The Rhyton from Danilo: Structure and Symbolism of a Middle Neolithic Cult-Vessel 1842179772, 9781842179772

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THE RHYTON FROM DANILO

The Rhyton from Danilo STRUCTURE AND SYMBOLISM OF A MIDDLE NEOLITHIC CULT-VESSEL

Omer Rak Translated by

Theresa Alt and Wayles Browne

OXBOW BOOKS Oxford and Oakville

Published by Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK © Oxbow Books and Omer Rak, 2011 ISBN 978-1-84217-977-2 Front cover image: Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton with decorations in the form of double spirals on the handle. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović. Back cover image: Danilo Field near Šibenik, Dalmatia, Croatia. Photo by: Željko Krnčević This book is available direct from: Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK (Phone: 01865-241249; Fax: 01865-794449) and The David Brown Book Company PO Box 511, Oakville, CT 06779, USA (Phone: 860-945-9329; Fax: 860-945-9468) or from our website www.oxbowbooks.com A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rak, Omer. The rhyton from Danilo : structure and symbolism of a middle Neolithic cult-vessel / Omer Rak ; translated by Theresa Alt and Wayles Browne. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84217-977-2 1. Danilo culture--Croatia--Dalmatia. 2. Pottery, Prehistoric--Croatia--Dalmatia. 3. Excavations (Archaeology)--Croatia--Dalmatia. 4. Dalmatia (Croatia)--Antiquities. I. Alt, Theresa F. II. Browne, Wayles. III. Title. GN776.2.D3R35 2011 939’.8--dc22 2010050962 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Short Run Press, Exeter

Contents Acknowledgements ......................................................................................vii Preface to the English Edition ......................................................................ix Foreword .....................................................................................................xii Introduction: Archaeology and the Symbol ................................................. xv 1

The Find..................................................................................................1

2

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton .........................................................6

3

A Bear or... ?..........................................................................................24

4

Cinnabar ...............................................................................................35

5

Shamans ................................................................................................56

6

A Snake, Water and Horns ....................................................................72

7

A Spiral (Double) ..................................................................................86

8

The Vulva and the Plough ...................................................................103

9

The Androgyne ....................................................................................118

10 The Phallus ..........................................................................................151 11 Conclusion ..........................................................................................170 Plates .........................................................................................................173 Bibliography ..............................................................................................193 Index .........................................................................................................207

Acknowledgements

This book would never have seen the light of day had not various individuals and institutions participated in its preparation, colleagues and friends who shared my goal of publishing it, for which I am infinitely grateful to them all. I met with superb collaboration from the Director of the Archaeological Museum of Istria in Pula, Darko Komšo, as well as from the Curator of the Prehistoric Section of the Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Natalija Čondić, both of whom most generously permitted photographs to be made of the remains of the rhyta from the site Kargadur and from one of the richest sites of the Danilo Culture, the one in Smilčić near Zadar. I was pleasantly surprised by the readiness of the Regional Museum in Nikšić, Montenegro, especially curator Zvezdana Vušović-Lučić, to make and send me photographs of the rhyton found in the significant Crvena Stijena Cave site, as well as by her cheerful spirit that enlivened our every contact. I am deeply in debt to Dr. Paolo Biagi, the renowned Italian prehistoric archaeologist from the Ca' Foscari University, Venice, who suggested the publisher to me, from the very beginning generously sent literature and illustrations indispensable for my work and remained constantly in contact with me. I also owe thanks to Dr. Muzafer Korkuti, who graciously allowed me to use illustrations from his book about the Albanian Neolithic and Chalcolithic. Photographs of the finds of rhyta from the Greek Neolithic, especially the ones from Corinth, probably would never have appeared on the pages of this book if Sarah James, Assistant Curator, Corinth Excavations from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens had not located them and kindly sent them to me. I owe no less gratitude to her colleagues Carol A. Stein, Acting Director of Publications, and Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, Head Archivist, for their thoughtfulness and professionalism. Both close and productive was our collaboration with the young and promising archaeologist Emil Podrug, curator of the prehistoric collection of the Museum of the City of Šibenik, which holds a large part of the finds from the Danilo Culture’s eponymous site of Danilo Bitinj, as well as from other Neolithic sites

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from the nearby area. Our regular exchanges of information, exceptionally fruitful conversations about various aspects of the Neolithic as well as physical contact with Danilo ceramics, which I was allowed for my research, contributed in great measure to the genesis of this book. Words are not enough to thank him for his selfless help. In addition to the translators Theresa Alt and Wayles Browne, who successfully undertook the difficult job of translating this text, frequently accommodating my numerous requirements and additions, I am indebted to my colleague Mirko Banjeglav without whose help I could not have conceived and designed the illustrations and photographs contained in the book. I would be indeed unjust if at the end of this roll I did not also mention and thank my own family – my wife Vesna and daughters Gala and Rea – who patiently persevered together with me, encouraging me and offering me support throughout the lengthy work on this book.

Preface to the English Edition The so-called rhyton (pl. rhyta) from Danilo, an archaeological site near the coastal town of Šibenik in Dalmatia, Croatia, is a four-legged Neolithic vessel made of fired clay that according to the consensus of archaeological opinion was most likely a cult vessel used in rituals of unknown origin and content. “Danilo Culture” is the eponymous name bestowed on a culture flourishing in the period from about 5500–4800 BC at Danilo and at some neighbouring sites. This culture had great influence along the eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland and produced a significant number of these vessels. Rhyta, which other Neolithic cultures also made, were dispersed throughout a vast area of southeast Europe, from Greece to the Alps (6th–5th millennium BC). This book is an in-depth study of that mysterious, prehistoric archaeological artifact. When it was published in Croatia in April 2008 (publisher: Gradska knjižnica “Juraj Šižgorić”, Šibenik), the book gained wide acclaim amongst prehistoric archaeological experts. Some of the most outstanding among them, such as A. Durman, Z. Brusić and T. Težak-Gregl, welcomed it at book launches, all hailing the important fact that the book is a turning point in the study of Neolithic cult symbolism, especially because it interprets some things that are not usually within the scope of archaeological investigation. It was repeatedly emphasised that the book will be valuable for future investigators of both the rhyton phenomenon and Neolithic cult symbolism. The book, indeed, explores many facets of the Neolithic in general, but the main emphasis is on the role of the rhyton and its structural and symbolic dimensions, which fit perfectly into the frame of Neolithic culture. Thanks to this approach, the rhyton has become a kind of prism reflecting the various aspects of the Neolithic mind. In fact, the entire study represents a complete new methodological approach to the cultural values of the first farming communities in southeastern Europe. On the basis of the facts elaborated in the book, it is evident that the three parts of the rhyton (handle, receptacle and legs), indicating active and passive principles and the outcome of their union, present the rhyton’s lively and dynamic interconnected structure as a living, productive metaphor. The fired clay cult vessel is the image of the whole universe with its inner polarised interactive

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structure existing on all levels, so that the final analysis reveals the rhyton’s most stunning feature in this holistic picture – its androgynous nature. Everything in, on and about the rhyton aims at this point. Due to its antiquity, structure and symbolism, the rhyton was a kind of universal proto-matrix for all relevant mythological and spiritual structures founded on it in the mystical theology of the Mediterranean zone of later, historic times. As such, that cult-vessel was the turning point for the first European integration to have encompassed and connected the various, dispersed Neolithic human groups in a cultural and spiritual unification based on this famous cult vessel. Therefore the present book, The Rhyton from Danilo, is unique in highlighting this fact for the very first time. Moreover, revealing and describing the first prehistoric European integration has a powerful resonance and value today for current European integration. This work is thus the result of detailed and intensive research into the phenomenon of the Danilo rhyton. I have undertaken a meticulous study of contemporary Neolithic cultures surrounding the Danilo Culture, exploring their cult objects and spiritual life and comparing all those results with symbolic representations from the historic period (Ancient Mediterranean, Middle East and beyond). Also, I have explored archaeology, ethnology, anthropology, mythology, linguistics, botany, zoology, geology... using as well some carefully selected hermetic symbols to interpret the vessel and its cult role, its colour, structure and symbolic surface patterns (various ornamentations such as double spirals, lozenges, meanders, zigzag lines, triangles). A significant problem encountered while writing the book was how to balance a rational scientific and empirical approach with interpretations based mainly on pre-industrial cosmologic concepts as well as on certain metaphysical postulates which were essentially more “intuitive” than observable. In these questions I have taken the firm position that no demonstration of rational “proofs” is able to reach the inner sanctum of the symbol, particularly when a certain number of fundamental symbols are closely observed in their transition from prehistoric to historic periods where they have found their integrity of expression in alchemy. Since alchemy in its holistic articulation is particularly inclined to intuition and artistic interpretation, discursive and logical thought processes are incapable of grasping the “meaning” of the symbols which, as a rule, are ambiguous, multidimensional and flexible, with a tendency to elude any attempt to define them once and for all. In this regard, what immediately became clear to me is that an excessive and unprincipled reliance on such a kind of symbolic material can easily place the whole structure of the text on shaky ground, liable to let the accumulated material slide down into the domain of current widespread popular “wisdom”,

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eclectic and syncretistic in its nature, which is mass produced today under the common rubric of the post-modern New Age, so particular effort has been made to avoid that. Additionally, I have tried to arrange the huge number of scientific interdisciplinary facts in such a way as to avoid unnecessary confusion and to keep the text from becoming a dry, stale and unreadable recitation of established scientific data. I have painstakingly sought to balance both approaches and minimise personal biases and mental constructs of my own. Researching and writing this book, collecting and interpreting almost all the domestic and the majority of foreign references to the rhyton has taken many years, but in spite of the high praise the book has received here in Croatia, the domestic arena is too limited for a full airing of its contents. Translated into English and published abroad, I trust it will attract all those interested in prehistoric archaeology and profound symbolism, especially since this new edition has been revised and expanded with further interesting facts and interpretations. Zagreb, September 2009.

O. R.

Foreword Twelve years ago, during the excavations underway at Grotta dell’Edera, a seven metre thick cave sequence in the Trieste Karst in north-eastern Italy, a few fragments of a typical, undecorated, four-legged rhyton were brought to light from a well-defined Neolithic context, which was later radiocarbon dated to the middle of the seventh millennium uncal BP, and attributed to an “impoverished” aspect of the Dalmatian Danilo Culture, locally called Vlaška, a term introduced by Lawrence Barfield in the early 1970s. Potsherds of the same ring-handled pot were later analysed by one of my former students, Michela Spataro, now Scientist at the British Museum, London, who defined the origin of the paste and inclusions employed for their manufacture, and contributed to the understanding of the (local) production of these important ceramic fragments. My interest in these unique vessel types had already been awakened a few years before, thanks to reading an interesting and innovative paper on the rhyta of the upper Adriatic basin, focused on their function, circulation and cultural attribution, written by my fellow postgraduate student, John Chapman. His provocative new interpretations greatly contributed to redirecting my attraction to the Neolithic of the Dalmatian coast, and the Balkan Peninsula in general, a topic I had always kept firmly in mind thanks to the lectures on transhumance and pastoralism in the Balkans by our supervisor, John Nandris, whose classes had benefited us both during our PhD courses at the Institute of Archaeology, London University. Since then the number of studies on the Neolithic rhyta have multiplied. Several authors have contributed, in different ways, and from different viewpoints, to the interpretation of the origin, production, relative and absolute chronology, cultural attribution(s), territorial distribution, function and (symbolic) significance of this “cult vessel” that undoubtedly played a very important role in the life (and death) of both farmers and pastoralists of the early-to-late Neolithic of a great part of the Balkan and Aegean worlds. Rhyta were conceived, adopted and developed in the very articulated and complex geographic and political landscapes of south-eastern Europe, a territory of fundamental importance for understanding the movement of peoples and

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transmission of ideas, at least from the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic onwards, at the meeting place of two different worlds, along the natural route that links Anatolia with Central Europe. Surprisingly rhyta spread very rapidly, but not exclusively, along the coasts of the eastern Adriatic during the development of the Dalmatian Danilo Neolithic. They represent a common feature of several cultural entities, defined by archaeologists with different names, sometimes corresponding to chronologically or typologically similar or subsequent aspects. Rhyta were often marked by specific characteristics among which are the presence/absence of decorative patterns, scratched, grooved or painted geometric and/or spiral motifs, slightly different vessel shapes and handles, as well as four or doublelegged specimens. This innovative and comprehensive volume by Omer Rak on this unique “cult vessel” falls within the complicated framework of the Balkan Neolithic outlined above. The author, apart from providing the reader with a detailed history of the rhyton’s archaeology, its first discoveries and descriptions by archaeologists in former Yugoslavia, points out the geographic distribution of these pots and the variable cultural contexts from which they were recovered. His attention is attracted by the concept of its non-functional value, its importance in the spiritual world of the Neolithic farmers and its multi-regional distribution, possibly indicating a “first integration of European territory in prehistory”. He continues with the interpretation of this “cult vessel” by different authors, within the spiritual world of the Neolithic populations of the Balkans and the Aegean, widening his scope to Anatolia and the Far East, looking for historical and philosophical contexts and explanations from which to extract spiritual values, in an attempt to explain such an intricate archaeological phenomenon. He experiments with the stylistic interpretation of the geometric decorative patterns, which ornament some of the ceramic types, pointing out the symbolic importance of the rhyta, which constitute a unique “irreproducible phenomenon” that spread from the Aegean Sea to the Alps. Although he partly accepts the idea of previously suggested, although interpretatively restrictive, relationship with other cult objects within the broader framework of a fertility cult, where the rhyton represents the female counterpart, he also poses a number of important new questions regarding the complexity of its potential role in ceremonies/ sacrifices, possible reason in the funerary rites for its fragmentary recovery status and dislocation, and its importance in “the spiritual and cultural integration of the inhabitants”. These are but some of the reasons why this volume by Omer Rak represents an important contribution to the study and understanding of a unique Neolithic

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“cult vessel”. It supplements and integrates earlier papers by several authors on the topic, and poses new questions on the nature, interpretation and possible function(s) of the rhyta. It is an updated and widened English version of a successful volume by the same author on the same subject written in Croatian in 2008. Paolo Biagi Ca’ Foscari University, Venice July 31st, 2010

Introduction: Archaeology and the Symbol For lack of written sources, in interpreting particular non-material aspects of prehistoric culture, it has turned out to be indispensable to develop an interdisciplinary approach drawing not only on archaeology but, as well on mythology, ethnology, folklore, symbology and some other disciplines so as to construct a systematic picture of the nature of prehistoric symbols. This in no way means neglecting the “strictly” rational, positivist approach, rather, helping it to move toward recognising the patterns of archaic worldviews surviving in later cultural tradition in Eastern and Western hermetic doctrines which, most often in the language of allegory and metaphor, or paradox, transmit the sense of ancient symbolic conceptions whose origin is frequently lost in the haze of prehistory. An approach formulated in such a way is a particularly strong tool in the hands of those who seek a holistic interpretation of the structure and symbolism of prehistoric artifacts, especially the cult objects. The present work belongs to this kind of methodological “mind set”. The fact is that such a, to give it an oxymoronic name, rational-intuitive approach, which takes data from finds in the field, but also the ever more successful interpretations of archaeologists, and supplements them with the preindustrial, traditional interpretation of the symbol, can throw light on the symbolic meaning of artifacts over a much broader range than can the rigid, stale methodology of an anachronistic scholarly apparatus. The inadequacy of the latter is its positivist, indeed vulgar materialistic approach to phenomena which manifestly elude such treatment and demand a subtler and more comprehensive approach. For the majority of archaeologists, especially those of the Anglo-Saxon and Soviet schools, belief in the accuracy of the natural sciences has become unshakeable. Hence the striking rapprochement between archaeologists and natural scientists, which has resulted in their close collaboration in an atmosphere of mutual trust and the best intentions on both sides to explain the human being and his behaviour in the past through joint efforts. However, the hypertrophied growth of the role of natural sciences in archaeology, clearly observable in some

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circles, as the archaeologist D. Srejović remarks, has reduced the archaeologist to a collector of samples for laboratory analysis or an interpreter of the results of others, the reliability of which he is not in a position to verify. On the other hand, to make his science exact, the archaeologist avoids discussing any phenomenon contained in the archaeological material that he cannot test by experiment or natural-science methods. Some recent archaeological monographs come down to “kitchen” archaeology, since they primarily consist of long lists and accompanying statistical tables of everything that a person used for food, the precise number of all species of wild and domestic animals, as well as grains, fruits and legumes “supplemented” by a great number of pages with parallel dates obtained by physico-chemical methods, complete menus and a list of all raw materials used, while only a line or two is devoted to religion, art or ideology. The intentions are obviously good, the data useful, but the mistake is that the relevant data obtained from the natural sciences are only stated and not explained (Srejović 2001). We are referring of course to a kind of sheer empiricism which is in no way capable of putting the pieces of the puzzle together into a coherent picture which will serve as a solid handle for interpretation. For modern science (including archaeology), truths or general laws, without which experience would only be quicksand, are nothing other than simplified descriptions of phenomena, useful, but always only temporary “abstractions”, as T. Burckhardt (1987) would say. The analytic mind of science, therefore, is nothing more than a knife that follows the grooves of the object and serves to get a better view. Goethe knew that very well when he said: “in broad daylight ... what nature does not want to reveal to us will not be pried from her with crowbars and screws.” “It is obvious however that all systematicisations in use [in archaeology] today have one characteristic in common, and that is that they base their interpretative logic on the selective analysis of selected materials, using for this general theoretical positions and existing but insufficient results from interdisciplinary studies and sometimes from exact sciences” (Leković 1996, 103). “Traditional explanations and existing conventions based on the analysis of formal-typological characteristics, stylistic-statistical data, stratigraphic and comparative-evolutionary observations with a cultural-historical interpretative orientation that has its shortcomings only make it possible to run in circles” (Ibid ). In contrast to such an approach stands the innovative work of the very popular Lithuanian-American archaeologist M. Gimbutas (died 1994), whose “impressionistic” theses still provoke numerous controversies from scholarlyacademic circles to the ecofeminists and New Age enthusiasts. Gimbutas was in any case right when she claimed that the Neolithic symbols of “Old Europe”

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form a complex system in which each part is connected with all the other parts. No single symbol, she holds, can be viewed separately; understanding the parts leads to understanding the whole, which, again, leads to better understanding of the parts. Thus, to say it in her parlance: Neolithic artifacts and the associated symbols are visual metaphors that represent the “grammar and syntax of a kind of meta-language by which an entire constellation of meanings is transmitted” (Gimbutas 1989, XV ). Cult objects that contain very little information and allow for a broad spectrum of interpretation can be viewed as remnants of a set of symbols, an integral part of a lost system of communication and the reflection of spiritual contents in material culture (Bánffy 2004), or as a form of nonverbal communication. Symbols can be approached processually – taking them as signs that represent reality, or structuralistically – considering them the mental bearers that give form to cultural actuality, or they can be pointed to in a postmodern manner as arbitrary fragments incorporated in phenomenological experience. However it may be, any more serious investigation of ancient societies requires work with symbols. The newest approaches to archaeology and its subject matter, such as cognitive archaeology, aim at an understanding of the ways in which early people formed their different constructs of reality, and of how these concepts could lead to a worldview that exists in today’s human community. No wonder therefore that human cognitive evolution is closely linked with fundamental epistemological questions, such as: what is the nature of the processes that have led us to experience the world in the way we now understand it, and in what way are the frames of reference created which people use to define the physical reality that they observe to exist, etc. Such approaches, as practice bears witness, exclude some previously dominant approaches, first and foremost the palaeoanthropological ones, that is, those that consider the study of the remains of hominid skeletons to be the central methodological model for studying the development of humanity. The bones of our early ancestors can tell us much about the physical evolution of people, but they tell us nothing about their “humanity”. “One of the most taxing problems in archaeology is to determine about what and in what manner did prehistoric people think. Is it possible to make the ‘mute stones speak’, and will they tell us how (if not what) our predecessors were thinking?” asks C. Renfrew (1994, 9). Most often it is impossible to understand the meaning of symbols from a certain culture exclusively from the symbolic form of the presentation or the symbol itself. The least that can be expected is to discover the way in which that form was used and, especially, to see it in the context of other symbols. Therefore the new approaches in archaeology demand dealing carefully with regard to the specific

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context of the discovery of the find itself since what is essential is the set, the whole, and not the individual object by itself. The main problem in the archaeology of the symbol still remains understanding the way different kinds of symbols are connected with one another. Symbolic expressions are not only words but pictures/performances, figurines, dances, rituals.... Symbols have a powerful and, seemingly, anarchic power of association capable of encompassing a meaning which otherwise could not be poured into a word, phrase or any other form of spoken or written expression. Long ago the archaeologist G. Childe remarked that we can project our own theories about those symbols based on notions from the historic period but we risk mixing up knowledge and fiction. This remark certainly valid, since earlier generations of archaeologists, wishing an “explanation” of prehistoric finds, given the complete lack of written sources invented a sort of parallel history, imagining (or perhaps better – inventing) what ancient people thought or believed. However, although it is impossible to determine precisely what prehistoric symbols meant to their creators and worshippers, it is not impossible to determine the analogy between prehistoric symbolic productions and the physical phenomena to which they referred. The human characteristic of expressing symbols in pictures-performances surely was no less developed in prehistoric man than in modern man. “Hierophany” (Greek: hiero – sacred; phainein – to show), an expression that M. Eliade first coined, arose to explain the way in which a manifestation of the Sacred was symbolised through the epochs of history. According to Eliade everything was hierophany somewhere at some moment in history: all animals, tools, toys, all gestures, children’s games, dances, musical instruments, chariots, boats, etc. (Eliade 1958, 10–12). Such a view of the Sacred, of course, presupposes a holistic concept of religion. Today it is generally accepted that what clearly separates the human species from other forms of life is our capacity to use symbols. Both thoughts and language are based on symbols, since words are, in and of themselves, symbols of the actual world. Prehistoric artists used an abstract expression not because they were incapable of expressing themselves naturalistically but because their art was intended for “reading” in symbolic and archetypal terms. The symbolic system of early people was no less subtle (sometimes perhaps even more subtle) than our modern one. The distinction between “primitive” and “modern” is a notion that should have been discredited and discarded long ago. A symbolic system of the complexity of the “Old European” type is not only a simple metaphor that agrees with the patterns of early agricultural life – such a definition is unnecessarily utilitarian, although it can find its foundation also in such patterns. Nevertheless, what is

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evident is that in their religion can be found an extreme subtlety of symbols, which represented for those advanced, successful and creative people a dynamic and vital symbolism that reflected a living, generative metaphor, a collection of archetypes that informed their life and the perception of their life – not as credo or belief, but as a grammar of spirituality. “What our scholarship is about...is the simple and straightforward attempt to understand how our ancestors looked at things and lived their lives, in order to see how we got where we are, and to see if they have anything to teach us....it is pretty clear that they do, and that we have quite a lot of work ahead of us working our way through the labyrinth of reconstruction and comparison” (Everson 1989, 280). Let us also recall that in more recent times some archaeologists in explaining their theories have embraced a so-called post-positivist philosophy or one of the relativism of post-modernism, thus developing an “interpretational” approach with abundant use of hermeneutic-semiotic analyses derived from theoretical frameworks developed in linguistic studies. This approach in any case came to the peak of “ripe science” as the philosopher and historian of science T. Kuhn calls those sciences that have come to a level of development where the language of their communications has become completely incomprehensible to nonspecialists, but also to a large part of their colleagues from the discipline. This work arose as a kind of reaction against, let us call it, external symbolic exegesis, against superficial understanding of the object of study, i.e. Neolithic cult vessels, whether it came from the “old” inductive school of archaeology that was inclined to jigsaw puzzles or from those newer deductive ones that are very attracted to discovering the nature of cultural dynamics in the past. As practice has shown, the first approach will not delve into any more thorough interpretation of the cult nature of individual artifacts than merely establishing the fact that it is a “cult object”; the second will frequently bring in the social component, i. e. the context of social relations in which a certain cult object arose and which are, according to this approach, reflected in the symbolic structure of the object but also in its spiritual and/or functional aspect. Or, in the manner of the postprocessual approach, it will emphasise that the artifacts and the material world that we construct are not mere reflections of our social reality becoming embodied in a material object but, what is more, that the material culture and the actual objects contribute to a large part of everything which makes possible the functioning of society. Material culture and society, in I. Hodder’s view, mutually constitute one another within a historically and culturally specific set of ideas, beliefs and meanings. In this way, for example, the connection between burial and society directly depends on attitudes toward death (Hodder in Hodder and Hudson 2003, 3).

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None of these latter approaches in archaeological science will take the object and view it separately from the group of similar symbols, so as to approach it as a whole, and so that in its integral beginnings it can speak out in articulate language that will be understandable even thousands of years after it arose. This “extraction” of the communicative imperative from the symbolic structures, however, on account of the zeal of the researcher but also on account of certain erroneous premises on which the perception of their approach is based, often in the end falls short with regard to coherent results. Perception is, we can agree with psychologists, a dynamic search for the best interpretation of the available facts. Applied to our situation “perception” could be translated as the supposition of a reliable insight into the nature of a cult object. This reliability cannot be achieved by a one-sided, primarily external concept of the object that is separated from the subject itself by a methodological demarcation line. It is to some extent like an idea of observation in which the observer becomes part of the observed system, as in quantum physics where the observer is no longer an external and neutral subject but by his own measurement becomes part of the observed reality or, as it has been nicely said, of the secret that he means to tease out. This at the same time means the end of the neutrality of the observer or experimenter. Truly, the researcher would have to “sink into himself ” so as to recognise the “secret”. Both the one and the other are read as myein in the Greek original and, if we agree with T. Burckhardt, it is a synonym for the word “mystic”. The essence of that word eludes mere intellectual interpretation. The Danilo rhyton is the very essence of that word. The chapters that follow, we hope, will sustain this claim.

1 The Find

“In the valley where the village of Danilo lies (18 km east of Šibenik), about 2 km west of the site of the Illyrian-Roman settlement Rider, there is a well Bitinj, which dries up only in the very greatest droughts” (Pl. I, fig. 1 and fig. 2). Thus begins the report of F. Dujmović, at that time the Director of the Museum of the City of Šibenik, published under the title “A Neolithic ritual vessel from Danilo in Dalmatia” in the section for “New and Unpublished Materials/Excavations/Reports and Contributions” in Vjesnik za arheologiju i historiju dalmatinsku [“Annals of Dalmatian Archaeology and History”] no. 54 of 1952. Dujmović mentions that in the immediate vicinity of the abovenamed well, on the southern side, but also across the road, the local villagers when tilling the soil frequently came upon fragments of Neolithic ceramics, dressed stone and stone implements. Therefore, a rather small test excavation was undertaken on one farm field in the summer of 1951, with a positive result. (The excavation was done by Dr. D. Rendić-Miočević, then Director of the Archaeological Museum in Split). That same summer the owner of the neighbouring meadow was ploughing it to plant a vineyard and in so doing, after his plough caught on a rather large stone, discovered several fragments of decorated ceramics and six fragments of the vessel that Dujmović describes in an instalment of the report. The fragments of this vessel were brought to the Museum of the City of Šibenik, to which the discoverer readily relinquished them, and its restoration was carried out there. The vessel that had been found was a zoomorphic receptacle, Dujmović wrote (placing a question mark by the word “zoomorphic”), which, aside from a small triangular part on the left edge of the opening of the vessel, half of the rear left foot and the handle, was almost entirely preserved. The height of the receptacle is 13 cm, its width 12.5 cm, its depth 8 cm (Pl. II, fig. 3 and fig. 4). The oval opening of the vessel is turned forward like a sort of muzzle, as Dujmović visualizes the appearance of the receptacle. He considers it indubitable that the vessel did not serve for practical uses but most probably was a ritual object, “in which a ritual live coal might have been placed”(Dujmović 1952, 74). The first page of Dujmović’s

2

The Rhyton from Danilo

report shows a sketch of the vessel with a bilingual legend (in Croatian and French): Rhyton from Danilo (Museum of the City of Šibenik). That was the professional and wider public’s first introduction to the Neolithic puzzle from the hinterland of Šibenik. In the same issue of the Annals, in a contribution entitled “A new Neolithic cultural group on the territory of Dalmatia”, there also appeared J. Korošec, a respected expert in prehistory, writing about “vases on four legs”, that is, rhyta. “The vessel itself with its wide opening stands in a slanting position in relation to the legs. The front part is higher, but bowed toward the back side. The opening of the vessel is on the rear side in a slanted position” (Korošec 1952, 102). Examining the Danilo rhyton, Korošec comes to the conclusion that the vessel in its position standing on four legs cannot have a practical function. According to his thinking, it could serve for use only if it was being held up by the handle in a horizontal position, in which case the legs would be put in a slanting position. That, along with the red painted parts and the red encrustation, was enough for him to assign the rhyton to cult objects (Ibid.) At the initiative of the City Museum in Šibenik and the Archaeological Museum in Split, with the material and moral support of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU) from Zagreb, rescue excavations were conducted at the Bitinj site in Danilo in 1953. A lack of time and limited means, and the threat to the terrain, meant that the fieldwork had the character of the usual rescue excavations, saving whatever could be saved. Therefore it happened that in observing the terrain certain details were overlooked that could have given a fuller picture than the one the hurried work yielded (Korošec 1958, 7). Participating in the work of the archaeological team were J. Korošec from the Archaeology Department of the Faculty of Philosophy of Ljubljana University, D. RendićMiočević, Director of the Archaeological Museum in Split, F. Dujmović, Director of the City Museum in Šibenik, and I. Marović, curator of the Archaeological Museum in Split. The excavations yielded an abundance of hitherto unknown material consisting of ceramics, stone and bone tools, remains of the bones of various animals, shellfish, etc. Five years after the excavation J. Korošec published a book with the results of the archaeological investigations on the Danilo site documented in detail – Neolitska naseobina u Danilu Bitinju [“The Neolithic Settlement at Danilo Bitinj”], which to this day remains a classic in research on the Middle Neolithic Danilo Culture. To obtain firmer foundations for dating and new information for resolving certain questions connected with the newly discovered Neolithic culture, JAZU again undertook work at the Danilo Bitinj site in August 1955. The City Museum of Šibenik headed by F. Dujmović was put in charge of the excavation,

The Find

3

while the professional and scholarly work was done by J. Korošec supported by his assistants from the Archaeological Seminar of the Faculty of Philosophy in Ljubljana and the Archaeological Section of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Ljubljana. To gather as much information as possible, the investigation encompassed not just one place, but two separate terrains totalling somewhat more than a thousand square meters. The investigations confirmed the hypotheses made on the basis of the earlier excavation, and some new information for understanding that period was obtained as well as information about the relationships of the Danilo cultural group with neighbouring ones, but also with distant cultural groups (Korošec 1959, 226–227). Stratigraphic data, especially those of vertical stratigraphy, were, as in the earlier excavation, negative, since the entire layer, regardless of whether it had been disturbed or not, consisted of a homogeneous whole in which no distinctions could be found, either on the basis of typology or of evolution. Whereas in the layers of vertical stratigraphy, in vertical cross-sections, it was not possible to find differences in the material culture, it turned out that this difference could be sought on the horizontal level, over the surface, in the different sectors of the settlement. Thus Korošec, a little discouraged, concludes that today, if we wanted to determine the exact development of the entire material culture in Danilo and specify all the chronological phases in connection with its typological development, we would be forced to examine the whole settlement, because we do not know which places were populated at specific times. Since on account of the great area of the settlement and the vineyards and other agricultural plantings there this is technically impossible, he foresaw that excavations under such circumstances would last “many years or decades” (Ibid., 228). On the other hand, the excavations conducted during the 1950s and 1960s by the archaeologists A. Benac in central Bosnia, Š. Batović in the hinterland of Zadar, and S. S. Weinberg in central Greece contributed a plethora of new material and stimulated interest in the Danilo Culture, particularly in the cult rhyton, which so to speak became its trademark. In addition to these there were later excavations of Neolithic sites in Albania and Italy, which filled in gaps in the previous conceptions and cast new light, in particular on the matter of the origin of the rhyton and the directions in which it had spread. The Šibenik archaeologist M. Menđušić, digging in 1993 on a parcel across the way from the Bitinj well, which had not hitherto been included in the excavations, made two test excavations 7 × 3 metres in size, which were subsequently extended in certain parts, and investigated an area of some sixty square metres. In the relatively thin cultural layer (the intact layer was only about 50 cm thick) Menđušić found quite a few fragments of typical Danilo

4

The Rhyton from Danilo

ceramics, ordinary ones and vessels decorated with spiral motifs and hatched triangles. Fragments of the handles and feet of rhyta were also found. Aside from the ceramic material, several stone artifacts were found, as were remnants of daubs that indicated the remains of a prehistoric dwelling irregularly circular (ellipsoid) in form. The masonry walls of the half-dugout, for it was that kind of dwelling, were plastered with clay, mainly on the outside, which took on a reddish-yellow colour from long exposure to the sun. The roof was of straw, and the entrance, according to the floorplan, was on the western side. The floor was of clay; no hearth was found. Unfortunately, for lack of funds the work had to be stopped and could not encompass a larger area (Menđušić 1993, 22–25). Menđušić’s dig, aside from its valuable finds, confirmed the supposition that Korošec’s excavation, forty years earlier, had not exhausted the finds from the Danilo Culture at Bitinj. Led on by this understanding, in March 2003 experts from the Museum of the City of Šibenik in cooperation with experts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York State began to sound the terrain at the Bitinj site by means of the latest ground penetrating radar methods, which were being used in Dalmatia for the first time. The professional team was led by the archaeologists M. Menđušić and A. M. T. Moore, an American archaeologist known for excavations at Abu Hureyra in Syria, where in 1972 and 1973 digging was undertaken that lasted for about six months, before the whole site was flooded in early 1974 by water from the artificial lake formed by a nearby dam on the Euphrates. The results of that excavation were only published in 2000. Radiocarbon AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) dating established the continuity of the settlement at Abu Hureyra, which occupied a large area (11.2 hectares), from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic, or from about 11,500 to after 7000 BC, which meant that there existed an uninterrupted sequence from the hunter-gatherer way of life to the early phases and developed phases of agriculture (Moore 2003, 65–67). For Moore the remains of plants and animals on archaeological sites are fundamental evidence in researching the transition from gathering fruits to agriculture. Such an approach demands the collection of huge quantities of that material in excavation, far more than what is referred to in normal archaeological research. It implies a thorough analysis of the environment, supported by evidence of social changes, which should, in Moore’s view, yield the most productive results (Moore 2003, 65–67). The joint team of American and Croatian archaeologists continued investigations at Danilo in 2004 and 2005. The results were the discovery of two children’s graves, some round semi-dugouts and above-ground square houses with their lower parts of stone and the upper ones of homemade wattle and daub. Abundant archaeological material was collected (ceramic, stone, flint,

The Find

5

bone and other fragments), remains of grain (wheat, flax and barley), as well as fruit seed but also sea shells (Pl. XIII., fig. 22 and fig. 23). At a press conference Moore emphasized that the population on the territory of Danilo as far back as seven thousand years ago survived by raising domestic animals, sheep, cattle and pigs, as well as barley, two kinds of wheat and flax, which proves that the ancient inhabitants of Danilo were mainly farmers and herdsmen. A member of the professional team, A. Legge, who had also collaborated with Moore on the Syrian archaeological project, concluded, on the basis of the finds that had been found and tested on the site, that the modern landscape and soil type at Danilo are nearly identical to those of seven millennia ago. The Šibenik archaeologist M. Menđušić, a specialist in the prehistoric period, stressed that on the archaeological site many other prehistoric remains had been found, ceramic fragments with familiar patterns of the “Danilo Cultural Sphere” and flint artifacts. Moore promised that the results of research on the archaeological site Bitinj would be elaborated in more extensive studies, offering an answer to the question of how and when agriculture and herding spread from the area of today’s Near East toward Europe (HINA 2005).

2 The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

Previous investigations have established that rhyta, and most probably also the cult that they represented, were widespread in central Greece and Thessaly (Corinth, Chaeroneia, Elateia, Tsangli and Larissa), in central Albania (the Cakran-Dunavec Group), in central Bosnia (the Kakanj Group), in Kosovo (Reštani/Reshtan, southern Metohija), in the eastern Adriatic zone (especially Danilo, Smilčić, Markova Cave on Hvar, Crvena Stijena in Montenegro and Zelena Pećina in Herzegovina) as well as in northern Italy (Caverna del Muschio, Aurisina near Trieste) and central Italy (Benac 1979, 408). Recent data on the distribution of rhyta shows that, by the beginning of the 1990s, a total of 48 archaeological sites had been recorded where remains of such vessels were found – from Alepotrypa in the southern Peloponnese to numerous caverns in the hinterland of Trieste and several sites on the Apennine peninsula together with the Lipari Islands near Sicily (Montagnari Kokelj and Crismani 1993, 22). Finds of rhyta that belong to an older, Early Neolithic stage were, it appears, first reported by Albanian archaeologists. Namely, several undecorated rhyton legs were found at the Vashtëmi site near Korçë by the Pindus range. M. Korkuti, of the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana, one of the most outstanding contemporary Albanian archaeologists, states that vessels painted white and decorated with red clay, barbotine ceramics, as well as impressed pottery very reminiscent of the Starčevo and Adriatic form were found there (Korkuti 1982, 91–146, according to: Biagi 2003, 17). Chronologically, Korkuti places Vashtëmi together with Starčevo II in Serbia (Biagi 2003, 17). Moreover, three examples of rhyta come from the Early Neolithic site in Barç, and one from the Albanian cave Blaz, where the ceramics were decorated by pressing with a finger or a Cardium shell, by pinching, and by wavy or linear incision; barbotine ceramics were also found (Prendi 1990, 420, according to: Biagi 2003, 17). Apart from sites of late Starčevo impressed ceramics, the presence of rhyta in Albania is documented on sites of Middle Neolithic material culture such as Dunavec I and Kolsh (Korkuti 1995, according to: Biagi 2003, 19). On the opposite side of the Adriatic, in Italy, two Early Neolithic Apulian

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

7

examples of rhyta have come from the impressed ware site Le Macchie di Polignano a Mare, and from Caverna Elia near Ceglie Messapico, most probably a “cult cave”, in which one red-painted fragment of a rhyton was found. In the context of the possible origin of the rhyton in a period earlier than the Middle Neolithic, Biagi also mentions the find of a four-footed vessel from Donja Branjevina in Vojvodina, which the archaeologist S. Karmanski considers the (proto)type of the rhyton. The difference between the classically formed ones and the “rhyton” from Donja Branjevina is evident at first glance, since the latter lacks the characteristic handle over the opening of the vessel (Pl. XX, fig. 40). Moreover, seven radiocarbon results were obtained from this site. The result for the find mentioned was 6810±80 BP. In the book Žrtvenici, statuete i amuleti sa lokaliteta Donja Branjevina kod Deronja [“Altars, Statuettes and Amulets from the Site Donja Branjevina near Deronje”], in the chapter entitled Kultne vaze i kultne posude [“Cult vases and cult vessels”], S. Karmanski writes of a special set of cult objects made up of cult vases (found in fragments), in form and probably in purpose similar to altars (Karmanski 1968, 25). Particularly interesting for him is a cult vase (altar?) painted a reddish-brown colour, with a slanting receptacle which he relates by analogy to the Danilo vases. Namely, judging by the preserved part of the curve that connected two adjacent legs and the vertically pierced openings placed symmetrically in relation to the legs, Karmanski is inclined to think that the fragment belonged to a cult vase for which close analogies exist in the Danilo Culture (Ibid.). Although the composition of the clay and the technique of workmanship of the fragment were somewhat different from the other ceramics found in the same layer (layer II), Karmanski finds that it is not an imported object. If we accept a different method of reconstruction, he asserts, we will encounter a typologically quite new and unknown form of altar similar only in conception to the other altars within the Starčevo-Körös-Criş complex (Ibid., 26). The entirely new feature in the making of cult vases, which is found in this artifact, is precisely the absence of a strictly separated receptacle, which in the hitherto known altars had been considered a characteristic element, as were the hollow legs. In view of their form and position, the altar (?) was probably placed on four symmetrically arranged legs, while the receptacle could be of round or elliptical form. Thus the object must be seen in its entirety. If we accept the assertion that it is an altar, one needs to know that it differs from the other altars found at the site Donja Branjevina, and that it is a form of cult vase typologically unknown to the Starčevo-Körös-Criş complex. This is entirely understandable, since the fragments were found in layer II, corresponding to the later phase of the culture in Donja Branjevina, i.e. in the layer that belongs to a cultural group unknown

8

The Rhyton from Danilo

until recently (Karmanski 1979, 12). Karmanski also mentions a fragment of an altar (?) in the form of a human leg from layer III, which can likewise be counted among the objects unknown to the Starčevo-Körös-Criş complex. In the preserved part it can clearly be seen that the altar (?) had a receptacle, as evidenced by the slanting position of the legs in relation to the ground, as well as that it was painted red, which, judging by the finds of fine ceramics, was the dominant colour in that layer (Ibid. 27). From this, connections can easily be made with similar finds of “human legs” by J. Korošec at Danilo Bitinj. P. Biagi especially emphasizes the fact that many authors have discussed the origin of the Neolithic rhyton, and that only a few have taken into account the earliest Apulian, Albanian and Vojvodina finds. Their age, he is convinced, confirms that the origin of the rhyton must be sought within one of these three areas, and not in the Peloponnese, in central Bosnia or on the Dalmatian coast, as was previously supposed (Biagi 2003, 19). If that were to turn out to be accurate, the time span that covered the rhyton would have to be shifted back to 1200 calibrated years earlier than J. Chapman’s suggested date (4800–3500 cal BC). Therefore their first appearance in the Starčevo Culture and at sites of impressed ceramics would have to be shifted to about 6000 cal BC, Biagi holds, or a little earlier (Ibid.). Some of Biagi’s “innovations” vis-à-vis the origin of the rhyton had already been observed by A. Benac and Š. Batović. For example, Benac tries to answer the question of whether cult rhyta in the Adriatic and Aegean area and in their hinterlands were only a replacement for altars, portable tables of the Starčevo component in Obre I at Kakanj, because the proto-Kakanj phase was strongly connected to the Starčevo component and in some ceramic artifacts continues that tradition. However, with time the Starčevo type altars with their level platform gradually disappear, to be replaced by a new type of ceramic objects, which served a specific cult. Their form is very greatly changed: the four legs remain, but a slanting receptacle replaced the level platform and round receptacle, and a high handle was added. The use of red paint remained common to both forms. Benac likewise notes the find by S. Karmanski in Donja Branjevina, allowing for the possibility of continuity between the Starčevo altars and rhyta within the Kakanj Group, but he is conscious of the lack of intermediate types that would connect these two forms of cult objects so that, in the end, nothing can be asserted with certainty. The fact remains that cult rhyta in the Kakanj Group directly replaced altars of the Starčevo type, and most probably served the same cult ritual, but the problem is that rhyta are characteristic of the Adriatic-Aegean sphere, and there are none in the territory where the Starčevo cultural group had flourished earlier. Therefore, from a genetic point of view,

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

9

Benac holds, it is very difficult or impossible to connect them to this group (Benac 1979, 404). In general, when there is an attempt to indicate the original territory of the rhyton in the prehistoric milieu, three opinions predominate: that they come from Dalmatia because they are most numerous there, most richly decorated and best formed; that they come from Greece, where the only stratigraphic data from the settlement of Elateia are insufficient for final conclusions, so that one could argue for this region only on the basis of its general cultural primacy visà-vis the Adriatic; that they come from central Albania, where M. Korkuti and Zh. Andrea start from the fact that the settlement in Cakran belongs to the intermediate period between the Early and Middle Neolithic and claim that, given the 51 rhyton legs found in layers of impressed, barbotine, incised and painted ceramics, it is here that the origin of cult rhyta must be sought. The proto-Kakanj phase in Bosnia, connected with the culture of the earlier Neolithic, leads to the same line of thinking. We are forced to consider Dalmatia for its great concentration of finds and the richness of the decoration, while the other territory for now has the stratigraphic advantage, since the rhyta from Bosnian Obre I and Albanian Cakran were found in layers that rest immediately upon the earlier Neolithic. A significant change in opinion about the source of rhyta will most probably result from one rhyton fragment found during excavations of the Dalmatian Early Neolithic site Crno Vrilo near Zadar (Croatia) in 2001–2005 (led by Dr. Brunislav Marijanović, University of Zadar). It is a part of a receptacle with an oval opening positioned at a slant, almost horizontally, and a handle placed vertically over its upper part, so that despite the complete lack of other parts, especially legs, this is quite clearly the recognizable form of a four-legged rhyton. On the preserved part of the receptacle decorations are not visible, but the handle shows quite a rich ornamentation with motifs pressed in with the edge of a ribbed shell (Marijanović 2007a, 58). Carried away by the significance of the find, B. Marijanović asserts that now the problem of the origin of four-legged rhyta can be resolved “in a considerably less speculative way than previously” (Ibid.). He goes on in the text to caution that he is not asserting that fourlegged rhyta arose just at Crno Vrilo, nor that the very idea for which they are the material expression developed at that place, but primarily that it was at the time to which the site Crno Vrilo belongs and in the cultural environment that the Crno Vrilo settlement expressed. In this way he eliminates theses of rhyta originating on the territory of central Greece (D. Srejović) or being primarily connected with the Albanian site Cakran (M. Korkuti and Zh. Andrea). This also eliminates the hypothesis of E. Montagnari Kokelj, who cautiously suggests

