arbitrary. Therefore
they used the evidence of Tell Kazanlak to follow the tradition of handing down
rules and standards of the painted ornamentation iconography in early and Middle
Neolithic (from Karanovo I to Karanovo III culture), i.e. within nine villages in
sequence corresponding to a period of ca. 400-500 years and 27-30 generations. V.
Nikolov and Karastoyanova concluded that: “The presentation of the painted
ornamentation from Tell Kazanlak earliest horizons from a diachronic point of view
evidences the considerable conservatism of its main parameters and enables the
assumption of an artistic rule”. All these generations reproduced the white-painted
pottery together with all the elements of their everyday and spiritual life. Therefore,
the replication of the artistic rule by the inhabitants of nine successive Neolithic
villages is “an important indication for the stability of the communication system
between the generations; it is a mark for a stability of the reproduction of the entire
culture regarded as a functioning information system”. The communities of the
Danube civilization paid special attention to the ancestral memory and, in this
regard, the artistic culture is extremely important. The constant reproduction of the
initial artistic text turns it into a symbol or even into an archetype; that is why
special requirements are necessary for the way this reproduction is put into practice
to keep a sustainable artistic tradition. “The type of the artistic sense is not natural
to the human being and is not genetically inherited and that is why there is a
necessity of handing down the culture from generation to generation by special
training. It is especially related to the Neolithic painted ornamentation, which
obviously has been the only way of visual reproduction of the religiousmythological
system. The ceramic vessels with painted ornamentation have been an
artistic form to keep and hand down information from generation to generation;
being used everyday they served as a means of handing down an accumulated
ideological tradition” (Nikolov and Karastoyanova 2004: 179).
One can appreciate the high-standardized pattern of a complex decoration on an
early Vinča clay seal from Predionica (Kosovo) (Galovìć 1959: Pl. 79 1.2).
Although Gimbutas stated that it represents “an ideogram of a Bird Goddess” made
of crossed chest bands and chevrons (Gimbutas 1982: 117) and in fact it is
composed of marks resembling signs of the Danube script, its decorative nature,
even if emblematic, is revealed by the symmetric design. The seal is made of brickred
fine fabric and is dated at the end of sixth millennium BC according to
Gimbutas.
In addition, the standardized and five-time repeated chevrons on a lid have a
clear decorative nature (Roska Torma 1941: 247, tab. CI, fig. 9). Within other
semiotic contexts, the chevron is a sign of the Danube script.
IV. Some marks can be, depending on the context, either a sign of writing or a
decoration.
As seen above in case of the chevron, a number of marks such as
“Λ“,“V“,“M“,“X“,“+“ and some naturalistic motifs as sun, rain, bird, tree can be,
depending on the circumstances, either signs of writing or decorative elements
(Gimbutas 1991).
Typical signs of the Danube script such as
, parallel tri-lines,
, +, 
,
, and
are employed as decorative motifs on some figurines from Sitagroi IIIbelonging to 4000 BC (Gimbutas 1982: 116). Inverted Vs above breasts, triple
vertical parallels on the chest and a chevron on the pubic area characterize the first
torso. The second torso has crosses above the breasts, a tri-parallel line joint by a
bar on the chest, Vs motifs on the pubic area and an eccentric triangle on its left
shoulder paralleled by a bracket on the right. Spatial organization and regular
distance among the marks, symmetry in design, size and position of the central
mark comparing to the other marks reveal in both the cases the decorative as well as
symbolic nature of the complex composition made of geometric linear elements.
V. Decorations can arrange artistic motifs in the similar way a text can
organize its signs.
If the Danube script aligns the signs mainly in linear rows, sometimes also the
decorations can do the same as regards their marks. However, there are significant
artistic patterns that could be misunderstood for signs of writing. The
misunderstanding could further grow in the exceptional but not infrequent case of
marks that are ambivalent and can be signs of the Danube script or decorations
depending on the semiotic context. In a subsequent part, I will give some
information how to deal with this complex situation.
The Ms, Xs, lozenges, triangles and parallel lines incised and encrusted in white
in order to adorn a vase shaped as an enthroned female divinity document
appropriately the possibility to line up linear, abstract, schematic, and high
standardized ornaments along registers (Banner 1942: pl. I,1-4; 1959: 16, fig. 5;
Angeli et al. 1972: 36, fig. 16; Kalicz and Raczky 1987; Gimbutas 1991: 71, fig.
3.23.3; Virág 1998). The vase comes from Kökénydomb (Hungary) and belongs to
the Tisza culture.5
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