10

The Rhyton from Danilo

the undecorated examples from the Edera Cave as a possible prototype of the four-legged rhyton and thus indirectly indicates the northernmost Adriatic as their possible source. Marijanovic takes issue with her for putting things in this way and forgetting that typological simplicity or even primitivity does not necessarily also indicate prior time. In this context decisive significance must indisputably be assigned to the age of the find, so quite clearly “the example from Crno Vrilo is at this time the oldest known one of that type, and that gives the territory of the eastern Adriatic, Dalmatia first and foremost, the significance of that geographic area with which four-legged rhyta are primarily linked” (Ibid., 60). Upholding this assertion with the opinions of J. Korošec and A. Benac, Marijanović particularly points out that the rhyton fragment from Crno Vrilo excellently supports not only Š. Batović’s view of their Dalmatian origin but also his lucid supposition that there may even be a connection with an earlier stage of the Danilo Culture that he calls the proto-Danilo. The “Cakran Group” includes the sites Cakran (Fier), Dunavec (Korçë), Kolsh II and Laudishte, a site in the village Podgorie. At all the sites named, except to some extent at Kolsh, similar cultural components can be observed that established that they belonged to a common “Cakran Group”. The site Kolsh II, however, in addition to elements typical for the Cakran Group, also produced material characteristic of the Vinča Group, which not only indicates partial synchronicity, but also defines northeastern Albania as the border area for the meeting of the two cultures. Typical cultural elements of Cakran culture in Kolsh particularly represented in that group are, among other types of vases, biconical cups with various profiles and “vases with four feets known as cultrhytons” (Prendi 1982, 195). Rhyta from the Cakran Group (Pl. XVII, fig. 36) connect this group with Dalmatia and central Bosnia (Danilo and Kakanj) on the one hand, and also with central Greece (Elateia II). The relative chronology of Cakran coincides with Danilo I, Vinča I, Proto-Kakanj and Elateia II. In relation to the Neolithic period in Thessaly, Cakran corresponds chronologically to the first phase of the Dimini Culture. Investigation in 1971 and 1973 in Dunavec (Korçë) made it possible to study the Cakran culture in a much broader context, geographically and chronologically. And while Dunavec II corresponds to the Cakran Group, the Dunavec I culture is characterized by monochromatic black or grey pottery with polished surfaces, which often reflect the technique of barbotine vessels of Starčevo pottery. The cult rhyton genetically connects the cultures of Dunavec I and II (Pl. XVII, fig. 35). Some of these “vases” were decorated with barbotine, setting a precedent. Certain pieces, “hybrids”, have a form typical of the Adriatic Middle Neolithic and decorations characteristic of the continental Early Neolithic, and so Prendi concludes that there does not

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

11

exist a single similar rhyton from the Aegean-Adriatic zone. Thus, he thinks, bearing in mind the early period evidenced by the stratigraphy, these rhyta should be taken as the oldest ones found in that zone. If we agree with this, the controversial question of whether the origin of these rhyta is in Dalmatia, Greece or Albania would be settled and it would be correct to ascribe to Albania this important role as “propagator of the cult” in which these “vases” were used in Dalmatia, Bosnia and Greece (Ibid., 197). The ceramics and, in particular, the rhyta found in the Middle Neolithic layer in the Albanian cavern Konispol during excavations in 1992–1994 confirm that the Middle Neolithic in Konispol cavern can be equated with the DunavecCakran and Blaz III culture. Unlike the older Neolithic, when the culture from the Konispol cavern was different from the culture of the older Neolithic in the northeast and north of modern Albania, during the Middle Neolithic there came to be unification of cultural phenomena throughout all of Albania, but also more broadly. The phenomenon included the sites Veluška-Tumba III–IV in Macedonia, Dimini I and II in Thessaly, proto-Kakanj in Bosnia and Danilo I in Dalmatia (Petruso et al. 1996, 183–224). Although some suppose that the origin of rhyta was the Albanian Cakran culture, especially on account of its connection with the earlier Neolithic, Batović is convinced that this cannot be confirmed, bearing in mind the theory of M. Korkuti and Zh. Andrea, since in Albania the stratigraphic development of the Cakran culture is not known, and it contains long-lasting developmental elements (Batović 1979, 560). The reliable dating of the Italian impressed-ware sites Le Macchie di Polignano a Mare and Caverna Elia is questioned by Biagi himself, who points out that neither one of these above-mentioned sites has been radiocarbon dated. Their dating in the period before the 7th millennium BP, he thinks, can be confirmed only by radiocarbon dating of other similar sites in southeastern Italy, not of these sites themselves (Biagi 2003, 17). The fact that rhyta were for a long time in frequent use in the zone of the Adriatic Neolithic (Zelena Pećina III, Danilo and Kakanj groups), according to M. Garašanin, suggests that the rhyton must have its origin in that area. Rhyta of identical character that appeared in Albania and Greece can be explained as shared adherence to the cult rather than by direct genetic connection with distant cultures in Thessaly. Not only the painted ceramics (Pl. X, fig. 16) but also the other domestic ceramics at Danilo open a series of new questions for Korošec that cannot yet be answered, in particular about the cult vase (rhyton); we cannot determine where it came from, nor under what influences it developed and attained nearly mass use in the Danilo Group. To resolve the puzzle of the origin of the rhyton

12

The Rhyton from Danilo

he offers two hypotheses: either such a vase of local form, i.e. Dalmatian in character, arose there “regardless of what elements it was based on” or it was adopted from elsewhere, perhaps in some similar form, which gradually, if not suddenly, changed there but kept its main characteristics. However, he admits, for now we do not have anything similar or related in form in our painted ceramics either. Aside from Obre in Bosnia, where four-legged rhyta were found in the older part of the Butmir phase, these typical specimens of the Danilo cult-culture were also found in Smilčić, as well as in the lowest layer in Markova Cave on the island of Hvar. Rhyta continue from the Danilo to the Hvar phase, but they were used only in the oldest stage of the Hvar phase, and did not last to the end of that culture (Batović 1970, 19). Digging in Markova Cave at a depth of 408 cm Grga Novak found fragments of ceramics and large parts of a vessel that, in his judgment, were very similar to rhyta found at Danilo, in Kakanj and Smilčić, but also to those at Elateia, Tsangli, Rakhmani and Caverna del Muschio in Aurisina near Trieste (Novak 1966, 30–31). After that in the same quadrant at a depth of 415 cm, in the same layer, fragments were found, almost next to one another, which correspond completely in form and decoration to the rhyta found at Danilo, Kakanj and Smilčić (Pl. IX, fig. 12). These finds were for G. Novak “of decisive significance” not only for the chronology of the above-mentioned cultural groups, but also for that of the whole Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the western part of the Balkan Peninsula and on both shores of the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian Seas, including the Ionian and Aegean Sea. Among the northern Dalmatian sites, we can count not only the home site Danilo Bitinj and also Krivače near Bribir, but also the site in Pokrovnik at Pećina, at the western foot of Gradina, as was recently established (Mendušić 2005, 90–91). There, in the course of preparing land for planting a vineyard, ceramics with the characteristics of the Danilo Culture were brought to the surface. In archaeological investigation at Pokrovnik seven open test pits gave exceptionally interesting results: remains of Neolithic cultures – Impresso (earlier Neolithic) and Danilo (Middle Neolithic in the eastern Adriatic region). In the Danilo phase, which is stratigraphically later, that is, closer to the surface, were found remains of charred grain, numerous fragments of ceramic vessels, stone and bone artifacts and, of course, – rhyton fragments. “The last horizont of the older phase of settlement on Pokrovnik is named after the technique of decoration the impresso-tremolo horizont. At the end of the impresso-tremolo we have a C-14 datation of the carbonized remains of cereals to the year 5050 BC, so that the end of the 6th millennium and the beginning of the fifth define the end of the impresso-tremolo horizont. That date would also mark the beginning of Danilo Culture, ‘Danilo A’. The younger phase of the settlement

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

13

on Pokrovnik starts with Danilo Culture, Danilo A, which typologically can be compared to the three most significant sites (Danilo, Smilčić and Krivače) on the originary region of this culture. Danilo Culture corresponds in time to the Middle Neolithic which in southern Italy is marked by the appearance of coloured ceramics and temporally mainly corresponds to the transition from the sixth into the 5th millennium” (Brusić 2008, 102–103). Likewise the painted ceramics from the late Middle Neolithic stage from Vela Spila on the island of Korčula show a clear connection with the northern Dalmatian sites. Čečuk and Radić observe the great similarity in their comparison of materials from Vela Spila with objects of the Danilo Culture, for example from Smilčić, where already in the first developmental stage fine painted ceramics are found, the spiral as a motif and cult vessels on four legs, whereas the Danilo site shows a similar state and nearly the same features during the whole Middle Neolithic. At both sites we are encountering a defined culture from the very beginning whose evolution does not yield significantly new elements. The connection between the stage of painted ceramics from Vela Spila and the northern Dalmatian sites is more than obvious, and it is most clearly manifested through the great similarity of the painted ceramics and the rhyta on four legs, whereas a few small vessels decorated by grooving most probably represent a direct export from the homeland of the Danilo Culture. In Vela Spila about five examples of Danilo rhyta, differing one from another, were found, to be sure only in fragments. Aside from one piece that comes from the early Hvar layer, all were found in the stage of painted ceramics. Taking everything into account, these cult objects were imports, since their development cannot be followed either typologically or chronologically (Čečuk and Radić 2005, 119). Probably the same thing is the case with the leg of a Danilo rhyton found in 1998 on the island of Sušac, at a site located in the central part of the northern side of the island, on a terrace that slopes down steeply toward the Mali Kolač cove (Radić 2004). The origin of ceramic decoration by the technique of painting must be sought on the opposite Adriatic shore, that is, in Apulian or, more broadly, Mediterranean red painted ceramics. The influence of this manner of decoration spread at the beginning of the Middle Neolithic to Korčula, and via Korčula and Pelješac to central Bosnia and northern Dalmatia. In these paths of diffusion, what was decisive was the “island bridge” Korčula – Sušac – Palagruža – Tremiti – Gargano, that is, a route that led from Pannonia and central Bosnia to Sicily as early as the Mesolithic, and more frequently since the beginning of the earlier Neolithic (Čečuk and Radić 2005, 121).1 1

Danilo ceramics were found even on the site of the acropolis on the Liparis (Bray 1966, 100–106). M. Gimbutas too states that certain “bear-legged” rhyta are found not only in Thessaly, central Greece

14

The Rhyton from Danilo

A. Benac, finding support in J. Korošec, asserts that rhyta on four legs and their leg forms in the Kakanj cultural group are of purely Adriatic origin.2 The very form of the rhyton is identical to those from Danilo and Smilčić, which is the strongest proof of a tie between the Kakanj group and the Adriatic settlements of the Middle Neolithic. However, the similarity in form is not also reflected in the ornamentation. The rhyta in Smilčić and Danilo are richly adorned with spiral motifs and meanders, which give them a very decorative appearance. On the legs and receptacles of rhyta from the Kakanj culture we will not find these motifs. Decorations on the Kakanj rhyta are much simpler: they are primarily incised banded motifs with linear hatching (Pl. XV, fig. 29 and fig. 30). But one decorative feature nevertheless shows complete correspondence. The interior and bottom part of the receptacle as well as the lower part of the handle of these vases in both Neolithic groups are covered with red paint that can rub off. Here there is no difference (Benac 1964, 46). Decorated with four incised bands, hatched with vertical lines, the thickened, wedge-like rhyton leg from the site Caverna del Muschio (Aurisina near Trieste), which Benac had the opportunity to see, completely corresponds to the Kakanj one. That leg, the lower side of which is decorated with a ribbon with hatched triangles, is closer to the Kakanj legs although that site is geographically more distant from the centres of Danilo Culture, Smilčić and Danilo (Benac 1956, 177). The results of archaeological investigations of all ten sites of the Vinča cultural group that are recorded in Kosovo indicate that that area and the basin of the Southern Morava constituted a unified regional manifestation of the Vinča Culture. One of the longest lasting and most important European Neolithic cultures, it is represented in the area of Kosovo by the sites Predionica and Fafos (near Kosovska Mitrovica), Žitkovac, Hisar near Suva Reka / Suharekë, Valč and Rudnik. A number of reliable proofs exist of the contacts of the Kosovo Vinča Culture with contemporary cultures in Thrace (Karanovo, Usoe, Podgorica, Hotnica, Kurilo), Thessaly (Larissa), the Thracian Aegean coast (Paradimi), with Neolithic communities on the territory of today’s Romania (Bolintineanu, Dudeşti, Vădastra) and Hungary (Szakalhat). The long-lasting and very successful development of the Vinča Culture in Kosovo is marked by outstanding achievements in material culture and, especially, in art. But, as is evident from the finds, during the Middle Neolithic the Vinča Culture in that and on the Peloponnese, also in Albania, Herzegovina, Dalmatia and Bosnia, and even on the Lipari Islands, north of Sicily (Gimbutas 1989, 118). 2 The rhyton leg found in Markova Cave on Hvar widens noticeably from bottom to top and is quite thick and very similar to the Kakanj rhyton, so that Novak and Čečuk call it a “Kakanj leg” (Novak and Čečuk 1982, 27, 31).

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

15

area “was brutally shaken by incursions of bearers of the Danilo cultural group from the west” (Stojić 2000). M. Garašanin called the discovery of elements of the Danilo Group on the territory of Metohija at two sites in the Prizren Basin – Hisar and Reštani/ Reshtan near Suva Reka / Suharekë – one of the greatest surprises of those years in Yugoslav archaeology (Garašanin 1973, 153). The appearance of typical Danilo vessels with several legs and with an opening placed on the side – rhyta, connected in any case with a cult – at sites in central Greece and Thessaly indicates, according to Garašanin, a connection with the Dimini Group, thus with phenomena that correspond in time to the period of the developed Starčevo Culture. On the other hand, the appearance of these vessels in Kakanj indicates a period of a relatively late Starčevo phase, at a time when we can be sure of the first contacts with Vinča elements. Among the material from the oldest layers of Hisar are some sure Danilo elements (typical forms of hollow Danilo legs or bases of vessels with ornaments of ordinary but also of spiralling triangles, hatched motifs, parallel bands, etc.); in Reštani/Reshtan typical Danilo ceramics were likewise found, as well as rhyton fragments. Garašanin agrees with the archaeologist J. Glišić that, in view of the geomorphological character of the terrain, one must accept the explanation that these elements penetrated from the Adriatic coast up the valley of the Drin/Drim (Ibid.). Further south, in the Ohrid area, it was likewise along the Drin/Drim valley that a cultural influence from the Adriatic penetrated, which is confirmed by outstanding finds at the Neolithic site Usta na Drim. Ceramic forms, incised crooked linear and triangular decorations, motifs painted red, indicate the close connection with the Danilo Group from the Adriatic coast (Garašanin et al. 1971, 12, 15). Benac thinks that sufficiently firm elements exist to suppose that in the Neolithic period the valley of the Drin/Drim, or the White Drin/Drim, a river that cuts through a part of the Balkans from east to west, played a role similar to that of the valley of the Neretva. Rhyta from Reštani/Reshtan near Suva Reka / Suharekë support this theory (Benac 1966, 42–43). D. Srejović is convinced that the Danilo Culture when it was fully flourishing penetrated along the valleys of the Neretva, Drin/Drim and Devoll deep into the continental areas of the Balkan peninsula, where it played a role in the forming of the Butmir Culture in central Bosnia, a certain variant of the Vinča Culture in Metohija (Reštani/Reshtan), the Ustje type culture in Pelagonija and the Cakran Culture in Albania. The Danilo Culture combined elements of the older local Neolithic cardial impressed-ware culture and elements taken from the area of central Greece. These latter elements taken from Greece are “rhyta on four legs” (Srejović 1997, 194).

16

The Rhyton from Danilo

The Neolithic of the coastal area of neighbouring Montenegro is known to us from the finds at Crvena Stijena. Here we distinguish two phases with certainty: the earlier Neolithic, characterized by the so-called Impresso Group, whose main feature is coarse pottery with primitively impressed ornaments, and the Middle Neolithic, connected with the Danilo Group. Both these groups belong to a broader cultural complex well known from the western coast of Greece (Lefkada), whose influences can be observed further to the east as well, up to Thessaly and Macedonia, as Milutin Garašanin stresses. The earlier Neolithic of the Apennine peninsula belongs to the same cultural complex, and it can also be observed in modified forms westward all the way to Spain and France. The culture of the Middle Neolithic Danilo Group in Crvena Stijena is so far insufficiently known. It is connected to the broader area of the Adriatic Neolithic, for the end of which we still do not have sure data in this area. According to analogies with neighbouring regions of the coastal zone and its hinterland, we could expect that the so-called Lisičići-Hvar Group would have been represented here (Garašanin 1976). M. Garašanin dates a fragment of a rhyton characteristic of the Dalmatian Danilo Group found at Crvena Stijena (Pl. XV, fig. 31) to the earlier Dimini period, according to the find of a rhyton in Phocian Elateia, although these phenomena are also known significantly later (Garašanin 1973, 53). A. Benac mentions Crvena Stijena in the context of a possible route by which the rhyton came from the Adriatic to central Bosnia. Since for lack of finds he excluded western Bosnia or the valley of the Una, Benac turns toward Herzegovina and Montenegro. At Crvena Stijena in Montenegro, he notes, in layer II part of a handle was found that in its form and cross-section exactly matches rhyton handles (Benac 1964, 65). A handle was likewise found, this one in the very oldest cultural layer, in Herzegovina at Zelena Pećina cave, which is “in fact a pripećak (a rock shelter) facing west, divided by bedrock into two parts, with useful living space for a rather small Neolithic group” (Benac 1984, 39). Thus, the valley of the Neretva comes into consideration since Zelena Pećina is located in its immediate vicinity. Remains of rhyta have also been found in Istria, at several local archaeological sites (in Pupićina Cavern in Vela Draga at the foot of Učka, in Pećina na Brehu on Ćićarija, in Nugljanska Cavern, at Limska Gradina, on Sveti Mihovil near Bale, and on Mušego near Rovinj). However, the greatest number of rhyton fragments – one handle and three pieces of legs – were discovered at the Kargadur site during excavations between 2005 and 2007 under the professional direction of D. Komšo, current Director of the Archaeological Museum of Istria (Pl. XV, fig. 32). Here, in fact, three chronologically separate settlements arose in the same place – one from the Early Neolithic (between 5710–5630 BC), another

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

17

from the Middle Neolithic period, and the third from the Early Copper Age. Kargadur is the name of a small cove located in the northern part of Kuje Bay, about 2 km from the centre of Ližnjan. Aside from rhyton fragments, among the numerous finds from that site there are frequent spiral and hatched triangle ornaments, while on some ceramic fragments decoration with ochre is observed, all of which certainly indicates that the Kargadur site in the Middle Neolithic was in the sphere of influence of the Danilo Culture. Unlike the other Danilo Culture sites, which were ordinarily at a distance from the shore and withdrawn into the continental interior, a peculiarity of Kargadur is its maritime character. The ancient inhabitants there knew very well how to use the “resources” of the sea, as witnessed by numerous remains of shells, fish bones, but also a number of excellently made bone fish-hooks, and these unique features make the settlement exceptionally valuable for the archaeology of the Middle Neolithic in Istria and beyond (Komšo 2005, 212–14; 2006, 233–35). Italian prehistorians began to get interested in the ties between the Balkan peninsula and Italy in the 1940s and 1950s. In these years excavations in the cave Arene Candide in western Liguria first revealed a material culture, ornaments and cult artifacts, which L. Bernabò Brea described as reflecting “Balkan influences” first and foremost on the basis of vessels with rectangular opening found in the Middle Neolithic layer of the cave Arene Candide. Some years later (1954) P. Laviosa Zambotti wrote a lengthy study on the prehistory of the Balkans and Italy. From the very first chapter she emphasized the importance of the Adriatic zone in the connections that were developed on both sides. She devoted special attention to the ties that existed in prehistory between the territory of today’s Dalmatia and eastern Veneto. The results of her research were confirmed by excavations on the Friulian plain during the last twenty years, which unambiguously indicated that, in the Neolithic, this area and the Trieste Karst were part of the Danilo cultural and ideological world (Biagi 2004). According to the respected Italian archaeologist P. Biagi, the spread of the Danilo cultural influence from Dalmatia toward the Trieste Karst took place just before the middle of the 7th millennium non cal BP, as is shown by new radiocarbon dates from the Edera Cave. The cultural influence moved from there toward Sammardenchia di Pozzuolo, an open-air site on the Friulian plain, where ceramics typical of the Danilo Culture were found, among which were, of course, recognizable rhyta and phalluses (Biagi 2003b, 341; 2004). When it is that the Danilo Culture reached its acme in its northwestward spread and in the Neolithicisation of the Italian northeast is still to be determined. The middle of the same millennium, or slightly later, saw the penetration into the Friuli Plain of the Fiorano Culture, a typical example of the central-eastern Po Valley Early

18

The Rhyton from Danilo

Neolithic, spread eastwards. Nor may we neglect the influences that reached the area of northeastern Italy from the Adriatic territory of central Italy, where, all things considered, we must seek the source of Fiorano Culture on account of its similarity with some features of the ceramics of the Ripoli Culture. In this case the role played by the Danilo Culture does not seem particularly relevant. However, once the Fiorano Culture had reached the northeastern corner of Italy it took on features characteristic of the ceramics and ornamentation of the Danilo Culture (Biagi 2004). According to the latest results of radiocarbon dating, which R. Skeates presented at a conference in Venice in 1998, at the sites around Trieste associated with the Danilo ceramics of the “Vlaška” type a calibrated result 5650–5600 cal BC was obtained (Skeates 2003, 172). The latest investigations of the Starčevo Culture indicates that it did not have a role in the Neolithicisation of the Italian northeast, as had previously been supposed, since the archaeological finds show no actual, direct connection whatsoever between the Danube territory and northern Italy during the Neolithic. It is an entirely different matter with the Dalmatian Danilo Culture, as has already been shown. Similarly, Korošec asserts that the Danubian cultures in the strict sense of the word had no influences whatsoever on the Neolithic culture that we know in Istria and the Slovenian coast (Korošec 1958, 143). One of the latest investigations regarding the Italian Neolithic and the cultural influences that shaped it was done by R. Grifoni from the University of Pisa as part of the COFIN 2002 project “Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Art in Italy: Patterns of Cultural Identity in a European Context”, by making a kind of index of Neolithic artifacts found on Italian archaeological sites. The majority of the excavated statuettes represented women, and only in a few instances male or zoomorphic figures. The female figures, says Grifoni, usually are interpreted as mother goddesses and reflect the Balkan cultural sphere that had undergone the influence of Anatolia and the Aegean. Variously organized geometric motifs (triangles, rectangles, zigzags, solar and star symbols, spirals) dominate on the vases, but also on other objects (spindles, pebbles, bones), while human faces appear on the rims of vessels. At least two hundred statuettes that were found in central and southern but also in northern Italy and on islands clearly show the marks of a Balkan origin (Grifoni 2005). Like Biagi, Grifoni considers northern Italy beginning in the Mesolithic and the Early Neolithic to have been an area of broad cultural influence, the centre of which was in the Balkans, but also in the middle course of the Danube. Although Biagi rejects the thesis that the Starčevo Culture influenced northern Italian Neolithic communities, Grifoni mentions not only the Starčevo, the Vinča, and the Karanovo but also the German Linear Pottery (Bandkeramik) cultures. She does not explicitly mention

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

19

the Danilo Culture, but in describing the ceramics, which are a fundamental element in the classification of chronological and cultural grouping, she mentions anthropomorphic and zoomorphic vases and rhyta characterized by specific forms (Ibid.). In the majority of caverns of the Karst the Neolithic begins with the socalled Vlaška Group3 and lasts for about a thousand years [Grotta dell’Edera, lowest layer 2a: 6615±390 BP;4 Grotta del Mitreo, layer 8: 5770±50 BP] (Montagnari Kokelj 2001). Sheep and goat raising confirms that the process of Neolithicisation was nearly complete, although there are no traces of agriculture, while hunting and shellfish gathering continue. Along with numerous so-called vasi a coppa, deep vessels, probably on legs, with incised, typically geometric forms below the rim, there are also the less frequent “deep vessels on four legs, often decorated, called rhyta.” With them are present large vessels, which may possibly belong to a later period on account of their striking similarity with the ceramic forms of the Dalmatian Late Neolithic Hvar Culture (Montagnari Kokelj 2001)5 E. Montagnari Kokelj does not forget to mention that various scholars in explaining the Vlaška Group ordinarily indicate the connection of this group with the Danilo Culture from central Dalmatia. In fact, the Vlaška group has always been considered a local, impoverished variant of the Danilo Culture (Biagi et al. 2008, 252) M. Spataro emphasizes the fact that the scientific analysis of the Edera rhyton (Pl. XX, fig. 39) has demonstrated that it was produced locally, which indicates that in this case, it is the idea of the rhyton “cult” that was diffused, and not the thing itself (Spataro 2002, 199). This data opposes the hypothesis of S. Perić that the rhyton “cult” spread very rapidly from Greece and the Peloponnese to the Balkan Peninsula, following transhumant herdsmen who moved from permanent valley settlements to seasonal upper mountain pastures bearing these unique vessels with them (Perić 1996, 56–63, 65–66). To the extent that we have come to know the distribution of the Danilo and its successor the Hvar cultural group, we can conclude that they occupied the same territory. Š. Batović came to that conclusion, arguing that the home territory of both cultures is the coastal belt of the eastern Adriatic shore, from Albania to Italy and the foot of the Alps, and inland to the first mountains 3 Named for Vlaška Jama, the Slovenian name of the cavern (Ital. “Grotta del Pettirosso”). The term ‘Vlasca’ was introduced by L. H. Barfield (Barfield 1972, 201). 4 With better equipment and better standard deviation from the same charcoal sample Biagi and Starnini got the result 6590±100 uncal BP (GrN-23129 from charcoal). 5 This similarity had also been noted a half century earlier by G. Novak (Novak 1955, 46). Korošec likewise mentions “partially investigated karst caverns in the neighbourhood of Trieste, in which on the one hand both Danilo and Hvar ceramics appear” (Korošec 1958, 143).

20

The Rhyton from Danilo

that at once form a climatic and general geographic border, including Istria, the Croatian coast, Dalmatia and Herzegovina. However, both groups, he asserts, had a very clear effect on cultural development in central Bosnia, on the Kakanj and Butmir cultures, to which influences from the coast moved along the valley of the Neretva, our most important route in the Neolithic period. Many elements spread all the way to the Sava and the Drina. Certain elements went on further to the northeast to the Sopot-Lengyel Culture. The Neretva obviously was not the only “route” for the spread of influences of the Danilo-Hvar cultural group, since in recent times a second route has become evident along the valley of the Buna/Bojana and Drin/Drim to Kosovo, where clear elements of the Danilo and Hvar group were also found. During the Late Neolithic, but also the Chalcolithic, yet another route came to prominence – along the valley of the Krka and Una, where the influences spread to Lika and northern Croatia. The line Trieste-Ljubljana strikes Batović as yet another route of the spread of cultural influence beyond the northern Adriatic, since in the later Neolithic in Slovenia there are also found elements typical of the Hvar group, although they could also have spread from Bosnia and Croatia via the common base of the Lengyel Culture. In any case, Batović concludes, what is important here is that in the Sopot-Lengyel Late Neolithic culture, as well as in the Lasinja Chalcolithic culture, there is also a significant component of the tradition of the Danilo and Hvar group from the coastal region. There are no certain proofs that these elements spread in the opposite direction, from the interior to the Adriatic, since in the coastal region they are older and they developed gradually (Batović 1970, 15–16). It is very puzzling to Benac why only the (ceramic) form of the rhyton crossed over from the Adriatic coast to central Bosnia. For in Kakanj there is no trace of painted ceramics, nor is there the ordinary decorative ornamentation from the Adriatic, executed in a technique of incising and impressing. On the basis of these facts, Benac excludes the possibility of migration by members of the Adriatic culture of the Middle Neolithic toward central Bosnia. Next he develops his own hypothesis: rhyta on four legs probably reflected a ceramic form that served some particular purpose. Although he personally is not inclined, as he says, “to take refuge in cult explanations”, nevertheless it appears to him that we have here “one form of a cult vase” (Benac 1964, 65). It could not serve any practical purpose, Benac continues, because the form of the receptacle does not allow that. In addition, rhyta are painted on the bottom with a red paint that can rub off, and they are painted in the same manner on the inside of the receptacle and the inner part of the large handle as well. Such extensive use of the colour red is surely linked with the concept that red paint is the colour of

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

21

blood, thus of life, he supposes. Whether rhyta served in some magical cult ritual or the cult of the dead, Benac refrains from saying. In any case, he concludes, this custom (the cult use of rhyta) must have been very strong and widespread. Suffice it to mention examples of the same legs on vases in Greece (Chaeroneia, Tsangli, Drakhmani, Elateia) to show how widespread this ceramic form was in the Balkans (Ibid., 65–66).6 In 1959 while excavating the Greek prehistoric site Elateia the American archaeologist S. S. Weinberg in the bothros (pit) of trench no. 3 dug up “the most interesting and most important by far piece of pottery from the bothros” (Weinberg 1962, 190) – a four-legged vase. The two front legs, the fore part and lower part of the opening were in one piece; one rear leg was found detached and broken, but two parts of it could still be joined to the larger front part. Later the handle too was found among the material from the bothros. The discovery of the rhyton in Elateia provided an answer to the puzzle of what kind of vessel the numerous clay legs found earlier in excavations at Drakhmani belonged to, as well as some found in Corinth and at least one at Chaeroneia. It is, of course, a rhyton (Pl. XVIII, fig. 37). While at first he did not know what kind of vessel it was, especially regarding its upper part, Weinberg, thanks to Professor Vladimir Milojčić, who informed him of the Danilo Culture rhyta that had then been found near Šibenik and of the Kakanj ones in Bosnia, easily reconstructed the find from Elateia (Ibid., 193). C. K. Williams, II, Field Director of the Corinth Excavations led excavations in three campaigns in the period 1968–1970, conducted by the American School of Classical Studies in the west end of the Roman forum of Ancient Corinth. The excavations brought to light a plethora of prehistoric materials, especially from the Neolithic Age. The most important finds are of the Late Neolithic period, while the Early Neolithic, Middle Neolithic and Early Helladic periods are also represented. Among the Late Neolithic pottery “there is a curiously large number of four-legged so-called ritual vessels or rhyta” (Lavezzi 1978, 418). Fragments of rhyta from prehistoric Corinth are a special subclass of the black burnished wares on account of their coarser or more impure fabric than other, morphologically finer, black burnished pottery. In some instances the heavy legs were worked in a layered or rolled technique, and even the handle and body are usually hefty. The manneristic richness of the rhyta is achieved with luxuriant decoration, which makes up for the coarseness of the materials, in combination with the unusual form of the vessel (Pl. XIX, fig. 38). The 1969 and 1970 campaigns yielded as 6 In his article J. Lavezzi (1978, 420) also adds “one possible handle fragment from Orchomenos”, plus “a handful of examples” found at Franchthi Cave in the Argolid, and at least one reported from Alepotrypa (southern Peloponnese).

22

The Rhyton from Danilo

many as 44 inventoried fragmentary examples, while many others found in prior or subsequent excavations raise the number in the Corinth inventory to over 150, which represents the largest hitherto discovered concentration of finds of this kind in Greece (Ibid., 410–21). It is a particularly interesting insight that the appearance of black-burnished ware, especially the four-legged ritual vessel or “rhyton” shape, signifies the beginning of the earliest Corinthian phase of the Late Neolithic (LN Ia; about the last quarter of the 6th millennium BC). No less intereseting is the fact that the earliest black-burnished wares exhibit a taste for incised and punctate decoration, which together with certain forms suggests a connection with the northwest, that is, “with the Adriatic littoral and drainage regions” which logically suggests the conclusion that the population of Corinth was supplemented also by immigrants from that area (Lavezzi 2003, 68). Two decades after the publication of his Studija o kamenom i bakarnom dobu u sjeverozapadnom Balkanu [“Studies about the Stone and Copper Age in the Northwest Balkans”] cult rhyta continued to present “quite a great cultural unknown” to Benac (Benac 1984, 44). The cult of “four-legged vases” was widespread throughout the greater part of the southern and western Balkans and in northeast Italy. Nevertheless, the centre of the cult at the time of its culmination could only be in northern Dalmatia7 – where it probably arose, he is convinced. Benac considers it difficult to support or to negate with specific arguments the hypothesis of J. Korošec that rhyta belong to a cult of water and that in the Danilo settlement they were connected with a large spring next to the settlement itself, on account of the impossibility of comparison with any kind of palaeoethnological data. In opposition Š. Batović sees in the rhyta some kind of lamp, but the insightful Benac maintains that such a designation is contradicted by the smears of red paint in the interior of their receptacles. Likewise, we must not lose sight of the fact that four-legged cult vessels were richly painted red, and it is known that the colour red in primitive societies symbolised life itself, or blood as its vital element. If cult vessels are seen in that way, then it is easier to connect them with a cult of life, birth, fertility, and the like (Ibid., 45–46). In extremely stylised form, the shape of a rhyton, as Benac sees it, suggests some “horned bovine” (Pl. IX, fig. 14). A clan social order undoubtedly adhered to cults that related to fertility and birth, so it would be natural, Benac is convinced, that in this case too some such cult is involved. What concrete actions the rhyta served in cannot be precisely determined. One thing is nevertheless clear – they were not suitable for practical use. It is quite certain, says Benac repeating his old hypothesis, that the form of the cult vessels, and then the cult itself that was connected with them, came to the banks of the river Bosna (near which the 7

Benac erroneously mentions “in central Dalmatia”, p. 45.

The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton

23

sites of the Kakanj culture are located), along the valley of the Neretva River, as confirmed by the find in Zelena Pećina, that midpoint on the way from the Adriatic coast to Kakanj. The Neolithic inhabitants of Kakanj, Obre and Arnautovići also adopted the cult, which he thinks is “some older Balkan cult” (Ibid., 46), and the cult vessels, but decorated then in a specific way. Adoption of a cult from one culture by another was, to be sure, a rare phenomenon in the Neolithic period; it is far easier to adopt material things than spiritual culture. The “case” of the Danilo rhyton and the wide distribution of its cult, in view of what we know about it today, is an exceptionally uncommon event in the late Stone Age. Therefore, in accord with present knowledge about that phenomenon, Benac draws the conclusion that the cult must have had deep roots and that it reflected some spiritual preoccupations held in common by Neolithic people “since only thus can we understand its penetration into foreign Neolithic societies” (Ibid.). These “spiritual preoccupations held in common by Neolithic people”, as a uniform cultural conception symbolized by the rhyton, stretched over an area, huge for Neolithic man, from the Aegean to the Alps. Today that can mean only one thing – that around seven thousand years ago the first integration, as we might term it nowadays, of part of the European territory took place through a unified cultural identity based on the mysterious rhyton. Obviously the cult of the rhyton in its internal dimension contained certain universal features that were recognizable and acceptable to different cultural groups spread widely over the area of southeastern Europe. The general acceptance of the cult was undoubtedly furthered by the expansion of the adherents of the Danilo cultural group along river valleys toward the interior of the Balkan peninsula or along the coast to the northern Adriatic during the 6th/5th millennium BC. The existence of the cult also presupposes a circle of devotees familiar with the ritual practice that was the metalanguage of the cult. It does not seem improbable that the initiates and adherents of the Danilo rhyton cult cruised through prehistoric southeastern Europe spreading the cult to the north and south, judging by the material remains of the rhyton that have hitherto been found in different parts of that area. It is easily possible that thanks to these very missionaries there came about the first cultural unification, or the first integration of part of European territory in prehistory.

3 A Bear or ... ?

The archaeologist A. Benac, studying the Kakanj Culture, which is close to the Danilo Culture, wondered whether cult rhyta in that cultural group were just a replacement for portable-table altars of the Starčevo Culture discovered at Obre I, or whether Starčevo-type altars with a level platform were replaced in the Danilo Culture by a new type of ceramic objects that served a particular cult. The form is significantly modified: the four legs have remained, but the slanted receptacle replaced the level platform and the round receptacle, and a high handle has been added. There remains common to both the use of red paint (Benac 1979, 404). A second variant appears toward the end of this phase; rarely attested, it has two legs like human legs bent double and probably arose as an image of a kneeling human figure (Batović 1979, 541). In the earlier Neolithic, Benac holds, groups of people moved along the valley of the Neretva who belonged to very different settlements, groups and variants on the Adriatic and Mediterranean. The mouth of the Neretva served as a gateway through which Neolithic peoples came from the south, straight from the west (southern Italy and Sicily) and from neighbouring islands. These migrations were largely economic in nature (flint, rich stores of animal life, etc.), unlike the Middle Neolithic when a more spiritual connection was established along the valley of the Neretva. The cult connected with the four-legged rhyta gained a stable place in central Bosnia and drove out the Starčevo heritage in that area (Benac 1966, 42) The director of the Bulgarian Institute of Archaeology, V. Nikolov, also speaks of kneeling figures on Neolithic altars. He describes Neolithic altars as horizontally placed vessels supported by three or four legs, made of clay in the form of an equilateral triangle or square. The outer walls of the altar are usually covered with dots or incised decorations with white incrustation. The interior and under surface of the vessel are most often coloured white. The relief female sculpture on the walls of the larger vessels represents a female figure with legs bent at the knees and unnaturally spread apart; the vulva between them is indicated by a convex triangle. Analogies of these sculptures and altars are obvious: the anthropomorphic images are connected with the Mother Goddess, while the

A Bear or ... ?

25

altars are symbols of the lower part of the body of the Mother Goddess and the womb (Nikolov 2004). With the disappearance of the Middle Neolithic cultural substratum, this three-stage change in the structural and artistic presentation of the rhyton from an altar with a level platform via zoomorphic (Pl. II, fig. 3 and fig. 4; Pl. III, fig. 5; Pl. IV, fig. 6 and fig. 7; Pl. IX, fig. 12, fig. 13 and fig. 14) to anthropomorphic (kneeling) sculptures (Pl. VII, fig 10; Pl. VIII, fig. 11) was very probably continued onward in the Chalcolithic with a kind of intertwining of the deified universal (rhyton) principle into parthenogenetic proto-goddesses, such as Gaia, Hecate, Demeter or Artemis in the Aegean-Adriatic cultural sphere, or elsewhere the Egyptian Hathor, Phrygian Cybele, Indian Lalita etc. Evidently the cultural transformation of the form of the rhyton was a reflection of spiritual aspirations that found their expression in anthropomorphising the cult aspect, or spiritual side of Neolithic man. The process of anthropomorphisation of the rhyton is, therefore, surrounded by the pure correspondence – seeing the very human being as an image of heaven and earth, the fundamental religious concept. This seemingly complicated but entirely logical process of transformation was “channelled”, so to speak, via two streams along which rhyton material passed in the course of history: the institutional-ritual or exoteric one and the esoteric one, which represents the “inward dimension of tradition, which addresses the inner man, ho esō anthrōpos of St. Paul” (Nasr 1989, 77). It is thanks to the esoteric direction of human spirituality that the human being is recognized as the Centre of everything, in which all things from the whole Universe meet, so that “the Anatomy of him in his Nature is the Anatomy of the whole world” (Debus 2002, 120). The Danilo rhyton, which is an image of the “whole Universe”, was in its late stage of development transfigured into a human being, without losing anything of the integral taste that marked its inner dimension in the view of those few who were capable of seeing it. The rest, anyway, adored only the external forms, those golden calves of human error. D. Mlekuž, the Slovenian archaeologist, does not, to be sure, use calves when he takes up the rhyton, but rather sheep. In his paper entitled “Sheep are your mother: the ideology of west Balkan ‘cult vessels’” at the 13th Neolithic Seminar in Ljubljana Mlekuž sets forth his thesis about the role of “cult vessels” or “rhyta” in the restoration and reproduction of the ideological structures of Dinaric Neolithic herders. According to him, ideology has material support and so the “cult vessels” must be placed in the context of the transformation of relations between people and animals that arose as a result of domestication. The previous connections between hunter-gatherers and animals could be called “trust” to be replaced by “domination” with the appearance of animal husbandry. Therefore

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The Rhyton from Danilo

Mlekuž interprets the western Balkan vessels as materialisation of ideology of generalised reciprocity between people and animals which effectively masked those new relations between animals and people. Mlekuž is right when he asserts that western Balkan “rhyta” are materialised ideology. They are indeed that, but surely not just in order to manifest, in their clay, the connectedness between people and animals; they are much more than that, as, we hope, will be shown by this book. Mlekuž does not treat rhyta exclusively as images. He thinks they can have frequently indefinite, iconic similarities with animals, people or body parts, “but this resemblance is not in the function of representing them, but rather in revealing the hidden properties of animals and humans and their relations” (Mlekuž 2007, 271–72). Rhyta are not aniconic. They can be composed of various attributes of animals and of the human body, Mlekuž repeats. Some are explicitly anthropomorphic, others have zoomorphic characteristics. They also exist as human-animal hybrids; some suggest animals on the one hand, but, at the same time, can also be part of an animal, for example an udder, on the other hand. The theory of rhyton legs that are, in fact, an udder was publicized by B. Čović, explaining that the receptacle, most often painted red, represents a womb, while the legs represent teats and an udder (Čović 1976, 22–24). S. Perić thinks similarly, seeing rhyta as different images of the wombs, udders and teats of various animal species, especially sheep, goats, pigs and cattle. The form of rhyton legs, which he considers teats, would serve to distinguish the animals represented by the rhyton, such as cows (usual in the Kakanj Culture), or sows in Thessaly (Perić 1996, 21–66). A cow’s udder/teats, we could agree, somewhat resemble the legs of one of the early forms of rhyta from the site Obre I, while even with the best of will we could not connect the legs of the one from Elateia with the teats of a sow. Furthermore, the rhyta from Danilo and Smilčić have a certain thickening at the upper part of the rear legs, which rather indicates similarity with the rear part of a body than with an udder, not to speak of the rhyta in the form of a bear or the anthropomorphic rhyton which, of course, clearly has legs. The ring, that is, the handle of the rhyton, its circular opening, reminds Mlekuž of a vagina or wound, especially since that ring is frequently covered with red pigment. Therefore he is convinced that the handles/rings communicate inner features of rhyta that can be linked to the inner vital essence of being (Mlekuž 2007, 273). From our point of view, Mlekuž’s position is attractive, since, as we will soon see, the handle of the rhyton represents the daily circular orbit of the sun from east to west, hence the generator of vital force, or the formative principle in nature, but also in the microcosm.

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It is interesting that Mlekuž equates the anthropomorphic rhyton with the image of a woman who gives birth in a kneeling position with spread thighs, thus communicating the process of transformation or the course of life force contained in the rhyton (Ibid.). Although the thesis is intriguing, it suffers from two shortcomings: the rhyton is not explicitly marked by any specific sexual feature so the assertion that we are dealing with a woman is somewhat “shaky”; birth presupposes arrival in the world head foremost and the orientation of the opening downward, whereas the receptacle of the anthropomorphic rhyton rests on the thighs of a human being, but its opening is turned upward – in other words, the receptacle is here shown in the function of a vessel into which something can be poured, which receives, and not the ones from which something would pour out or, in Mlekuž’s language, be born. Then he goes so far as to interpret rhyta, on the basis of certain anthropological customs, as “skins” or wrappers around “significant interiors” (Ibid.) and the different decorations on rhyta – zigzag lines, chequers, triangles, spirals and the like – function as “skin”. Such ornamental unification, alas, can do significant harm to the complete interpretation of every individual symbol, or to the patterns of symbolic matrices that appear in the form of diverse decorations on the rhyton. Individually or together these decorations, as a rule, point to a deeper semantic stratification of the symbols. Mlekuž likewise conveys the well-known fact that some parts of the rhyton were not decorated: the inner side of the legs, the interior of the receptacle and the inner side of the ring/handle. These are thus those very same parts that in most cases were coloured with red paint. His conclusion is that the application of red pigment to those parts was in the function of additional protection of vital parts of the body in the process of transformation: the interior of the receptacle, “the meaningful emptiness”, the opening of the ring, the inner side of the legs and the part around the genitalia (Ibid., 275). We have put forward our opinion on that, which differs from that of Mlekuž and touches on the integral structure of the rhyton, in the chapter on androgyny, and we will not go into it further here. It is worth keeping in mind that this study by Mlekuž, despite the criticisms made above, is still one of the best anthropological works on the rhyton as the embodiment of complex beliefs about the connectedness of animals and people, and that, since it is very recent, it arouses optimism that the enigma called the Neolithic cult rhyton will continue to engage the minds of researchers, who will approach it from different methodological and disciplinary standpoints. The animal images of the rhyton were most likely based on two basic symbols: on blood and on instinct; the latter is understood as an irrational motivation, a

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The Rhyton from Danilo

drive characteristic of an animal species, for it is in animals that this unconscious force is most strongly manifest. Both these symbols are unmistakable features of life, that most precious gift, but also the very essence of the Great Mother. M. Gimbutas in her popular book The Language of the Goddess, with its foreword by the famous mythologist J. Campbell, devotes a considerable part to the Danilo rhyton, though not as a domesticated animal form but rather as a theriomorphic one. On a whole page before the beginning of the 13th chapter, entitled “Deer and Bear as Primeval Mothers”, Gimbutas places a picture of a Danilo rhyton from Smilčić (Pl. IV, fig. 6) with the explanation: “Bear-legged Danilo rhyton with large ring handle, decorated with aquatic stream, striated triangle, and lozenge designs” (Gimbutas 1989, 112). In section 13.2, under the subtitle “The Bear Mother”, she documents the tradition connected with this beast with regard to motherhood and birth, especially among the eastern Slavs, and the meaning ascribed to bears, especially in figurative sculpture, by the members of the Neolithic societies from Vinča and Bulgarian Karanovo, the latter beginning in the 7th millennium BC. According to Gimbutas, the history of the she-bear as a cosmic nurse can be extended as far back as the late Palaeolithic, when the people of that time, most probably, noticed the bear’s annual pattern of hibernation and renewed awakening. Therefore, she opines, the bear was the perfect symbol of death and regeneration: when the bear fell asleep in hibernation she metaphorically “died”, and on emerging from her den she was metaphorically “born” again. To be sure, other kinds of animals also sleep in winter, but the bear has a particular kind of symbolism: not only does she emerge from the den alive, but she brings new life with her – bear cubs that are born and nursed with her milk while she, it was thought, was in a deathlike sleep. Therefore it is no wonder that the bear, that symbol of the course of birth, death and rebirth, was connected with the goddess of birth. Gimbutas sees the ritual importance of the bear-goddess in numerous motifs that referred to her, such as the “bear-shaped” lamps that were a feature of the 6th millennium BC, and the “bear-legged, ring-handled vessels probably used for offerings of sacred water...” (Gimbutas 2001, 13).1 In the latter case, of course, these are rhyta. Next, the section “Bear-Shaped Vases” is illustrated with photographs of the indicated Smilčić rhyton, shown in side and rear view, so that it would be clear to the reader that a bear served as the model for that figurative image, as appears indubitable from what is presented. Gimbutas, who dates the rhyton to about 5500 BC, states that 1 The text is illustrated by a “bear-shaped lamp” (Smilčić, late 6th millennium BC), shown from the side and rear, decorated with incised triangles, bands with an upside-down letter V and triple lines.

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these bearlike images disappeared after the end of the 6th millennium, but that symbolic bear motifs continue to carry the mythical importance of the bear through the following millennia (Ibid.). However, rhyta formed according to the bear motif were only one of the motifs that Neolithic artists used in creating that cult symbol. Gimbutas nowhere mentions that, so that the uninformed could be misled by the “fact” that this was the only form in which the Danilo rhyta appeared. Rhyta, whether those from Danilo Bitinj or the closest Danilo territory (Bribir/Krivače, Smilčić), or those from the broader stretch from the Aegean to the Alps, clearly were also modelled according to other motifs. In describing, for instance, Kakanj rhyta, A. Benac notes that their “legs are thickened and are of wedge form below” (Benac 1964, 43), and that rhyta are in general extremely stylized, as indicated by the very form of those vases, suggesting some sort of horned bovine. Therefore he holds that in judging the cult function of rhyta it is necessary to keep in mind that they have a certain zoomorphic form, confirmed by the four legs and the slanting opening with the vertical handle that reminds one of curved horns (Benac 1979, 403). In the earlier, proto-Kakanj (Kakanj I) phase Benac distinguishes several variants of rhyta: a rather primitive type, with somewhat bent, cylindrical legs; a Thessalian type with very short and very wide legs; a Daniloid type, with nicely rounded and bent legs, and a Kakanj type, with more massive conic legs. Unlike the Kakanj type, which has a considerably deeper receptacle, in the Daniloid and Thessalian type the receptacles are quite shallow. The second phase of the Kakanj Culture can be recognized by the form of a more massive rhyton on conic legs, which has gained the name “Kakanj rhyton”. On them the motif of “barbed wire” dominates (Pl. XV, fig. 29), and clear traces of red paint that can rub off, with which the lower part of the handle, the interior of the receptacle and the lower surfaces of these cult vases were covered (Ibid., 398, 400). For Š. Batović the animal form of rhyta is most probably connected with fertility rituals for herds and herding, on the basis of which he draws the conclusion that these vessels combined into a unified fertility cult and connects them with animal figures with vessels on their backs excavated in Smilčić. Going all the way with this interpretation, Batović supposes that variants of the rhyton in human form can be connected with a third type of fertility cult, around the advance of the clan and human communities. In this way, according to him, all three basic types of life of Neolithic people were united (Batović 1979, 559). For the Director of the Šibenik City Museum F. Dujmović, who held the first excavated rhyton at Danilo Bitinj in his hands in 1951, seen from the back side (Pl. II, fig. 3) this vessel “gives the appearance of the stylized image of the rear part of an unknown animal” (Dujmović 1952, 74). In describing the same

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The Rhyton from Danilo

rhyton, J. Korošec observes that the legs are differently formed, on the same vase they are alike and massive. “Sometimes they look as if they imitate – with regard to prehistoric sculpture – human or animal legs, whereas another time they are more stylized, conic or cylindrical.” Korošec rejects Dujmović’s assertion that the rhyton suggests an animal in appearance, but he does not find support for the assertion that looking at it from the front could remind one of an image of the lower part of a human body. As a result, he agrees that “for now the meaning of that form can not yet be explained” (Korošec 1952, 102). Korošec repeats the same assertion in Neolitska naseobina u Danilu Bitinju, adding that it is probably the lower part of a stylized female body (Korošec 1958, 57). But he himself is conscious of the objection that can be directed at such an “anthropomorphic” rhyton – why, then, does the cult vase have four and not two legs? For the stability of the vase, answers Korošec. Both rear legs, in his view, can only be explained as auxiliary legs, “which indeed are not as prominent as the front ones, which together with the vase into which they transform, form a single whole, whereas the rear legs are made as a support for keeping balance”. “Therefore I think”, Korošec says resolutely, “that those rear legs in the interpretation of what the vase represents can be left out entirely” (Ibid.). The answer to the question of what the vase represents depends primarily on the side from which it is observed, so therefore its form reminded Dujmović, who observed it from the rear side, that is, “from the side of the opening”, of some sort of animal. However, if it is seen from the front side, “opposite the opening”, Korošec asserts that he cannot avoid the impression that this is an image, to be sure a stylized one, of the lower part of a woman’s body. This impression is strengthened by the legs, which, as he sees it, are sometimes more explicit than in naturalistically made statuettes. For him there exists no other way to interpret the form of the cult vase (Ibid.). In favour of his thesis Korošec mentions that there were found, to be sure very rare, legs that had a foot formed on the pattern of a human foot. Moreover, certain fragments in Danilo hint that other sculptured vases were occasionally used along with the already familiar rhyta. Among the most beautiful examples is the leg of one rhyton made in the form of an anthropomorphic leg or rather a foot. The appearance of the vase itself is impossible to reconstruct from the fragments that were found, so Korošec guesses that it must have had two or even more such legs and that it is not impossible that its form was similar to an earlier cult vase, although that is not too probable. Be that as it may, it is most probable that this vase too had cult significance (Ibid., 59). At the time when he finished his book Korošec unfortunately had no information about rhyta, other than Kakanj ones, from other sites, for example the Greek one or the ones from Smilčić, since the

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excavations at those sites came after 1959 and later. Had he known of these, he probably could have had, if nothing else, more material for analogies and, as a result, for making judgments that perhaps would not have been identical with those that he made in his book. Between the rhyta found at Danilo and, for example, those found at the site Krivače near Bribir (Pl. III, fig. 5; Pl. X, fig. 17) there are differences in form, “which are, however, in view of their entire structure, nevertheless insignificant” (Korošec and Korošec 1974, 14). The differences between them exist only in the forming of the legs, the forming of the handles, and the ornamentation that decorates them. The legs of the cult vase in fact represent stylized human legs. In some examples all the basic features can still be observed, while others are more or less stylized so that they have already lost the original form or sometimes are quite simply modelled in the form of a cylinder, which in certain examples is hollow. The high massive handles in Krivače too are round in form and stand vertically in relation to the opening of the vessel, just as at Danilo (Ibid.). The rhyton that S. S. Weinberg found in 1959 in the bothros of trench 3 in Greek Elateia neither has “stylized human legs” nor is similar to a bear so it is quite clear that “bearlike” rhyta are not the exclusive form of these cult vessels and that “bear symbolism” is not the only and strict symbolic feature of these Neolithic vases, though an uninformed reader would get such an arbitrary impression from the above-cited book by the Lithuanian archaeologist, since she mentions no other form of rhyta. Re the theriomorphic form, Jung mentions the lion, who in the bestiary of alchemy and allegory represents the king. The animal form emphasizes that the king is overcome or obscured by his animal side; therefore he only expresses himself through animal reactions, which for Jung are the emotions. The transformation of the king into his animal attributes represents his return to animal nature, that “psychic source of renewal” (Jung 1977, 297). Isn’t it precisely on account of this renewal that rhyta are also found near children’s graves? Potnia Theron (Mistress of the Beasts) is the ancient name of the Minoan Goddess, whose significance was later for the most part given over to Olympic Artemis. W. Burkert holds that this very Great Goddess was introduced to Greece in various ways, as Hera, Artemis, Demeter, Athena and Aphrodite, and that she was probably worshipped as early as the Palaeolithic (Burkert 1985, 154, 172). When Homer in the Iliad (XXI. 470) mentions potnia theron he is thinking of Artemis, but in the hymn to Aphrodite the goddess moves over the slopes of the Phrygian Mount Ida, the home of Cybele, the Mountain Mother, with wolves, bears and panthers, who under the influence of her spells mate in their lairs.

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The Rhyton from Danilo

Without going into a deeper analysis of the cult role of the rhyton in prehistoric Corinth, J. Lavezzi leans to the possibility that it was used for ritual purposes in the household “possibly in connection with already age-old hunting magic, perhaps even ultimately with a Potnia Theron, though this becomes speculative” (Lavezzi 1978, 421). If the ritual vessels are indeed a manifestation of hunting magic, they would be an appropriate religious expression of a bowand-arrow using culture, in his view. Namely, use of the bow and arrow on the territory of Late Neolithic Corinth can be confirmed by the worked stone points, which are likely to be arrowheads. Finally, even earlier V. G. Child (1951) and S. S. Wineberg (1971) had pointed out that the appearance in Greece of archery at about this time may be connected with the arrival of black burnished wares (Ibid., 431) among which, as we have already seen, rhyta represent a special subclass. In the Papyri Graecae Magicae (“Greek Magical Papyri”, abbr. PGM) a collection of texts on the magico-religious syncretistic world of Graeco-Roman Egypt, there remain several hymns that equate Hecate with Selene, Artemis and Persephone (Betz 1992, 91, 332). In this context it is interesting to note that in the “Prayer to Selene for Any Spell” (PGM IV. 2785–2890), the phrase “you hide your forms in shanks of lions” describes Hecate/Artemis/Selene as standing between two lions, which points to the older, even Neolithic concept of the “queen of the animals” (Ibid., 91). “To animate” means to breathe life into someone or something; to “animalize” means to emphasize someone’s bestial or instinctive nature, but also to bestow on a deity animal attributes. Therefore “animalism” is the cult of animals, but “animism” is the belief that all things are spiritual or that they have a soul. The soul is the anima, and anima mundi is the world soul. In the later Neoplatonic tradition, especially in the Chaldaean Oracles, thanks to her intermediary position, Hecate becomes the World Soul, the womb of the world. Therefore, that same Hecate, the oldest European goddess according to Gimbutas, is the “anima”, the animal, or the beast, the most powerful animal. And, ultimately, the animal is alive, so she is Mercury/Quicksilver manifested as an animal, according to the allegorical conception of the old Hermetic authors.2 Something of that concept is also transmitted by Al-‘Iraqi, that learned Hermetic Arab author, in his book Concerning the Cultivation of Gold in the chapter “on the inner meaning of the dark sayings and allusions of the Sages” when he states that by the expression “animal” they understood animal characteristics, or the substance that in contact with fire moves like an animal, the reason for which Mercury/Quicksilver in Croatian is živa, a feminine noun from the root živ-, “live“. The phrase živo srebro, “living silver“, is also used. 2

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is the heat. Likewise they named “animal” the lasting and uniform substance, like an animal that is lasting and uniform [in its nature] (Al-‘Iraqi 1991, 50). One of the basic positions of Hermetic teaching is that life cannot exist except where there exists what is referred to in its symbolic vocabulary as the Secret Fire. It is just this Fire brought into the “animal kingdom”, the one to which animals but also man himself belong, that originates life, unlike the mineral and vegetable kingdoms to which the lower forms of life belong. In the animal kingdom Fire is said to be blood. Hence the rhyton “animal” is life itself. Based on the interpretation of A. Benac that rhyta encompass the entire life experience of Neolithic communities, as well as that those communities ascribed particular significance to life in all its forms, which was surely the basis for their preoccupation and the lasting inspiration of all religious concepts, B. Marijanović presents what is probably the most lucid idea about the essence of the rhyton. He observes that despite the fact that as concerns their shape they provoke an association, even suggest zoomorphic forms, nevertheless rhyta on four legs do not exhibit a figurative form “but rather a vague, undefined or even abstract one” (Marijanović 2007a, 62). Such a “form”, Marijanović is convinced, allows us to suppose the abstract, indefinite, undefined nature of the very ideas that stand behind it. At the same time he rejects the concern that such a supposition could also imply a conclusion about poverty of conception, primitivity or simplicity of ideological concept and religious structure. Quite the opposite, he comments, indefiniteness of form can express its complexity and aspiration to universality, with the simultaneous rejection of minor, individual and random elements, by orienting toward the general, toward regularities and the very essence. “Manifesting the idea in the material form, therefore, could have been subordinate to displaying the essence” (Ibid.). Remaining at the level of symbols, rhyta could have been universal ritual instruments which were not defined in advance by the content of only one cult or only one idea, but their ritual function could have been adapted every time to concrete religious practice. Therefore Marijanović does not doubt that the rhyton had the same significance for Neolithic communities of the Adriatic area that anthropomorphic statuary had for contemporary Neolithic communities in other areas. He considers it appropriate for the psycho-social and cultural setting of the eastern Adriatic where the figurative concretisation of ideas, especially anthropomorphic concretisation, never throughout the whole Neolithic came close to gaining the character and significance that it had in the territories of other Neolithic cultures. In this sense, even the anthropomorphic rhyton from Smilčić, “due to the reduction of the anthropomorphic – or its understatement – and blending of the anthropomorphic and figural with the abstract and non-figural... maintains

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The Rhyton from Danilo

its original symbolism (Pl. VII, fig. 10 Pl. VIII, fig. 11). The ideas on the phenomena and their essence are more important than their accurate, or just accurate, manifestation” (Ibid.). In his essay The Sacred Mask T. Burckhardt begins with the words that the mask is one of the most widespread and undoubtedly one of the most ancient forms of sacred art. For Christianity, Judaism and Islam, he continues, the ritual use of a mask only represents a form of idolatry. However, the fact is that the mask is not connected with idolatry, but with polytheism, if by this expression we understand not paganism but a spiritual vision of the world that spontaneously personifies cosmic functions, without rejecting the sole and infinite nature of the Supreme Reality (Burckhardt 1987, 149). There exists, of course, a hierarchy of functions, hence of divine “persons”, which is to say that no one of them can be taken as the sole and complete mask of the infinite Divinity, which, nevertheless, can clothe itself in this or that mask so as to reveal itself more directly to the worshipper. It is likewise possible that the worshipper may choose one concrete mask as a foundation for worship, which in the end will always lead to finding the whole heavenly sublimity in it, since each one of the universal qualities in its essence contains all the rest (Ibid., 150). It could be said that in animal form the different forces or elements of nature take on the form of a mask: water is “personified” in the fish, air in the bird; in the buffalo the earth manifests its generous and fertile aspect, in the bear it shows its sinister side. These forces of nature are the divine functions (Ibid., 153). The deity, or, to be more specific when we are dealing with the Neolithic, on account of the deification of the earth/nature probably the Goddess, is represented as one of her qualities/forms, which on the manifest level can differ or even exclude one another, as is the case with images of the Danilo rhyton. Whether it is a sheep, a bear, a horned bovine or a human figure, for different phenomena, the force of nature that is manifest through them is in essence identical, one and the same. Therefore there is no controversy about “what the rhyton represents” or which of its above-mentioned forms is “more accurate”, since the “heart” of the rhyton is elusive and inconceivable to our conceptual understanding. The Neolithic person observed manifestations of the “Goddess” in the forms that inhabited his world: snakes, fish, birds, bees, deer, bear ... and, in the end, man himself, since each of them was the immanent embodied aspect of her manifestation. Through each one could be seen the ineffable mystery of the Source itself. The rhyton would not have been worthy of becoming a “cult vessel” throughout the huge area from the Aegean Sea to the Alps if it had not indicated that murmur of the Source.

4 Cinnabar

In his investigation during the first systematic excavation at the site Danilo Bitinj in 1953, J. Korošec discovered three children’s skeletons (two within the settlement, one next to the settlement) and part of a skull. The skeletons belonged to children up to four years of age. Two lay in the ground without any grave goods; the third, also without grave goods, was found at a depth of 120 cm in a pit from which, it appears, clay was dug out, so that the child could have been buried in the pit at the same time as the clay was taken out or later, when the pit no longer was in use and was already partly filled in. The two skeletons were found in a contracted position, whereas the position of the third could not be determined because little remained of it. Korošec thought that the graves thus discovered did not offer any information about the general questions around burial or about a cult of the dead. The only thing that we can suppose, he offered as a kind of hypothesis, is that in some instances children were buried outside of the cemetery, if it existed in the neighbourhood of residential buildings. The orientation was arbitrary, without a definite rule. Evidence that these graves are not recent is the contracted position of the skeletons that were found (Korošec 1958, 24–25). Fifty years after the excavation by J. Korošec, Šibenik and American archaeologists, led by M. Menđušić and A. Moore, discovered two new children’s graves at Danilo Bitinj, with skeletons of boys aged three and seven years contracted and on their right sides. One of the graves was located very near to the remains of the hearth in a semi-dugout (Pl. XIII, fig. 23). Menđušić believes that these were ritual burials of children, which were probably undertaken for the sake of the future of the family or house (Vjesnik 2004, 14). A similar number of children’s graves have been recorded, for example, at Greek Neolithic sites: Nea Nikomedeia – five, Lerna – five, Paralia at Franchthi – four (Perlès 2001, 279). Individual burials (of an adult and of a child) as well as the burial of detached skulls were discovered at the Early Neolithic site Smilčić in Ravni Kotari. The skeleton of the child is six to seven years old, well preserved, and lies on its left side in a contracted position in the direction west to east at a depth of one meter.

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The Rhyton from Danilo

No goods were found in the grave (Batović 1979, 495). The Middle Neolithic, hence the Danilo period, is represented at Smilčić by two skeletons of adults, lying on their right sides in a contracted position and eight detached skulls. All the skulls belonged to adult males, except for one specimen which perhaps was a fragment of a child’s skull (Ibid., 532–533). The burial practice seen at Danilo corresponds more closely to the period of the Early Neolithic than to Middle Neolithic Smilčić. The features of Neolithic burial at Danilo, according to Batović, are the result of differences in customs and rituals between the two places, as well as their insufficient investigation (Ibid., 533). In his published doctoral dissertation Š. Batović mentions that in Dalmatia, on the basis of what had been found up to then, there is no evidence of burial in cemeteries during the whole Neolithic. That is confirmed by finds of exclusively individual graves of children and adults in settlements, as well as skulls with some other part of the skeleton, scattered throughout the cultural layer in connection with certain cults. Batović’s conclusion is that the deceased were generally exposed or eaten, and that the skull was only occasionally preserved. Not a single other area offers an entirely similar picture although general phenomena are shared over a very large area (Batović 1966, 75). M. Zaninović underscores the fact that on the Central Dalmatian island of Hvar, from an otherwise rich Neolithic phase, only an insignificant number of human remains were found. “Is it a question of climate, of the stony terrain,” he asks himself, “or did they expose the dead, or dispose of them in another way?” (Zaninović 2002, 244). Finally, why not wonder whether they were eaten by members of their own community in the practice of “alimentary cannibalism” known in the Neolithic? But rare burials were recorded not only in southern Croatia (Dalmatia) but also in northern Croatia, where, of the 66 hitherto registered settlements of the Starčevo Culture on Croatian territory, only in five settlements – Slavonski Brod (Linear A), Popelana (Linear C), Vinkovci (Linear B – Spiraloid B), and Vukovar and Jaruge (uninvestigated – probably from the last phase of the Starčevo Culture) were human burials discovered (Minichreiter 2002, 63). Only in Slavonski Brod were the dugouts with burials separated by wooden fences from the settlement (Ibid., 64). There is an almost identical situation in the sites of the Greek Neolithic as well, which led the famous Greek archaeologist G. Hourmouziadis to suppose that the population from such large settlements as Sesklo and Dimini evidently were disposed of in still undiscovered graveyards or somewhere outside of the settlement. In fact, not a single burial was discovered, despite the fact that a broad area was investigated. Therefore Hourmouziadis, like Batović, comes to the acceptable conclusion that the bodies must have been exposed in the out-

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of-doors, cremated or buried in graveyards outside of the settlement. All the hitherto found bodily remains of the deceased from the Greek Neolithic are called exceptions by C. Perlès, since they are rare and “probably atypical cases, in which individuals were buried in a special way that led to their recovery. And it is as exceptions that they should be apprehended, for instance, to understand why they were denied typical burial rituals, not as a reflection of the norm” (Perlès 2001, 274). In interpreting the finds of children’s skeletons in settlements in the Adriatic area Batović’s colleague A. Benac accepts the opinion of H. Dumitrescu, who interprets the frequent appearance of children’s skeletons under the floors of houses in the Moldavian-Ukrainian complex of the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture as proof of the sacrifice or cult burial of children in the society of that time to invoke fertility of the earth. She finds the roots of that ritual in the eastern Mediterranean (Benac 1962, 8–9). However, the archaeologist B. Marijanović holds that an insistence only on a fertility cult assumes the preventive character of the sacrifice and the nearly complete rejection of the possibility of sacrifice for the sake of cleansing and deliverance of the community from misfortunes that had befallen it, the causes of which, in collective belief, could lie within it. Marijanović, as well as Benac, find support for such thinking from H. Dumitrescu, in her 1957 work Découvertes concernant un rite funéraire magique dans l’aire de la civilisation de la céramique peinte du type Cucuteni-Tripolje [“Discoveries concerning a magical burial rite in the area of the culture of Cucuteni-Trypillian type painted ceramics”], but in the part where she notes that the very young age of the sacrifices is not accidental, but that it is directly connected with their purity (Marijanović 1994, 9). On the basis of finds of children’s remains at Adriatic Neolithic sites Benac concludes that the ritual of occasional child sacrifice also reached the western Mediterranean, and he designates it as an all-Mediterranean custom. He has an interesting opinion that in the Neolithic Adriatic area we are dealing mostly with herders, who could likewise have developed a ritual of sacrifice for the fertility of the earth, just like the agriculturalists in Danilo and Smilčić. However, Batović does not agree with that postulation, since complete children’s skeletons in Dalmatia were found only in two open-air settlements, located on land that is very suitable for agriculture, and there are none in caverns, whose surroundings offer conditions only for herding. Nor are children’s graves, Batović underscores, found in Lisičići either (a site of the Late Neolithic cultural group in the municipality of Konjic in Bosnia and Herzegovina), which belongs to the open-air settlement type, but primarily with a hunting economy. Therefore it appears to Batović that the above-mentioned skeletons must in any case be

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connected with agriculture. This removes the difficulty of interpreting child sacrifice as a general phenomenon in Dalmatia and in some way connecting it with herders as well. Benac did that on the basis of the conviction that parts of children’s skeletons found in caverns likewise represent children’s graves, which Batović claims is not proven (Batović 1966, 75). Nevertheless, it appears that Batović’s assurance that children’s graves do not exist in caverns was contradicted by two later finds. In the cavern Vela Spila on Korčula researchers have the chance to study exceptionally rich layers ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Bronze Age all in one place and thus to gain insights into all aspects of life of this key Adriatic location, which along with Franchthi Cave in Greece is probably the most important Mediterranean prehistoric cave site. Here from 1986 to 1988 the archaeologists B. Čečuk and D. Radić excavated three children’s graves, which, to be sure, belonged to the Mesolithic (the middle Stone Age). In grave no. 1 the skeleton of a child aged 2.5–3.5 years lay in a contracted position, placed on its left side, turned in an east-west direction. Several rough stones of different sizes were intentionally placed around the grave, to make a very simple structure. By that grave were also found the remains of a foetus aged 7 to 9 lunar months. The body of a child 2.5–3 years old, with contracted arms and legs, placed on its right side, was found in grave no. 2. The distribution of the surrounding stones indicates the existence of an elementary structure. In the immediate vicinity of the grave several pieces of ochre were found, so Čečuk and Radić consider it a justified supposition that ochre played a certain role in this and the other two burials. Finally, the skeleton of a baby at most six months old was found in a layer of gravel, designated as grave number 3, half a metre north of the preceding graves. The clear stratigraphic position of the graves, the sample analyzed by C-14 isotope dating with the calibrated result of 6230–6000 years BC, as also the accompanying finds, indicate a period only somewhat earlier than the second half of the 7th millennium, and the small dimensions of the test pit open up the very great possibility that these are not the only graves from that poorly researched and little known period. At the same time, the manner of burial, the elementary grave structure, and the existence of grave goods connects these graves with those of later times (Čečuk in Čečuk and Radić 2005, 54–55), and their finding can be taken into account in answer to Š. Batović. We should also add to these discoveries of cave burials the recent finds of the archaeologists M. Opačić and J. Zaninović, who found untouched cultural layers in sediments one metre thick and excellently preserved fragments of everyday objects and even whole vessels in Zazidana Cave, located on a perpendicular cliff that rises above the left bank of the Krka River above Roški Falls. The

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most important cave find was the discovery of two Neolithic children’s graves, in which the archaeologists found two children’s skeletons in a foetal position, and this is so far the sole cave find of children’s graves in that area (Jutarnji list, 2006). In Grapčeva Cave, one of the most important Neolithic sites on the Adriatic, G. Novak excavated the remains of altogether five individuals, one of which, undoubtedly, was of child’s age. The bones were scattered throughout the layer and it was not possible to establish any burial ritual. On the basis of his finds G. Novak supposes that the cavern perhaps served cult purposes (Novak 1955, 266). B. Hayden, the American anthropologist and archaeologist, notes that at sites at Jericho in Israel, ‘Ain Ghazal in Jordan and Çatal Hüyük in Turkey children were buried under the house threshold or in the wall. Such a placement of a grave was so unusual that it is hard to resist the impression that the children were some kind of sacrificial offerings, probably for the sake of protecting the house and its inhabitants (Lewis-Williams 2005, 81). Burials of children within walls were recorded, likewise, at all levels in the Bulgarian site Karanovo II (Mellaart 1975, 257). In the layers belonging to the earlier Neolithic at Obre I (Kakanj Culture, Bosnia and Herzegovina) eight grave units were discovered in total. Four graves contained the more compact parts of children’s skeletons (actually babies) in contracted positions, whereas, in the remaining four cases, scattered children’s bones were found mixed with animal bones and other objects. The first four graves belonged to the very beginning of the settlement, while the remaining four were somewhat later. At the place of the most interesting among them, designated number 8, there is a well smoothed floor of clay, on which traces remained of long use for fires, and then finally the whole area was covered with a thick layer of pebbles. In this way a real stone mound was achieved, probably the oldest stone mound in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This “formation”, as Benac calls it, was located in the very centre of the settlement in a relatively open area. On account of the long use for fires, the repeated renewal of the formation, the variety of offerings and the final forming of the mound, Benac comes to the conclusion that a cult place existed for a long time here, a kind of Neolithic shrine. The finds of children’s skeletons there only confirm, quite convincingly, that at Obre I child sacrifice was conducted for the protection of the home hearth, A. Benac says explicitly (Benac 1984, 42). At a site from the later Butmir period, Obre II, eleven grave units were discovered, in which the buried bodies, in all likelihood, belonged to babies (Benac 1984, 59). All the skeletons, the majority in a contracted position, were placed in the open space in the middle of the settlement. Since they were found at the very bottom of the

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excavated surface, Benac was convinced that this too is a case of infant sacrifice, that cruel cult ritual, most probably performed at the time of formation of the settlement to ensure its progress and the protection of the population from various dangers (Ibid.). Further south, at Zelena Pećina (Blagaj near Mostar) there were found remains of the skull and limbs of a child about five years of age. At both sites, at Obre and Zelena Pećina, the children were buried within the settlement itself. As it is evident that in both cases we cannot speak of regular burials, nor of any sort of cemeteries, Benac finds the conclusion inescapable that this was cult sacrifice of children, a phenomenon known throughout the Balkans, especially in herding and agricultural groups, as well as in the Adriatic area (Ibid., 42). It is possible that in Zelena Pećina there was cult human sacrifice, testified to by the remains of cult vessels on four legs (rhyta). The bottom of one such vessel was smeared with red paint, and it is known that the colour red was the embodiment of life for Neolithic man. Whether we are dealing with a cult of water, of the home hearth, of the fertility of the surrounding soil or the like, has not been exactly determined (Pala 2000). According to the archaeologist J. Chapman of the University of Durham, who has devoted himself to studying the Balkan Neolithic, one of the main social practices of that time was the intentional smashing of objects before the natural end of their use. This practice is most evident in the context of “structured depositories”, such as graves, in which fragments of vessels can be placed as posthumous offerings along with whole vessels and other fired clay goods. However, fragmentation of the objects was not connected exclusively with funeral practices. Some, like Minoan stone vases, are very hard to break, while others, like the longitudinal breaking of figurines, very hard to achieve. On the other hand, customarily it was easy to recognize from the broken fragments what vessel they represent, such as, for example, salt pots, as he calls rhyta. Chapman thinks that this societal practice can be explained in different ways and that there is evidence of it in Classical and later periods. He systematically propounds the prehistoric practice of fragmentation of objects in his book on fragmentation in archaeology published in 2000. In it, asserting once again that rhyta are “salt pots”, he keeps mentioning that all the “commentators” on these vessels agree that they had a specific purpose on account of their singular appearance, but that none of them examined more closely the significance of their fragmentation, which for him is central to their understanding (Chapman 2000, 65–66). From the vessel’s manufacturing technique it is clear that the central cavity was done first, and that afterwards the handle and legs were added.

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In this way, Chapman judges, weaker and stronger zones were formed on the vessel itself. Thus, the thickness of the short stubby legs stands opposite the obviously weak point at the joint between the legs and body. The ringhandles are strong, with triangular or oval cross-section, and their weak point is likewise at the joint with the body of the vessel. However, judging by the finds, most of the fragments are fragments of a legs or of legs plus parts of the vessel, nearly half of which are broken at relatively strong places, and not where leg and body are joined. Therefore, Chapman holds, we are not dealing here with accidental breakage (Chapman 2000, 67). Although less numerous, fragments of handles are equally interesting, since they were not broken at the joint with the body of the vessel. Some examples of a handle show that they were broken at least twice during their period of use (Ibid.). It must be said that the practice of breaking objects did not involve only artistic and cult objects but also ceramic vessels meant for everyday use. In an attempt to explain why objects were broken in prehistory, Chapman presents several hypotheses. And while accidental breakage cannot be entirely excluded, one can consider breaking as a solution to the theological problem of how to treat worn-out ritual objects. But this assertion cannot explain the finds of partial objects in different parts of the same site, nor the depositories of relatively fresh fragments. “The killing of ritual objects” is not a particularly accepted explanation since the majority of discarded objects were fragmented without the parts that belong together. It is possible to think that this was a matter of redistributing fertility from the site to the surrounding terrain, but such an assertion is for now based on little firm evidence. The main thesis that Chapman advocates on is that the intentional breaking of objects in prehistory served to strengthen or, as he says, “enchain” social ties. “While there may be a variety of reasons for fragment enchainment the basic element of the practice is the creation and maintenance of a lasting bond between people or groups, predicated on material culture” (Ibid., 226). For E. Banffy, who follows Chapman, the problem at hand is whether there is any significance to the fact that the majority of Neolithic cult objects are found in fragments and if that is confirmed, whether differences exist between the different groups of fragments. The problem of finds in fragments and their possible significance has in more recent archaeology become one of the central points in the interpretation of cult materials. It had always appeared obvious that prehistoric man kept such a kind of objects with particular care; in connection with that it was determined that breaking them must be interpreted as intentional action, or part of the ritual itself (Banffy 2005). For the sake of comparison, in the Mycenaean world the space in front of the entrance to a

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tomb, which can be equated with liminal space between the world of the living and the dead, was often the place of such intentional “smashing” activity, for example of drinking glasses. In a small part of the anthropomorphic figurines excavated at the Romanian Neolithic site Rast it is evident that they were made from two lengthwise halves that were placed together before the head was attached. This is confirmed by the fact that the figurines were broken lengthwise into two identical parts along a straight line, but also by the quality of the break into fragments in which the lengthwise break is very even, which indicates that the two halves of the figurine were carefully ground before they were put together. But figurines with a horizontal break, of which several were found, all things considered, appear to have been made of one piece of clay (Dumitrescu 1980, 57). The fact that almost all the statuettes found at the Donja Branjevina site were broken leads S. Karmanski to the opinion that the first farmers of the Balkans practiced human sacrifices as part of a specific ritual for increasing crop production. More precisely, it was not a real act of bringing sacrifices but instead fragmented clay or wood female figurines took the place of human sacrifices. Their pieces were later scattered over the “field” or buried in the pit (Karmanski 2005, 39)1 In the same way, interpreting the numerous fragments of censers discovered near or within dwelling structures, Karmanski suggests that they might have been used during magic or religious ceremonies related to the house, and he supports this by the fact that they all, except one, were fragmented, in spite of their solid manufacture, which proves each of these objects was only used for a short time (Karmanski 2005,45). Š. Batović remarks that it could justifiably be thought that in the Danilo phase the cultural layer was in part created by discarding certain objects in connection with rituals (Batović 1966, 162). The ritual burial of cult objects is in fact one of the earliest attested forms of cult practice altogether. This began as early as the 7th millennium BC in the Levant, at sites like the Jordanian ‘Ain Ghazal, where it preceded the appearance of recognizable shrines (Renfrew 2006, 416). In summarizing Neolithic burial practice in the eastern Adriatic and its deeper hinterland (Dalmatia, Herzegovina and central Bosnia), R. Zlatunić concludes that the inhabitants of that area had a well-developed spiritual relationship toward the dead, partially similar to other European areas. Cemeteries were not found, nor were remains found of funeral cremation. Out of altogether 53 1

A similar cultural practice is recorded by K. Minichreiter in the western settlements of the Starčevo Culture in Croatia (Slavonski Brod/Galovo, Vinkovci, Vukovar); the dead were placed on a thin layer of earth and small fragments of ceramics or stone and subsequently covered up with earth mixed with fragments of pots, parts of altars, animal figures or shells, and beside some of the deceased, whole pots and ochre were placed (Minichreiter 2002, 63–72).

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burials recorded in that area the remains of 54 or 55 individuals were found. Among them most were children under seven years of age and younger male adolescents. Among the adults men were more frequent than women. (For some remains on account of severe damage it was impossible to determine the sex.) The most frequent form of burial was primary individual skeletal burial with the skeletal remains of the deceased in a contracted position on the right or left side, i.e. by laying the corpse of the deceased directly in the cultural layer or in a shallow earthen pit. Then followed selective secondary or partial burial with separated parts of the human skeleton: the skull, jaw, and secondary burials of scattered human remains. The deceased were most frequently buried close to the settlement, up to 150 m away, in the open, or within the settlement itself, in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings (houses) or in the floors of dwellings (Zlatunić 2003, 82–83). It is interesting that C. Perlès too comes to the same number of burials (53) during the Early Greek Neolithic, counting “intentionally buried individuals” at Nea Nikomedeia (25), Soufli (14), Prodromos (11) “and one inhumation each at Kephalovrysso, Argisa and Sesklo” (Perlès 2001, 273). Similarly to Benac, Zlatunić holds that these were cult or ritual burials, especially on account of the manner of burial, sex and age of the deceased, and on account of the nonexistence of larger cemeteries. Young male persons were sacrificed in order to summon the good forces responsible for the fertility and well-being and prosperity of the community. Children were killed in sacrificial rituals to be buried in chosen spaces within the settlement (without visible order) or in the floors of residential buildings. Similar ritual burials are recorded throughout the Balkan peninsula (Zlatunić 2003, 83). Numerous finds of rhyta and stylized bell-shaped anthropomorphic figurines (phalloi) throughout the area from the Kras near Trieste, Istria, Dalmatia, central Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Greece, and the partially recorded anthropomorphic figurines in Greece, Albania and, to a lesser extent, in Dalmatia indicate the possible connection of a common or similar spiritual and religious life in those areas, which is evident in part also through funeral rituals and burials (Ibid., 86). Living memories of child sacrifice, to be sure in a modified and less brutal form, remained in the Classical Greek period, as reported by W. Burkert (Burkert 2001, 18–19). Examining three situations in which “sacrifice” may be “the point where heroic myth and Dionysiac tragōidia meet each other”, he comes to Euripides’ Medea, who, according to him, “at the climax of the famous soliloquy”, reflects “the language of the sacrificial ritual”.2 In other words, Medea’s killing of her own children is depicted as aporrhētos thusia, “a secret sacrifice”. The fact that it is not 2

“Whomsoever the law/forbids to be present at my sacrifice/let him look to it.” (1053ff)

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just a matter of metaphor is indicated also by vase paintings that “constantly show Medea killing her children at an altar”. In support of the assertion of sacrifice, Burkert offers the description of the ritual in the temple of “Hera Akraia at Corinth which underlies the Corinthian saga of Medea”. It is worth citing in full: “Seven Corinthian boys and seven girls were interned for a year in the sanctuary of Hera, where the tombs of Medea’s children were shown. They wore black clothes. The climax and conclusion of their service was a sacrifice at the festival of Akraia, the sacrifice of a black she-goat. It was a holocaust, an enagizein, and it was combined with that special form of the ‘comedy of innocence’ which was already mentioned: the goat had to dig up for itself a knife or sword, machaira, with which it was killed. Then the sword is buried again, as it was said until next year. Once a year the instrument of destruction emerged from the darkness of the earth, to remain buried there and almost forgotten for the rest of the year. It is clear that the black she-goat died as a substitute for the black-clad children; they were then free from their obligation. The myth told that the children of the Corinthians suffered this penalty to atone for the children of Medea, who had died and were buried there in the temenos of Hera Akraia. The mysterious sword, which year by year was dug up and then reburied, was said to be the very sword with which Medea killed her children.” For us here it is interesting to emphasize two things that connect the sacrifice in the Corinthian temple of Hera Akraia with the rhyton and the Neolithic: first, that prehistoric Corinth is one of the sites of the rhyton and second that Medea was, according to the myth about the Argonauts, the priestess of Hecate in Colchis. Hecate, as is known, is a pre-Olympic goddess whose origin points to the prehistoric period, for “Hekate, like the other great goddesses of Asia Minor, Cybele and Diana of Ephesus, who share many traits, iconographic features, and epithets, may plausibly be taken as Phrygio-Hittite syncretic goddesses with real linkages to the tradition of Palaeolithic and Neolithic goddess worship in that region” (Rabinowitz 2005). Although this thesis sounds attractive, it can scarcely be upheld. Namely, the earliest burials found in Corinth date to the Early Helladic period. Therefore, connecting sacrifice in the temple of Hera Akraia with child sacrifice in the Neolithic in Corinth, since graves with child sacrifices do not exist there, can for now be taken only as a interesting speculative position. Who knows; perhaps tomorrow that speculation will become a fact. The nearly complete absence of anthropomorphic statuary, especially of female figurative images, on the one hand, and the presence of different manifestations or instruments of those cults characteristic of the broader Adriatic area, on the other hand, such as four-legged rhyta, solar-lunar images, etc., characterize the entire spiritual life and religious belief of the Neolithic inhabitants of the

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Dalmatian area. These features, B. Marijanović thinks, were perhaps an indicator of differences in the value systems of the Neolithic inhabitants of Dalmatia and the residents of other areas of that part of Europe, and they could also lead to differences in beliefs about the world of the dead so that the treatment of the bodies of the deceased could be significantly different (Marijanović 1994, 13). The Secretary of the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Institute of Archaeology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Krum Bacvarov, a specialist in Neolithic burial practices of southeastern Europe and Anatolia, basing himself on analysis of finds at 108 Neolithic intramural burials from 17 Bulgarian burial sites and 75 sites from southeastern Europe and western and central Anatolia, made a general classification of burial practices of the area, tracing their chronological development so as to determine zones of distribution and attempt to find their possible source. The research indicated that in this territory three forms of interment were developed: customary or formal, secondary interment and cremation (Bacvarov 2003). In the first case the time between biological death and burial was relatively short; the body of the deceased person was buried in contracted or extended position and, as an archaeological result, there exists a grave that contains a more or less articulated skeleton. The second case implies a longer time period; the body of the dead person was subjected to treatment with the purpose of removing the flesh from the bones and in the graves scattered remains of the bones are found. The length of the period in the third case is archaeologically unknown; the remains of the deceased were cremated and so what is found in the graves are cremated remains in accord with their anatomic appearance or different from it. The best-represented form of funeral practice in that area was in any case formal, individual burial within the settlement. The area of distribution of this type of burial covers the Sea of Marmara, western Anatolia, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, western Macedonia and the Vardar Valley, Thrace, northwestern Bulgaria, southern Albania, Šumadija, Syrmia, Dalmatia, the Iron Gate, Bačka, Banat, the Tisa Valley, Transylvania and Moldavia. The deceased were buried, in general, individually within the settlement in a contracted position. On the other hand, an extended position is recorded only in burial grounds of the Peloponnese, Thrace and Šumadija. What both types of burials have in common is that the deceased were of both sexes and of different ages, as well as all kinds of grave goods. This form of burial, that is, formal individual interment within the settlement, existed during the whole Neolithic, and with such widespread distribution it is very hard to determine its source, but it is obvious that it should be sought in southeastern Europe and on the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, especially in its northern parts, rather than in Anatolia and the Levant (Ibid.).

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Thus Neolithic people related to their dead in a way that was painful, irrational and exceedingly repulsive. There is no doubt that only a very important purpose could have justified such a practice. The modern interpretation of that practice will easily connect it with an attempt at magic. Yet, it is not very probable that Neolithic man had such a purpose in mind. He was not indeed aware of the difference between the natural and the supernatural and every attempt to exercise his power was essentially alike, but surely he distinguished small and great work. The latter was the “Great Work” – the matter of transformation (Wright 2003, 56). The Great Work is nothing other than the transformation of an old “dead life” into a new life. That was the job of “renewal”, which was supposed to ensure renewed birth and was performed on the remains of a dead person. Clearly this was divided into two scenes: the destruction of the old (order) and then the creation of the new. Cremating remains in graves was meant to evaporate the bodily fluids, thus to dry out the corpse, symbolically understood as the extraction of the old life from the deceased remains. The same significance is kept also in combinations with other posthumous practices – to ensure that the old life will be replaced by a new one. Frequently bodies are bared to the bones by removal of the flesh, and this in various ways: by temporary burials, by exposure (to birds and animals) or by “surgical” methods. Certain children’s skeletons show that the baring of the skeleton from the flesh was achieved by cooking in boiling water. Frequently too in such practices the head was separated, for it was considered to contain the very essence of life and so it had to be separated from the body, the remains of the old life. Bodies might be dismembered, cut up or chopped up. All this was meant to destroy the wholeness of the old life. In some places the scattered parts of the body were joined back together to establish the new life, which was direct archaeological evidence of the Great Work. In short, burning in graves was insufficient for cremation of a corpse, but sufficient for drying it out, which means that this manner of burial was meant not so much to preserve the body from decay, but rather was part of a ritual the purpose of which was to ensure new life. Thus, not preservation, but renewal (Ibid., 57). Cremation or calcination (calcinatio) in the symbolic sense meant precisely the beginning of the process of renewal, as it is understood in alchemy, a process consisting usually of the twelve processes of the Great Work. For the Latin-named Geber, one of the greatest authors in the tradition of alchemy, calcination is achieved when humidity is driven out from Matter by fire and Matter is turned into powder. For him this is a form of cleansing the Body from the corrupting and polluting Sulphureity concealed within the Continuity of the Substance of Argentvive (Geber 1994, 101). Reduction of matter to its primary state of

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absolute unstructuredness corresponds – on the level of inner experience – to a regression to the state before birth, i.e. to the embryonic state. In this sense children and babies are the most suitable symbolic basis in the concretization of that basis of ideas. The Swiss physician, alchemist and philosopher Paracelsus calls Mercury the mother of all seven Metals, which are in an occult way contained in it and manifested only by means of Fire. Paracelsus sees the birth and renewal of metals in the following manner: as man can return into the womb of his Mother, or into the Earth, from which man was made in the beginning and from which he will be raised on the final day, likewise Metals too can return into living (Mercury) and become living , and be regenerated by Fire and cleansed if they are kept for forty weeks in continuous warmth like a foetus in the Mother’s womb (Linden 2003, 154). Moreover, in alchemical symbolic imagery, a vessel or “grave”, in which Sulphur and Mercury are “buried” so as to “putrefy” there after the process of their “washing” and “cleansing” and renewed “union”, becomes the womb of new life and birth (Abraham 2001, 90). There is no need to make particular mention of how much this allegorically interpreted regenerative practice corresponds with Neolithic funerary practices. The theme of rejuvenation and attaining long life by means of regressus ad uterum [return to the womb] is a leitmotiv of Taoism. In one text of modern syncretic Taoism it is expressed in these words: “Thus the Buddha-Tathâgata (Jou-lai) in his great compassion revealed an (alchemical) method of dealing with Fire and advised people to return into the womb so as to again achieve their (real) nature and (the fullness of ) their life fate” (Eliade 1982, 131–132). The “return to the womb”, that spiritual desire held in common by Taoist and western alchemists, represents the further development of an older and more widespread conception already familiar to the most ancient cultures. This is healing by means of a symbolic return to the beginning of the World, that is by means of the renewed creation of the Cosmology. On the other hand, the place for cremation of corpses was held in high regard by Tantric practitioners as the place where all desires are burnt away. Before achieving liberation (kaivalya) an aspirant must burn all the taboos and ties that hinder the achievement of the ideal. The Earth in which a corpse is buried is the mother of the deceased. “Mother”, M. Gimbutas instructs us, should be understood as the Goddess, and the grave as her body or womb. The colour red must have symbolised the colour of the Mother’s reproductive organs. Neolithic graves in southern and southeastern Europe in their oval shape symbolise eggs or a womb. Burial in the womb is analogous to the seed sown in the earth, on the basis of which it is natural to

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The Rhyton from Danilo

expect that new life will arise from the old (Gimbutas 1989, 151). A grain of corn was quite often used as a motif in connection with the underworld of the Mother Goddess. Among other things, the corn seed was a symbol of the soul of the deceased and the spirits of ancestors. In ancient Greece vessels were placed by the home hearth and grain was left in them prepared in a sort of gelatinous mixture together with other substances. The vessels symbolically represented the womb of the underworld, the womb of the earth, and the corn grains were the dead who rest in the earth, like grains that will arise in spring. Dead persons or souls were called demetreioi – they who belong to Demeter and who lie like grain in the womb of that goddess.3 At a festival observed approximately at the time of Christian All Souls’ Day, vessels were opened, which was held to correspond to the opening of the underworld. K. Kerényi called that part of the ritual mundus patet, the open world. It was thought that after the “opening” of the underworld the spirits of the deceased lived for three days with the residents of the house and ate with them so for this purpose a meal was always left for them (Von Franz 1993, 178). The finding from the Macedonian Neolithic group Anzabegovo-Vršnik is probably based on a similar earlier symbolism; here in all phases of its existence the dead were buried in the settlement in a contracted position. M. Garašanin particularly draws attention to Grave Ic, in which two adults are buried in contracted posture with their heads pointing towards opposite sides of the grave. Together with them was also a child’s skeleton, while under their remains, in a specially dug out pit, there lay placed on its side a rather large vessel (amphora), in which was found a child’s skeleton. The bottom of the amphora and the handles were intentionally cut off (Garašanin 1979, 87). Observed from our viewpoint, that practice can be interpreted as the handles and bottom being “what holds”: first the vessel itself, then the contents of the vessel. Their intentional removal would have signified the removal of “what holds (or holds back)”, in other words, the symbolic opening of the way for the soul, or some other form of substantial entity in which Neolithic man believed, to return to its source/womb. The graves of “Old Europe” reveal a holistic spirituality, Gimbutas asserts. The grave was a place of healing for both the living and the dead, a place where the goddess did not keep a lifeless body but rather regenerated the dead person into a new life (Gimbutas 2001, 71). In several layers that have been dated between 100 – 90 thousand years BC in the Qafzeh cave in Israel in 2003 archaeologists 3

Until a few decades ago in Dubrava near Šibenik it was the custom to throw grain (barley) on the coffin and on the dead. Friar Stjepan Zlatović reports about a similar practice in Šibenik in the 19th century. In describing the customs connected with mourning and the funeral he records that when they lifted the deceased from the boards on which it was lying in the house, “then the residents scatter barley on the board where he lay” (Zlatović 2007, 15).

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discovered the presence of red ochre. What is most interesting is that red ochre was found exclusively in layers in which human remains were found. After a long pause the appearance of red ochre was again recorded in the Levant only in the Natufian Period (12,700–10,500 BC), and again connected with burials. It is important to note that this is not just a matter of a long pause between two periods of use of red ochre, but also that this colour connects two human species: Neanderthals, a hundred thousand years ago, and homo sapiens from the Natufian period. The “red lady” (actually a man), discovered in 1826 in the Paviland cave (Wales, Great Britain), and estimated to be about 26,000 years of age, was so called on account of the burial in red clay, and the deceased was also covered with red ochre. In addition, the body was adorned with necklaces of shells and ornaments made of ivory. From the same period comes the find from Dolní Věstonice in the Czech Republic, where three twenty-year-olds were found, two young men and a young woman. Around the skulls of the young people, which were sprinkled with red ochre, was a string of Arctic seal and fox teeth. Ochre likewise covered the places where the hands of the two men touched the body of the woman (Filingeri 2003). In southern Russia, in the so-called Ochre Grave Culture the most frequent features are burial mounds and the custom of covering the deceased with red ochre. Some of these “ochre graves” are covered with elongated barrows and contain ochre-painted skeletons arranged in groups. In Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, 120 adults and six children were buried in a common elongated grave, at Volnishki near Dnipropetrovsk 130, and at Nal’čik, in the northern part of the Caucasus, 130 contracted skeletons were found (Phillips 1969, 319). In the latter case it is evident that the position of the dead and the colour on them were symbolically understood as a “call for regeneration” directed to the almighty Goddess. The long tradition of ochre at burial sites is also mentioned by Draga Garašanin in the graves of the Belotić-Bela Crkva group, which belong to the Bronze Age, in which “traces of ochre are often found, which is indubitable evidence of the close ties with the Steppe and Pontic area. Graves with ochre, whose origin must be sought in the Pontic region, are today well known and widely distributed in different parts of Romania” (Garašanin 1970, 135–136). On sites of “linear bandkeramik (LBK) red ochre was frequently strewn on the base of the grave” (Whittle 1996, 169). At Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, one of the best-known Neolithic sites in the world (approximately 6500–5650 BC), female figures painted on the interior walls of houses in the settlement are shown with raised arms and legs as they give birth to bull’s heads. The women who give birth to cattle are in some places depicted as “twin-goddesses”, and on many walls there are abstract patterns or hand prints

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The Rhyton from Danilo

painted under them, probably indicating that they were of ritual significance. Red pigment was used to emphasize the muzzles and ears and to separate the bodies and outline rings around the horns. The colour red was obviously used in the context of the sacred to indicate veneration of life, which does not have to mean that such a conclusion is based only on the fact that red represents blood, but also that it marks what is sacred, like the still-living Indian kumkum tradition, in which holy things are marked with scarlet cinnabar. In agricultural cultures all over the world the view of woman as the earth is omnipresent. The earth’s natural cycles of production, its seasonal changes, the time for sowing, growth, harvest and again the return to seed, are experienced as if they happened within the natural cycle of a woman. A woman’s womb/uterus is seen as a vessel which contains within it all kinds of potential, a field of seeds; it is seen as fertile earth irrigated with the “milk of vegetation”. The fertilized ovum, the embryo, which grows every day like the Moon, is equated with the first sprout in the vegetational cycle. The birth of a child was equal to the blessing of a harvest. Seen in this way, a woman’s body became the perfect landscape for the physical processes in nature. On the other hand, the characteristics of a woman were attributed to the earth – seasonal production, or the birth of fruits just as a mother gives birth to children.4 The colour red in the culture of worship of the fertility goddess represented, most probably, menstrual blood as well, that inexorable sign of “female initiation”. When anthropologists asked Australian aborigines what they were putting on their bodies and smearing on their sacred stones (it was red ochre) they got a unanimous answer – menstrual blood. In early cultures the transformation of a girl into a woman is seen as an event worthy of sacred awe. Behind it, they held, stood the mysterious Mother Goddess, who initiated girls into the world of her power. The magic blood, it was believed, contains within it the pure essence of Life itself and as such was a manifestation of great spiritual power. In Tantric Shaktism all taboos connected with menstruation are destroyed and menstrual fluid is considered sacred and becomes an object of worship. A woman during menstruation, for the performance of ritual, is placed in a special category. At that time, it is said, her energy is special, while the rhythm 4 In India today, just as five thousand years ago, agriculture is the dominant activity. Every village has its Mother-goddess and other objects of worship and the majority of grāma-devatā (village deities) are of female gender. In southern India every village is linked with Ammā or Mothers and their worship is the main religious practice of the village priestesses. The villagers, among whom the Mother-goddess and the fertility goddesses arose, continue to base their religious life on rituals that are supposed to return strength anew to the earth, and their earth deities are true goddesses of vegetation in the ancient tradition (Mookerjee 1988, 22). Stones coloured with saffron or ochre that represent Ammā or the village Mothergoddesses can be seen in all parts of India.

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that is manifest in her body is in a mysterious way connected with events in nature. “In the chakra-pūjā (group ritual-worship) of the “left-hand” tantrikas, menstrual fluid may be taken as a ritual drink along with wine...” (Mookerjee 1988, 33). This blood, like the red paint on the rhyton, is the distinguishing feature of mature female nature, which is capable of conceiving, carrying and giving birth to offspring. The male is essential only in the brief process of fertilization, while the woman delivers life and gives it motherly care. Some goddesses, for example, the Mesopotamian Ninhursag, created human beings from clay and their own “blood of life”. Likewise the goddess Parvati, Shiva’s consort, created the elephant god Ganesh from clay and breathed life into him herself; out of herself Gaia created the sky, the mountains and the Pontic Sea, etc. The womanmother is only one of the three phases of the life of a woman. The other two are the girl and the old woman. Both are incapable of being a “red woman” since neither one of them can bestow life nor does either one of them bleed. The steatopygous figurine of a woman that S. S. Weinberg dug up in Greek Elateia in 1959, which he dated to the Middle Neolithic, was, like the remnants of others, coloured with red paint (Weinberg 1962, 201–202). Likewise, in the Danilo phase they loved to use red paint that could rub off, and not only as an incrustation, but also for covering vessels and statuary. In alchemical symbolism, in which all the relevant mystic-cosmogonic and soteriological symbolic echoes from prehistoric and historic times are recorded, Mercury takes over the maternal aspect, more precisely the power of matter from the spiritual world, and it (Mercury) is often given the name menstruum. This recalls the uterine blood that nourishes the embryo until it flows out and becomes useless. “Mercury indeed nourishes the spiritual embryo enclosed in the Hermetic vessel” (Burckhardt 1987, 135) Just how important this menstruum was to the Hermetic authors is also confirmed by the words ascribed to the medieval Spanish mystic Ramon Llull, who was convinced that without knowledge of menstruum nothing can be achieved in this Art (alchemy). Moreover, in nature mercury most often appears in the form of tiny drops of liquid metal on deposits of the ore cinnabarite, which is red in colour. D. Garašanin comes to the interesting conclusion that in the Vinča Culture the colour red appears exclusively on ritual objects and that it is connected with fertility rituals. Vessels of the Hvar Culture from Grapčeva Cave decorated with red cinnabar were considered by G. Novak to have served cult purposes (Novak 1955, 58).5 In part because of their form and in part because of being covered 5

A less well known Croatian word for the above-mentioned compound is rumenica or “blush”, quite suggestive of the lively colour in question.

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The Rhyton from Danilo

with cinnabar, rhyta were not meant for practical use, Korošec is convinced (Korošec 1952, 113). In the same work Korošec emphasizes how “unusually important” a factor the use of red coloured cinnabar is. Since it was not possible to manufacture that paint from cinnabarite at the place Danilo Bitinj itself, it must have come to that place by means of trade, that is, by means of exchange of goods. From where? The only known site where that kind of industry existed is Vinča on the Danube. The possibility that cinnabar paint came from the Danube does not seem particularly probable to Korošec, but he does not exclude it. M. Ruland in his Lexicon Alchemiae of 1612 says of cinnabar, mercury sulphide, that the ancients called it “the Blood of the Dragon”. Cinnabar was used as a pigment under the name vermilion. According to Ruland, the Venetian painters used it on account of its blood-red colour. In the final phase of alchemical work Stone attains a rich blood-red colour, which is sometimes equated with the vermilion of cinnabar or the colour of the pomegranate (Abraham 2001, 41). In his alchemical work Rasa-prakāśa-sudhakara the Indian Yaśodhara mentions the means of obtaining gold (Hema-kriyā) by means of a mixture one of whose main ingredients is cinnabar. After a ten-day preparation the mixture thus attained, it is claimed in the text, should have had the power to transform a hundredfold greater weight of some base metal into gold (Sudhi 1988, 212). The goal of the alchemical quest in China, thus, was indeed gold, or the “drug of immortality”, or even “artificial cinnabar”. The colour red, asserts M. Eliade, represents the first principle of viability, blood: cinnabar prolongs life – hence its presence in graves from as early as prehistoric time (Eliade 1984, 289). In general the importance that cinnabar had in Chinese so-called external alchemy was equal to that of gold in western alchemy. Gold is moreover represented as the complete and perfect union of female Mercury and male Sulphur, and cinnabar, as mercury sulphide, is the natural, manifest symbol of that occult coitus. In other words, cinnabar is “an amalgam, a body and spirit”, as PseudoGeber calls it, which can be dissolved in Quicksilver or Dragon Water in the process that leads to gold (Smith 2003, 18). “Red paint that can be rubbed off is known throughout the whole Danilo phase; ceramics are smeared with it alone, and no other motifs are executed, as in the Hvar phase,...Red pastelike paint that does not rub off appears regularly on fine Danilo ceramics for outlining motifs, and at the end of that phase also for executing motifs....” (Batović 1970, 21). For the decoration of rhyta from the central Bosnian Kakanj Culture too red pastelike paint was used. With that colour the interior and bottom part of the receptacle were painted, as well as the inner part of the large handle (Benac 1964, 43). At the site in Varoš near Kakanj several rather large hollow legs were found that had a thick layer

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of red paint on the inner side. A. Benac comes to the conclusion that after the receptacle was broken those legs were made in such a way that they could stand in an upside-down position and then serve for mixing red paint. Red paint thus prepared probably served for smearing on some parts of the body. Finally, in a layer of the settlement Nebo there was found a flat stone with a hollow in which red paint was mixed. Benac says: “Up to now very much has been written about the significance of the colour red (the colour of blood) from the Palaeolithic to primitive tribes. There is no need whatsoever for me to say anything because the belief in the effective power of this colour has been established in innumerable examples. Thus this phenomenon on our territory is a completely normal and expected spiritual manifestation in the beliefs of the Neolithic population” (Ibid., 121). The decorations on certain examples of rhyta excavated at the Neolithic site in Krivače near Bribir, which belong to the Danilo Culture, were executed with greater precision, and those on others more casually. As a rule they always were incised or filled with red paint, and the less visible parts remained undecorated, but covered with red paint. In some Krivače examples it was noted that the inside of the receptacle itself was also painted red (Korošec, J. 1974, 14). Several rhyta from Drakhmani on which parts of the opening and legs were preserved, show red paint on the opening, on the groove over the legs and on the lower part between the legs (Weinberg 1962, 192). Red paint was used at Danilo on the inner side of the handle and below between the legs (Pl. XVI, fig. 33), just as in Greek Elateia, where it was likewise applied on the lower part, the rim of the opening and the grooves on the legs. In indentations in the receptacle of the rhyton above each leg red paint was applied in a short stroke vertically on the front part of the vase. On the rhyton from Elateia besides red there were also present the colours white and black (Ibid., 190–92). At the northern Syrian Neolithic site Djade al-Mughara on the bank of the Euphrates northeast of Aleppo in 2007 a team of French archaeologists led by E. Coqueugniot found a wall painting two square metres in size, coloured with red, black and white paint, which has been confirmed to be the oldest such painting yet found in the world. Radiocarbon analysis dated the origin of the painting, which, according to Coqueugniot resembles modernistic art like that of Paul Klee, to about 9000 years BC. What was previously thought the oldest wall painting on a house wall, discovered in Turkey, is younger by a millennium and a half. The purpose for which the multicoloured rectangles were painted on the round wall of the common house at Djade al-Mughara, built of sun-dried bricks, has remained unknown. The dwellings were later abandoned, and mud covered the house. The settlement was one of several Neolithic communities in

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The Rhyton from Danilo

today’s Syria and Turkey whose residents communicated among themselves on the basis of peaceful exchange of goods. Under the floors of the houses were found human skeletons. Red paint was obtained by burning hematite rocks, white by crumbling limestone, while black paint came from charcoal (Oweis 2007). Just those three colours are the marks of the three gunas, the three primary qualities of nature and of the embodied consciousness from the philosophicalmystic Hindu tradition. The great Goddess Kali, who is the active creative principle of Shakti, creates three gunas: sattva (existence, light, illumination), rajas (activity, energy, change) and tamas (darkness, apathy, heaviness). In their different permutations the three gunas create the entire universe. The three colours – white, red and black – can be seen in the symbolic and bizarre anthropomorphic image of the goddess Kali with black skin, white teeth and a red tongue sticking out. In the alchemical work of an unknown author from the late 17th century, among numerous names of the Philosopher’s Stone there is mention of the King, “whose body”, writes the unknown author, “is red, his legs are white, and his eyes are black” (Anon. 1999, 70). In general in the symbolism of the alchemical process the colours black, white and red represent the three fundamental stages of the Process – nigredo, albedo and rubedo. These colours were also represented in the funeral traditions of the old inhabitants of Šibenik. Friar S. Zlatović writes of this: “At death the deceased is clothed and adorned, if it is a child with a crown on the head and feet, with a small cross of blessed wax candles in the hands. A boy and girl likewise with a crown on the head and the casket draped with a white and red coverlet. A man and woman are likewise adorned but without a crown, and are draped with a black coverlet. Every one has a white coverlet underneath” (Zlatović 2007, 15). Red paint, which is the most recognisable chromatic feature of the Danilo Culture, was regularly smeared only on parts of rhyta, namely the inner part of the handles and legs, as well as the lower parts of those vessels and legs. To put it differently, red paint was smeared on the internal-lower, i.e. the “female or yin sides”, or those that are not manifest by themselves, like the Moon, that ancient symbol closely connected with female nature, which does not shine by itself, but gets its light from the Sun. The act of placing the remains of the deceased in a grave was seen as their return to the goddess’s womb, in which life is renewed, and the colour red, of course, was the colour of life and regeneration. The cult of the dead in the Middle Neolithic was not especially developed, and the dead were mainly buried in contracted position in settlements, outside of settlements or in caverns, and without a specified orientation or rich grave goods.

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Some Danilo graves have been discovered, mainly of children, who were buried in a so-called foetal position, which could indicate that the earth was seen as a mother, or a womb, in which the process of renewal of life took place, and that death, in that way, was represented as part of a cyclic process of return to the “womb”. For in societies in which agriculture was the basis of all life, the earth, quite naturally, was the basic element, the source of other elements, mater genitrix [mother procreator] of the social surrounding of people, especially when society depended on an economy based on intensive agriculture. The apotheosis of the earth, of its productive, sustaining but also destructive power, was the natural result of man’s relationships with that eternal cycle of which the earth was a tangible expression. This chthonic concept was deeply planted in the psyche of prehistoric man on account of the omnipresence of life and its connectedness with the earth, especially because human social reproduction depended directly on the cultivation of the earth and the enjoyment of its fruits. Neolithic burials represented a direct communication with chthonic forces, a natural process paralleling the natural cycle of the renewal of life, and burial places were pregnant wombs. Within them the seed developed, like a foetus, in contracted position, awaiting the opening of the gates of life – when the sprout springs up and comes out into daylight from the darkness of her womb. Five such seedbeds have so far been found at Danilo too.

5 Shamans

The ancient Greek goddess Hecate indubitably arose out of the Old European Goddess of life, death and regeneration. She is represented as a young and stately virgin, as the grantor of life and protector of mothers, but also as a wrinkled, frightful crone. Hecate’s three aspects (Tricephalus [three-headed], Hekate Trimorphos [three-shaped Hecate], Trivia [three roads]) are analogous to the three lunar phases and, accordingly, to the cycle of life, death and regeneration (Gimbutas 2001, 155). She was the “gatekeeper” at the door to a woman’s womb – the one who unlocks and locks the uterus. In Ancient Greece it was customary for women in childbirth to pray to Hecate to enable (an easier) birth. Doors in ancient cultures were in general seen as “female”; therefore in Sumer and Egypt they were coated with red paint, or blood. Hecate was frequently equated with Artemis, and so, for example, in Aristophanes’ comedy The Frogs (1356–1364) Hecate, Diktynna and Artemis are interchangeable names. Artemis developed out of the agricultural “Great Mother”, the aspect in which she was worshipped even in historic times in Laconia and Arcadia, whereas Hecate was the “Earth Mother” in Caria. Chthonic associations with the concept of the Great Mother equated Hecate-Artemis with the Greek Selene, the Italic Diana, the Cretan Diktynna, the Eleusinian Brimo, the Ephesian Diana and the Thessalian Enodia (Rabinowitz 2005). It is not impossible that at prehistoric Danilo some proto-Hecate was being worshipped, perhaps even as a relic of the Palaeolithic, whose name we will never know in the absence of written evidence, for the ancient inhabitants of Danilo demonstrated by their cultural heritage that they were typical representatives of the Neolithic, hence of the period in which it is possible that the Great Mother/Goddess was worshipped.1 Therefore, whatever she was called, the hypothesised Danilo Goddess/Mother surely had attributes in common with the Great Neolithic Goddess, who was worshipped, if we follow Gimbutas for the moment, from southeastern Asia to Scandinavia. She was one and many, multiplicity and unity, birth, death 1

That, of course, does not mean that we must here take as a given the “Gimbutasian” classification of more or less all Neolithic finds and artifacts under the common rubric “Goddess”.

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and rebirth; she who creates and she who destroys, maiden and old woman, as well as a woman capable of conceiving who unites with her young lover god, whom she by herself creates out of herself, in sacred marriage, hieros gamos, and always again and again gives birth with new creation. These are all attributes that Hecate inherited in a later period. Contrary to popular belief, Hecate is not originally a Greek goddess. Homer did not know of her; indeed, the first mention about her was made by Hesiod in his Theogony. Her most famous shrine was in Lagina, a theocratic city-state, where eunuchs performed the goddess’s service. The roots of her worship reach back, it appears, to the Carians in Asia Minor. The theophoric name that she is called – Hekatomnos – is not Greek in form, but Carian. Her paths are the paths of the night; with the barking of dogs groups of demons accompany her. Hence she was called Bitch or She-Wolf (Kerényi 1980, 36). Hecate is likewise the goddess of the moon and of sorceresses who invoke the moon in Thessaly, such as Medea, for example. Hecate has an important role in the myth about the abduction of Persephone by Hades, which again brings her into a connection with the Underworld. Hesiod assigned her the role of kourotrophos, the great nourishing mother, and even more than a millennium later in Greek magical documents she was represented as the mother of gods and people, of Nature, the Mother of all things [PGM, 2832–34] (Rabinowitz 2005). From the Ptolemaic period in Alexandria on, she was exclusively known as the goddess of witchcraft in the role of the “Queen of the Demons”, and was in this form transmitted into post-Renaissance culture. The best-known plants dedicated to Hecate are the poppy and mandrake. The Neo-Platonist Porphyry in describing the attributes of this goddess states that she is like a poppy, for she is productive and a multitude of souls dwell in her, just as in a city, for the poppy is the symbol of a city. The city is, to be sure, a place where people gather as do the poppyseeds (souls) in the poppy’s pod (womb). This “gathering” is essential also for Hecate’s other plant – the mandrake (Mandragora officinarum). Also known as mandragora, the mandrake, in the words of our best-known expert in plant species, Dr. Č. Šilić, has an especially interesting “thick and fleshy root up to 60 cm long, simple or branching, whose form often resembles human figures. Hence all three species of this genus had particular significance in the spiritual culture of different peoples. A particularly shaped mandrake root, known under the name Alraun, was ascribed very wonderful magical power, especially in the Middle Ages” (Šilić 1987, 122). The cult of the mandrake spread from the Orient, through Greece and Italy into some lands of central Europe.” But what is of particular interest for the possible connection of Hecate and the Danilo rhyton was revealed in the glossary of botanical terms at

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the end of Šilić’s book, where under “Mandragora” it says: “(Gk. mandragóras) name of a species of the genus Mandragora in ancient times; Gk. mandra = stable, agerio = gather, for this plant very often is found around stables.”2 Therefore it used to be believed that one of the miraculous powers ascribed to it was the power to keep a herd together. The name of the Canaanite goddess of fertility Ashtarot (as also the Sumerian Ki) means “sheep fold”; Gaia was a “labyrinth without exit” or “gate in the castle wall”, like Cybele, whose crown was, indeed, the circular castle wall. In general, walls and ramparts represent protection for whoever is within them, like the fences of a fold or stall that protects the herd from bad weather, animals and thieves. The herd was, surely, of incalculable value for prehistoric herders, and it is probably from there that we get the name blago ‘wealth’ for cattle customary in the northern Dalmatian hinterland. Therefore the walls in the crown on the Goddess’s head, among other things, were a symbol of “She who protects the herd”, that existential foundation of man the herder, caring thus for his well-being. The theft of a herd or, in our local term, “wealth” was a valued and frequent deed in myths from the most ancient times. The stolen herd as a rule was hidden in caves or mountains. Hermes, thus, stole the herd of his brother Apollo, Heracles that of the giant Geryon, Ulysses’ men the herd of the sun god Helios, etc. In an agricultural-herding culture like that of Danilo we need not specially emphasize the significance of mandrake and, in connection with it, the tie with Hecate, or the rhyton. Here the archaeologist Š. Batovic too, at least in part, was right in connecting the animal form of the rhyton with a ritual for fertility of the herd, and including these vessels, as he saw it, into a unified fertility cult. Although Č. Šilić writes that mandrake is known in our flora only in Dalmatia and southern Herzegovina (the slopes of Sniježnica near Dubrovnik and the area around Trebinje), we may ask whether in the time under investigation, approximately 5500–4800 years BC, it grew on the territory of today’s Danilo or on some other northern Dalmatian site of the Danilo Culture. Using a formula based on the rise of world oceans during the Holocene ice melting and taking into account the reconstruction of the process in the Morinje Channel and in Morinje Bay, it is calculated that in the mid Danilo period the shoreline corresponded with today’s isobath at 6.6 m below sea level, which means that the shore was that much lower than today’s. The inhabitants of Danilo could get to the sea most easily via the valley of the stream Ribnik 2

Staje or štale ‘stalls or stables’ is found in toponyms in the Danilo-Dubrava area, for example the still existing Škugorove Staje in southern Dubrava. K. Stošić mentions Striževo, as the settlement by the well/spring Bitinj used to be called, whose name most likely indicates the shearing of sheep, which is easy to connect there with a pen, or “štala” and “gathering of the herd”, those recognisable attributes of Hecate (Stošić 1941, 97).

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(Filipčić 1992, 33–44). It is well known that in the late Pleistocene there were great climate changes which led in the early Holocene to increased temperature, greater precipitation, shrinking of the polar ice caps and a rise in the Adriatic sea level by several dozen metres. Consequently, the distance from the shore to Vela Spila on Korčula, that many-layered prehistoric site, decreased from 15 kilometres to only a few hundred meters. With the gradual quiescence of climatic oscillations the northern Adriatic sea rose; its shoreline took form; hills became islands; valleys and flooded river beds turned into deep sea gulfs, and the whole environment took on approximately its present appearance (Čečuk in Čečuk and Radić 2005, 49, 61). Similar things happened with the famous Franchthi Cave on the Peloponnese, an important prehistoric site, which was inhabited continuously from 23,000 to 5000 BC. The non-existence of remains of shellfish in the cave layers older than 11,000 BP is explained by the greater distance of the shore at those times. Afterward, as the shoreline gradually approached the cave, shellfish became a normal part of the cultural layer. During the rising of the sea level at the end of the last ice age nearly half a kilometre of land would be flooded every thousand years, but after 8000 years this process had slowed to less than one hundred metres per millennium. Today the Franchthi Cave is only a few metres away from the sea (Renfrew & Bahn 2006, 237). Due to the relatively great distance of the settlement from the seashore, it did not seem clear to Korošec whether the ancient inhabitants of Danilo themselves gathered shellfish, although he does not entirely reject the assertion. He holds that there must have existed other places on the seacoast itself whose population engaged primarily in fishing and gathering shellfish. In this way, he thinks, we would have indisputable evidence of the exchange of goods within what is probably one and the same cultural group, in which the inhabitants of one settlement exchanged products with those of another (Korošec 1958, 128–130; 1959, 231). Despite the fact that they were kilometres distant from the sea, the ancient inhabitants of Danilo – as can be seen from numerous remains of the shellfish shells – gathered shellfish and used them for food, but shells with drilled holes lead to the conclusion that they also used them as jewellery, and probably also for ritual purposes (Marguš et al. 2005, 56–61).3 Three worked examples of the “most valuable among shellfish”, as B. Čečuk calls the spondylus (Spondylus gaederopus) were found “deep in the true and pure Middle Neolithic layer” of Markova Cave on the Island of Hvar. One of 3

The presented results are part of a joint international project “Early Farming in Dalmatia”, conducted in cooperation with the City Museum of Šibenik and the Rochester Institute of Technology from the USA on the Neolithic site Danilo Bitinj. From the material that a test excavation 5 × 5 m to a depth of 1.30 m collected during June and July 2004, among other things, 3900 shells and 2764 shell fragments from 13 species of shellfish were isolated (ibid., p. 56).

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them clearly served as an amulet. In addition Čečuk mentions the fact that it was coloured with red paint that did not rub off easily and so is preserved to this day and visible over the greater part of the amulet, and that the surface of the shell is sculpted with fine and short incisions. The amulet was finely worked by grinding, and drilled with a small hole (Čečuk 1974, 238–39). Š. Batović in Smilčić found great numbers of remains of mussels (Mytilus galloprovincialis), which the ancient inhabitants there took out of the Novigrad Sea. Among the jewellery, with various other pendants: animal teeth, decorative pins, disks and little plates, he found pierced shellfish and snail shells. A large number of these objects had symbolic and magical significance (Batović 1979, 551, 556). After consulting numerous authors, M. Eliade comes to the conclusion that oysters, sea shellfish, snails and pearls are closely linked both with aquatic cosmogony and with sexual symbolism (Eliade 2006, 155). That is, they all share in the sacred powers concentrated in the Waters, Moon and Woman, and also are emblems of those powers. There exists a similarity between shellfish and female genital organs, hence the relationship that links oysters, water and the Moon, and as a result the gynaecological and embryological symbolism of the pearl, which forms in the oyster (Ibid.). During the latest investigation at Danilo Bitinj (2004) there were found 27 fragments of oyster shells (Ostrea edulis) and 1516 fragments of mussels. This similarity, which Eliade mentions, between sea shellfish and the genital organs of women is illustrated in the local name for the mussel in Šibenik – pidoća or pizdica ‘little cunt’. The greatest number of shell fragments at the Danilo Neolithic site indeed come from mussels. Belief in the magic qualities of oysters and shellfish is found throughout the world, from prehistory to modern times. The symbolism from which such a conception is drawn very probably belongs to a deep layer of “primitive thinking” (Ibid.). The best known example of the assimilation of a seashell and the female sexual organ was undoubtedly known to the Greeks. One of the most powerful episodes in mythology – the birth of the goddess Aphrodite from a seashell – pointed to the connection between the goddess and her generative principle. But, where there is the womb, hence birth, there also exists death as a counterpart, and so shells have their place in burial rites as well. Eliade mentions the example of seashells on Roman grave monuments, but also of Venus, hence the one who was born from a seashell, with whom the deceased woman is equated, depicted on the tomb by a naked bust with a dove, the symbol of Venus. By identifying with the archetype of life in eternal renewal the deceased woman ensures her own resurrection (Ibid.). This existential range from the womb to the grave and beyond is just the one that Hecate “covers”. If the shellfish at Danilo served as food, of which there is no doubt, a part of

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them surely also served ritual-magic purposes. Numerous archaeological finds indicate that people in Neolithic Europe did a wholesale trade in shells, especially at that time for making bracelets with highly valued spondylus, a remnant of which was found at Danilo too (Marguš et al. 2005, 56, 60). The Adriatic in any case was one of the sources of the spread of the trade in spondylus in the Neolithic world. Finds of numerous spondylus shells in Grapčeva Cave led G. Novak to make the assertion that it was from the shore of the Adriatic Sea, where the inhabitants gathered them, that spondylus shells were taken and sold in the countries of Slavic culture. Along the same route, together with the highly valued spondylus, says Novak further, there also came an influence on ceramics from the Adriatic or across the Adriatic, and from lands further south, from Sicily and the lands of bell beakers (Novak 1955, 57). A. Benac supports Novak’s assertion, noting that with regard to the Kakanj group, in the Middle Neolithic, cultural contact was made between an autochthonous base and a very strong cultural component from the Adriatic, which was manifest in the form of cult rhyta. As a continuation of this, the early phase of the later Butmir Culture at Obre shows the presence of Danilo-type painted ceramics, Danilo incised spirals and a few remnants of cult rhyta ... but also jewellery of spondylus, which members of the Danilo Group clearly were trading. The characteristic ceramics and rhyta that went together as a “package’ with the shells could easily also mean the transfer of the whole spiritual imagery traditionally connected with the Adriatic Neolithic zone. Dimitrijević and Tripković are not certain about the “direction from which items made of Spondylus and Glycymeris were brought to Vinča and other sites in the middle Danube. There are three possible source areas: the Aegean, the Adriatic and the Black Sea.” As a result they come to the conclusion that it is highly probable that the shells came from the direction of the Adriatic coast. In that case “Neolithic inhabitants of the Adriatic coast who possibly used prestigious jewellery made of these shells were very likely involved in exporting and distributing these objects into the middle-Danube region” (Dimitrijević and Tripković 2006, 248). It is indisputable that the climate oscillations mentioned above had effects on the flora, especially on the varieties of plant species that such climatic and other conditions favoured. Widespread groves of Turkey oak and evergreen holm oak covered the shores of the Mediterranean at the time. The limestone bedrock was then still covered everywhere with a thin layer of earth, from which the early spring rains every year coaxed forth great green pastures with innumerable flowers. There were none of the huge areas of bare karst that are nowadays often the main characteristic of the Mediterranean coasts. In the sunlit groves there

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were many surface waters: lakes, pools and springs. Their few remnants today are, in areas that have been continuously inhabited, still associated with much magic and beliefs that by their contents belong to that distant past (Gušić 1970, 448). Although the area of Danilo is nearly waterless karst terrain today, Korošec feels that it need not have been in prehistory. Evidence of that is the remains of fallow-deer, red deer, and other forest animals in that area, supporting the claim that these parts once were forested, and that the problem of water need not have been, and was not, as great as it is today (Korošec 1958, 135). This hypothesis is also supported by the modelled clay artifacts in the form of bears from Smilčić (Batović 1979, 550). Even if it did not flourish around Danilo, given the links of the Danilo Culture with others in the surroundings, mandrake could have been imported from elsewhere and, of course, used for ritual purposes. Korošec found imported volcanic stone obsidian at Danilo, which he supposed could have come over land from the source of the river Tisa or, likewise over land, from Italy, since it is also found in caverns on the Slovenian coast. However, it seemed most probable to him that the obsidian came to Danilo by sea from Italy (Korošec 1958, 130–31). Except for one reference to the Lipari Islands, he does not mention a possible route, but on the basis of today’s insights that could best have been the route Lipari Islands – Gargano – Tremiti – Palagruža – Sušac – Vela Spila (Korčula). Besides, fragments of practically identical obsidian found on Sušac and Palagruža were analysed by Dr. R. Tykot, and the results showed that the raw material came from the Lipari Islands (Čečuk and Radić 2005, 110). Korošec likewise holds that all Danilo painted ceramics found at Danilo in view of the composition of the clay, which does not come from the Danilo area, had to be imported to Danilo, that is, that it was an item in the exchange of goods, or commerce (Korošec 1958, 131–32). In this case neither would the possible import of mandrake be something new, in view of the clearly well developed Neolithic trade in other goods. After all, rhyta were also found at Zelena Pećina in Herzegovina and at Crvena Stijena in Montenegro, both sites relatively near to Sniježnica, which could imply the possibility of obtaining mandrake through then existing trade (but also intellectual) connections which are confirmed for that time. Likewise, finds of hemp seed, which were found at Danilo in the latest excavations (2004 and 2005), indicate not only food but also “cult” use, perhaps by inhaling the vapour from hemp seeds thrown on red-hot stones in a closed tent, in the way that Herodotus described among the Scythians of the steppe in the fourth book of his History. In addition to the opium poppy and mandrake, several other plants are connected with Hecate, for example belladonna, hemlock and aconite (also

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known as hecateis). These are, in fact, plants whose preparations have always been used by shamans to achieve altered states of consciousness. In the 19th century in the vertical side of a ravine at Granada, Spain, local miners found a cave (Cueva de los Murciélagos – “Bat Cave”) with skeletons that were still clothed and shod in footwear made from the fibres of a kind of grass. Round baskets found near them were filled with poppy pods. Were these simple symbols of fertility or did these people already know about the narcotic opium, A. Sherratt wonders (Sherratt 2001, 183–84). Most probably both, especially if we are dealing with (proto)Hecate. The find was dated to 4000 BC. The use of narcotics in prehistory was too important to be brushed aside because they chemically intensified the sensual experience of ceremonies, allowing the users closer contact with the sacred. The remains of poppy pods, but also the dish for live coals and burning fragrant resins in a ritual context, can be taken as support for the hypothesis on the use of various psychoactive substances in the Neolithic. With regard to the large number of censers found in Donja Branjevina, and particularly the clear traces of intense burning in them, the assumption that these objects were used as lamps is for S. Karmanski hardly tenable. He tends to think that Neolithic villagers, perhaps instead of pipes, used altars for burning narcotic (?) grasses and seeds. It explains why most altars might be interpreted as both ordinary objects, and perhaps things used during certain magical and religious rituals (Karmanski 2005, 43, 44, 73). Radiocarbon analysis of pottery fragments with traces of alcoholic fermentation from Jiahu, a site from the Neolithic period in the Chinese province Henan, has determined that the inhabitants of that settlement prepared alcoholic drinks between 7000 and 6600 BC. Until then it had been accepted that the oldest recorded consumption of alcohol was approximately 5400 BC, on the basis of a find in Iran. The early inhabitants of China fermented rice, grapes, hawthorn and honey, and they kept the wine sealed in ceramic vessels, which on the territory of today’s China were in fact first manufactured in Jiahu (Hecht 2004). In the late 1980s D. Lewis-Williams, from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, initiated a long controversy in archaeology by asserting that cave drawings from the Late Palaeolithic on the European continent were drawn by shamans whose consciousness had been altered by the use of drugs or a self-induced trance. Lewis-Williams successfully defended his ideas in the resulting book, The Mind in the Cave. In his latest book, Inside the Neolithic Mind (2005), together with his colleague D. Pearce, he again gives arguments that a shamanistic religious worldview also dominated the lives of the first Neolithic agriculturalists in the Near East and in Europe, who no longer

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approached their spiritual space in caverns, but in above-ground buildings. On the basis of the latest finds at Çatal Hüyük and Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, ‘Ain Ghazal in Jordan, and the Irish megalithic graves Knowth and Newgrange, and by comparison with various shamanic practices and the personal experiences of individuals in altered states of consciousness, the authors put forward the basic premise that the physical structure of the human brain creates a specific kind of images (or ways of seeing the world) under altered states of consciousness, which, of course, is nothing new. However, they continue, altered states of consciousness are always located in a social and political matrix, and it is not possible to study them outside of their social context. Abstract patterns such as dots, zigzag lines, and vortices/spirals that appear on Neolithic monuments likewise appear to people in an altered state of consciousness when they close their eyes (and in a near-death state), which is clearly the result of the functioning of the central nervous system. In this neuro-cognitive approach to archaeology a prominent place is occupied by the argument that certain Neolithic graves are constructed according to a cosmic model with passages and vaulted chambers that served as symbolic vortices or portals between this world, the underground and the celestial world, hence a three-tiered shamanic universe, which can be deciphered from the architecture and the burial remains. Lewis-Williams and Pearce are convinced that changes in cognitive values and symbols, and not other “external” reasons, initiated the Neolithic revolution in which nomadic hunter-gatherers became agriculturalists and herders. Their theory forms a powerful turning point in explaining the role of shamans in the social structure of Early Neolithic communities, but likewise in clarifying the domestication of animals, which was a result, they hold, of the shamanistic practice of dominion over spirit animals. It is precisely religious experience, this pair of authors is convinced, that gave people the power to order the construction of megalithic monuments, to sacrifice animals and, very probably, human beings so as to keep order in the universe. Lewis-Williams emphasizes that the domestication of animals at Çatal Hüyük, one of the earliest such cases in the world, could suggest that shamans played a prominent role in that society. Indeed, shamans were closely connected to their “spirit animals” which equipped them for the role of shamans. If the shaman managed to drive those spirit animals into the fold, that would mean that he holds them in his hand and, at the same time, it would be a vivid demonstration to the rest of society of shamanic power over animals (Lewis-Williams and Pearce 2005, 144). If, as we have already demonstrated, one of the roles of Hecate’s plant mandrake was keeping a herd together, which was unusually important for Neolithic man, and hence for the early inhabitants of Danilo as

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well, and if we allow that Lewis-Williams and Pearce are at least partially correct with regard to the role of shamans in domesticating animals in the Neolithic, then we are well on the way, for the rhyton itself too in this light becomes an objectified cosmogonic notion of supernatural reality, an artistic creation that could be induced by psychoactive substances, whether from mandrake or from the poppy or from some other sacred plant of Hecate’s. The cited authors, and Lewis-Williams in a separate work (Lewis-Williams 2004, 28–59), also took up the so-called tiered cosmogony, that “heart” of shamanic spirituality. According to that ancient concept the universe is divided into three interacting tiers or levels: the upper (Sky) and lower territory (Underworld) and, between them, the area of everyday life (the Earth). The structure of Çatal Hüyük, Lewis-Williams holds, was made according to that cosmogonic outline. Thus, for example, one did not enter the houses through doors, but down ladders from the roof, which alludes powerfully to the possibility that the builders wanted to create an underground world, a more recognizable symbol of which was a cave. In this case the walls represented the permeable membrane, the division between the people entering the space and the spirits from the world of animals and supernatural beings (Lewis-Williams 2005, 110–112). Shamanic technique in the strict sense of the word consists of a crossing over from one cosmic area into another: from Earth to Sky, or from Earth into the Underworld. A shaman knows the secret of the discontinuity of level. All three cosmic areas can in turn be “travelled through” because they are connected by the central axis. A shaman is the one who communicates and travels through all three layers of the cosmos. The central axis goes through one “opening” through which the gods come down to Earth and the dead into the nether regions. In a similar way, the soul of a shaman in ecstasy can ascend through it to the Sky or descend to the Underworld (Eliade 1985, 200). The reflection of a shaman as a guide of souls, a psychopomp, was taken over in later mythology by Hecate and Hermes; both communicate unhindered through all three levels. The structure of the Danilo rhyton is likewise three-tiered. If it is accepted that the vessel, or the slanting receptacle of the rhyton, represents a cave, which on account of its form is surely the most applicable symbol, then according to the scheme from Çatal Hüyük, we get the receptacle/cave as the Underworld, the handle as the Upper one (the Sky) and the legs, which stand firmly on the earth, as the Earth itself. In this way the rhyton would be a symbolic representation of the three-tiered shamanic universe, a notion baked in clay of an integral, but hierarchically divided entire space in which phenomena appear, from fine ones to coarse ones or, symbolically spoken, from volatile to fixed ones, on all three cosmic levels.

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Never losing sight of the shamanic methods of altering the mind which Neolithic inhabitants evidently were in contact with on account of their psychocultural inclination, we continue to seek evidence of the possible spiritual “climate” that could generate the rhyton as its own encircled expression. So we will again begin from the herds. Where there is dung from quadrupeds, a herd, psychotropic mushrooms such as Psilocybe and Panaeolus genera are known to thrive, which as true hallucinogens can give rise to a mystic religious connection between the mushrooms and the animals that produce their natural habitat. From there it is easy to see the origin of the institution of the tribal totem, as an animal spirit protector of a certain community, most often of blood relatives. Indisputable proof that Neolithic people used mushrooms is, further, the 1991 find of a human body 5300 years old in a glacier in the Italian Alps. The “iceman”, as the media christened him, had a knapsack on, a flint axe in his hand and a string of dried mushrooms (Piptoporus betulinus, a species of birch bracket, and other, still unidentified mushrooms). While researching the generic and esoteric history and pharmacological profile of the fly agaric mushroom (Amanita muscaria), F. Festi notes that probably the fact that they apparently are born “from nothing”, connected with truly swift growth, the amazing beauty of its forms, and all the other peculiarities that differentiate it from surrounding plants, very likely had a powerful effect on prehistoric man. Undoubtedly it led him to the discovery of the remarkable properties of this mushroom. The structure of Mesolithic-Neolithic societies was an ideal foundation for the use of hallucinogens. This by itself made the connection with the animistic conception of the world more powerful and more widespread (Festi and Bianchi 1991). In Eurasia, Festi continues, when the Indo-Europeans went out toward Iran and India they took along with them the cult of sacred mushrooms, which in India became Soma (the divine plant in the Rigveda) and in Persia Haoma. The fungi were associated with the birch, that beloved symbol of shamanic spirituality, and it is not impossible, the author thinks, that the Tree of Divine Knowledge, as it appears in the biblical Genesis, was copied from the original Tree of Life (a birch). The snake could have been a metaphor for the sacred Mushroom, granter of divine knowledge and wisdom.4 4 Alluding to the deep wisdom of the Gnostics, J. Lacarrière records that the Peratae, a sect of theirs (an obscure name meaning “Those Who Pass Over”), saw in the constellation the Dragon (Draco) an image of the original Snake who brought humanity gnosis, the knowledge that liberates. “If a person has eyes that know how to see, he will look upward to the heavens and he will see a beautiful image of the Serpent coiled there, at the place where a great sky begins. Then he will understand that no being in heaven or on earth or in hell was formed without the Serpent.” (Lacarrière 1989, 17). In the Gnostic creation myth the Serpent in the Garden of Eden is not an enemy and the tempter, the perfidious reptile who deceives the first woman, but a benefactor who brings enlightening wisdom to the first humans.

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The fusion of Indo-European immigrants on European soil with the aboriginal inhabitants there produced a religion with a shamanic background. Once they had been combined, the elements of that spirituality could have included ritual consumption of fly agaric (as well as other psychotropic plants), deep spiritual ties with nature and, in accord with this, worship of the spirits of nature (among whom were earthly ones like toads and snakes), as well as a magical interpretation of numerous events. In this way the fusion between natural and supernatural forces also penetrated into the life of the early Europeans, reinforcing the deep connection with their “cultural unconscious” (Ibid.). A. Bianchi himself with a small number of subjects underwent an experiment intended to record the effect of psychoactive substances on the human mind after the consumption of fly agaric under laboratory conditions. After the experiment, nearly half the subjects reported so-called lucid dreams, or dreams with vivid colours and clear imagery, in which the dreamers knew that they were dreaming, that is, that they were experiencing a different reality than in a waking state. Three subjects reported that they were asleep but at the same time aware of their surroundings, that they heard every sound and that they remembered everything that happened in the room during the experiment. In such a state, says Bianchi, there also takes place a “strange” conversation with “something” within oneself. More than half the subjects reported a special surprising kind of imagination with their thoughts instantaneously transforming into pictures/images. It cannot be ruled out that the structure, or the symbol itself, of the Danilo rhyton arose during such productive imaginative moments as the direct transfiguration of an Idea. The central “sacrament” of all Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures is the “totem plant”, which in a way became a shared epiphany. All these plants, plant mixtures, and plant metaphors are the central places of mythologies. Among them are the Burning Bush, the Tree of Life, the Golden Bough, the Forbidden Fruit, the Chalice (calyx), the Golden Flower (chrysanthemon), Ambrosia (ambrotos – “immortal”), Nectar (nektar – “overcomes death”), the Sacred Lotus, the Golden Apples, Mysterious Mandragora, the Mystic Rose, the Divine Mushroom (teonanácatl), Mama Coca, Peyote Woman ... and numerous others. The picture that so often appears among the archetypical configurations of the unconscious is indeed, C. G. Jung asserts, a tree or a wonder-working plant. When people reproduce these dream visions these ordinarily take the form of a mandala. “If mandala may be described as a symbol of the self seen in cross section, then the tree would represent a profile view of it: the self depicted as a process of growth” (Jung 1983, 253).

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Earlier R. G. Wasson formulated a revisionist theory of history asserting that the experiential foundation on which all religions arose is the use of sacred plants like fly agaric and “magic mushrooms” (Psilocybe mexicana). The theory is known as the entheogenic theory of religion. The word entheogen was coined from the Greek root gen- in combination with the form entheo-, which in Greek means “filled with God” (entheos). The word is related to enthusiasm, Gk. enthousiasmos, which was originally closely tied with the religious community. In 1978 Wasson, with the Swiss chemist A. Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, and C. Ruck, Professor of Classical Studies from Boston University, wrote the book The Road to Eleusis, in which they suggested that kykeon, the drink used in the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece, was made by fermenting the psychoactive mushroom Claviceps purpurea, rye ergot, which is in fact also the chemical basis of LSD. Rye ergot is a purplish-black tubular growth which develops on a mature rye ear instead of a rye grain; ergot spores attack various grasses while blooming, most often certain ryes and barley. If the fruit bodies of rye ergot get mixed in with grain for milling, the infected grains will introduce ergotamine into the flour, a very poisonous substance, which can even cause death. Formerly such poisonings were widespread like epidemics (Garnweidner 2006, 234). Ergotism or “St. Anthony’s fire”, as rye ergot poisoning was called in the Middle Ages, was a madness ensuing from uncontrolled hallucinations, accompanied by mania and psychosis, which engulfed individual villages or even cities after some of the inhabitants unwittingly consumed ergot-infected flour. The results of research by L. Caporael, for example, lead to the conclusion that many of the people whose accusations instigated the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 were really suffering from hallucinations and other symptoms of convulsive ergotism (Caporael 1976, 21–26). But, in the hands of true experts, such as the ancient shamans, who may quite possibly have also been in the grain-growing Danilo Neolithic community, the preparation was undoubtedly aimed at achieving altered states of consciousness as an open space for communication with “spirits”, states that were always gnostically oriented. Centuries, if not millennia, of shamanic experience must have gone into the preparation of kykeon, which was drunk in the mysteries. To say that the rhyton itself could have arisen as the “artistic result” of numerous “kykeon” or similar sessions on the Danilo field, in the light of what has been said, is no particular novelty. The controversial ethnobotanist and philosopher of science T. McKenna (1949–2000) traces the diffusion of hallucinogenic mushroom consumption in Goddess-worshipping societies. The line starts from the Sahara Desert of southern Algeria in an area called the Tassili-n-Ajjer Plateau (12,000 BC) of the

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Tassili peoples in Upper Palaeolithic northern Africa, toward Asia Minor and the Neolithic centre at Çatal Hüyük; from there the hallucinogenic itinerary stops in Minoan Crete, and thence to Greece, where the tradition continued as an esoteric and diminished presence until the Eleusinian mysteries were finally suppressed by Christians in 268 AD (McKenna 1993, 69–94). Here the question arises spontaneously: are there any archaeological proofs that the sacred-mushroom cult or some specific spiritual mycophily existed in the Neolithic on the territory of the Balkan peninsula as well? The answer is surely in the affirmative. A human figurine in the form of a mushroom-shaped idol is easy to observe among the figurines found at the Neolithic site Rast, in Dolj near the Danube in northwestern Romania, well known for its great number of artistically formed figurines, including the first “Madonna” who nurses a baby in her arms (Dumitrescu 1980, Table LIX ff). The archaeologist S. Karmanski provides a picture of several, as he calls them, “amulets” from the Middle Neolithic Vinča Culture found at the site Krčevina-Milina Skela (Karavukovo) or Mostonga IV-Mostanica/Odžaci (Karmanski 1968a). The first “amulet” was made of semitransparent pale yellow quartz, the second of a whitish-brown stone, the third of a whitish stone etc. What they all have in common is their unique form – actually the form of a mushroom, with cap, stem and thickened bulbous base, like that of the fly agaric. Unable to classify his find, Karmanski in confusion adds: “Perhaps this amulet must be looked at in upside down position.” J. Korošec also cites Vinča “amulets” which are undoubtedly mushrooms (Korošec 1962, Table XL). And what about the area of today’s Dalmatia, especially the northern part? Are there similar “amulets” from there? Of course, it suffices only to pay careful attention to the finds of local archaeologists. In his time the archaeologist Z. Brusić discovered while surveying and investigated the remains of an earlier Neolithic settlement southwest of the site of Krivače, between Bribirske Mostine and Krković, at the Vrbica spring at the edge of a field that is under water in rainy periods. Investigations begun in 1973 and continued in 1974 in a relatively shallow layer, in which there were only 10–30 cm of deposits in the cultural layer, yielded copious archaeological materials, especially concentrated around a pit – a fireplace with traces of burning. Among the finds ceramics predominate, and interestingly, decorated ones, and some stone material was also found, among which there stands out a little mushroom-shaped figurine of polished blue-grey stone, the so-called “stopper” or “earplug” [Ohrenpflock] (Brusić 1994, 8).5 Similar objects were known as early as the Palaeolithic from 5

Brusić considers this little stylized figurine in the shape of a mushroom the most important find from the Early Neolithic on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

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France to Ukraine, and in the pre-ceramic and ceramic phase of the Neolithic of the eastern Mediterranean and Greece, and objects like the one from Vrbica are found at Early Neolithic sites in Thessaly. The closest to us is the figurine from Podgorie in Albania, so to speak, halfway between Thessaly and Dalmatia, which can be a very valuable signpost for the spread of Early Neolithic influences in the eastern Mediterranean area. What is questionable, however, is whether the name “plug” or “ear stopper” is suitable for the Vrbica and similar objects.6 It can stand as an indicator for recognition and description of these artifacts, but could not explicitly define or indicate their practical use. It seems more proper to categorize them among ornaments or magical-apotropaic objects (Menđušić 1998, 52). After reviewing some of the existing archaeological and ethnological theories with regard to the “mysterious objects” found in the earliest horizon (layer III) of Donja Branjevina, which were rather frequent at Early Neolithic sites, S. Karmanski realised that these are “lip pins” (labrets), i. e. ornaments worn in the pierced lip. In prehistory, he suggests, labrets were worn by both men and women, as is confirmed by archaeological excavation and the images carved on masks and totems, as well as clear traces of wear on the teeth, resulting from labret wearing. Most of the labrets are phallus-shaped. He concludes from various premises that labrets are tools for satisfying women or indicate man’s virility, i. e. are related to human reproduction. Karmanski never mentioned the “ear plugs”; moreover he resolutely defended his thesis that the labrets are not bull heads or zoomorphic figurines, but fertility symbols (Karmanski 2005, 42, 43, 72). For Brusić the mushroom-like stylised figurine of a human surely represents the earliest attested import from Greek territory, and he dates it at 6000 years BC (Brusić 1994, 9). Such dating was also upheld by J. Müller, who held that Vrbica existed as “an Impresso A site between 6100 and 5800 cal BC; the Thessalian early ceramics date back to around 6000 cal BC.” On the basis of the existing C-14 data even the site Hacilar VI in Turkey “can be dated to around 6100 cal BC”. Therefore, according to Müller, “the absolute chronological framework supports the existence of far-reaching contacts...” (Müller 2000, 153). The attribution of these stylised figurines to human form is possible from one ceramic example from Soufli Magoula in Thessaly in which the human figure can still be seen through the stylisation, but which is already similar to the mushroom-like idols. To be sure, the typical figurine from that period is really an “ear-plug”, most often made of stone, sometimes of clay, which was presumed to be a simple image of a human body and to have come from the Palaeolithic, although they were found also later in the Early Neolithic (Theocharis 1973, 36). Whatever 6

The object fully resembles a mushroom, with recognizable stem and cap.

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their purpose was, writes D. Theocharis, “ear plugs” are an extremely schematic image of a human form. They began to appear in the Late Palaeolithic, and they continued into the pre-ceramic, and even the Early Neolithic (not after the proto-Sesklo phase). In the Palaeolithic period in Europe they are known in France, Bavaria, Moravia and Ukraine. Therefore they are “European” elements of Palaeolithic origin that existed before the developed phase of the Early Neolithic in Greece (Ibid., 308). Many of the magic signs found on the ceramics of “Old Europe” ranging from 6000 to 4000 years BC are the direct successors of symbols of the Late Palaeolithic. Those “6000 years before Christ” are the period of the greatest flourishing of the most powerful culture of the older Neolithic AnatoleanAegean-Adriatic sphere, Çatal Hüyük, the prehistoric motive force, on which rested the theories of D. Lewis-Williams, T. McKenna and numerous others who recognised the importance of that Neolithic “centre of the world”. That very route through Thessaly and Albania was the line later drawn by the spread of the Danilo rhyton southward. In truth it is not impossible that the path of the “sacred mushroom” from Çatal Hüyük to Vrbica, but also to the Vojvodina sites, which, as we have seen, have a connection with the rhyton, sowed the seed of spiritual culture in which the rhyton later grew, as an integral concept of cosmogony that did not use only two physical eyes, but also that “third” one, capable of observing the most subtle transformation of our inner cosmos.

6 A Snake, Water and Horns

The ceramics of the Danilo Culture undoubtedly include two cultural components: those with incised ornamentation and those with painted decorations. These two components came together on the Adriatic and there produced a new Neolithic culture (Benac 1964, 79). The feature shared by all the decorative motifs of Danilo Culture artifacts is a very strict geometricisation. They can be divided into straight and curved or crooked ones, with innumerable combinations and variations, especially in the latest stage, when they attain their greatest diversity. The most frequent motifs are spirals and hatched triangles in many variants (lozenges, concentric lozenges, chequers, bundles of zigzag lines, interweaving, etc.). Among the spiral combinations those running in a horizontal series and linked in the form of the letter C predominate, less often those linked in the form of the letter S or other combinations. The development of the spiral as an ornament can be clearly traced in this area from the beginning of the Danilo to the end of the Hvar phase, from simple combinations made by incision and indentation, always with red incrustation, to very diverse variations and combinations in the last stage of the Danilo phase. This decoration then begins to be coloured and put into relief with white incrustation, and in the end by painting, which gets richer and comes to predominate, with paint covering over and distorted combinations as well; the development continues in the Hvar phase. Š. Batović emphasizes that the origin and source of spiral decoration has not yet been fully explained or elucidated, but one can conclude that this decoration appears earlier on this territory than in surrounding cultures. Its uninterrupted development can be traced from the end of the Early to the end of the Late Neolithic (Batović 1979, 620). Batović considers that the spiral decoration in the form of a snake, very prominent in the culture, may have meant the sun, especially because it was always connected with red incrustation, hence with a colour that in prehistory regularly denoted blood and life (Ibid., 557). Our prominent Illyrian specialist A. Stipčević is convinced that worship of the sun as the source of life or the cult of the snake as an underworld deity,

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which at Danilo was developed in the later period of the Illyrians, both found their expression in the spiral decoration. The cult of the snake in the form of a spiral, which is believed to be a schematic image of a snake, existed on this territory (the Šibenik area) in ancient pre-Illyrian times (Stipčević 1974, 181).1 As a symbol of fertility, a chthonic deity, an apotropaic animal, totem, a demon of the waters etc., “the snake as the tribal symbol of the southern Illyrians was to stubbornly overcome all the misfortunes that would befall the Illyrians and would survive together with them the several-centuries-long process of Romanisation of those lands and many other historic and cultural changes. Christianity would attempt, and in many ways succeed, in driving that Illyrian symbol out of folk belief, but never entirely, so that, together with many other remnants from prehistoric times, it would remain in the consciousness of the inhabitants there right up to this day” (Stipčević 1989, 149). M. Gimbutas mentions that the “repertory” of motifs incised on the zoomorphic rhyta include networks with triangles, networks with parallel or zigzag bands, barbed wire or bands as well as undotted and dotted snakes. According to her, this symbolism suggests a connection with the snake and water as the source of life (Gimbutas 1989, 118). In investigating the symbols of prehistoric Anatolia, J. Yakar, from the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology in Tel Aviv, concludes that among the geometric symbols uninterrupted vertical and zigzag lines and meanders represent water/streams/rivers. Along with diagonal lattices and lozenge, zigzag forms are called the “cattle urine path”, a household expression among Anatolian herdsmen even today. For today’s Turkmens, Zaza or Kurdish groups in Anatolia this motif signifies the environment around their home in which the herds move from one pasture to another treading out narrow paths marked by their urine. It is important to emphasise that such linear forms are common not only to Neolithic pottery but also to wall paintings, for example at Çatal Hüyük (Yakar 2005, 112, 119). The cult of the sun in ancient mythologies was frequently connected with the eagle, the solar bird, the symbol of royal power, authority, victory and exalted (alchemists would say: sublimated) spiritual energies. The mysterious Fulcanelli mentions that for the word “eagle” sages used the Greek word aíglē, which means “gleam”, “sharp clarity”, “light”, “a torch”. “To make the eagle fly”, according to hermetic metaphor, means to let a light shine, freeing it from its dark wrap and leading it to the surface. In this way that which was occult becomes manifest, or what was hidden gets revealed (Fulcanelli 1999, 327). With Uranic attributes, 1 As a distant echo from the mists of prehistory in the oral tradition in Rakovo Selo, in Dubrava near Šibenik, a few kilometres from Danilo, one used to hear the ancient legend that once upon a time there were three suns, but that “snakes drank up” two of them.

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the eagle is the complete opposite of the chthonic snake from the underground of the earth, which is traditionally the enemy of solar birds like the eagle, crane or heron. Birds belong to the sky and to the territory of the spirit, and snakes to the earth, representing its propensities and energies. To the first the mountain peaks and the expanse of the sky are home, to the second the cracks and holes of the earth. In this symbolic context it is interesting to know that the peak of the hill Trtar in Dubrava near Šibenik is called Orlovača [Eagle Hill], and a village on the slopes of this hill – Rupići [Little Holes]. A coincidence? In the structure of the rhyton the interaction of these two fundamental principles of life is shown by the handle of the rhyton, which is round/oval like the sun’s orbit, thus the eagle, while its receptacle is a chthonic darkness-moisture-womb, or a snake. The eagle seizes the snake, thrusts its talons into it, like handles that are thrust into the receptacle of the rhyton. In this way opposites are united – below with above, body with spirit, earth with sky ... and life wells up. “Terrestrial Heaven” is what V. Lavinius from Moravia calls that wondrous meeting of opposites (Lavinius 1999, 114–116). For the Sufi spirituality, on the other hand, the eagle sometimes represents the Primal Intellect, as cited by Al-Qashani in his glossary of Sufi technical terms from the 14th century, because Sufis call the Rational Soul a “dove”, “which the Primal Intellect snatches up like an eagle, from the depths of the lower, physical world, to the sublime world and sacred outer reaches of space” (‘Al-Qāshāni 1991, 86). Archaeological finds in Albania, although not too numerous, indicate that during the Bronze Age and at the beginning of the Iron Age cults that had arisen in the Neolithic, especially those connected with fertility of the earth and agriculture, generally continued to be practiced. Such is the cult of the Earth Mother, as well as cults of the sun and the snake, expressed in female figurines or various symbols magical and religious in nature that were applied in different ways, for instance on bones or on terra cotta vases. They were the symbols of a cross, a cross inscribed in a circle, spiral motifs, etc. (Županović 1991, 54). The cult of the sun and the cult of the snake are also found among the other “ethnic” groups on our shores. In the south the cult of the snake dominates, and in the north the cult of the sun. Regarding the latter, in this context it is interesting to examine the find of three fragments of a rhyton from the Grotta delle Gallerie, in the hinterland of Trieste, thus north of Danilo, on which zigzag motifs are connected with one round element that suggests a solar symbol (Montagnari Kokelj and Crismani 1993, 36–37, Table 3, fig.1–4). Likewise, one of the three fragments of ceramics from Grotta Teresiana near Trieste, “which are all hallmarks of Danilo” (i. e. “the carinated profile, the interlocking lozenge design and the red ochre encrustation as well as the hatched triangles”)

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is also an “incised spiral-decorated sherd with a background filling of impressed dots” (Barfield 1997–1998 [1999], 58, Fig 11, 21–23). Among the rich bone finds in Grapčeva Cave on Hvar and at Lisičići in Herzegovina, hence in the area south of Danilo and in the Neolithic culture that was the successor to the Danilo, pins were observed with heads in the form of a snake. These two sites are kindred; they belong to the Adriatic-Mediterranean area and the Late Neolithic. A. Benac considers these finds to indicate some kind of cult of the snake in that Neolithic group (Benac 1964, 126). The Šibenik area is located on the border between north and south, and only in this area, in the Danilo Culture, are both the one and the other cult attested. This fact, which reaches back into distant prehistoric times, is very important in investigating the relic expressions and customs in the Šibenik area in which these best preserved relics are reflected. At the same time they indicate the autochthonous nature of the Danilo Culture on that soil. Neolithic cults of the sun and the snake found their most powerful expression in ancient Egyptian iconography, in which gods and goddesses are shown, heads adorned with a particular ornament that includes the sun’s disk and, most often, a snake coiled around it. Examples of this are Re-Herakhty, the goddess Sekhmet and probably the most obvious imagery, the hawk-headed god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, who carries on his head the sun’s orb and the royal snake uraeus winding around it. An excellent image is found in the grave of Seti I from the XIXth Dynasty in the Valley of the Kings at Thebes (Lurker 1986, 65). Since water is the main condition and motive for humans to stay longer in some place, or even settle down, Neolithic settlements should also be sought just where that condition exists, M. Menđušić holds (Menđušić 2005, 47). Like Menđušić, J. Korošec and P. Korošec too, writing about the Neolithic site in Krivače near Bribirske Mostine, where numerous artifacts with features of the Danilo Culture were found, categorize the site together with those located in other areas in the sphere of the Danilo Culture. Such are Danilo, Smilčić, Piramatovci, etc. Characteristically a cluster in this sphere is located on the edge of swampy land or around certain springs or on the very banks of smaller rivers or streams; the site Krivače is no different (Korošec and Korošec 1974, 7). That the Neolithic inhabitants preferred to build their dwellings near water is also confirmed by A. Benac, mentioning locations of settlements of the Butmir Group, which were built primarily on river banks or in their immediate vicinity. The settlement at Okolište is on the bank of the Bosna, thus near the site of the Kakanj Group in Arnautovići. The settlement in Butmir is located along the river Željeznica, which flows into the Bosna near its source; the settlement at Obre II lies on the bank of the Bosna’s tributary the Trstionica, not far from Kakanj

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itself. Nebo was built in the valley of the Bila, which flows into the Lašva, and the latter into the Bosna. Kraljevine stretched along the stream Lješnica, which likewise belongs to the system of the Bosna, etc. Still older Neolithic sites such as Zelena Pećina and Ravlića Pećina are located on rivers – the first at the source of the river Buna, the second above the source of the Tihaljina. In addition, another of the important sites of the Danilo rhyton – Crvena Stijena – on the border of Montenegro and Herzegovina, with cultural deposits 20–30 metres thick starting from Palaeolithic layers that antedate the Middle Palaeolithic or the pre-Mousterian, is located at about 700 m above the river Trebišnjica, which is rich in fish. The Šibenik historian Fr. K. Stošić mentions that at Danilo Gornje there is a well called Bitinj. It is located in the middle of the level land in the Danilo valley. This well is also known for springs. Bitinj is mentioned as a watercourse as early as 1550, and as a spring near Dabar Hill in 1608. The present-day well Bitinj, the former watercourse Bitin and the spring Bitin are for Stošić one and the same. He likewise mentions that at the spring Bitin stone artifacts were found, or stone tools, which he ascribes to the Neolithic (Županović 1991, 353). At that site, Š. Županović reminds us, there were later found very important objects from the Neolithic, and the Neolithic settlement was called Danilo Bitinj for the place itself (the well Bitinj) and the objects of the find. These “very significant objects” are, of course, the cult vessels – the rhyta. J. Korošec does not reject the possibility that rhyta were connected with a cult of water, “or with the spring, which is represented today by the well Bitinj, around which the settlement lay, and which must have existed at that time too” (Korošec 1952, 113; 1958, 135). S. S. Weinberg considers Korošec’s idea about a water cult “very attractive”, especially when it is seen in the context of Greek Neolithic sites, such as Elateia and Corinth, known for their rich springs “just as once upon a time Danilo clearly was too” (Weinberg 1962, 195). Along with the tree, the moon and the snake, water is the universal symbol of the Mother since, like the first three, it regenerates itself perfectly. On Danilo vessels water is shown in different ways, most probably as a wavy (meander) and zigzag line and as a “female” triangle with its peak turned downward. All three great Dalmatian rivers bear feminine names. Water is, without doubt, one of the earliest and most widely used symbols our species possesses. Springs, sacred wells, rivers and lakes are connected with the water in the womb, the place where offspring is conceived and grows. Rivers flowed out of the goddess’s vagina. In this sense M. Eliade, citing W. F. Albright, asserts that the sacred rivers in Mesopotamia had, as it was believed, their source in the sexual organ,

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the womb, of the Great Goddess. Moreover, every source of a river was seen as the vagina of the Earth. In the Babylonian language the word pû means at once ‘source of a river’ and ‘vagina’. Sumerian buru means ‘vagina’ and ‘river’. The Babylonian word nagbu, ‘source’, is cognate with the Hebrew word neqebâ, which means ‘perforation’, ‘hole’ and ‘opening’. The Hebrew word ‘spring’ is used equally in the meaning ‘woman’ and ‘wife’ (Eliade 1982, 41). Let us say it simply, M. Eliade proposes, water symbolizes the entirety of potential: “it is fons et origo, the source of all possible existence... the principle of what is formless and potential, the basis of every cosmic manifestation, container of all seeds; water symbolizes the primal substance from which all forms come and to which they will return....” (Eliade 1958, 188). In the latter sense water is identical to the Water that M. A. Atwood mentions when he says that the Water which Hermes Trismegistus claims the ancient wise men divided into four substances, is not ordinary elementary water. Nor was Thales thinking of such water, when he held that all things arise from it, nor Moses, who said that the creative Spirit of God floated above its surface. This water about which the wise men speak is not the fluid we are accustomed to in everyday life, whether it is dew, a cloud, a vapour condensed in the depths of the earth, artificially distilled, water of the standing and flowing earthly waters, as the empirical chemists thought, but it is that ethereal body of life and light which the wise men discovered (Atwood 1918, 95). Therefore, this ordinary water of ours, with which among other things, we wash and quench our thirst, is only one of the forms of that “water” that the Polish alchemist Sendivogius, contemporary of our Faust Vrančić, calls water “which does not wet the hands”. In its original and unspoiled nature water is, in the words of St. Francis of Assisi, umile e preziosa e casta (humble, precious, and chaste). ‘Abd al-Kader, leader of the Algerian resistance movement against the French conquerors in the first half of the 19th century, one of the subtlest gnostic minds of the century, who spent nearly half of his life in exile, writes that this “water” (from which God made every living thing) cannot be observed by the senses and that it is “water” from the river of life of the primordial Nature that surpasses the elements (Chodkiewicz 1995, 96). In the occult lexicon this universal substance would certainly be entered under the concept of “astral fluid”. Contemplating the fundamental transformation of elements in his Philosophic Key, the brilliant Dr. R. Fludd, subject of Queen Elizabeth I, King James I and Charles I, on the basis of his own introspection and the writings of Hermes, St. Peter and Moses (so he asserts), concluded that earth is gross water, and water gross air, while air is nothing other than dense and “thickened” fire. This, he is convinced, can be confirmed by “ocular” experience just like the fact that fire by condensation creates air; the latter again condensed makes water, and water

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“coagulated” becomes earth. If this process is evident so that human senses can observe it, then it is also obvious that all things are only one thing, because all things are made of the four elements, which are, at bottom, that one substance that St. Peter calls water. Moreover, neither did Moses say that the spirit of God floated upon the heaven and earth, but upon the waters, while the separation of sky and earth happened later. After one more process of proof, Fludd is inclined to the conclusion that everything in this world is gross or thin water and that all water is spirit “thick or thin”. Therefore all things undoubtedly, he opines, are that one single thing – water (Debus 1979, 115–16). At the end of this short randomly selected review of the symbolism of water, it is useful to add that in modern times images of water became the central theme for the psychoanalytic ideas of S. Freud, while C. G. Jung recognized in water the commonest symbol for the unconscious, which means that the symbolism of water continues to capture the attention of modern man, despite the fact that he is thousands of years removed from his Neolithic caves and dugouts located, as a rule, near water. According to the stories of today’s oldest inhabitants of Danilo, the very name of Danilo itself is descended from water. It is a mistake to ascribe the name Danilo, as is ordinarily thought, to the church of St. Daniel, which is located there. The real truth, the elders say, is that the Danilo Polje, which is a karst field in which waters would collect in rainy years, had simply “dan’lo” (Cro. dahnulo, “breathed”) that same water through swallow holes into its karst womb. So that within it, probably, offspring could grow. As in the receptacle of the Danilo rhyton. The snake, that ancient water symbol and fertility goddess, is depicted most picturesquely on Danilo vessels, along with other “snake” symbols, most probably as a line that meanders, for in addition to its twisting on earth, also its ability to move through water connected it in early conceptions with the original waters of life. So as not to mention separately the different mythological suggestions obtained from Chaldean, Indian, and Greek sources of the connection of the snake with water, we will only point to the fact that in ancient Egypt, for example, there existed a myth about a primeval serpent, which in later times was called “the Serpent in the Primeval Darkness”, then – Sito – ‘Son of Earth’, or Iru/To, ‘Creator of Earth’ – a monstrous serpent who ‘took form as Iru/To, arising out of the darkness of the Primeval Waters before any definite thing yet existed’” (Rundle Clark 1978, 50). Zigzag lines, one of the most frequent decorative motifs on Danilo vessels, also found their expression in the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptians, in which the sign for water is represented with three horizontal parallel zigzag lines.

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Rivers were experienced as huge snakes, wavy “streams” in the bloodstream of life, without which the earth would be dry and barren. The snake’s shedding its skin every year has a fascinating intrinsic similarity with the natural cycles in which life constantly renews itself. The cycle of its “new life” after shedding and discarding the old, worn-out skin has left its trace, as is well known, in the spiritual concepts of the majority of world (Neolithic) cultures.2 This snake’s “immortality” was easily equated with the constantly changing phases of the Moon, as the process of life, and with the female menstrual cycle. There were beliefs that a snake’s bite causes the first menstruation in girls, and that women are very inclined to have intercourse with a snake during menstruation. Therefore in some cultures women were not allowed to go to springs or into bushes during menstruation so that they would not become pregnant by a snake. Since they are reptiles, snakes were usually seen as evil and mysterious creatures, and as cold-blooded creatures they gave the impression of being far from human emotions. However, in alchemy the snake was regarded as the embodiment of Fire. “The body of the serpent tells you it is a fiery substance, for a serpent is full of heat and fire, which made the Egyptians esteem him divine. ... Truly the Matter is a very serpent, for she renews herself in a thousand ways....” (Waite 1919, 181). Just this process of the indestructibility of matter in the natural process remained the fundamental symbol of the alchemists – ouroboros – the snake who devours its own tail, serpens qui caudam devoravit, Mercury that is coagulated by the action of its own Sulphur, but which also dissolves it by itself in an endless process of procreation and termination of forms, a cycle of birth and dying, that universal revolving that never halts even for an instant. One of the greatest alchemical adepts, the Parisian Nicolas Flamel, represents the whole thing in the ophitic symbolic element: “These are the Serpents and Dragons which the ancient Egyptians portrayed in a circle, the head biting the tail, in order to say that they had proceeded from one and the same thing, and that it alone was sufficient unto itself and that its turning and circulation was perfected” (Smith 2001, 22). We have here the same snake in whose circle the alchemists as early as the first centuries AD, as it says in Codex Marcianus, inscribed Hen to pan – One, Everything (Lindsay 1970, 254, 260). Andarnah, the Hermetic philosopher, who is cited by the philosopher Morienus in conversation with King 2 The goddess Hecate – a Neolithic relic in Antiquity – is frequently depicted with hissing snakes in her hair. On the other side of the ocean, Xipe Totec, “Our Lord the Flayed One”, the Aztec god of springtime and rebirth, in order to induce birth in nature and in people, flayed his own skin in order to give food to the human race (just as the grain of maize discards its outer covering so that the sprout can grow). After he discarded his skin he reappeared as a shining, golden god. In his honour human sacrifices were offered every year at the beginning of spring (22 February). The sacrifices would be flayed alive, and their skin was worn on various occasions by Xipe Totec’s priests.

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Khālid, advises that the beginning of that matter attests its end, and its end is at once its beginning, and that the entire thing is but one matter, which has a father and mother that brought it into the world, but that at the same time it is, all by itself, its own father and mother (Stavenhagen 1974, 23). No less important is the fact that this crawling creature disappears for part of the year, withdrawing into the earth, to appear again in another season. Therefore it is not strange that Neolithic people connected it with the underground world, viewing it as having the power of self-regeneration and, in connection with this, the wisdom of the Goddess. In all parts of the world where the Goddess was worshipped it is possible to find symbols of twisted and zigzag lines, spirals, meanders etc. As a result, even the Goddess herself is represented as a snake. Thus in India the serpent goddess is called Ananta or Kadru; in ancient Egypt the “rearing Cobra Goddess was Ejo and came from a city in the Delta,” moreover even the Egyptian hieroglyph for goddess in fact depicted a snake... (Rundle Clark 1978, 242, 259). In Sumer the snake goddess Nammu gives birth to Heaven and Earth; in Babylon they called her the “Mistress of Snakes”; the Cretans depicted her with snakes in her hand, etc. “To shed one’s skin”, M. Eliade asserts, in Vedic India as in many other traditions, meant to free oneself of the “old person” and bring back youth, or to proceed to a higher way of being (Eliade 2004, 102–103). In Vedic texts, however, reptilian behaviour is characteristic of the gods. In Satapatha Brahmana (II, 3; I, 3 and 6) it is written that the Sun escapes from the Night...just as Ahi (the Snake) escapes from its skin. And the god Soma “just like Ahi, crawls out from his old skin”. The act of casting off an animal skin and getting out of it plays an important ritual role: one who performs it is seen as escaping the worldly state, sin or old age (Eliade 2004, 103). Reporting on the teachings of the Gnostic tradition, Bishop Hippolytus in his Elenchos states that the Naassenes believed that the snake (naas) is present in all substances and beings. All temples are named for it; every shrine, every inscription, every secret is dedicated to the snake. All things are subject to her (the snake) and she is good, and she has everything within herself as in the horn of a one-horned bull. She gives beauty and maturity to all creatures. And also: not a single being, immortal or mortal, animate or inanimate, can exist without her (Jung 1984, 462–463). According to the entheogenic theory, ancient deities were personified entheogenic mushrooms for these can produce “the death of the ego” and spiritual rebirth, which inspired people to believe that they had died spiritually and been born again as demigods in a new spiritual reality which they previously had not been capable of perceiving. In ancient times this phenomenon was connected

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with the renewed “birth” of the snake after casting off its old skin, and the ability of the mushroom to cause the death of the ego and spiritual rebirth was ascribed to its poison, just as the snake is born again thanks to its poison. For Gimbutas the snake represents a transfunctional symbol that permeates the entire symbolism of “Old Europe”. Its influence is not felt only in the creation but also in the fertility and multiplication and especially in the renewal of the dying force of life. Joined with magic plants the snake’s power was potent in recovery and creation of life anew. Coiled and climbing upward, the snake was a symbol of rising force, seen as a column of life that arises from the cave and from graves. As such it was interchangeable with the symbols of the tree of life and of the spine (Gimbutas 1989, 121). In the system of Egyptian hieroglyphics the sign of horns has the meaning “that which is above the head”, while its other meaning is “glory and elevation”. Most primitive traditions viewed horn(s) as an expression of strength and power. In examples from our spiritual heritage, much as in other old cultures as well, the bull, ox and also the cow were basically seen in beliefs as creatures of great strength, connected to the earth, underground life, renewal and preservation of life and the force of life. In ancient times they were sacrificial animals, a trace of which is preserved only in collective festivals of larger villages or narrower regions. It is no wonder that numerous goddesses of the old world were depicted wearing bull’s horns on their heads (Ereshkigal, Hathor, Astarte ...). An Orphic hymn dedicated to Selene,3 goddess of the Moon, begins with the lines: Hear, Goddess queen [thea basileia], diffusing silver light, Bull-horn’d, and wand’ring thro’ the gloom of Night (Taylor 2003, 41).

Artemis (Diana), who is the female personification of destructive but also productive and maintaining forces, is called the triple Hecate and represented with three female bodies joined together. Lucian in his Syrian Goddess (De Dea Syria, 4) reports that the Phoenicians of Sidon had a great temple dedicated to their goddess Astarte. “But I hold,” he continues, “this Astartê to be no other than the moon-goddess. But according to the story of one of the priests this temple is sacred to Europa, the sister of Cadmus” (Lucian 1913, 43–44). Indeed, Europa, Astartê, Venus-Urania, and the Syrian, Phrygian and Babylonian goddesses are the same deity. Brimo or, as they also called her, the Tauric or Scythian Diana, symbol of destructive force, or Tauropola and Boōn Elateia alluding to her team of bulls, was according to Tzetzes’ Scholium the same as Hecate ... Persephone 3 The famous adept Fulcanelli of the 1920s, whose identity has remained a secret to this very day, explains in the Hermetic manner that Selene (Greek selēnē) was made from two words selas (brightness) and ele (sunlight). The two words were selected by the initiates to show that Philosophical Mercury gets its gleam from Sulphur just as the Moon gets its light from the Sun (Fulcanelli 1999, 458).

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is Brimo, so Hecate and Persephone are the same” (Knight and Wright 2006, 102). Along the same line of thought Rundle Clark sums up his observation about the Egyptian goddesses: “All the major goddesses are really forms of the one Great Goddess” so that there were some mythological situations when “Isis and Hathor can be easily confounded (Rundle Clark 1978, 266)”. One of the great goddesses who wore the horns of the half-moon on her head – Isis – presents herself to Lucius, an initiate to her mysteries, in this way: “Behold, Lucius, I am come; thy weeping and prayer hath moved me to succour thee. I am she that is the natural mother of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the initial progeny of worlds, chief of the powers divine, queen of all that are in hell, the principal of them that dwell in heaven, manifested alone and under one form of all the gods and goddesses. At my will the planets of the sky, the wholesome winds of the seas, and the lamentable silences of hell be disposed; my name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world, in divers manners, in variable customs, and by many names. For the Phrygians that are the first of all men call me the Mother of the gods at Pessinus; the Athenians, which are sprung from their own soil, Cecropian Minerva; the Cyprians, which are girt about by the sea, Paphian Venus; the Cretans which bear arrows, Dictynnian Diana; the Sicilians, which speak three tongues, infernal Proserpine; the Eleusians their ancient goddess Ceres; some Juno, other Bellona, other Hecate, other Rhamnusia, and principally both sort of the Ethiopians which dwell in the Orient and are enlightened by the morning rays of the sun, and the Egyptians, which are excellent in all kind of ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustom to worship me, do call me by my true name, Queen Isis” (Apulej 1969, 207–208. Apuleius, 1915). Horns are, as the ethnologist V. Čulinović-Konstantinović notes, a symbol of veneration of lunar forces depicted in headgear in use up to our times. These headdresses at once express an unconscious continuation of old beliefs and attribution of positive divine powers to the bull-ox, whose horns are its most impressive representations. An extreme variant of the use of the very form of the horn as a (magical) protective means can also be found in the hairstyles typical for women in the broad area of Dalmatia and its mountainous hinterland. Braids are crossed at the back of the head so that the right one is placed behind the left ear and fastened to the top of the head, and the left one is fastened on the right side. Depending on the length of the hair the braids may be joined at the top of the head or only be tied with a string. The beginnings of the braids at the back of the head are thicker, and their narrower end is raised toward the top of the head, so that one gets the same impression as with horns on the head of an animal (Čulinović-Konstantinović 1998, 164–165). However, there is something

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else in these traditional forms of women’s hairstyles that escaped the observant eye of the ethnologist, for example that the braids wound around the head clearly indicate the symbol of the coiled snake. In Šibenik unmarried women wore the kùnkun. The married ones wore on their head the silken šudar (Latin sudarium, Italian sudario, Venetian sudar – “scarf,” “kerchief ”). Š. Županović observed that this šudar among women in Dolac (part of Šibenik) was fastened at the middle of the head with a clasp and that just such kerchiefs are often found on Roman monuments that show parts of Illyrian female costume. Knowing how close the Illyrian mythologies were with the ophitic cults that found their expression in the everyday life of individuals, including costume, which, unlike today’s fashion, was not a mere derivative of consumer-trends but frequently a cosmogonic-salvational concept articulated through costume/clothing as the most elementary need of the human being, it is not impossible that the Šibenik šudar with its historical Illyrian background in a traditional sense evoked the Illyrian snake symbolism. Clasps in the form of snakes among the Illyrians were one of the most evident symbols of their cult. When we take into account that Šibenik with its nearby environs once belonged to Delmatian Rider, we cannot exclude the possibility that both many customs and costume could have been taken over from these surviving not fully Romanized Illyrians. Or, as I. Ostojić would say: “The survivors, who remained in their fatherland, gave the Croatians some of their knowledge, acquainted them with the names of places, hills, watercourses, influenced their costume, customs, gave them many words, some of which we use today....” (Ostojić 1980). Only by appreciating the early Illyrian-Slavic symbiosis can we explain the un-Romanized nature of the Šibenik region that we find not only in names, beliefs but also in customs that have managed to be preserved to this day (Lorger 2004). As for the Minoan so-called cult horns of consecration in the late Minoan period, it has been confirmed without doubt that they are of religious origin and that their source was in Egypt, where they formed part of the iconography of the goddess Hathor, who appeared in numerous forms especially to help the sun god to overcome the forces of the night so that he could be reborn in the morning. Hathor likewise was the goddess who protected the dead. So the Minoan use of horns of consecration, especially in the later period (the second half of the 2nd millennium BC), emphasized the desire for renewal of life if their meaning in Egypt is taken into account. The combination of horns and symbols like the snake is very valuable as an iconographic interpretation of the snake which includes the possibility of renewed birth; this is vividly reflected in the behaviour of these reptiles through their seasonal shedding of skin. The chthonic association with snakes too becomes clear on account

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of their withdrawal underground during cold times and in the evening to appear again in spring and in the morning when the air is warmer (Marinatos 1993, 158). On the basis of symbolic analogy, the handle of the rhyton represents the sky, the four legs the earth and the receptacle the contact point between these two primary principles – vas naturae, the cosmic womb of life, that in which the world takes shape, from which it is born and also to which it again returns. This female deity of life the ancient inhabitants of Danilo represented, as we have said, by the symbolic application of red paint that can rub off on the lower and inner, or “female”, parts of the rhyton: the lower part of the handle, the interior of the receptacle and the lower part of the vessel. The horns, actually the handle of the rhyton, are the round vault of the heavens, power, solstices and equinoxes. The sun’s travels “come out” from the earth and “sink” into it, as is picturesquely conveyed in ancient Egyptian images of the travels of the sun god Raa from sunset to dawn through the underworld, in which his sun boat is attacked by Apep, a huge water snake, the demon of darkness and chaos.4 Curved horns/travels of the Sun are fastened/lie on the vase/receptacle. This is the moment when the sacred marriage, hieros gamos, takes place between Sky and Earth, the sky god and the earth mother.5 Their wedding, the fertile union of two principles, takes place in perpetuity. The horn of plenty, cornucopia, overflows at every moment with an abundance of forms/fruits of nature. The opening of the receptacle on the rhyton is the opening of the hollow cornucopia, from which all the fruits of this world are poured...everything that is necessary for nature to grow and luxuriate and for the human race to prosper. One of the attributes of the Anatolian Cybele or Magna Mater [Great Mother], as she was called in Rome when in 204 BC she was introduced into their pantheon, was precisely the horn of plenty (see motifs Pl. XII, fig. 21). It is no less important to mention that during the spring festival celebrating the Magna Mater, or the resurrection of Atis (on which later the date but also the symbolic content of Christian Easter was “based”), after ritual tauromachy, the testes and horns of the sacrificed bulls were brought into the temple of Cybele and placed on her altar. The carrying of the horns, those “penetrating forms” into the very centre of the temple is the carrying of the solar, creative force into the moist chthonic darkness of the womb – the horns/handle of the rhyton which penetrate the 4

In antiquity these two itineraries of the Sun, “by day” and “by night”, according to Macrobius, were called Apollo and Dionysus (or Bacchus), or Castor and Pollux, who as twins in turn die and live (Knight and Wright 2006, 86). 5 Of the main mystery cults of the Greeks and the Romans – those of Demeter and Persephone, Dionysus and the Orphic ones connected with them, the Magna Mater, the Samothracian and Mythraic mysteries, the first four used the symbol of the sacred marriage.

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receptacle of the rhyton! This symbolism might be indicated by two mountain names in the vicinity of the Danilo field: Crno Brdo [Black Hill] and Bikarac [Bull-]. There is no doubt that the Mediterranean has always been an area of interpenetration of diverse traditions. For Milovan Gavazzi, the most famous Croatian ethnologist of the past century, the Mediterranean area of traditional culture of southeastern Europe belongs in a strict sense to the Balkan peninsula, since it stretches as a border zone along its whole southwestern and southern edge: along the Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean seas. Among other features of this area, he asserts, “is evident the very frequent use of cattle horns as means for defence against evil forces” (Gavazzi 1978, 193). Evil forces are, of course, chaos, or that Egyptian water snake of old. This same “area” of Gavazzi’s corresponds almost completely with the area of distribution of the cult of the rhyton.

7 A Spiral (Double)

One of the most beautiful and best-preserved double spiral motifs is on the handle of the rhyton from Smilčić that is kept in the Zadar Archaeological Museum (Pl. V, fig. 8; Pl. VI, fig. 9).1 The double spiral represents a unique cosmic force which acts in opposite directions in the two hemispheres. In Breuil’s opinion, cited by J. E. Cirlot, the double spiral may represent a stylized image of bull’s horns. It is likewise noteworthy that the signs that initiate the cycle of the zodiac are Aries the Ram and Taurus the Bull, thus horned animals, as well as Capricorn the Goat, under whose sign the winter solstice, so important to farmers and herders, takes place (Cirlot 2002, 151). In evaluating the cult function of the rhyton, A. Benac warns, we must always bear in mind the fact that they have a definite zoomorphic form, confirmed by the four legs and the slanting opening with the upright handle, which reminds us of bent horns. We must add to this other features, particularly the already mentioned symbol of the solar disk on the leg from Kakanj (the very frequent use of a spiral decoration on the rhyta from Danilo and Smilčić can perhaps be interpreted in the same sense). In describing rhyta from the Kakanj Culture, Benac states: “...on one massive conic leg of the rhyton from Kakanj is executed a motif of two concentric circles. Since these circles are created by the “barbed wire” technique, they absolutely represent the solar disk symbol. In this way a specific heliolatric cult is connected to the cult rhyta in the Kakanj Culture. And secondly, in the decoration of Kakanj Group rhyta an important role is played by red paint (as in Dalmatia) since whole surfaces were covered with this paint after firing” (Benac 1979, 403). The sun is likewise the source of life and fertility, especially fertility in the fields, so its symbol is a logical, ancillary phenomenon on rhyta. In this case a herding and an agricultural cult would have been united in one single fertility cult. There is no doubt that the double spiral symbol pressed into the clay handle 1 J. Korošec presents a sketch (No. IV, figure IV, picture 21) of the spiral from the handle of the rhyton from Danilo Bitinj with variously hatched spaces between. In the incisions is red incrustation (Korošec 1952, 115).

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of the rhyton is an image of the sun’s natural cycles, especially the solstices and equinoxes. The American artist C. Ross, who exclusively used sun and star light for his art, in the period between the two autumn equinoxes 1971–1972 followed the sun’s movement in the sky by means of fixed lenses focused on boards which he changed every day. After 366 days the traces burnt into the boards unambiguously indicated that the Sun in its motion traced a perfect double spiral. Another time, using a so-called Uriel’s Machine, actually two stakes stuck into the ground a few feet apart, in order to equalize the shadows of the equinox/ sunrise and sunset and indicate the centre, Ross recorded the shadows that the sun, with the help of the stakes, cast during the year. As the sun moved from the vernal equinox toward the summer solstice it traced a spiral on the ground, only to turn and come back to the initial point at the autumnal equinox. One spiral corresponds to a period of three months and therefore three spirals must correspond to nine months, the period of human pregnancy. A triple spiral at Newgrange is carved into the great rockface at the entrance and in the hidden part of the interior space to which only the light of Venus penetrates. Numerous megalithic monuments from the Neolithic – let us mention only Stonehenge in Britain and Newgrange in Ireland – are adapted to the seasonal cycles, that is the solstices and equinoxes. At Newgrange there took place one of the earliest spectacles known to archaeologists which reflect belief in the parallelism of the cycle of the sun and that of life, probably about 3200 BC. Death, the winter solstice and the sun are shown in a grave on a ridge above the River Boyne north of Dublin. During the winter solstice the light of the rising sun penetrates the darkened corridor and, proceeding eighty feet to its end, illuminates a tripartite chamber. With interwoven triple spirals, evocative symbols of the interlinked cosmic levels, carved into the chamber walls, in that space the cremated remains of a number of individuals could be buried. Perhaps the builders of Newgrange were convinced that the dead would thus be brought into the cosmic rhythm that the solstice represented; perhaps there was a hope that in some way the cycle of life and death of the privileged individual buried there could correspond with the cycle of the sun so that the dead person would be returned to life. During the winter solstice the cold sun dies low on the horizon only to be reborn. Newgrange could have been the witness of belief in sympathetic magic that associates the human rhythm of life and death with the rhythm of the life and death of the sun. But it could likewise have contained the symbolism of what we consider to be the foundation of the world. Therefore the annual illumination of the floor of the deep corridor could be a symbol of the joining of the earth and sun elements that creates life (McKim Malville 1995).

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While we are on the topic of megaliths and spirals, it is worth mentioning that M. Gavazzi observed them when studying the old tradition of stone počivala (mirila) [grave-like monuments at places where the body rested on the way to the cemetery] and stone grave monuments with pictorial images and customs, which can be seen as megalithic, throughout the broad border area of the western Balkan peninsula. He also describes the stećak gravestones, massive blocks of stone, hence megaliths in the literal sense, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. “These stone blocks,” writes Gavazzi, “can be designated as megalithic phenomena, not only by their size (dimensions) but also for certain pictorial elements with which they are often decorated and which point convincingly to the megalithic” (Gavazzi 1978, 229). The zigzag motif, well known to us from the Danilo Culture, often appears on these medieval monuments, especially as a border motif, and for some necropolises it is a typical local tradition, which generally occurs as a feature of megalithic monuments. The Radimlja necropolis in Herzegovina deserves particular attention for a motif which can be interpreted as a typical megalithic element: a vertical branching figure nearly always placed on the narrow sides of a stećak, with the branches ending in two oppositely oriented spirals, which are sometimes modified in various fashions, decorated with curls, bunches of grapes and other ornaments, and can further develop in multiple ways. Against the previous interpretations of the meaning or origin of these motifs, particularly characteristic of stećaks, Gavazzi contrasts the “no less convincing interpretation” that recognizes figures from megalithic grave monuments in that branching motif (Ibid., 253). He wonders whether megaliths appeared here as far back as prehistoric times, brought by a cultural current that contained a more or less pronounced megalithic component, or whether individual megalithic elements, already freed from the former unified megalithic cultural complex, were later brought by cultural currents active in the Balkans and found an area of secondary distribution here; some indications, he says, favour the latter. Stećak gravestones originated throughout the Middle Ages in the hinterland of the Adriatic coast and on the coast itself. Today there are estimated to be more than 70 thousand of them preserved in the Dinaric mountain areas (especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and western Serbia). Š. Bešlagić, the eminent Bosnian authority on stećaks, who finds the spiral to be “known as a primordial motif of death and resurrection”( Bešlagić 1967, 91; 1982, 207), observes five variants of this motif on stećaks: the ordinary and the S-spiral, the double spiral, the one combined with a cross and that combined with a bunch of grapes (Bešlagić 1982, 200). The most double spirals are around Olovo, Ilijaš, Breza and Vareš. Not infrequently there are variant combinations

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of double spirals with a cross while a bunch of grapes hangs from each spiral, and there are examples in which two bunches of grapes hang from each of them (Ibid., 204). Benac estimates that the S - or double spiral motifs are older than the single spiral curves although he is aware, observing the double-spiral motifs on the stećaks throughout the Olovo area, that “they do not have their old symbolic meaning” but now represent “a mere mechanical transmission of the ancient ornament, which had lost its original meaning a long time ago.” Such a conclusion derives from Benac’s opinion that in the combination of the cross and spiral, the latter is a mere decorative complement to the Christian sign of the cross (Benac 1951, 53). Studying the stećaks from Radimlja near Stolac, the best-known stećak site in Herzegovina, as an excellent prehistorian, he notes that the spiral is a “very old ornamental motif and was well known even in early prehistoric times”. He finds it interesting to cite G. Wilke, who sees the spiral as an old symbolic motif that corresponds to a snail’s whorls and as such represents a symbol of death and resurrection. The same author connects the spiral with a representation of the vulva, with the Great Mother and the cult of the moon (Wilke 1924, 33, 36). Similar observations about double spirals are presented by the “good spirit of Bosnia”, the late British-American artist and art historian, Marian Wenzel, “the world’s leading authority on the art and artifacts of medieval Bosnia and Herzegovina”; she interpreted those on the stećaks as signs of female fertility that are there due to the belief that the deceased can return to life (Wenzel 1962, 92–93). Agricultural peoples throughout the world observed nature with particular attentiveness since they depended on the seasonal cycles. The winter solstice signified a point between the “death” of the world of nature and its return to life. When the cycle reaches its peak, it turns in the opposite direction. The sun’s path, as it appears above the horizon, from the winter solstice to the summer solstice traces wider and wider circles, thereafter becoming ever narrower toward the end of the year. Seen as a whole, this resembles an outward coiled spiral which after a certain number of coils turns into an inward coiling one; life unceasingly turns inward and outward, melts-expands and condenses-contracts; the hermetics would have said solve et coagula [dissolve and coagulate]. The opposition that is manifest in the two phases of the Sun’s path, rising and setting, corresponds in a certain sense to the opposition of sky and earth, with the difference that here both sides are mobile, so that, instead of opposite causes, interacting forces are at work. Sky and earth are above and below; the two solstices are southern and northern and they relate to one another as expansion and

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contraction. Expansion on the one side corresponds to contraction on the other so as to establish equilibrium, that imperative for the survival of the universe. The culmination of one cycle coincides with the beginning of another; the end of one coincides with the birth of the next. Indeed, this universal “maternal” nature, not evident as such, is manifested through two pairs of opposites, four qualities that appear in the order of the observable world as hot and cold, dry and wet. Hot and cold are active qualities, opposed one to the other, which likewise manifest the forces of expansion and contraction, and they determine the pair of passive qualities – dry and wet. If this is applied to the four cardinal points of the zodiac, cold will correspond with the two solstices, which in some sense reflect the polar contraction, whereas hot corresponds with the two equinoxes, which are located on the equator. Therefore the cardinal signs follow one another by means of opposites. These pairs of opposites that stand for all life are wound up into a pair of mutually connected and mutually reproductive spirals. The double spiral motif has remained as a recognizable symbol, to this day imprinted on the so-called Šibenik cap or cap na bòule of the Šibenik labourers.2 Š. Županović considers the expression na bòule to be most probably of Mediterranean origin since it still preserves the protolanguage diphthong *ou, which disappeared long ago in various Indo-European languages. The etymology for bule, bulin etc. is the same. We do not know which pre-Indo-European language of Mediterranean origin it could have been whose early inhabitants used the protolinguistic *ou in the Šibenik area. Probably it was proto-Venetic, in which there are traces of the protolinguistic -ou (loudero-) of Mediterranean origin.3 The diphthong in any case belongs to the pre-Greek period. The Šibenik expression boule, unlike other similar expressions, for example Latin bēlua, bellua and Romanian băláur, preserved the same referent – the snake, dragon. “If we bear in mind that the Venetic linguistic territory is close to our northern Adriatic coastal territory, which includes the Istrian peninsula and the coastal zone to the mouth of the river Krka and the nearby islands, then it should not seem unusual to us that they took up the cult of the snake in contact with the early inhabitants of our coast. This is also confirmed by the characteristic names on 2

Also, Benac noticed that the S-spiral motif was still present on the folk costumes in some parts of Bosnia around the middle of the last century. (Benac 1951:53) Unlike the embroidered boul caps, an ordinary cap in Šibenik was called a šćet. That is likewise a red cap, 3 cm high, but without any decorations. It was worn with a black jacket. 3 In the 1950s the Italian archaeologist P. Laviosa Zambotti dedicated her work to the connections that existed in prehistory between the territory of today’s Dalmatia and eastern Veneto. Her investigations as well as newer ones from the last two decades indicated unmistakably that this area and the Trieste Karst, at least at the beginning of the Neolithic, were part of the Danilo cultural and ideological sphere in the Neolithic (Biagi 2004).

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our coast that are closely cognate with the Venetic ones in northern Italy. They thus form one large northern Adriatic name area with one clearly expressed internal organization that stretches from the mouth of the river Po to the mouth of the river Krka” (Županović 1991, 51). These assertions of R. Katičić and M. Križman, which Š. Županović reports, could find their confirmation in a palaeoclimatological sense as well. It is possible that in the Palaeolithic up until the retreat of the Pleistocene glaciers and the warming at the beginning of the Holocene (approximately 10,000 BC), when the northern part of the Adriatic had not yet filled up with water, there was unhindered communication among the early inhabitants there, which could have resulted in “a single name area”. The mouth of the river Po at that time was located somewhere southwest of the island Jabuka. The Šibenik boul (na boule) is a later loanword from Venetic bovolo (Lorger 2004a). V. Vinja observes that the name is somewhat strange on account of the succession of two dark [back] vowels in a purely Štokavian dialect, which is likewise a sign of a recent borrowing. The closest Romance forms are the Istrian word bobolo/bovolo (Umag) and buolo/buvolo (Rovinj), with meanings that range from “snail” and “curl” to the contemporary “spiral spring”. In Venetian bovolo is “snail” (It. lumaca) while imbovolor means “to curl” (arricciare, innanellare). Among the Zadar Italians bobolo is “sea snail”, thus Šibenik boul (na boule) leads us to the animal names (names of molluscs) volak [murex], voljak, volar, volić, volujak etc. The name for this sea snail comes from the Latin bos, bovis (ox, cow), from which we have Venetian bobolo or bovolo. Thus the cap and the snail are “of the same content substance”, i.e. the same image is expressed by different linguistic means. The Zadar expression bobolo finds its counterpart far from central Dalmatia, at Krtole (Boka Kotorska) – bunbuljak. The bunbuljak is in fact Trochocochlea turbinata, a water snail. There could be a connection between this and a find from Vela Spila on Korčula, where in a layer from the later Neolithic/Hvar Culture two skeletons were excavated which belonged to females, one turned onto her left, the other onto her right side (graves 1/1985 and 2/1985). The latter, a woman of 30–35, held in her hands a rather large fragment of a ceramic vessel and around her head were a series of about ten sea snails (Čečuk and Radić 2005, 160). Don’t these sea snails around the head of the deceased woman have the same symbolism as the sea snails/spirals on the Šibenik cap, which, of course, was meant for the head? This would also be a confirmation of Vinja’s words that the cap and the snail are of the same content substance. The spiral is one of those cultural features specific to Danilo about whose source and spread different opinions have been expressed: is it from northern

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Africa, Greece, central Europe or Bosnia? On the basis of the description by the archaeologist V. Milojčić, A. Benac compares painted Danilo ceramics – goblets with a rounded lower part and flat bottom – with a form characteristic of the Greek Middle Neolithic, more precisely, Dimini (phase B) in Thessaly, by which it can be distinguished from the previous Sesklo phase. Aside from the fact that these two ceramics are very similar in form, many geometric motifs on the painted ceramics of phase B also resemble Danilo ones, for example chequerboards, various interweavings, zigzag lines, etc. Regarding the hatched triangles on ceramics at the Greek sites Rakhmani, Tsangli and Drakhmani, painted or incised in the Dimini-Sesklo period, G. Novak concludes “that the whole southern part of the Balkan peninsula was familiar with this way of decorating their vessels and their ceramics in general”. Such a manner of decoration also encompasses Macedonia (Novak 1955, 36).4 Of course, for both areas the motif of a spiral ornament was a favourite: at Danilo incised in the ceramics, while in the Greek area they were represented in both painted and incised decorations (Benac 1964, 81).5 Dimini-phase ceramics were frequently decorated with spirals and meanders, unlike those from the earlier Sesklo phase of the continental (Thessalian) Neolithic, which were often of high quality and decorated with simple linear painted decorations. S. S. Weinberg believes that the spiral decoration from the Elateia rhyton in Greece should be connected with the Dimini Late-Neolithic phase in Thessaly (Weinberg 1962, 193). Decorations on the same vase may be in two colours (polychrome), not only monochrome as before. M. S. F. Hood, Director of the British Archaeological School in Athens, mentions that these decorations strikingly resemble those on the painted ceramics of some Early Neolithic cultures from the northern parts of the Balkan peninsula, which are connected with the Trypillye Culture [non-nomadic Neolithic communities distributed from the lower Danube Valley along the eastern spurs of the Carpathians, across Bessarabia and the Ukraine all the way to the Dnipro and the territory beyond it, about 3000–1700 BC] (Hood 1969, 219, 318). Referring to M. Garašanin, Benac holds that the incised spiral on Danilo ceramics, despite its similarity with the Thessalian Neolithic ornamentation, came from central Europe and that nobody denies its continental origin. Among the spiral motifs on these ceramics the most frequent are unbroken 4

On the other hand, that linear decoration was spread over a huge area from India, across the Iranian highlands, Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt to Asia Minor. 5 Benac also mentions the similarity with the incised decorations on the Aeolian islands, on ceramics found in the lowest layer of the acropolis in Lipari, which contains very decorative meander and kindred motifs.

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series of “S” motifs, while spiral “C” motifs are relatively rare. The spaces between the “S” motifs are filled with incised lines, so that the ornamental field is always filled (Pl. V, fig. 8; Pl. VI, fig. 9; Pl. XI, fig. 18 and fig. 19; Pl. XII, fig. 20). A similar tendency is also to be sensed among straight-lined motifs. The origin of these decorations, according to Benac, is likewise to be sought in the continental tradition, “which is in contact with the new environment and under Mediterranean influence took on a specific look” (Benac 1964, 80). The assertion refers primarily to the Bükk Culture in Hungary, in which analogous decorative phenomena are noticeable – thickly hatched triangles in the space between various crooked and curved motifs. In Danilo and Smilčić we have especially triangles between spiral motifs, whereas in the Bükk Culture there are other curved and crooked decorations, but also incised spiral motifs in various combinations. With such ornamental motifs, as well as other decorative elements, the Bükk Culture ceramics are surely the most decorative ceramics of the Danube Valley and central Europe, just as the Danilo ceramics are the most decorative in the Middle Neolithic of the northwestern Balkans (Ibid.). Not wanting to be misunderstood, Benac repeats that he is not thinking that the Danilo Culture arose directly out of the Bükk Culture, but only that they have in common some basic “ornamental manners” that come just from central Europe (Ibid.). On the other hand, at the Romanian Neolithic site Rast, which has yielded an exceptionally large amount of anthropomorphic statuary, spirals can be seen on the figurines on which the decorations most often descend from the breasts to the feet, and on the back side from the ribs downward. The basic decoration on the figurines is a pair of incised lines several millimetres apart, arranged as meanders, and as angular and spiral decorations. When, for example, the decoration begins below the neck, two or three spirals are placed horizontally next to one another; the rest of the body (from the chest on down) is frequently decorated with meanders and angular decorations on the front. Sometimes such decoration is interrupted by spirals on the upper part of the legs. These spirals are nearly always connected with or continue spirals that cover the ribs and buttocks on the side, thus emphasising the prominent parts of the anatomy (Dumitrescu 1980, 61). In their spiral decoration the Danilo and Butmir cultures have similar motifs. Since the spiral is a typical Balkan element, Korošec is of the opinion that it came to Danilo from some group that was older than the Butmir and also older than the Danilo Culture (Korošec 1958, 146). Nevertheless, there also exist quite clear differences between the spiral decorations of these two groups. At Danilo the spiral is incised, and there are no sculpted spiral motifs, as at

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Butmir (Benac 1956, 179). While in the Butmir Culture these are regularly spiral S and C motifs, in the Danilo Group they are normally surrounded by triangular and similar hatched fields. In the latter group, likewise, these motifs are mainly emphasised by red incrustation, in the Butmir significantly less so. In the Kakanj cultural group, on the other hand, there are no spiral motifs whatsoever; there are rhyta with four thickened legs, but with a different kind of decoration on them. The phenomenon of thickened legs with incised hatched bands appears in the Rakhmani B2 phase of Greece, which fully corresponds to such rhyton legs of the Danilo Culture, but in their decoration they are far closer to the legs in the Kakanj cultural group (Benac 1964, 82). That spiral motifs on Smilčić ceramics were executed exclusively by incising is confirmed also by Š. Batović (Pl. XI, fig. 18 and fig. 19). Only on fragments of two vessels is the spiral sculpted (Pl. X, fig. 15). The spirals form horizontal bands bordered by two lines, with the bands covering most or all of the mantle of the vessel or the greater part of it around the middle. A simple combination of a continuous spiral seems to have been the most frequent spiral motif, but there is evidence of the existence of more complex combinations. Red incrustation is observed only in spiral motifs (Batović 1961, 84). Research at Obre (Kakanj) in Bosnia yielded insights that could define the phenomenon of the spiral chronologically and genetically. It became clear that the spiral decoration in the Danilo Culture did not spread from Bosnia, but in the opposite direction, from the Danilo Culture piecemeal into the Kakanj Culture. At the end of the Danilo and beginning of the Hvar phase the Butmir Culture took it over en masse, especially in relief, which is demonstrated by exported vessels, as well as imitation of Danilo vessels.6 Nor can the origin of the spiral decoration be central Europe, Albania, Greece or Italy. Isolated examples of crudely incised spiral motifs already exist in the third stage of the Early Neolithic in Gudnja Cave. Bearing all that in mind, Batović concludes that the spiral developed independently on the territory of the Danilo Culture, as a specific expression of the development of the culture connected with the growth of agriculture, weaving and beliefs. As for the Gudnja Cave on Pelješac, that multilayered prehistoric site, especially the part from the Middle Neolithic, the archaeologist B. Marijanović in describing its painted ceramics asserts that both straight-lined and crooked and curvilinear motifs were represented among the decorations, going from the simplest linear motifs and compositions 6 Contacts and interpenetration of cultures in the Middle Neolithic are simply a fact. Thus, for example, the Starčevo Culture in northern Banat and Bačka mingles with the Körös Culture, in Macedonia with the Sesklo Culture, in the Sofia Basin with the Karanovo I Culture, in the valley of the Bosna and Piva with the coastal culture of the Crvena Stijena-Smilčić type.

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“to complicated geometric motifs and compositions such as meanders, spiral meanders and spirals”. On a monochrome ceramic, curvilinear decorations are represented by the motif of the linked spiral; the decorations are executed in red paint. The smallest number of Gudnja finds belong to the category of multicoloured painted ceramics, but then they are the highest quality decorated examples; on all of them the decoration is formed by spiral motifs executed in red paint, while black is used for outlining them (Marijanović 2005, 41–42, 44–45). N. Petrić remarks that the motifs characteristic of that culture are, among others, the meander and the spiral. However, in Gudnja there is no layer of the Danilo Culture, while in the fourth layer of that cavern Hvar Culture ceramics predominate (Petrić 1976, 300–301). The basic characteristic of the Hvar Culture, which according to predominant thought is the continuation of the Danilo, is the production of a huge quantity of excellently crafted ceramic vessels, first and foremost made of good raw materials, dark or black in colour, with a superbly polished surface, decorated in a manner characteristic of the Late Neolithic. Polishing as a technique for treating the surface of a vessel is known from the beginning of the Middle Neolithic, where it comes together with ceramics painted with a lasting paint on a light background, but the peak of its development came in the Hvar Culture, when it was often combined with very decorative, impermanent red painting, executed after firing. Outstanding among the finds are the large shiny-surfaced dishes with wide, red-painted spirals, usually additionally filled in with tiny incisions. The contrast between the shiny, black polished surface and the unpolished, bright red painted motif was intended to achieve the most powerful decorative impression. This effect was sometimes further strengthened by filling in the incisions with a white mixture, whose base was a powder obtained by grinding the shells of sea shellfish. The dishes used for everyday food preparation, or coarse ceramics, as specialists usually call them, are represented by an impressive quantity of about five hundred fragments per square metre. Ordinary pots and bowls were not so carefully decorated, since their function far outweighed their decorative appearance. Nevertheless, even among these vessels we find numerous incised realistic and distorted spirals, meanders, hanging or standing triangles, semicircles, lunar, spearlike, draped and other motifs. The Hvar Culture in all its developmental stages, especially the late one, was very sensitive to the turbulence in the hinterland, and due to the constant influence from the interior gradually accepted part of the cultural features of continental origin. Its evolution is reflected in the import of new elements, a change in the decorative style and, doubtless, an influx of population, and the result is evident in the gradual but sure loss of part of the Mediterranean components (rhyta,

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red painting, spirals) and in the predominance of uniform black polishing, subcutaneous handles (tunnel handles) and, of course, the distinguishing feature of the latest Adriatic Neolithic, i.e. fluting. The ornamental system of the classical stage undergoes a gradual but fundamental disintegration and degeneration. The beauty of the former spiral motifs becomes unrecognisable, distorted, and ends up as simplification and the disappearance of the spiral and other more complicated ornamentation. From where did the spiral come to Hvar, wonders G. Novak, tracing the advent of this important Neolithic ornament in the Egyptian Garzean culture, on the clay vessels in pre-Minoan Crete, in the Neolithic hypogeum at HalSaflieni in Malta, in Thessaly and on the Cyclades, in central Europe starting from the older Bandkeramik to the characteristic Butmir spiral, but also the Vinča one (Novak 1955, 37–38). In the end, arguing by similarity, he comes to the conclusion that the spiral motif was imported “either from Dimini-Sesklo, or else from some other place on the Aegean Sea” both to Hvar and also to Butmir, where it was perfected (Ibid., 43, 50). However, according to Novak, the spiral comes from the Orient, “first of all from Egypt and the countries linked to it” (Ibid., 56.). Bearing in mind the period of the Danilo Culture (c. 5500–4800 BC) and recalling that in pre-dynastic Egypt the advent of spiral decoration on ceramics as a recognizable ornamental feature was recorded in the Badarian and Garzean (Naqada II) cultures that are dated to the period around 4000 BC or about 3500 BC (Midant-Reynes 2000, 154, 189, 191), Novak’s claim cannot be supported. The chronology of the Badarian Culture is in question. It is based on only two radiocarbon measurements “and essentially meaningless thermoluminescence dates from the site of the Hamamieh... The radiocarbon measurements yield an age estimate of about 4000 B.C., which might be a minimal date for the Badarian” (Hassan 1988, 153). In her research M. Gimbutas identified and analysed at least fifty Neolithic ideograms: geometric forms (circle, triangle, hexagon/honeycomb), lines (meanders, double lines, triple lines, zigzags, spiral, lunar forms, hooks ...), reproductive organs (vulva, womb, breasts, phallus), birds (owl, vulture, dove, cuckoo, hawk ...), animals/insects (snake, deer, bear, bull, frog, fish, bee ...). These dynamic symbols are, for her, themselves embodied energy or stimulators of the process of becoming. By moving upward or downward or in a circle they symbolize cyclical time. The pulse of life requires an endless flow of vital energy in order to keep it going (Gimbutas 1989, 277). The Chinese Taoists presented “ten thousand things” or the totality of all phenomena in the universe, in ceaseless motion between two poles: negation and existence, unity and separation, potentiality and actuality. Their Way describes a

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recurrent, circular or continuous process, in the form of a letter “S”, which must return to the initial point before it can begin anew. The meaning that Taoists ascribed to the double spiral surprises no one aware of the ancient presence of the spiral on the territory of today’s China. The culture of painted ceramics developed in the northwest, partly from the tradition of Banpo and the valley of the Wei, in the 5th millennium BC. Dated to the 4th millennium BC, the Miaodigou I Culture produced fine red ceramics – polished bowls and platters, of which about fifteen percent were painted mainly with black paint, with dots, spirals and wavy lines. It was followed by the Majiayao Culture (late fourth to early 3rd millennium) in eastern Gansu, eastern Qinghai and northern Sichuan. About a third of the Majiayao Culture vessels are ornamented on the upper two-thirds of the body of the vessel with various decorations of black pigment, radial spirals being the most striking. Likewise in the cultures of Banshan (mid 3rd millennium) and Machang (second half of the 3rd millennium) decoration included saw-tooth lines, gourd-shaped insertions, spirals and zoomorphic figures glued on. In Neolithic graves in Sardinia the idea of regeneration of life and the resurrection of the soul was emphasized by the ochre-red colour of the walls of the grave, a symbol of rebirth from the mother-goddess, and by decoration on the walls of the grave that frequently contained pictures of regeneration such as, eyes, breasts, owl heads, ram’s horns, symbols of the lunar phases and, of course, double spirals (Gimbutas 2001, 63). A similar regenerative symbolism represented by spirals and meanders that create one of the oldest symbols of the human species – the labyrinth – is observed by C. Kerényi in studying Minoan art; he states that “both the spiral and the meander are to be taken as paths on which one involuntarily goes back to the beginning.” Viewed in the context of the Mysteries of Eleusis “the labyrinth suggested by meanders and spirals was a place of processions and not of hopelessness, even though it was a place of death. The meander and spiral lines point to an open labyrinth which – if one turned at the centre – was a passage to the light.” Kerényi’s conclusion is that “like most Cretan art, the spiral decoration so frequent on Minoan walls must be interpreted as directly relating to zoë, which suffers no interruptions and permeates all things” (Kerényi 1996, 92–95). Likewise we must not lose sight of the fact that spirals were a customary decorative motif in the period of the Early Cycladic Culture II (Keros-Syros Culture, 2800–2300 BC), thus of a pre-Minoan culture, for vases, flasks (aryballoi) and the so-called “frying pan vessels”. The latter artifacts, and here we are thinking especially of several with frequent “spiral decoration with

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incised schematic female pubic triangle near handle” displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, are, like the Danilo rhyton, of unknown use. One’s first thought is, naturally, that these “pubic triangles” incised on these puzzling “frying pans” are a recognisable symbolism of fertility and birth. However, on the basis of the same symbols (pubic triangle and connected double spiral) we can equally well consider the regenerative process as a reflection of Neolithic eschatology that was in no way linear in nature. Evidence that this Neolithic echo was heard in the Cycladic Culture in the Early Bronze Age is the ornamental heritage there of incised double spirals and burial of the deceased in a contracted position, both still maintained at that period. The double spiral represents a unique cosmic force, which acts in multiple directions as an alternating two-phase rhythm of its manifestation, which is similar to the bidirectional rotation of the swastika or tetraskelion, an angled cross. In his classical study on the migration and universality of the symbol, Goblet d’Alviella calls the elbowed cross a gammadion, explaining that “the name gammadion is given to that form of cross whose extremities are bent back at right angles as if to form four gammas joined together at the base.” For him the name tétrascèle refers to a gammadion “when the arms are rounded off whilst curving backwards” whereas gammadion “in India bears the name of swastika, when its arms are bent towards the right and sauwastika when they are turned in the other direction” (Goblet d’Alviella 2000, 32–33, 40). The swastika before the Middle Ages was ordinarily accepted as a symbol of the movement of the Sun through the heavenly vault and the symbol of its power.7 The cult of Sun-worship is most likely one of the most ancient cults. A. Benac, who wrote about swastikas in connection with two stećaks in the mediaeval necropolis in Široki Brijeg in Herzegovina, emphasises that on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina the swastika appears continuously from prehistory up to the stećaks (Benac 1952, 44). “According to Vāyu-Purāna, Brahmā was practising severe penance as a result of which sweat came from his body which gave rise to the serpent world. These serpents had marks of the swastika on them. This means that the swastika was an auspicious sign. It is interesting to note that on one of the pre-historic bowls found at Samarra, Mesopotamia, snakes are shown as moving around the Sun” 7

See, for example, the Illyrian ceramic vessel decorated with wavy lines and a series of swastikas from the 4th century BC (Stipčević 1989, 147–148) or the swastika as a solar sign on Christian monuments (Migotti 1994–1995, 284–285). On Liburnian jewellery there frequently is recognizable sun symbolism, as on chest ornaments, in meander patterns or a swastika (two-angled), or horse heads, as in general in the forms of pendants that indicate the solar boat or chariot and point to beliefs connected with the sun as a fertility divinity (Batović 2005, 50).

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(Sudhi 1988, 143). Interestingly, it was at Samarra during the reign of Caliph Al-Mutawakkil in 852 that the Great Mosque was built, at the time the largest in the world, with the highest minaret, 52 metres high. It was called the spiral minaret (Al-Malwiya) on account of the its winding, spiral form. Al-Malwiya and the Šibenik cap na bòule have the same function: both carry on the prehistoric heritage, each in its own particular way. The curves wound around the minaret, which is symbolically represented at that place as a cosmic mountain, an obelisk, a pyramid, axis mundi [axis of the world], lingam [phallic symbol], lead to the top, to the spermatic fiat; the Šibenik cap, as a microcosmic correspondent of the same principle, is placed on top of the head of a human being. Moreover, the older form of the Šibenik cap, unlike the newer level-topped one, had a conic top, writes the Šibenik ethnologist J. Kale in an article “about the tradition of industrial beginnings”, or a retrospective on the technology of chemical dyeing (Kale 2005, 45). The unmistakably “mountainlike appearance” of the Šibenik cap with its embroidered double spirals could in a symbolic way point to the mountain, the place where one may find the prime matter, or “immense collection of created things”, or “every sort of knowledge that is found in the world”, as this thing is understood by the Arab alchemist Al-‘Iraqi (Al-‘Iraqi 1991, 18). In the hermetic, metaphysical vocabulary “going up into the mountains means to rise in awareness in order to come to know the prima materia, the pure, original substance/consciousness from which all things are created” (Abraham 2001, 132). The double spiral, as we have seen earlier, is closely connected with symbolic representations of the Sun’s movement. The conical mountain, as the storehouse of the first materia, is indeed, so close to the Neolithic mind, the universal womb that contains all things within it. Would it really be impossible that the Šibenik cap arose in a symbolic milieu that thought of things in this manner? Or perhaps, could this “mountainlike appearance” of the Šibenik cap with its embroidered double spirals connects it with the principal name of the Hindu goddess Pārvatî (she of the mountain), since the summits are considered as points through which terrestrial energy rises toward heaven? It is just at this place that the sacred marriage of heaven and earth takes place, of the heavenly vault (Linga, Śiva) with the terrestrial energy spurting from the mountain. Both symbols are present on the Šibenik cap, which is, undoubetedly, a folk reflexion of the symbolism of the Danilo rhyton (Daniélou 1992, 79). J. Kale describes the colour of the Šibenik cap as “orangy red”. Until 1856 textiles could be dyed only with natural dyes, which means that, aside from plant materials, dye was obtained from “insects and useful little creatures”, as suggested by the word “tincture” with its vestige in the word “tint”. And not only that: the word crven “red” is derived from the word crv “worm”, hence crven

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is the colour of worms, i. e. the colour of dark red worms. The connection of crven and crv is typical not only for the Slavs; something similar also happened in the Indo-Iranian languages, where some words for “red” are derived from a word that means “worm”, and is descended from proto-Indoeuropean *kwrmis “worm” which also yielded Slavic crv (compare Sanskrit kŕmiš “worm”). Thus, probably from the Persian, the word qirmiz was borrowed into Arabic, from which the word grimiz came to us via Turkish, and the adjective karmin via Latin and the European languages. The English word red is connected to the Croatian riđ “rust-coloured, red-haired” (likewise also ruda “ore”, ruse kose “red hair”, etc.), with which Latin ruber “red” too is cognate (Kapović 2009). After that in the lucrative textile industry aniline or synthetic dyes came in, which opened the doors wide to dyeing as a cottage industry. These new substances offered a dazzling array of easily attainable hues, something that in the earlier natural pigmentation had to be very carefully measured out with uncertain outcomes. One of these new popular shades, states Kale, was orange. The old bright red colour of Šibenik costumes, which in its shade was close to the later orange, is not identical with it. On account of the organic impurity of natural dyes, textile surfaces were never, on close examination, quite evenly dyed. The artificial orange colour, like others of such origin, pigments textiles like plastic – entirely evenly, without any microscopic variations. Therefore there do not exist old orange caps dyed with natural dyes (Kale 2005, 45). The fact is that the different nuances of colour of the Šibenik cap, from orange to (bright) red, correspond to saffron colours, and it can be said of the Šibenik cap that it is the colour of saffron (Crocus sativus). Saffron stigmas have been gathered and dried since time immemorial to give various dishes their distinctive aroma and recognizable colour (usually yellow). One Minoan fresco (about the middle of the 2nd millennium BC) discovered on the Greek island of Thera in 1973 shows a woman dressed in yellow and orange-red who is gathering saffron stigmas and offering them to a seated goddess or high priestess. The fresco was discovered on the wall of a room in which ritual purification was performed, as well as cults connected with the birth of children, menstruation and the maturation of girls into women. Wanting to support his thesis that “The Minoan gesture presupposes the possibility of epiphanies produced and made credible by a visionary capacity,” especially with regard to Cretan art, C. Kerényi cites the Annals of the Italian Archaeological School in Athens for 1955 (published by D. Levi). He sees confirmation of this and especially of his claim that “The gesture brings transcendence into nature” in the painting “on a small [Minoan] amphora from the oldest palace at Phaistos”. Depicted on the vase “Two figures with

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upraised hands appear among crocuses”, which he interprets, in accordance with ancient oriental art, as “a gesture of worship”, but he wonders “Who is being worshipped? What god has appeared to these figures?” and then asks “Or are the gesture figures themselves gods?” Finally, Kerényi admits that the only thing we can know about this is that “An epiphany is enacted in a field of crocuses, which to us evokes no name” while for the Cretans, of course, “this epiphany was familiar” (Kerényi 1996, 20–21). The Greeks believed that the three red crocus stigmas turned red from the blood that dripped from Prometheus’s pecked-out liver. Out of these stigmas the sorceress Medea prepared “Promethean balm”, which, with a prayer to Hecate, she smeared on Jason and made him invulnerable. Hades seized Demeter’s daughter Persephone and dragged her down into the underworld in the autumn, at the moment when she was gathering saffron. The first heralds of her coming in spring, when Hades let her out of the underworld, were, of course, the spring crocuses. Therefore on altars in her shrines crocuses of all kinds are most often to be seen. In a hymn dedicated to Hecate the Orphic followers call her krokopeplos – “(clothed in) robes the colour of saffron” (Taylor 2003, 28). Crocus stigmas produce the main medicinal effects. The effect of this plant on the uterus was well known long ago in Greece and in Italy, where it was used to ease birth and to regulate menstruation. The colour of the alchemic Philosopher’s Stone, of which H. Khunrath speaks in the late 16th century in his Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae [“Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom”], when it “comes out of his glassy sepulchre”, when it is reduced to powder, is the colour of saffron; the same is asserted by the physician/alchemist Jean Baptiste van Helmont retelling the result of an experiment conducted in his laboratory in Vilvorde near Brussels in 1618, when he saw and touched the Stone “more than once.” The colour of the Stone was like powdered saffron, “but heavy and shining like pulverized glass” (Fulcanelli 1999, 135–136). In India the goddess Bhagavathi as an all-pervasive “saffron-clad” cosmic energy is the menstrual form of Durga, a central goddess of the Hindu pantheon. The colour of her saffron is connected with her menstruation and this “saffron menstruation” is the blood of life that circulates through the whole universe. The Gnostics taught that the menstruation of Sophia penetrates the material world, giving it life. In their mystic vocabulary this was the “dragon that penetrates all things”. In hermeticism menstruation represents “the blood of the symbolic Lady who strengthens creatures” (Evola 1995, 31). Therefore the rhyton, too, which is a universe baked in clay, is red from the menstrual life-giving “female” blood that “strengthens” posterity.

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The double spirals and colour of the Šibenik cap are the very essence of the symbolism of the rhyton, which the generations have transmitted from our ancestors at Danilo to modern times. They are the current “form” of energy that establishes order out of chaos, those same ones that also exist in the anatomy of our biological inheritance in the form of the helically wound nucleic acids in DNA molecules, and when looking at them “it is hard to avoid the conclusion that we are looking at one of nature’s most basic pattern-forming processes... Seeing the hidden and harmonious order built into body and mind, as it is built into every flower and leaf, mirrored by the crafts, and echoed by music one wonders at the origin of the disharmony and disorder that mars our civilization” (Doczi 1981, 28). Danilo craftsmen and artists did not belong to that art that we nowadays christen with the pejorative attribute “primitive”. Far from it. Their art was their religion. For it put them most genuinely in touch with the very essence of the universe.

8 The Vulva and the Plough

Like St. Michael and St. George, so too Cadmus, son of King Agenor of Sidon and his wife Telephassa, is famous not only as the founder of Greek Thebes, but also as a dragon slayer. After a long, unsuccessful search for his sister Europa, whom the god Zeus in the form of a bull had abducted, he decided, following the advice of the Pythia of the Delphic Oracle, to found a city. However, in the vicinity of the place where he intended to found it, in a cave near a spring, there lived a frightful serpent full of poison, belching fire, with three rows of sharp teeth and a dragon’s head, on which it flaunted a golden crest. When this monster, which belonged to the god of war Ares, devoured Cadmus’s comrades, whom he had sent for water so that he could offer a sacrifice to the goddess Athena, Cadmus engaged in battle with it and finally killed it by pinning it with a spear to the trunk of an oak. On account of that deed, which angered the god Ares, in old age he and his wife Harmonia had to go away to Illyria. On arrival there they both were turned into serpents, just as Athena had foretold to Cadmus after the killing of the dragon: “Why, Cadmus, why stare at the snake you’ve slain? You too shall be a snake and stared at.” (Ovid’s Metamorphoses 3.97–98). R. Katičić agrees that the legend of Cadmus on the Adriatic is surely the most significant mythological formulation of the old ties that had already in the Neolithic connected the Adriatic with the Aegean and of the movement of people and goods along routes offered by nature as links between once very distant regions (Katičić 1989, 302). The struggle of the old Slavic god Perun with the serpent Veles is obviously nothing other than a transposition of the matrix of the Cadmus myth. Namely, in order to subdue the serpent god (Veles/Volos), who is down in the water, the source of riches, there appears, following texts of one proto-Slavic fertility ritual, Perun, an attribute of the Thunder God, whose feature is dryness, for his cult is above the water. In this opposition between dry and wet, which separates Perun’s sphere from Veles’s, a conflict arose between them near an oak. The conflict was provoked by the serpent god (Veles), who came up from his watery world into Perun’s sphere and captured the water/

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treasure. In this fight Perun, using his weaponry (a stone, hammer, lightning, thunder, an arrow), defeats his opponent above (on the mountain) and liberates the water (rains, treasure), thus restoring the disturbed order.1 In this way order in the world and its well-being are established by an equilibrium between these two forces: dry, transparent order, and wet, fecund disorder. The equilibrium is at once dynamic and antagonistic (Katičić 2008, 193). This is a model that can be observed on the structural and symbolic level of the rhyton, or of the interaction of its parts: the “dry” handle and the “wet” receptacle. It would take us far beyond the scope of this work, if we were to continue discussing the hermetic allegories, in the midst of which is the secret Spring under the old oak, including also the dragon-serpent, as they were expounded, following the syntax of the “language of birds”, by adepts such as Nicolas Flamel, Thomas Vaughan, Eirenaeus Philalethes, Fulcanelli... Š. Županović (1991, 295) in Starodrevna baština šibenskoga kraja [“The Ancient Heritage of the Šibenik Area”], cites Zjačić (1952, 243): “Dragoslauus Iohannis, prenomine Ueles, de insula Zlarin’, Šib. 1386” [i. e. a resident of an island near Šibenik in 1386 had the first name Ueles] and Ostojić (1980, 184): “Veles is the name of an old Sl. deity mentioned in the Lay of Igor’s Host. Skok says that there is no trace of this deity among the South Slavs, but this fact refutes that. And a place on Zlarin in 1672 is called Veleš, probably the hill Veleš 152 m high on the southern side of the island.” “The names of the islands Zlarin and Zmajan are interesting, perhaps also the village Trbohunj (Tribunj), as well as the name of the hill Veleš (125 m) on Zlarin. Perhaps we can connect them with Slavic pagan beliefs. Zmajan and Zlarin are the names of an evil spirit; the god of the sun was Trebić or Trebunj, at least so writes Gržetić. Veles was the god of darkness and evil....When the Croatians converted to Christianity, then they, like the other Slavs, replaced the god of good with St. Vitus, St. John the Baptist or St. Elijah, and in place of the god of darkness, of the evil spirit, came the saints who are conquerors of the devil or the dragon, St. Michael the Archangel and St. George... Perhaps the chapel of St. Vitus by the St. Anthony Channel is located in accord with that scheme of old Slavic shrines”, and likewise also the chapel of St. Michael in the fortress of the same name (later St. Ann), protector of the city of Šibenik. Several chapels of St. George in the environs of Šibenik also refer to this [the Chapel of St. George in Danilo Biranj is not far from Bitinj, the place where the rhyta were found, author’s note], as does the fresco of the Lady of Srima, which shows St. George with a flame in his hand” (Županović 1991, 1 Likewise, by killing Vrtra (a dragon or serpent, which holds back the waters) with his weapon lightning, i.e. vajra, the Vedic god Indra gains the epithet “liberator of the waters” (apsujit).

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295–96). Probably one should understand in the same way the name of the village and the corresponding surname Jura(si) “George-” located at the entrance to Dubrava, the village Mihaljević “Michael-” on the southwest side of Trtar, the hill Anđelinovac “Angel-“ likewise near Trtar, etc. Therefore, in light of the facts presented above, and the possible transposition of an ancient mythological foundation onto Dalmatian topography in an area that had been inhabited and culturally productive since the Neolithic, perhaps it is not imprudent to draw a connection, through a historic transformation of anthroponyms, between the Cadmus myth and the existence of a rather large number of chapels dedicated to St. Michael or St. George, the knights/saints and angels who conquer a dragon, in the area of Dubrava, Danilo Biranj and Donje Polje. There is no doubt that Dubrava stands out as the toponym closest to the symbolic foundation of the myth, since this name is derived from the root dub- which means oak. It is well known that the oak in ancient mythology was most often dedicated to the highest deity, the thunderer – Zeus, Jupiter, Donar, Perun, Perkunas etc. (Frazer 1993, 159–161). In a similar sense R. Katičić defines the toponym “Dubrava” according to the pattern of proto-Slavic mythology, clearly recognizable as the plot of land religiously interpreted as a space where the thunderer is present just like his mountain (Katičić 2008, 116). In the case of Dubrava near Šibenik, an area right near Danilo, the mountain, as is already known, is called Orlovača [Eagle Peak] and judging by its name is the dwelling of the thunderer of whom the eagle is a symbolic attribute. Slavic Jarilo or Juri or George is the hero of pre-Christian legends. He is much older than the New Testament archangel Michael and Saint George, likewise dragon-slayers, asserts the ethnologist V. Belaj, who is well versed in dragon legends (Belaj 2005, 16). The Irish and the Welsh also embraced him, though the Second Vatican Council almost removed him from the Catholic calendar as the boundary between spring and summer because it was determined that he never existed. The Slavic tales about Saint George turn out to be older even than the Vedas, for in these stories the concept of good and evil is not distinguished. The dragon is always on the opposite side from the Thunderer. With Christianity dragons indeed had to “disappear”, but they persisted tenaciously since our ancestors were baptised but not converted. European dragons are earthly or underground creatures. They are the guardians of the earth. The Greek word georgos literally means earth-worker, and thence comes one branch of the myth about Saint George (Ibid.). The “branch of the myth” connected with agriculture is unusually important when we discuss the ancient inhabitants of Danilo, themselves farmers. In particular, examining the geomorphological bases for settlement of the Adriatic area in the Neolithic lets us isolate three basic microregional units in which

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nearly all the Neolithic sites are concentrated. The first encompasses Istria and part of the Kvarner islands; the second northern Dalmatia or the Zadar-Šibenik area, and the third the greater part of the central Adriatic islands and a smaller part of those in the southern Adriatic (Marijanović 2003). Whereas in the first region cave settlements and open-air settlements appear and all forms of Neolithic economy, in the third region, which consists exclusively of islands on which only cave settlements exist, the economy is based on herding, hunting and the potentials of the sea. But in the second region, that is, the Zadar-Šibenik area, settlements are exclusively open-air ones, and, along with herding, agriculture has a very important role (Ibid.). The results of previous research have shown that the process of agriculture began in western Asia earlier than in any other part of the world. In addition, western Asia is the only area where the development can be traced from the forager societies of the late Pleistocene through the agricultural communities of the early Holocene era to the first civilizations. The agricultural economy – based on domesticated wheat, barley, rye, legumes, sheep, goats, cattle and swine – which developed in western Asia later spread through Europe. Thus the development of agriculture in western Asia is key to understanding the formation of agricultural communities throughout the European continent (Moore 2003, 59). According to Polish-American archaeologist P. Bogucki, who has studied early farming societies in Europe since 1976, one of the most succesful agricultural movements occured between 9000 and 6000 years ago “when a suite of domesticated plants and animals spread from Levant and Zagros mountains of the Near East to Egypt, the Iranian Plateau and Europe” (Bogucki 1996, 242). He is convinced that, just as Anatolia provided the starting point for agricultural dispersal into Greece, in the Balkans occurred an important transition in Neolithic subsistence and settlement that propelled and enabled the spread of agriculture further into central and northern Europe. Sedentary farming communities were established from the Aegean Sea to the Orkney Islands through one of two fundamental processes whether through colonization or indigenous adoption (ibid. 245, 252). B. Marijanović also divides concepts or theoretical models of the process of Neolithicisation of the eastern Adriatic coast into two groups: the first is made up of those opinions favouring an autochthonous origin, or processes that take place within local communities, which were argued for exclusively by archaeologists of the area of former Yugoslavia, whereas the other group was made up of opinions leaning toward a dominant role for the migration component, which along with some native names was upheld mainly by foreign archaeologists. Various theoretical models of population movement, for example demic diffusion, folk migrations, leap-frog colonisation, according to Marijanović, have no basis in

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the material facts in the Adriatic area, whereas others, such as for example the model of conquest and occupation of foreign areas (elite dominance), are entirely inappropriate to the time in question (Marijanović 2007, 39–40). For him the authochthonous Mesolithic substratum is the main demographic participant in all the developmental processes during the Neolithic; this however in no way implies the isolation and complete developmental autonomy of local communities but rather their active sharing in the processes of Neolithic innovations which were adapted to local and regional environments. Therefore Marijanović finds the opinion of P. Biagi completely unacceptable when the latter says: “Thus it is possible to conclude that when the neolithization of Adriatic coastline took place the Holocene hunter-gatherers totally disappeared. All the above-mentioned data seem to support the Neolithic expansion hypothesis proposed by Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza” (Biagi in Biagi and Starnini 1999, 12; according to Marijanović 2007, 40). Marijanović finds neither a theoretical nor an empirical basis for marginalising the indigenous population or completely excluding it as an active participant in the processes that were taking place on its territory. Recent radiocarbon chronology studies of impressed ware ceramics sites on the eastern and western Adriatic coasts have shown that the diffusion of the Neolithic took place at two speeds. Although radiocarbon analyses from the Croatian side of the Adriatic, from Dubrovnik to Medulin, are rare, the general impression is that this process stretched over some three hundred years during which it covered a coastal belt approximately 450 km long (Forenbaher 1999). “The radiocarbon dates indicate that impressed ware and domestic animals took less time to move almost 500 km up to the Adriatic to the Middle Dalmatian islands then they took to move 35 km across the Strait of Corfu to Konispol Cave. The former pattern is compatible with the model of ‘leapfrog maritime colonisation’ by small seafaring communities” (Forenbaher and Miracle 2006, 96). In contrast, along the Italian coast the same phenomenon took at least a thousand years to cover a distance of about 700 km, from Apulia in the south to Romagna in the north. The process corresponds chronologically to the period between the two last centuries of the 8th and the two last centuries of the 7th millennium uncalibrated BP (Skeates 1994, 65). Here as an aside we will mention that the chronology of the spread of farming in the Eastern Adriatic has remained an object of controversy among archaeologists. B. Marijanović especially forcefully emphasized his disagreement with previous chronological models (Chapman and Müller 1990, 127–134, Fig. 1; Chapman 1994, 143–44, Fig. 6; Forenbaher and Miracle 2005, 520–521; Miracle and Forenbaher 2006, 514), calling “absurd standpoints” all those scholarly approaches that view all types of economic, social and culturological

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variation purely on a chronological level and try to explain them only along this dimension. Marijanović terms such approaches “hidebound and rigidly technology-minded”; they leave no room for internal developmental dynamics and variability arising from the interaction of psychosocial communities and their environments, and for the facts that cannot be verified archaeologically. With regard to the latter “constructs” he takes as an example the absence of doubt about the possible northern Adriatic origin of the Danilo Culture (Marijanović 2007, 10), which was discussed above in the chapter about the possible source and dispersion of rhyta. Anthropologists inclined to the so-called progressive, hence linear, theory of the development of the human species frequently describe the hunter-gatherer way of life as “nasty, brutal and short”. Since food was not cultivated and could be kept only for a short time, it was not possible to avoid the ever-same search for food, which began anew every morning, to escape hunger. Our species freed itself from this drudgery only at the end of the Ice Age, when people in various parts of the world began to raise plants and domesticate animals. The “agricultural revolution” gradually spread from that time, and has today taken on a nearly universal character, with only a handful of surviving hunter-gatherer tribes. From the progressivist perspective, the question of why nearly all our hunter-gatherer forebears embraced agriculture is unintelligible. Of course they adopted it because agriculture is an effective way to obtain more food with less work. The logic of survival is simple: our fields sown with corn give greater yields than roots and wild berries. Furthermore, since less time is necessary for raising food in one’s own garden than for finding it in the forest, agriculture makes possible, once the corn is stored in the granary, the enjoyment of free time, which hunter-gatherers on account of their intensive way of life never experienced. It is free time that is essential for the creation of art and its enjoyment. Thus it is thanks to agriculture that we have been able to achieve some of the most magnificent works of art that our species can boast. Agriculture brought not only a huge increase in the production of food and its storing, Pulitzer Prize winner J. Diamond thinks, but also great social and gender inequality, diseases and despotism as the scourges of modern human existence. Thus agriculture was a mixed blessing for us, a station halfway between our noble characteristics (language and art) and our evil sides (drug abuse, genocide and the destruction of the environment). Art, that creative excursion of the spirit, was produced, to be sure on a smaller scale than the cathedral in Cologne, even by Cro-Magnon hunter-gatherers on the walls of their caves 15,000 years ago, and today it is still produced by nomadic Eskimos and Indians (Diamond 2006, 180, 183, 189).

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But let us return for a minute to Moore, who researched the prehistoric Syrian site Abu Hureyra, located by the Euphrates. He came to the conclusion that the cold and dry period, which lasted about a thousand years, gave rise to dramatic changes in the economy of Abu Hureyra, for it made the foraging activity of the inhabitants impossible and forced them to turn to agriculture 11,000 years ago (Moore 2003, 68). The French archaeologist J. Cauvin, who for years researched the beginnings of the Neolithic in the Near East, developed new ideas to explain the huge cultural, social and economic changes that transformed nomadic huntergatherers into the first settled agricultural communities in the world. In his view, climatic changes explain to some extent only the modalities of that process; they did not initiate it (Cauvin 2000, 13). For Cauvin, it is the cultural, ideological and psychological components of transformation that are most important in the Neolithic revolution, not the climatic and economic ones. For, in part of southwest Asia people for the first time in history developed the ideas and images of deities. Their symbolic representations imply a new way of understanding the world, the cosmos and humanity’s place in it. This restructuring of the human mind reflected through religious themes and symbols took place in the period from 13,000 to 10,000 BC on the territory in question. Thanks to agriculture, the “farmer”, georgos or St. George, or St. Jure/Juraj, but also the Christian St. Michael, find their places on and around the Danilo Field – just there where dragons guard their earthly riches. In other words, St. George is the farmer; his spear is the plough and the monster is the earth that suffers ploughing, so that thus cultivated or ritually “killed” or tamed, which means sown, it rewards the brave knight/farmer with abundant riches (its fruits). Reconstructing fragments of pagan Slavic sacred poetry, R. Katičić in examining the etymology of the word črt “enemy, devil” – črt, črta “furrow, line”, concludes that črt (čьrtъ) is “the one who roots with his snout”, which is, for him, very appropriate for describing a chthonic demon, a supernatural creature connected with the earth. Finally, if črt is “the one who roots in the earth and draws furrows through it”, zmaj “dragon” is, as the word itself says, “the one who belongs to the earth” (it is called zmьjь, or if it is understood as feminine zmьja). This word is derived from the word zemlja “earth” so for both expressions can easily mean the same thing (Katičić 2008, 185). The reason why this force that belongs to the earth was later equated with the enemy, the Christian devil, Katičić considers a result of a more recent interpretatio Christiana, which accompanied the conversion of the Slavs (Ibid., 186). Demeter (Ceres), goddess of agriculture and fertility, one of the oldest of the great Greek goddesses, whose origin can be traced back to the Neolithic, drove a chariot to which winged dragons were harnessed, alluded to in the

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Orphic hymn dedicated to her,2 but she herself could also become a dragon.3 The farmer who tills with a plough and sows the land represents the heavenly spermatic principle, symbolized by St. George, St. Michael or St. Marcel in the Christian tradition, or by Apollo, Cadmus or Hercules in mythology, which fertilizes the earth-womb. Therefore the plough/spear is in fact a phallus, which like a corridor is the conductor of communication between the sky as the spermatic/formative principle and the place of its actualisation in the wet and warm darkness of the womb-earth. “Since the semen came to be identified as the generic cause of fertility, it may well be that the identification of the sky as male, moistening and fertilizing a female earth, which appears in the oldest layers of so many literatures, took place during the very early stages of agriculture” (Rawson 1973, 50). Likewise The Song of Songs, or at least a good part of it, Sumerologist S. N. Kramer reveals, is a modified and conventional form of the ancient Hebrew liturgy celebrating the wedding and union of the sun god and the goddess-mother that flourished in Mesopotamia from the earliest days. The Holy Wedding was part of the fertility cult which the nomadic Hebrews took over from their Canaanite neighbours, who in turn had borrowed it from the Akkadian Tammuz-Ishtar cult, in fact a transformed Sumerian Dumuzi-Inanna cult (Kramer 1969, 89). Inanna, the Sumerian fertility goddess, sighs erotically in one ancient inscription: My vulva, the horn, The Boat of Heaven, Is full of eagerness like the young moon. My untilled land lies fallow. As for me, Inanna, Who will plow my vulva? Who will plow my high field? Who will plow my wet ground? (Wolkenstein and Kramer 1983, 37).

The plough is an obvious symbol of insemination. The ploughshare, that virile part, penetrates the furrow opened in the female earth. Sitā, “born from the furrow”, is the wife of the god Rāma in the Indian epic. The plough that inseminates the field invokes the union of man and woman, sky and earth. A linguistic connection also exists between, for example, lāngala, shovel, and lingam, phallus. In Babylonian art the supreme god Marduk is frequently portrayed together with a dragon, sometimes sitting on the throne on the back of a monster, or the dragon is depicted crouching at the feet of Marduk, who 2

“A car with dragons yok’d ’tis thine to guide” (Taylor 2003, 96). “Twofold Curete, many-form’d, divine./By thee transmuted, Ceres’ body pure/Became a dragon’s savage and obscure” (Ibid., 95). 3

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is standing. When he was not depicted in person, Marduk’s presence in artistic scenes was suggested by symbols that were exclusively tied to him. Thus on an altar a spade or shovel, called maru, was depicted, but also a dragon, which was shown on clay seals being worshipped by devotees. All these were allusions to the worship of Marduk, or his invisible presence. On one old vase from Abruzzi the ploughshare has the form of a phallus. On a Greek vase in the Florentine Museo Archeologico a plough is depicted in the form of a phallus borne by ithyphallic men (Jung 1990, 150–51). There also existed, of course, other ways to symbolically depict the two principles, male and female, which, even though they were products of different historic periods and differing symbolic imaginaries still bore the powerful stamp of Neolithic agricultural mysticism. In rural areas of Anatolia the custom still exists of summoning the rain, which is addressed as “bride”, “rain bride” and “sky bride”. In this way the connection of the young woman/bride with a source of water and certain natural events linked to fertility has lasted to this day (Yakar 2005, 111). In a Greek myth, the beautiful Danaë, whose father shut her in an underground dungeon, was impregnated by the god Zeus who had turned himself into a shower of golden rain. From that union the hero Perseus was born, who slew the Gorgon Medusa. For Michael Maier, one of the most outstanding masters of the last, most mature phase of development of Hermetic philosophy (17th century), who succeeded the Croatian Faust Vrančić in the position of the Emperor’s personal secretary at the court of the Habsburg Rudolph II, Jupiter (Zeus) is – just like Osiris, Dionysus, Mars, Adonis, Oedipus, Perseus, Triptolemus, Pelops, Hippomanes, Pollux – the Philosophical Sun, or the active principle in the preparation of the alchemic Stone. On the other hand, the passive principle, the Moon, is Isis, Juno, Venus, Jocasta, Atalanta, Helena, Latona, Semele, Europa, Leda, Antiope, Thalia and, of course, Danaë. “And Jupiter in the form of a golden shower lay with Danaë...” writes Maier, “as a swan with Leda, as a cuckoo with his Sister Juno; as a Bull with Europa; as a satyr with Antiope. And so there is a concord in them all” [Emblem XLIV] (De Jong 2002, 273–75). On the same note Plutarch too, explaining why the colours of Isis’s “robes” vary, asserts that “her power is concerned with matter which becomes everything and receives everything – light and dark, day and night, fire and water, life and death, beginning and end.” In opposition to her, Osiris’s “robe” does not cast a shadow nor vary in colour; it stays forever in one colour, like that of light (Plutarch 1936, 181). A century or two after Hesiod and Homer, or that large and diverse poetic tradition which lay behind the figure we refer to as “Homer” (Rosen 1997, 463), had given shape to Hellenic myth material and frequently linked fire with water

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in their poetic devices, on the territory of modern Croatia, between the rivers Kupa and Una in the Lika area, warriors of the Illyrian tribe of Japodes took part in a remarkable ritual of union whose inner meaning strikingly corresponded with the mythopoetic mode of thought. The tribe’s warriors, with whom fertility was almost entirely associated, customarily shown as their ithyphallic representations with the phallus in erection, practiced the ritual of throwing weapons into the waters, specifically into the river Klokot, a left tributary of the Una, and probably also into the Una itself and the Kupa, as the archaeologist Kukoč (2008, 90) relates from facts recorded in reliable sources. The ceremony of “drowning” weapons in the waters has long been noted over broad spatial and temporal distances. It is especially connected with the Late Bronze Age, which loved the “depositing” of valuables; it lasts, however, through the Iron Age and Roman times. In 1990, hydroarchaeological reconnaissance of the bed of the river Cetina near Trilj (Croatia) yielded truly extensive archaeological discoveries in the Cetina region. The Bronze Age attack weaponry – swords, daggers, battle knives, spears – taken out of the river in several diving campaigns, significantly increased the quantity of archaeological material of that type known from Dalmatia (Milošević 1992a, 1992b). In analyzing such finds, the archaeologist D. Glogović (1998, 14) reminds us that a “sword from the water”, as a typical warrior attribute, was also given to King Arthur to be returned to the water after his death. Many stories in mythologies and legends, she continues, especially of the northern European peoples, mention swords, weaponry and treasure located in watery environments. “This can in the final analysis be interpreted as a reflexion of actual finds or deposits of objects in water over a long period of time. Intentional cultic submerging contrasts with unintentional, accidental loss of objects, which is very improbable with weaponry. Swords were above all valuables and likewise status objects, which makes it hard to think of accidental loss or any careless treatment of property of that kind” (Ibid.). Her colleague S. Kukoč insightfully goes further in explaining this phenomenon using the symbolism of alchemy. “Weaponry is thrown into waters”, she says, “because it, like the warrior, is hot and fiery. Water is its opposite; it extinguishes the heat of the weaponry. But, in water from the very beginning there also resides fire itself, or light, more precisely ‘fire in the waters’; this is immortality... The act of throwing weaponry into the waters, like the alchemic process of transformation, joins fire and water. Deadly weaponry, which kills enemies and demons, ‘liberates’ the waters, their light and fertility: earthly and cosmic” (Kukoč 2008, 91). The inner structure of all these descriptions is the structure of the rhyton itself. The hot, active, formative principle (the handle) inseminates the cold, passive, receptive principle (the receptacle), the product of which is a solid manifestation

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arising from the union of two occult principles (indicated by the four firmly inserted zoomorphic legs or in the later phase by two anthropomorphic legs). The process can be described in sexual terms as copulation of the White Queen (Quicksilver) and the Red King (Sulphur), with innumerable other symbolic features, which result from the union of these two opposites and the manifestation of the new creature: the Rebis, Philosophical Mercury, the Hermaphrodite, as an expression of united contradictions. Let us see how the prehistoric symbolic use of these principles looked in another example. On ceramics from Lisičići,4 which belongs to the HvarLisičići Culture, successor to the Danilo from the early Late Neolithic, astral symbolism in the form of a half-moon incised on vessels is one of the most frequent motifs. Around the openings of such vessels, incised ornaments of crescents and triangles are evenly arranged one after another, like a kind of frieze. The crescents of the frieze have their horns turned downward, hence toward the bottom of the vessel, while the triangles have their peak turned toward the opening and their base toward the bottom (Benac 1984, 65, il. 21; 1964, Plate XXIV). Goddesses who are descended from Neolithic spirituality are for at least a millennium after the origin of the Lisičići ceramics customarily depicted with the horns of a crescent moon turned upward, frequently in the form of a head ornament. Is the Lisičići crescent turned the “wrong” way!? Secondly, triangles as ornaments on Neolithic ceramics, in the opinion of many, represent the female pubic triangle. For the esoteric, “female” interpretation of the triangle we are best served by the ancient Greek goddess of agriculture and fertility Demeter (Greek Dēmētēr, or in an older form Dāmātēr), in whom features of the Neolithic “pregnant” goddess can be recognized. The so-called Derveni Papyrus, a partially preserved Orphic theogony most probably from the second half of the 4th century BC, accidentally found in 1962 in a grave some 10 km to the north of Thessaloniki, contains an interesting “avalanche of identifications”, in G. Betegh’s vivid phrase, of seemingly different goddesses. “We find Ge, Gaia, Demeter, Meter, Rhea and Hera equated or identified with each other.” Or, as it says in column 22: “Earth (Ge), Mother (Meter), Rhea and Hera is the same (or: are one and the same). She/it was called Earth (Ge) by convention; Mother, because all things are born from her (or: from this one). Ge and Gaia according to each one’s dialect. And (she/it) was called Demeter as the Mother Earth (Ge Meter), one name from the two; for it was the same” (Betegh 2004, 189). 4

Unfortunately, the village of Lisičići near Konjic, where an outstandingly important Neolithic site was discovered, was flooded by the artificial Jablaničko Lake in 1953.

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Greek meter is “mother”, De is delta, the triangle, the female genital symbol known as the “vulva letter” in the Greek holy alphabet, as yoni yantra was in India. The cognate letters – Sanscrit dwr, Celtic duir and Hebrew daleth – signify the gates of life, death and sexual pleasure. Thus Demeter was the “mysterious female doorpost”, or the “foundation from which Heaven and Earth arose” as the Taoists like to say. In Mycene, one of the very oldest cult centres of Demeter, tholos graves, with their triangular entrance, short vaginal corridors and cupolas, represent the womb of the goddess who could give birth again. The ancient geographer Pausanias (II., 21, I.), as M. Eliade reports (Eliade 1982, 42), speaks about the place in Argos that was called delta and was seen as the shrine of the goddess Demeter. Eliade remarks that Fisck and Eisler understood the word triangle (delta) in the meaning “vulva”, i.e. “pudendum”. Such an explanation of this word is only valid under the condition that one preserves its original meaning, and that is “womb” or “source”. It is known that among the Greeks delta symbolized a woman. The Pythagoreans considered the triangle as the arkhé geneseos, on account of its perfect form, but also because it represented the prototype of all fertility. A similar symbolism for the triangle also appears in India. However, the triangle depicted on the Lisičići vessel does not correspond anatomically to the “female triangle”, nor the horns of the crescent moon to the horns of goddesses as we are accustomed to seeing them in their classical artistic expression. The problem, of course, is not insoluble. If the vessel is turned over, meaning with its opening downward, the crescent gets its recognizable form, as the fertility goddesses wear it on their heads, and the triangle, now with its peak turned downward, corresponds with the female pubic triangle. No less significant is the fact that these female symbols become evident only when the vessel is turned downward, i. e. towards the earth. Let us add to this that some of the most recognizable features of the Lisičići Culture were bands around the rim of a pot coloured with red paint that rubs off. On Lisičići ceramics the use of red incrustation and the colouring of whole surfaces with red paint that rubs off were general (Benac 1964, 85). Hence, on the Lisičići vessel we have a crescent moon, which symbolizes the phases of the Moon, as in nature through the seasons of the year, but also the woman with her “monthly periods”. The red paint that rubs off is the colour of female menstruation for, as has already been mentioned, only a woman who bleeds can bestow life because that is a reliable sign that she is biologically capable of that magnificent task. The triangle is the symbol of female genitalia, in which life is conceived and develops, from which finally a creature endowed with life is born. All these symbols of fertility and birth enumerated in this way are arranged in a circle

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around the opening of the Lisičići vessel, a true Neolithic cornucopia from the upper course of the Neretva River. Crescents with horns tuned downward and triangles with their peak upward, toward the opening of the vessel, as they were originally placed on the vessel, represent the active or sun aspect. Here we do well to bear in mind certain old astrological canons which explain that “The usual symbol of the Moon is a crescent, which is a duality as compared with the unity of the solar circle.” The names “... Dragon’s head and tail, or Rahu and Ketu in India”, in astrology designate “the ascending and descending nodes”, the two aspects of the Moon. “In the first the bulge is upward and the horns down; in the second it is the reverse way” (Edge 1973, 74). We find the differentiation of the “female” and “male” aspects of the moon at the other end of the earth too, among people who live along Nova Scotia’s South Shore, on Canada’s southeastern coast. In their very old dialect, which includes words and phrases spoken but not written down since before Chaucer, there exist a “wet” and “dry” moon. A wet moon, hence female, occurs when the horns of the crescent moon point upward, making the moon “hold water.” A male moon, horns down, is a dry moon (Poteet 2004, 124). The crescent turned downward in that symbolic “male” image is in the same function as the handle of the rhyton, hence as a spermatic and formative principle, whereas the triangle with its peak turned upward is the hermetic hieroglyph for fire. In the Indian Tantra this triangle is known as vahni kona, the fiery cone (Shankaranarayanan 2002, 11). If we turn the vessel over, we get, as we have said above, the symbol of the passive, female principle: the recognisable crescent and the female pubic triangle, which means: the hermetic hieroglyph for water.5 The triangle or trikona with its peak turned downward ▽ is known in India as the symbol of the female pubic triangle and the female sexual organ, or the womb (yoni, bhaga). As a product of primordial Divine Desire, the triangle is known under the name Kāmakalā. Since all desire, passion and love are, in the evolutionary sense, stages of that original Desire, the triangle is considered to signify the source, beginning, yoni, female principle in creation (Shankaranarayanan 2002, 30). In Tantric Buddhist texts the same triangle is known under the name dharmodaya/ dharmodayā or “source of things”. In spiritual practice (sādhana) the triangle is visualised as the place from which everything issues; it likewise symbolizes water, for water, like rain, pours from above, hence in a downward direction. On the other hand, a triangle with its peak turned upward △ symbolically takes on the form of fire. The latter triangle symbolises Śiva (Skt., “auspicious”), the former his creative, female side Śakti (Skt. “power”). United, the two triangles form the 5

In the symbolism of the Tantra the active principle is female, the passive one male.

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shatkona, the hexagram in the West known as the Shield (or Star) of David or Solomon’s Seal. Understood in this way, the hexagram represents the sexual union of fire and water or, if we remain consistent with the language of the Tantra, of Śiva and Śakti (Bühnemann 2007, 41–44). Moreover, on the oldest Croatian coin, which was struck in the reign of Duke Andrew II (1197–1204), a six-pointed star and large crescent moon are depicted. This symbolism of the Moon and stars must, according to the prevailing opinion, show the oldest Croatian coat of arms (Krčmaroš 1989, 4). The oldest known coat of arms of the Croatian lands was represented by a crescent moon and star with eight, in some variants with six, points, first of all on a coin from the 13th century, known in the literature under the name Croatian frizatik [Friesach coin]. The Croatian viceroys, as the viceroys of “all Slavonia”, coined money at that time until the mid 14th century. These Slavonian viceroy coins had on the front or “heads” side, as a “heraldic sign” a six-pointed star and crescent, which would later be repeated through the centuries in Croatian coats of arms, and above them a kuna [marten]. (Pandžić 1991, 8). In serious heraldic literature Dalmatia, where the centre of the Croatian state was, is said to have had as one of its coats of arms the waxing moon, or the waxing moon and a six-pointed star (Neubecker and Rentzmann 1974, 119–120). Through the simple act of turning it over, the vessel from Lisičići reveals its “hexagram”, its active and passive, fiery and watery, male and female, solar and lunar natures united in the frieze around its opening, that hollow horn of plenty out of which all forms of nature flow. To produce a creation, the union must be absolute, which means not only that the male and female element must be fused into one, but also that their act, which the holy books of various world spiritual traditions equate with copulation, in which all differences disappear, even the “femininity” and “masculinity” of both participants, must itself disappear. Copulation is thus seen as absolute unity and the proven instrument of creation. The fact is that copulation creates the seed that is both, male and female, thus setting the wheel of creation into motion. The act of copulation in this way presents not only the androgynous state of mind but, if we reduce it to its form alone, likewise also hermaphroditism. From these premises it is not unreasonable to conclude that the figurines which L. E. Talalay classifies as “sexless images or sexually indeterminate pieces” as well as “dual-sexed examples”, and records in a “relatively high percentage” for the Greek Neolithic, are capable of leading us “to reevaluate the extent to which traditional Western notions of binary sexuality may be applicable to early societies” (Talalay 2005, 134). Hermetically speaking, Natura (Diana) possesses the “moist” life force Mercury ☿; this at its centre possesses its own Sulphur , which by its “great heat” dries

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and thickens it into innumerable natural forms. “In a word, wheresoever the fire of Nature finds the Virgin Mercury there hath he found his love, and there will they both fall to their husbandry, a pleasure not subject to surfeits, for it still presents new varieties” (Waite 1919, 201). The English Platonist T. Taylor reports the fact that Orpheus calls Diana Hecate (Taylor 2003, 189). Some mythological and emblematic designs show her as Hecate since she is represented by a trimorphic symbol (Cirlot 2002, 81), which in the end corresponds in number with the tripartite structure of the rhyton. According to myth, Cadmus’s grandson Acteon, a passionate hunter, once while hunting with his hounds in the forests of Cithaeron came upon a spring in which the goddess of the hunt Diana was bathing in the nude. The goddess turned the unfortunate man, for he had seen what no mortal eye was allowed to see, into a stag so that he became the prey of his own dogs, who tore him to pieces. The learned Giordano Bruno, who was to die at the stake by the Tiber, in interpreting the symbolic subtext of the myth writes: “Rare, I daresay, are the Acteons whom fate allowed to see the naked Diana, and who – becoming so smitten with love for the beautiful harmony of the body of nature and struck by those two lights of the double glow of divine goodness and beauty – are transformed into stags, and ceasing to be hunters become prey. For the last and final aim of this hunt is to grasp the inconstant and wild catch, after which the captor becomes captive and the hunter prey. In all other kinds of hunting for individual things the hunter captures other objects, imbibing them with the mouth of his own intelligence, but in that divine and universal one, his grasp is such that he himself is necessarily grasped, absorbed, united. Therefore he is no longer simple, ordinary, civilized, folklike, but he becomes wild like the stag, an inhabitant of isolated places.... So the dogs, thoughts of divine things, devour that Acteon, and so he, dead for the people, for the multitude, loosed from the knots of aroused senses, freed from the bodily prison of creation, no longer looks upon his Diana through fetters and windows, but, tearing the walls down to the ground, is turned entirely into an eye before the whole horizon. Now he looks upon everything as upon one....” (Bruno 1985, 269–70). “He who speaks becomes dumb before the Divine Essence,” as the Islamic mystic ‘Abd al-Karim al-Jīlī describes that sublime moment of encounter with the undressed Diana/Nature at the Spring, “and he who is agitated becomes immobile; he who sees is dazzled. It is too noble to be conceived by the intelligences... It is too elevated for thoughts to grasp It” (Al-Jīlī 1995, 4). Being can observe only Being. That same Being (for there is no other) was observed, undoubtedly, also by the creators of the rhyton at their Source. Was that not why they named it Bitinj? (The root of Bitinj is bit-, Cro. “essence”, “source”).

9 The Androgyne

The horn is a “penetrating form” and therefore is “male”, but since it is hollow inside, it also has female attributes. Thus the horn unites both female and male features, and is in some way “dual-sexed”. Or: the horn as a symbol of power and strength has male significance, but at the same time it is also a cup which, since it contains, has female significance. Thus it is a unifying symbol (Jung 1984, 485). The mythological horn of plenty cornu copiae or cornucopia, or the “thing of plenty” as A. Šenoa called the horn of the goat Amalthea, who nursed the infant Zeus with the nectar and ambrosia which flowed from that horn, likewise has a dual character. In general, if we take the horn as a symbol of strength and the goat as maternity, and see the horn itself as outwardly phallic and hollow/unfilled inside, we will gain an understanding of the complex symbolism which, according to J. E. Cirlot, also includes the lingam, the generative symbol, whence we can easily understand its allegoric use as the horn of plenty (Cirlot 2002, 62). Probably the most popular symbol in Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures – the bull – in astrology is a male which fertilises the Earth, a female planet. The bull, thus, unites male and female. The bull is sometimes seen as a lunar (female) principle, sometimes as a solar (male) one; the horns of the bull suggest a crescent moon, connecting it with the female principle. In some Hindu temples Shiva’s powerful bovine agent, the bull Nandi, is sometimes depicted as a female deity (Mookerjee 1998, 41). When approaching Shiva and his bull, the worshipper will step on a male outline on the ground – which represents the symbolic discarding of egocentric masculinity. Like the Indians, the ancient Egyptians also stressed the female nature of the bull. Plutarch, in a somewhat confused manner, informs us that the Apis Bull was said to be the image of Osiris come to life, which was conceived when a fertilizing light thrust forth from the moon and touched “a cow in her breeding-season” so therefore the numerous decorations on Apis “resemble features of the moon, his bright parts being darkened by the shadowy.” The festival called “Osiris’s coming to the Moon” took place during the new moon in the month of Phamenoth, which marked the beginning of

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spring. “Thus they make the power of Osiris to be fixed in the Moon, and say that Isis, since she is generation, is associated with him. For this reason they also call the Moon the mother of the world, and they think that she has nature both male and female...” (Plutarch 1936, 105). Porphyry tells us that bulls were sacrificed both to the sun and to the moon (extract from Eusebius 1981 http://classics.mit.edu/Porphyry/images.html), whereas in his work De antro Nympharum, explaining Homer’s allegory, he notes that the ancient priests of the goddess Ceres (Demeter) called the Moon, which is the “queen” of generation or the sublunar territory – a bull (Taylor 1994, 153; 2003, 42). Also, Porphyry mentions that the Persians called Diana a she-wolf, the sun, a bull, lion, dragon and hawk, and Hecate a horse, bull, lioness and dog (Taylor 1994, 127–128). Even more directly, in an Orphic hymn the devotee addresses the Moon: Female and male, with silv’ry rays you shine, And now full-orb’d, now tending to decline (Taylor 2003, 41).

One of the most daring (and therefore most attacked) theses about the female nature of bulls was posited by M. Gimbutas in analysing the clay bucrania (a decorative motif in the form of a relief ox head) discovered at Tepe Guran in Iran, dated about 8000 BC, as well as numerous fragments scattered throughout Europe, which, like the figures from Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, connect bulls with giving birth and what is female. Gimbutas suggests that the one can well be connected with the other because the bull’s head/horns resemble the female reproductive organs (uterus, fallopian tubes) and as such are a symbol of regeneration. This similarity could have been discovered in prehistory and could have connected the seemingly magical female capacity for bearing children and “bull’s horns” (Gimbutas 1989, 265). She supports this theory, strange as it may appear to accustomed perceptions, by presenting the hourglass-shaped female figurine painted on a bull’s skull from the site Bilcze Zlote (western Ukraine, mid 4th millennium BC). Gimbutas calls it the “bee-goddess”. The dotted silhouette of a woman with a conspicuous pubic triangle and arms upraised is in excellent agreement with the form of the material on which it is depicted (Ibid., 271, fig. 420). The archaeologist J. Mellaart, who studied the Neolithic site Çatal Hüyük in Anatolia, offers several reasons for such finds in the shrines: the first relates to a goddess in a position for giving birth, through a frontal depiction of the actual process of birth in which the uterus with its fallopian tubes looks strikingly similar to a bull’s head and, he asserts, from that comes the choice of bulls’ heads at Çatal Hüyük. Secondly, he sees bulls’ horns as phases of the moon, waxing and waning, which are connected with the regenerative forces of life like the female menstrual cycle and water as the source of life (Mellaart

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1989, 23). “There is a morphological relationship between the bull, on its fastgrowing horns, and the waxing aspect of the moon, which is further evidence of the bull’s symbolic function as invigorator” (Gimbutas 1982, 91). The bull and the moon are simply strengthening forces of life, so worship of the moon and of horns is in fact worship of the creative and fertile powers of nature. Newer interpretations of the role of the woman (goddess?) and bulls (horns) from Çatal Hüyük, usually based on the premise that the material universe is “socially constructed”, which leads rather to questioning the socio-cultural and economic dynamics than to a contemplative, metaphysical immersion in the symbol, differ significantly from those that Mellaart and Gimbutas put forth earlier. For example, one especially impressive plaster relief depicts a woman with an enlarged belly and legs spread apart, probably in the act of giving birth. On the wall beneath her legs are a row of bulls’ horns, which seem to imply that the woman is giving birth to a bull (although due to the damage to the relief that cannot be taken with complete certainty). N. Hamilton holds that it is more reasonable to view this image (but also the clay figurines) as a symbol of the economic and social structure of the community than as a purely religious symbol. Abundant evidence exists, she continues, which points to the importance of domestic animals, especially cattle, for the economy of the settlement. The use of bulls’ horns placed on benches and on walls can reflect the recognition of the importance of cattle and the desire for their continued fertility. Similarly, the woman who gives birth above the cattle horns can signify the dependence of people on cattle, etc. (Hamilton 1996, 215–263). In the Danilo Culture, appliqués of stylized bovine heads are placed as handles on vessels. The head itself, which represents a bovine head, is bent down at the middle. On top are two deep lengthwise hollows, which were probably supposed to depict ears. On the muzzle are two smaller hollows which represent nostrils. The application of the ox head on the vase fragment that was found replaced the usual protuberance and had a partly purely practical, and partly ornamental character (Korošec 1958, 60). Writing about “ox heads” or appliqués of them on ceramics of the Danilo Culture, J. Korošec doubts whether they are really ox heads, but nevertheless grants that these stylized animal heads “in all probability” represent ox heads. He uses the same formulation “in all probability” when he states that we cannot categorize the vase itself among the cult vessels although it could have had such significance too (Ibid.). Independently of M. Gimbutas’s truly provocative interpretation of bulls’ heads, the Danilo Culture ox heads placed around the opening of a vessel can easily be brought into connection with birth and the female, especially since the archaic mind saw the female womb/uterus in all openings and hollows, whether

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natural or artificial. Every vessel observed from such a symbolic perspective by a mind sensitised to that kind of symbolic understanding would immediately become “female” or a deified principle connected with birth, hence with the production of life, which represented a sacred deed par excellence. Thus even apparently ordinary objects like cups, vases, pots, urns and the like became the expression of epiphany, which brought a powerful dose of a sacred element into the ordinary life of the individual and the community. The sacralisation of the universe by prehistoric man, who lived with such objects, was perpetuated on an everyday level, at every moment strengthening a form of integral spirituality, the result of a relationship developed through the inescapable and unhindered connection of the individual and of the community with their substantial source. This form of (symbolic) communication, as we witness, has completely disappeared in our secular and superficial age, so that we frequently face great problems if we wish to understand such a mind from the modern perspective. The bull is undoubtedly a unique phenomenon in the world of symbolism, for it can represent both a solar and a lunar creature. Its male impetuosity, abrupt temperament and role of father/leader of the herd made it the symbol of the male Sun god in many cults. Yet its horns formed like the crescent moon connect it with the cult of worship of the Moon. In the image of birth from Çatal Hüyük the bull is portrayed as the son of the Goddess, who is born out of the darkness of her womb just as the Moon is born out of the darkness of its earlier “death”. Like the Moon, which with its shining and power strengthens the fertility of its children, the bull likewise becomes the symbol of strength and fertility. And, just like the Moon, whose drama of “death” is seen in its disappearance, the Moon-Bull gradually declines/dies or is ritually sacrificed so as to be united again with its Eternal Mother. By further association the bull can be connected with fertility of the vegetational cycle, for it is not only the stud to the cows who give milk but also pulls the plough, thus opening up the Earth so that seeds can fall into it. The members of these early cultures were for the most part agriculturalists. Every season they witnessed how the grain and other plants on which their life depended were born from the Mother-Earth, after which the whole cycle then again returned to Her and was born again in spring. The bull, most probably, was taken as the symbol of that ever-returning-circle of plenty and renewal. They considered it to represent a part of the Eternal Life that was manifest in time and space and goes through the unending course of birth and death. On the other hand the Mother-Goddess was absolutely connected with the very foundation of the continuity of Life, or was the pure substance of that foundation, the Eternal Whole, while her son symbolized the temporal

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manifestation of its individual form. As the Principle she was One and Unique, flowing into a multiplicity of manifestations, which means that at every moment the head of the Bull emerged from her vulva. She alone is, while everything else arises; She is the Source of the river, but also its Mouth. The snake that swallows its own tail, the mirror of eternal transformation of the One. In an examination of the ornamental system of the Adriatic Late Neolithic on the basis of paintings and drawings preserved on fragments from the Hvar Culture, a group of specific, very similar motifs is observed, D. Radić reports (Radić 2002, 19). The fragments on which these twelve images were preserved were found in Vela Spila near Vela Luka, in Grapčeva Cave on Hvar, at Lisičići near Konjic, Hateljska Cave in Dabarsko Polje near Stolac, Krivače near Bribirske Mostine and Obre II near Kakanj in Bosnia. In his opinion, it is the image of some animal, since on the vessels under study there appears an evenly rounded, humped animal back, a side view of joined front and hind legs, a short tail, an elongated front hornlike part with pointed peak, and above the neck protrude one or two outgrowths, probably ears or horns, which altogether leave no doubt of the zoomorphic character of the image. The short incisions that fill the surface of the image indicate that it is a hairy animal body. In the depictions part of the image (usually on the right side) where the head should be is disproportionately enlarged and may be bigger than the other (left) part, that is, the body of the animal. Radić finally admits that after studying the literature available to him he cannot answer what the image represents nor give a comparison with similar ornaments known in the Hvar Culture or nearby ones. Faced with these facts he turns to the supposition of a cult-magical character for the images, but is conscious that such an approach “allows a certain amount of imprecision in interpreting the meaning of the image for its creators” (Ibid., 24). Two basic symbols that Radić notices on the zoomorphic images are the lozenge and the horn or crescent. The first he interprets as birth and initiation, and the second as fertility and cyclicity, while he explains the appearance of these symbols on the same animal image by saying that the image itself represents a symbolic depiction of the cyclicity of birth (beginning), and that it is one of the innumerable variants on the image of the circular course of natural rhythms manifest in unceasing dying and renewal. Here we see a process that is often symbolically described in numerous myths about deities who at the end of the vegetative year pass away, often because they are violently killed, into that “other” underground world, thus giving nature the energy necessary for its renewed awakening. The awakening of nature at the beginning of spring is uniformly symbolized by the rebirth of the deity itself. This mythological fact gives Radić a free hand to suppose that the lozenge and horn in the consciousness (and religion) of Neolithic people

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represented symbols of the forces necessary for the activation and completion of the annual agricultural cycle, while the receptacles with their image could have been used for performing rituals yet unknown to us, including perhaps even the sacrifice of the very animals depicted (Ibid., 26). Radić is right when he connects the horn or crescent with cyclicity, especially of the agricultural year, since this symbol, associated with the moon, is a reflection of the world of transient forms and phenomena, of the passive, that is to say female, hence moist principle, whereas the lozenge (rhomb) is the symbol of the (spread) vulva, or the ploughed and sown field. The concept of agriculture in the Neolithic was closely connected with the conception of the earth as a woman and its fertility was linked with female sexuality. For early agricultural societies the female body of the earth is the place of regeneration of life. Entrance into the body of the earth is possible through caves/cracks/ fissures, so they were considered to be equivalent to the vaginas of women. Therefore it is no surprise, writes W. Pichler, who took part in research on the wall paintings in caves of the Upper Austrian Saltzkammergut in 1992, that lozenges (rhombi) very often appear at cave entrances in the Salzkammergut and at five more locations (Kalmosskirche, Felszeichennische, Jochwand-Halbhöhle, Gartenloch and Seekarkirche). According to E. Neumann, whom Pichler cites, the symbolic meaning of the cave changed during its historic development into cultural equivalents such as temples, huts and houses. On all of these the doors or entrances symbolize the womb of the maternal “vessel”. There often is a deep spiritual meaning to these thresholds between the “inside” and “outside” symbolised by signs of a lozenge on them. Dozens of lozenges are found on lintels, stones that cross the entry to tombs (Fourknocks, Newgrange). Are the lozenge decorations on doors of numerous churches in the Alps connected with that tradition, Pichler wonders at the end (Pichler 1999). Judging by the squatting female figures who hold their vulva wide open with their hands, the so-called Sheela-Na-Gigs (or Shelah-na-Gig) carved most often above the main church entrances and windows in various parts of Wales, England and Ireland, they certainly are. Belief in the healing power of these figures, whose name in Irish is said to mean “Julia [or Cecilia] the Giddy” and indicates an immoral woman, appears to come from ancient times. This image can be connected with the Greek myth of the Athenian village maiden Baubo, to whom the goddess Demeter appeared as a guest in search of her daughter Persephone, whom Hades had seized and dragged into the Underworld. Not knowing how else to cheer up and amuse the inconsolable goddess, Baubo raised her robe and bared her sexual organ before Demeter, who laughed heartily and drank up the kykeon offered to her. T. Wright mentions that Sheela-Na-Gig

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figures on stone reliefs above the entrance arches were meant to protect people from so-called evil eyes, so that in the end the belief in the positive effect of this figurative expression was more important than the funny sight it offered (Knight and Wright 2006, 142–143, 145). We find the closest analogy to the above-mentioned zoomorphic drawings among all objects of the Hvar Culture, Radić continues, in the rhyta on four legs with slanting receptacle and massive ringlike handle, and with zoomorphic (but also anthropomorphic at a more recent period) legs. The first element of the rhyton’s structure – the legs – does not have to be especially explained since the legs are what carry it, and they indicate the presence of the totemic animal (variants of an ancestor in other vessels), an intermediary in a ceremony, a person who gives the strength necessary in a transformation, he holds. For R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, who went most deeply “into the soul” of Ancient Egypt, it follows unmistakably from the texts of early pharaonic Egypt that there existed a faith in one God, the eternal and nameless Neter of all Neters or principles, boundless and inscrutable. Parallel with this vision there existed a pantheon consisting of a considerable number of Neters (Schwaller de Lubicz 1988, 83). Thus Schwaller de Lubicz asks what could be the significance of those emblems that represent animals, plants, mountains, buildings and other symbolic signs whose origin reaches back deep into prehistory. He does not forget to mention that certain authors recognised in this signage the totems of ancient tribes dispersed along the Nile at a time when the land was not yet organised first into two and then into one kingdom. Since the same authors considered those people to be primitive, the conclusion was suggested that the choice of symbols was possible only as dictated by superstition or fear. That explanation could to some extent be justified for the crocodile or snake, but it is impossible to stand by such an explanation if we take, for example, the bucranium associated with the goddess Hathor, since in this case it is a symbol whose existence cannot be justified by any historic reason. Such cases are ascribed to fetishism, which for Schwaller de Lubicz is nothing other than the exchange of one word for another (Ibid., 85). Therefore, whether historians emphasize the thesis of totemism, fetishism or syncretism, of religious or political occupation of territory, not one of these theses determines the choice of animal ascribed to a specific Neter connected with a certain locale. And no less important: it has been discovered that objects from the earliest period represent particular symbols whose configuration has remained unchanged during the whole historic period. Presented in that light, these facts require a search for the source of these symbols in the very distant past, necessarily again putting the prehistoric period of pharaonic Egypt under the microscope (Ibid. 85–6). This does not exhaust

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the entire symbolic meaning of legs on cult vessels. We will soon explain other symbolic aspects as well. Radić asserts that the vessel or receptacle signifies the place where some process takes place and is like a symbolic womb, a place of transformation, usually coloured red. From our earlier chapters we know that not only Radić’s “symbolic womb”, in which “some sort of transformation process” (of what into what?) “takes place”, is painted red, but also the lower part of the handle of the rhyton, the lower part of the vessel and the inner sides of the legs. The rhyton can undoubtedly be connected with the colour red, which, in turn, draws in a series of symbolic connections. What especially strikes one’s eye is “Adam”, the first human creature, or his Latin synonym Adamus, in the meaning “made of red earth”. This is, of course, the first being in nature, the only one among all human creatures equipped with the dual nature of the androgyne (Fulcanelli 1999, 171–72), the Biblical so-called first Adam before God put him to sleep, took his rib and from it modelled and gave life to his female companion Eve. From the hermetic point of view this is about matter allied with spirit in a single created substance, eternal and immortal. The concept and structure of the Danilo rhyton are not far from this substance. The adept H. Khunrath calls this archetypal red earth the common salt of Wisdom, Nature and Art, “out of which our Adam, and his Eve come”. “It is the hermaphrodite, husband and wife at the same time. This is the king old Saturn, the lead of the Wise” (Craven 1997, 41). The materia from which Adam was created, according to the mystic vision of J. Böhme, is Massa, Quinta Essentia, extracted from the Stars and the Elements, which automatically became earthly when man’s “earthly centre” awakened, tying him to the Earth and Corruptibility (Behmen 1909, 104). Böhme mentions that Adam (before Eve was created) was neither male nor female, and that he had female and male nature and as such had to give birth to the “Child of the Virgin out of himself ”(Ibid., 131). M. Eliade finds in old documents (Refutatio omn. haer. V, I–II) that the Naassenes, a Gnostic sect, understood Heavenly Man, Adamas, as the primordial soul (arsenothelis) whom Simon Magus calls “male-female”. Since earthly Adam is nothing other than an image of the heavenly archetype, and is himself an androgyne, and since people are descended from Adam, arsenothelis virtually exists in every person and spiritual perfection consists precisely in again finding that androgyny (Eliade 2004, 118). This symbolism of androgynous salvation bears keeping in mind in the examination of the possible implications in a cult of the rhyton, a vessel that in its internal structure was androgynous. The rhyton receptacle prompted Radić to connect it with a vessel, a so-called

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chalice, which is connected with its contents or a liquid to which special significance is ascribed (e.g. in Christianity in the chalice is the blood of Jesus, and drinking it ensures immortality and connection with God for “Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life,” John VI, 54). However, the rhyton is not a chalice. The fundamental feature of a chalice is its opening, which, let us not forget, is horizontal. The opening of the rhyton is vertical and, frequently, slanting, or completely dysfunctional for the purpose which we connect with a chalice. J. Korošec, too, agrees with this when he expressly states that a “cult vase” standing on four legs with a vertically placed opening “could in no way have served any practical purpose, for in a standing position it is not of use for any practical application. As a vase it could practically be used only when its opening was put in a horizontal position, which means that the legs and ear too had to be in a horizontal position” (Korošec 1958, 55, 57). Now, the receptacle is thus female, and the female (in relation to the male) is below when it unites with the male (handle), which comes from above, so that together they create fruit/offspring (the legs). (The slanting opening of the rhyton indeed resembles the position of the vagina of a woman who is lying). Plutarch, in the Neoplatonic manner, excellently postulated the structure of the rhyton five millennia after it arose: “...divine nature consists of three parts – conceptual, material and that which is formed from these, which the Greeks call the world. Plato is wont to give to the conceptual the name of idea, example, or father, and to the material the name mother or nurse, or seat and place of generation, and that which results from both the name of offspring or generation” (Plutarch 1936, 135). The expression “the Great Goddess”, which, we believe, the Neolithic mind formulated, does not refer to a female version of the transcendent monotheistic god, but to the “Goddess” in all her manifestations, as a symbol of the unity of the entire life of Nature. The Earth as Mother/Nature/Goddess, the womb from which all beings are born and to which they return after death, was undoubtedly the oldest conception of the divine in prehistoric beliefs: as the powerful embodiment of the female principle in the form of the life force, she reigned over the sky, the earth and the underground, revealing herself to mankind through ever new earthly productive cycles and phases of the Moon. Her consort was frequently a young god, or her son, or lover, who would die with the harvest and was born again with the spring sowing. Woman, who embodied in herself that unsurpassed magic of procreation and raising of young life, whose menstrual cycle fit mysteriously with the lunar cycle, was the earthly link in that cosmic orbit of fertility. People have always tried to make sense of the world and create a connection with what they considered sacred. In this sense the source of the sacred is the whole natural world, which gives birth to

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itself and plunges back into itself in death. To imagine that source as a female being is indeed the most natural symbol of nature itself, which indeed is that “great female”. The universe is one just as the Great Goddess too is one – a mystic Neolithic cosmogonic axiom. Her vagina/womb, that round source of life, is symbolised by the slanting opening/receptacle of the rhyton. The receptacle and opening are not placed in a horizontal position, as is usual in other vessels, because the rhyton is not “an ordinary vessel”, but a cult one, unsuitable for everyday functional use, and the opening and receptacle are placed at a slant, sideways. Only from an opening thus placed can the water of life be poured out, which has arisen by the union of two seeds, of a myriad of new beings, different in nature, capable of producing the seed of their own species. A creature, that solid manifestation of life, the result of the union of two opposite principles, is symbolized by the legs of the rhyton.1 Unlike the abstract circle of the handle and the equally abstract hollow of the receptacle, the legs are represented by concrete, figurative modelling. Hence, they are not an abstract principle like the “male” handle and the “female” receptacle, which are occult in nature, but are a recognizable, concrete, visible manifestation. This may be sheer stylization, but the fact is that the rhyton legs, to which a kind of steatopygy could easily be ascribed, often very clearly emphasise the upper part – the thigh (Pl. VI, fig. 9). This refers especially to the Danilo rhyta, whose legs “narrow toward the bottom”, while in certain ones the narrowing at the lower part of the leg is executed “as if the upper part of the clay coating were removed”, or the leg is conically narrowed. Some legs are very thick and more like conic protuberances (Korošec 1958, 58). The rhyton legs found in Markova Cave on Hvar (Novak 1974, T XIX) too correspond to Korošec’s descriptions of rhyton legs. Emphasis on the upper, thigh part of the leg relates perhaps in an even greater measure to rhyta from the Kakanj I phase, and especially to the legs of the rhyton from the Greek sites Drakhmani, Corinth and, of course, Elateia. The rhyton leg found in Markova Cave on Hvar widens noticeably from bottom to top and is quite thick and very similar to the Kakanj rhyton, so that Novak and Čečuk call it a “Kakanj leg” (1982, 27, 31). In addition, anthropomorphic rhyta, like the one from Smilčić from the Hvar phase that is preserved in the Zadar Archaeological Museum, since they are depictions of the lower part of a human body in a kneeling position, naturally emphasise the thighs (Pl. VII, fig. 10). 1 The number four is material, or the number of the earth, symbolically depicted by a square. The four rhyton animal legs, but also the two anthropomorphic legs, indicate this number. Namely, the anthropomorphic rhyton (we have in mind the one from the Zadar Archaeological Museum), with legs in a kneeling position, rests on the toes and knees, altogether on four points.

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The symbolism of thighs, as it has been recorded for us in the historic period, is very specific. In the ancient Egyptian system of hieroglyphics the thighs were an expression of strength, which connects them directly with their function as the dynamic support of the body (Cirlot 2002, 341). Eustace of Thessalonika (12th century AD), the excellent commentator on Homer’s Iliad, explains that during the ceremony of sacrificing animals the thighs “were sacrificed in preference to every other part on account of the generative attribute, of which they were supposed to be the seat”, whence, probably, arose the fable of Bacchus being nourished and matured in the thigh of Jupiter, concludes Knight (1997, 32). To give a firm oath to Biblical patriarchs meant to place one’s hand “under (their) thigh”. In view of the latter, i. e. the thighs, it is interesting that even today one of the Danilo villages is called – Bedrica [derived from Cro. bedro, “thigh”], from the surname predominant there. Nikola Bedrica was the name of the landowner who in 1951 dug deeper after his plough caught on a rather large rock while ploughing a field to plant grapes and found six fragments of a rhyton (Dujmović 1952, 73–74). Nor is the name “Nikola” without hermetic semantics. Fulcanelli explains that the name Nikólaos in Greek means “conqueror of stone”, from Níke – “victory” and láos – “stone”, ”rock” (Fulcanelli 1999, 265). In the hermetic vocabulary the name “conqueror of stone” is given to a philosopher-adept who has achieved the peak of the alchemic process of transformation symbolized by the Stone. Finally, according to myth, Zeus pulled the god of fertility Dionysos/Bacchus as a premature infant out of the body of his deceased mother Semele and sewed it into his thigh, from which, when the time came, he was (for the third time) “born”. In the introduction to his translation of Euripides’s tragedy The Adorers of Dionysos – Bakchai, J. M. Pryse does not fail to point out that Euripides likewise calls the thigh a “male womb” and that the word thigh is used here as in Genesis, and elsewhere in ancient writings “for the generative centre” (1993, 29). Hence, if we bear in mind that the symbolic representation of fertility and generative powers belong to the oldest symbolic stratum of our species, then neither are rhyton legs/thighs excluded from the concept of fertility, nor is the entire three-layered structure of the rhyton. The Danilo rhyton unites opposites and the result of their union; this is the whole dynamic structure of the universe in one single object baked in clay, or as the author of The Sophic Hydrolith or Water Stone of the Wise would say – although consisting of three things, “yet it is only one” (Waite 1999, 77). That one thing is just the same one that caught onto the plough of Nikola Bedrica while he was ploughing the field across the way from Bitinj well to plant a vineyard, that homage to Bacchus. S. Zlatović, who was parish priest in Danilo (1867–1871), notes similar incidents in the same place. “On the

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northern side of the field near Biranj, last year one Zorčić cleared one ell of land for a vineyard, and there found much plaster and dressed stones, pieces of brick and fragments of pottery,” he writes, considering them to be finds from Roman times. It is possible that Fr. Zlatović was wrong and that part of the finds belonged to an earlier, perhaps even prehistoric period. The fact that the finds remained preserved almost to this day can be ascribed to the superstition of the folk there, of whom Zlatović complains that “our people here think that they must not move these antiquities, for if someone found something and took it out, he would die; therefore they dared not go deeper here, nor was there found any memento.”2 Undoubtedly it is on account of the Danilo population’s attitude toward antiquities, as reported by Fr. Zlatović, that the majority of archaeological finds have been preserved, including those from the prehistoric Danilo Culture. The handle is always in a ringlike form, Radić continues; it is often decorated, sometimes with linked spirals. This ringlike or round form is associated with the solar disk, among the older ones perhaps also the lunar. Radić finds confirmation of that in A. Benac (1979, 403), who remarks that the upright ringlike handle “reminds us of upright horns”. The rhyton’s spermatic solar horns seated in the uterine darkness and moisture by their conjunction generate the being/beings capable of further reproduction because in their own structure they reflect the male, as well as the female principle. The entire structure of the rhyton is the structure of nature/the universe, which is one; it is dynamic on account of the perpetual interaction of male and female, fire and water, light and dark, Heaven and Earth..., therefore it is two; from the conjunction of two interactive contrasts arises (the new) being/beings, hence three, which can multiply to infinity. This cosmogony was briefly summed up four thousand years later by Lao-Tse in his Tao Te Ching in the lines (42): “The Tao produced one./ One two./ Two three./ Three ten thousand things.” Nor is R. Fludd, officially a famous physician and privately “the most prominent Renaissance Christian Neoplatonic alchemist of his time” (Huffman 2001, 13) far from such an understanding. Fludd, who in polemics with J. Kepler, a representative of the “scientific spirit”, writes that Kepler observes external movements of created things, but he “contemplate[s] the internal and essential impulses that issue from nature herself ” and that 2

Zlatović 1870, 158, according to Zlatović 2007, 94. On the same page of his Danilo Fr. Zlatović, now looking through the prism of the values of the 19th century national renaissance, regards his parishioners’ taboo against digging up antiquities as “God’s providence for our people”, without which everything that was found would have “gone off to Oxford, London, Paris, Vienna and who knows where; and so we trust that our people will be able someday to seek the antiquities of our land for our own people, and whatever they find, will bring it to the national home in our Croatian museum” (ibid.).

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Kepler “has hold of the tail, I grasp the head” (Ibid., 124). In another part of his voluminous Utriusque Cosmi Historia (1617–1621) he discusses the mystic symbolism of numbers, and so of the numbers 1, 2 and 3. He concludes “And hence it is that all three though distinct in name are the same in property, and One in essence with three properties, one of which is not another, neither are the two a third, nor a third the two. Yet the two are the same as the third, and the third as two. What is it then but one Deity, one essence and one whole? ” (Fludd 1997, 40). Along the same line of thought the Italian alchemist Nazari in the mid 16th century explains what the Dragon indicates in hermetic terminology: “This Dragon or Hen of ours is quite precious and wonderful; for it can copulate, conceive, impregnate, and give birth by itself. And this is because our Hen is not only a Hen, but a Cock as well. And although it is both Cock and Hen, the Cock and Hen are united in one body.” But that is not all – there are also eggs. Nazari continues: “Furthermore, let me tell you that their egg is not so much egg, as Hen; and thus the Cock also is the egg. And therefore, the egg, Hen, and Cock are three in one; that is, in one operation” (Nazari 2002, 149). Summing up Egyptian ideas about the right-angled triangle, Plutarch writes that they assigned the vertical side the number three, the base of the triangle four and the hypotenuse the number five. Therefore the vertical side is considered male, the base female, and the hypotenuse as the child of both, or – Osiris is the source, Isis the receptacle and Horus the perfect result. Three is the first perfect odd number, four is the square whose sides are the even number two, while five is made up of two and three, in some way, like its father but also like its mother. In addition, Horus is likewise called by the name Min, which means “seen”, for the world is something visible and tangible, and Isis by the names Muth, or Athyri or Methyer, in the meaning “mother” and “place” and “receptacle of generation” (Plutarch 1936, 135, 137). Indeed the similarity between the structure of the Danilo rhyton and Ancient Egyptian mystic theology in Plutarch’s interpretation is striking. Radić concludes that the symbolism of the zoomorphic drawing with its hornlike and lozenge-shaped continuation and the symbolism of the receptacle with its ringlike handle are the same (or very similar), from which it follows that zoomorphic rhyta and zoomorphic images are part of the same cult and that both vessels were probably used as requisites in performing the same, still unknown magic ritual (Radić 2002, 27). Of course, the manner of conducting this ritual has remained a mystery since it was in prehistory, without written sources or oral tradition, but some historical cult practices fit remarkably with the previously determined facts about

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the rhyton. On the basis of this, we can so to speak, visualise the rhyton ritual to some extent if we bear in mind what the finds establish – that the rhyton was coloured with red paint, that it was intentionally broken, apparently, in connection with funeral practices, and that, according to our finds, it most probably was an androgynous image of the universe/nature/the Mother. This can easily be connected with the Bacchic mysteries from the classical period, inasmuch as Dionysos/Zagreus/Bacchus, following the facts of the rhyton, was in the mystical understanding of his worshippers the symbol of moisture, that is to say of indestructible life, like wine itself – hence both correspond with the red colour of the rhyton. Plutarch, who equates Dionysos with the Egyptian Osiris, mentions that the Greeks do not regard Dionysos only as the god of wine but that he is of the nature of all forms of moisture and wetness, and that the best witness of this is the lines of the poet Pindar: May gladsome Dionysus swell the fruit upon the trees, The hallowed splendour of harvest-time (Plutarch 1936, 87).

According to myth the Titans tore Dionysos to pieces, much like the rhyton, which was broken into pieces in Neolithic funeral rites. The Titans who tore apart Dionysos, then cooked and baked him and ate him, were burnt with lightning by Zeus. From the smoke that rose from their charred bodies arose a race not known hitherto – mortal humans. Therefore our nature, W. K. C. Guthrie opines, is dual – we are born of the Titans, the evil sons of the Earth, but in us there is also something of the heavenly nature, for the Titans consumed Dionysos, son of the Olympian Zeus. Knowing this, what other goal can we have in life but to purge, insofar as possible, the Titanic element from ourselves, and raise and nurture that Dionysian element (Guthrie 1952, 83). For the Neoplatonists the myth about the dismemberment of Dionysos represents an allegory about the One and the Many, or about the diffusion of sacred force throughout the whole material universe, whose innumerable forms symbolise Dionysos’s dismembered body. Olympiodorus in his commentary on Plato’s Phaedo explains that the form of the universal is torn apart and scattered into generation (birth), and that Dionysos is a monad of the Titans (Taylor 1997, 129). For the hermetic interpretation of the dismemberment of the god see especially Emblem XLIV in Atalanta fugiens by M. Maier. Dionysos is born, dies and is born again, which very much resembles the Danilo funeral practice of sacrificing children, and their return to the Earth/Mother so as to be regenerated anew in her “womb”. By his death and resurrection he guarantees the fertility of nature. Dionysos is among the few who are capable of getting a deceased person out of the Underworld. From there he brought his mother Semele and set her upon Olympus although

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in the Underworld he had to confront the god of death himself, Thanatos. Add to this the fact that in a previous birth he emerged from the womb of one Proserpine, which surely implies much about his connection with chthonic forces. The worship of Dionysos (Bacchus) was so unbridled and ecstatic that in 186 BC it was forbidden even in Rome. Dionysos’s followers took part in orgies in which they tore apart live animals, most often fawns, goats, oxen or bulls, and ate pieces of their raw meat (omophagy) and very probably humans too, as sacrifices, believing that in this way they were united with their god. Concerning human sacrifices, it is even possible that the practice of offering child sacrifices at Danilo and other Neolithic sites was the forerunner of the practice of sacrifice that later culminated in the Dionysian cult frenzy. Bacchus’s nature was androgynous; he himself represented the “fertile hermaphrodite”. Alluding to his bull-like and androgynous nature, Ovid sings to Bacchus (IV:18,19): Tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas Virgineum caput est.3

The horde of bacchae in the eponymous tragedy by Euripides call him by male and female epithets. For Fulcanelli Bacchus represents the Quicksilver of the Wise Men, and he equates him with Eve, the Mother of Life. In Greece, he states, all bacchantes were called Eva, a word having as its root Evius, a nickname of Bacchus (Fulcanelli 1999, 172–73). R. P. Knight, studying Greek medals and coins, finds images of Bacchus with the limbs and appearance of a beautiful young woman; sometimes he can only be recognized on the basis of protruding bull’s horns, etc. (Knight 1997, 67). The same author emphasises that nowhere does there exist a monument of ancient art that shows Bacchus with the sexual organs of both sexes. M. Eliade agrees with this when he states that the androgyne in Greece was recognized only as ritual reality and that children born with the features of hermaphroditism were immediately put to death by their parents so therefore there can be no confusion between anatomic-physiological and ritual reality (Eliade 2004, 130). J. Singer, an American psychologist under the strong influence of C. G. Jung, distinguishes the androgyne from the hermaphrodite and the bisexual. For her hermaphroditism is a physiological abnormality characterized by the manifestation of the opposite sex in an individual, unlike bisexuality, which is psychological in nature. Whereas hermaphroditism relates to the impossibility of distinguishing the physical sexual characteristics, that is, maleness or femaleness, bisexuality means a lack of clarity regarding sexual identification, or confusion 3

“...When you stand there without horns, your head is like that of a maiden.”

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about masculinity or femininity. Bisexuality relates to people who as adults have one or more times felt a strong sexual attraction to both sexes. Androgyny likewise begins in the psychological structure of the individual, but, while bisexuality is mainly interpersonal, androgynous sexuality is intrapsychological. An androgyne consciously accepts the mutual interaction of male and female aspects of the individual psyche. For J. Singer the androgyne is the height of conscious development of the individual, a perspective from which “men and women view themselves as whole and complete particles of Being, functioning within an orderly cosmic unity” (Singer 2000, 11–12, 15–16). Bacchus’s dual nature is most often represented by a creature endowed, like the snail, with the sexual organs of both sexes, thanks to which it can copulate by turns. The snail, and often it is the sea snail or buccinum, indicates bisexuality, the joined active and passive force: it is often depicted on mystic Greek monuments, as well as in the hands of several Hindu idols, “to signify fire and water, the principles from which this double power in nature sprang” (Knight 1997, 34). Snails occupied a very important place in Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures. After studying the remains from Zengpiyan Cave in Guilin, the capital of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in southern China, Chinese archaeologists concluded that the production of the most primitive pottery was instigated by the need for cooking snails. The archaeologist Fu Xianguo is convinced that snails were the main food of the Neolithic inhabitants of the south of China some twelve to seven thousand years ago, which can be concluded from the numerous deposits of shell remains found in various layers. Experiments made at the site itself showed that the snails must have been heated before consumption because otherwise it would have been very difficult to get the meat out of their shells (People’s Daily, 24 October 2003). As remains in the Mediterranean zone indicate, land snails were numerous in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene. Especially rich deposits/layers of snail shells have been found in the Maghreb, Cantabrian Mountains, Pyrenees, southern France, Italy, the Balkans, the Aegean, Cyprus, the Levant, Zagros Mountains, around the Caspian Sea and Cyrenaica. The food historian Fernandez-Armesto states that snails represent the key and probably the answer to one of the greatest riddles of our species – why and how man began to gather and raise other animals for food. He argues for this with the claim that snails are relatively easy to raise, even in great quantities, without special equipment, without danger and without the need to train other animals or dogs to help. With this in mind, snails are the closest to what we could call “a complete food”, so Fernandez-Armesto suggests that land snails were the first “domesticated

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animals” and that archaeologists have neglected their significance (FernandezArmesto 2002, 56–59, according to: Lubell 2004, 78). D. Lubell does not agree with him regarding the indifference of archaeologists, and begins his work on the role of snails in nutrition and the Mesolithic-Neolithic transformation in the Mediterranean area with a tour from the Maghreb through the Iberian Peninsula and eastward, reviewing archaeological records about Mediterranean sites that have plentiful remains of snail shells. “In north-eastern Italy and south, along the eastern side of the Adriatic Basin there appear to be numerous late Pleistocene/early Holocene sites in which land snails are abundant,” he writes, mentioning the Istrian cave Pupićina Cavern in first place, where snails were consumed along with shellfish and the meat of wild animals, then Crvena Stijena (layer V) etc. (Lubell 2004, 82–83). In the period between 10,000 and 8000 BC the inhabitants of Pupićina Cavern lived by hunting wild animals, gathering shellfish and molluscs and picking the fruits of wild plants. After a hiatus in the inhabitation of the cavern, which lasted more than two millennia, about 5500 BC great changes came about in Istria with the introduction of agriculture and herding. From then on the bones come almost exclusively from domestic animals, primarily sheep and goats, less often cattle and swine. Shepherds, who now live off their herds, use the cavern as a pen. They come mainly in spring, as witnessed by the numerous bones of newborn lambs. They no longer gather snails, perhaps because the flocks offer them enough security (Miracle and Forenbaher 1999, 10). Much as in Pupićina Cavern, in the not too distant Jama na Sredi cave located on the western side of the southern part of the island Cres, material remains were also found confirming that in that space life went on for “several full prehistoric periods, but it also went back deep into the time of proto-history” (Mirosavljević 1959, 132). Along with hunting and foraging for shellfish, the gathering of snails played a decisive role in the diet of the cavern inhabitants. Such a way of life lasted not only for one phase but continued into further phases of life here in the life of those people, and the whole population for several periods. In the excavated layers of the cavern Vela Špilja on the island of Lošinj across from Jama na Sredi on Cres, V. Mirosavljević finds “a plethora of snails”, “a huge number of snails” (Mirosavljević 1968, 30–31). In quadrants A, B and C, at a depth of 1.18–1.43 m he reports a layer consisting of “huge quantities of snails, and stretching through the whole depth of the test pit” (Ibid., 35). Among the remains of food at Smilčić in both Neolithic phases, the earlier and the later (Danilo) one, the remains of animal bones, shellfish and snails prevail. Among the land snails the most frequent are paludina and the garden snail [Helix hortensis] (Batović 1963, 96). As for the shellfish and snails

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on the menu of the ancient inhabitants of Vela Spila on Korčula, especially those who dwelled in it in the Late Mesolithic, the most frequent were limpets, then land snails and paludina molluscs, then cerithes and mussels (Čečuk and Radić 2005, 52, 57). One of the most interesting finds of an enormously large accumulation of snails comes from Kopačina cavern on the island of Brač in central Dalmatia, where snails took up nearly the whole length and width of the front part of the interior, forming a layer 10 to 30 cm thick. The layer with snails is interesting for several reasons, writes the archaeologist B. Čečuk, since such a quantity of snails are rarely found in a separate layer and formation, in at most two or three places in Croatia (Čečuk 1996, 17). Radiocarbon dating on whole and pulverized snail shells yielded an absolute age of 9160±100 BP (Z-778), which means that the snails were “deposited” in the cave during the early Holocene (Preboreal). Seeking to explain such a great concentration of snails, Čečuk comes to the conclusion that some natural phenomenon must have driven the snails to “crowd” into the interior of the cave. Whether that happened on account of a sudden change in temperature or for other reasons still remains unclear (Ibid., 18). Relying on the conclusions of palaeoclimatologist and palaeobotanists, D. Lubell thinks that in many areas throughout the Mediterranean in the period fifteen thousand to six thousand years ago conditions prevailed that were suitable for a stable increase in the snail population. (The last part of this period corresponds to that of the Danilo Culture.) Prehistoric people were capable of making good use of such a situation once it appeared. In some regions, such as the Maghreb for example, the introduction of economies for production of food were significantly delayed in relation to neighbouring areas on account of the foraging way of life, which was in part bolstered by the plentiful finds of snails (Lubell 2004, 87–88). At the end of his exposition Lubell poses several questions: why are land snails so common to all remains of food on archaeological sites throughout the Mediterranean area, appearing immediately before the rise of agricultural economies during the early postglacial period of swift climate and environmental changes? Were they a necessity, a luxury or just an hors d’oeuvre? Was their use as food limited on the basis of sex and age? Did the snails, perhaps, have ritual significance? (Ibid., 87). Unfortunately Lubell does not propose an answer to the last question, considering it beyond the scope of his presentation. Therefore we will briefly take it up, but first it will be good to emphasize once again what is quite obvious from the preceding lines – that prehistoric man was “blessed” (no exaggeration) by the nutritive properties of snails, which, evidently, were

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at the top of his menu. For thousands of years they saved him from hunger and from disappearing off the face of the earth. It was an easy to obtain and tasty meal for young and old, accessible even to those members of the community who were not very mobile. Everyone profited from the sheer existence of snails, and their great quantities. Mankind “kept company” with snails for thousands of years so it would not be unreasonable to suppose that their bisexual features were observed. Given that the snail is “good” because it saves us from hunger – wherever there is one it’s a sign that human life will continue and last, that it won’t be extinguished and disappear for to lack of food, then the bisexual principle too must be something good, since it produces snails, who are the guarantee of life, the most precious gift. Such a thing can only be of divine origin. This intellectual matrix continued along the subconscious path of humanity for centuries after, clothed in a symbolic garment under which beat the very heart of creation – the androgyne. So it is no wonder that alchemists too took an interest in them. Muhammad ibn Umail (ca. 900–960), whose descriptions of alchemical processes and various substances are in fact descriptions of his experience of the process of inner psychic transformation, which he held to be the highest purpose in human life, writes that the Wise Men called the Stone by the name of sea and mountain snails, called their Water simply a snail, while they called Ashes the shell of the snail (Ibn Umail 2003, 11, 75, 81). M.-L. von Franz in her psychological commentary on ibn Umail’s Kitāb Hall ar-Rumūz (“Book on the Explanation of the Symbols”) draws on ibn Umail’s other work Al-Mā’ alwaraqī wa-l-ard an-nağmīya (“Book of the Silvery Water and the Starry Earth”) in which he says that the hermetic sages compared the silvery water to the water of the snail for several reasons, each of which points, directly or indirectly, to the dual nature of the snail. In the continuation von Franz concludes that the silvery water is actually the hydor theion of the Greek alchemists or aqua permanens of the Latin ones, which is not, of course, ordinary water but a mystical substance, the basis of all existence. This unitary substance contains a latent duality (Ibn Umail 2006, 72, 75, 76). A reflection of this old alchemical symbolism is also recorded in the 17th century in a woodcut from the series The Book of Lambspring Concerning the Philosophical Stone, figure VII, on which in a nest on a tree two birds are shown, in fact a metaphor for opposite principles, one of which would fly and the other stay in the nest. Under the tree is depicted a large snail, which is moving along the very roots. As the text under the picture is about the sublimation of Mercury, which must be repeated “until at length fixation is attained”, the snail could represent perseverance in the process of self-realization, as well as, of course,

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refraining from hurry. That would, to some extent, exhaust the first, let us say associative, symbolism of the snail, gained exclusively by visual observation. Here, nevertheless, we have not exclusively such a symbolic reception, but something more subtle, as the text or motto above the woodcut testifies: “We hear of two birds in the forest, yet we must understand them to be only one” (Waite 1999, 289). This “only one” is the one united, which, apart from the “fixed” and “volatile” birds is also the snail on account of its bisexual features. M.-L. von Franz too mentions this emblem, after having presented the opinion of her teacher C. G. Jung that the snail symbolizes psychologically that inner process which Jung called individuation. Aside from sexual dimorphism the snail in its own essence also unites two opposite material qualities, dry and wet. This did not escape the keen eye of ibn Umail who remarks: “The outer appearance of the snail is a dry white stone, while in its interior there is a moist, white, moving spirit” (Ibn Umail 2006, 72). Let us briefly revisit M. L. von Franz, who remarks that the house of the snail is a spiral, which in general mythology carries the meaning of development and resurrection as well as concentration onto the centre (Ibn Umail 2006, 72, 73). It is quite possible that this “immortality” was on the minds of those who in ancient times erected the great stone tumuli, the grave mounds on the little island of Šćedro (ancient Tauris) by the southern shore of the island Hvar. On the northern side of Šćedro we find a concentration of large stone mounds, which are locally called the “Kadunje Mounds”. The dominant one among them is a tumulus 41 metres long and 4.5 metres high, oriented east-west. The name “Kadunje Mounds”, as the archaeologist M. Zaninović supposes, probably comes from the name “kadunjok” that the Hvarans apply to a large woods snail that in autumn and winter is found in the macchia brush and is tasty to eat (Zaninović 2002, 249). If we play briefly with the symbolism of the “Kadunje Mounds”, the burial tumuli, and the “kadunjok” snail, on Šćedro we can conclude the following: the contracted burials in stone slab coffins in tumuli, especially those from the Early Bronze Age, undoubtedly still bear the “scent” of the Neolithic and the desire for resurrection. When speaking of the Neolithic on Hvar, we inevitably mention the Neolithic Hvar culture, heir to the Danilo, a culture that in a spiritual and artistic sense, clearly, drew quite a bit from the symbolism of the snail. In the transmission of the symbolic “material” (rhyta, spirals, the colour red...) from the Danilo to the Hvar culture, it is reasonable to suppose that the symbolic connection of the snail/spiral with immortality too was carried over,

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which would also have had echos in the subsequent Early Bronze Age.4 The orientation of the tumulus in an east-west direction, along the path of the sun, certainly speaks in favour of that. The west is “black” or the colour of dying and death, and the east is “white”, the colour of resurrection and life; the west is the “body”, the east the “spirit”, etc. The “kadunjok” snail from which the series of rock grave mounds got their name appears in autumn and winter. This latter season of the year in alchemic chromatic symbolism, which undoubtedly has its archaic roots buried in the Neolithic humus, if not even earlier, is indicated with the colour black as “the period of Dissolution and of Putrefaction” in which “the Work on Resurrection” must be begun. M. Ruland informs us that “the Hermetic Philosophers apply this name to the passage from the Black to the White in the operation of the Great Work” (Ruland 1991, 418). Further, “the Black Colour, or Matter when it has arrived thereat under the operation of dissolution and putrefaction” in the lexicon of the hermetic philosophers is named – Saturn (Ibid. 422). It is a well-known fact that this ancient Roman god of agriculture was long remembered for his mythical reign that became the golden age of humanity, the age of abundance and plenty. Another interesting coincidence is that the name of the island Šćedro is a synonym of the adverb “štedro” which comes from the Štokavian dialect of the Croatian language in the meaning “abundant”, “plentiful”. And one more thing: M. L. von Franz cites the opinion of the symbolist Chevalier for whom the snail is a lunar, hence female symbol “because it shows and hides its horns and because of its moist nature.” It is just “the Black Colour of Matter”, which means winter, or the time when the “kadunjok” snail appears, the time when woman or “moist nature” prevails. The drying of the “moisture”, that obligatory part “of the Great Work”, as we have seen in Chapter 4, was nothing other “than the transformation of an ‘old’ life into a ‘new’ life, resurrection in short.” Indeed, the burial ground “Kadunje Mounds” is located at the very heart of the symbol. In his last and greatest cosmological work De immenso et innumerabilibus (1591) G. Bruno takes the snail as an obvious symbol of the action of nature, that is, that its body unrolls outward from the interior of its house, spreading into a less compact and open mass ever ready to shrink back and shut itself up without ever attaining a final, self-defining form (Gatti 2002, 212). Much earlier the symbolism of the snail, or of the spiral, had escaped neither the Minoans nor the Greeks. “For the entire Greek tradition”, as Kerényi retells it, “Daidalos was the builder of Minotaur’s house, in which Daidalos himself was 4

The period of the Hvar culture extends from the Late Neolithic well into the Chalcolithic.

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later confined and from which he escaped through his invention of flying.” To solve the problem of the spiral, hence of the labyrinth, Daidalos according to the story that Sophocles presented in his tragedy used ants and snails: “he drew a thread through the convolutions of a snail shell...by fastening the thread to an ant which proceeded to crawl through the shell” (Kerényi 1996, 99). In this symbolic inquiry we must not forget the colour of the Šibenik cap, the colour of saffron, which we spoke about earlier, but can mention again in a somewhat different context, though with the same inherent meaning. Plutarch states that the Egyptians sacrificed two cocks to Osiris, one with white feathers, the other saffron-coloured. While the first represented the sky or things “as simple and clear”, the second represented them “as combined and variable” (Plutarch 1936, 145). If we assume that the sex of a snail is “combined” from the two sexes, and that in a reproductive sense it can be both “he” and “she”, hence of “changeable” sex, we will get an excellent description of the snail, aimed precisely in the direction of its hermaphroditism. Bearing in mind this insight, it is no wonder that Dionysos’s robes too were the colour of saffron. Just how inspirational the snail was to Neolithic man is also shown by the fact that the ancient inhabitants of Danilo crafted stone amulets in the form of a snail (Pl. XVI, fig. 34). The snail of the Šibenik cap na boule was not chosen at random, nor was the “embroidery” on its saffron-coloured surface. The tradition of these “curls” or “snails”, or double spirals, which are an image of androgynous contrasts – male-female, spreading-shrinking, opening-closing..., remained recorded on the “Šibenik cap” until modern times. The snail and the symbolism based on it were very important to the ancient inhabitants of Danilo. The universal spiritual fabric of their times presented, all things considered, a derivative of that subtle symbolism which they, in their own way, wove into their own cultural essence. Today we know that the Earth turns around its axis in one day and makes its way around the Sun in a year. The astronomy of the Greeks and Romans was based, however, on a geocentric cosmology, in which everything moved around the Earth, the firm and immovable centre of the universe. For that cosmology the universe itself was bounded by a great vault to which the stars are attached, arranged into various constellations. Along with the daily rotation of the cosmic vault and orbiting of the Sun around the Earth, the ancients believed that the Sun – which was thought to be closer to the Earth than the vault of the stars – in the course of a year travelled around the Earth describing a great circle through the constellations. This circle is known as the zodiac (live figures), which means that the sun moves against a background of twelve constellations represented by various human and animal forms. Since the belief in the great starry vault

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was firm, its various parts – such as the axis and poles – had a central role in the cosmology of the time. Of particular importance was the celestial equator – a circle equidistant from the poles of the vault. The circle of the celestial equator is salient because of the two points at which it intersects the circle of the zodiac: these are the points of the equinoxes, the places where the Sun, in its path across the zodiac, is located on the first day of spring and autumn. The celestial equator is thus responsible for marking the seasons of the year, and along with its abstract, astronomical meaning also had a concrete one. The key fact about the celestial equator is that it is not fixed, but is characterized by a slow movement called precession of the equinoxes (Ulansey 1991, 46–49). To illustrate the above, the archaeologist A. Durman states that the revolving Earth behaves like a damaged wheel that turns around its axle on an old peasant cart, or even more picturesquely, the rotational axis wanders around like the upper part of a top when it slows down, so that the celestial pole describes a circle among the stars (Durman 2000, 24). Because of that movement, which, as we now know, is a result of specifics of the Earth’s rotation on its axis, the celestial equator appears to change its position in the course of millennia. This change is called precession of the equinoxes because its most evident effect is the change in the place of the equinoxes. On account of precession the vernal point seems to move slowly backward through the zodiac, going through one constellation every 2160 years, or through the whole zodiac in 25,920 years. For example, today the vernal point is in the constellation Pisces, and a few hundred years from now it will be in Aquarius (the Age of Aquarius). In Roman times, i. e. when the cult of Mithras was flourishing, the spring equinox was in the constellation Aries the Ram, which it had entered about 2000 BC. Precession of the equinoxes gives the clue to the secret astronomical symbolism of the tauroctony (the image of ritual slaughter of a bull on Mithraic monuments). All the constellations described in the standard tauroctony were at the celestial equator during the epoch that preceded the Greek-Roman era of Aries. During that epoch, which we could call the era of Taurus, about 4000 to 2000 BC, the celestial equator went through the constellation Taurus (the Bull – at that time the spring equinox), Canis Minor (the Small Dog), Hydra (the Sea Serpent), Corvus (the Crow) and Scorpio (the Scorpion – the autumnal equinox), that is, the constellations represented in the tauroctony, which thus appears to have been conceived as a symbolic representation of the Taurus-era astronomic situation (Ulansey 1991, 50–51). In an interesting work on archaeoastronomy R. Heath remarks that the number thirteen is “a very lunar number” and reminds us that our epoch has lost the concept of the great cycles of precession of the stars for the spring equinox

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every 2000 years. The Age of Taurus or the Bull, from about 4000 to 2000 BC, was a period ruled by Venus with the Moon in ascendance. The decline of that knowledge, whose roots are probably to be sought as early as the Palaeolithic, began gradually with the Iron Age, or the Age of Aries, until in our age, the Age of Pisces, it was eradicated, along with the concept of the Goddess or anything “lunar”. The precession cycles, divisible by thirteen, which give precisely 2000year periods, are completely ignored and we are no longer interested in things which inform us that there should be “thirteen Ages”. In the same way, the fact that the Moon every day moves thirteen degrees around the Earth, as well as the fact that it goes through its orbit thirteen times during a solar year, which is obvious to the eye of the observer, likewise are disregarded (Heath 1998, 33–34). Therefore it is not surprising to discover the fact that earthly calendars were based on the connection of menstrual cycles with the phases of the Moon. In many languages the word for Moon, month, measure and menstruation have a similar meaning or a common root. In Gaelic, for example the word for “menstruation” and “calendar” are completely the same. Similar connections can be found throughout the world. A month measured from one new Moon to the next during the year will give altogether thirteen months. Early calendars were invariably made according to a scheme of thirteen months. Observing the precession eras as they followed one another during nearly four thousand years of Ancient Egyptian history, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz asserts that periods of destruction took place toward the end of the Age of Taurus (from the VIII to the X dynasty), as well as at the end of the Age of Aries, which coincided with the founding of Christianity. We see the same crisis during the present era at the transition from Pisces to Aquarius. All these transitional epochs are characterised, de Lubicz emphasises, by the same symptoms: democratisation which discarded from memory the achievements from the time of kings and rejected religious metaphysics, and social disturbance connected with climatic and terrestrial disturbances (Schwaller de Lubicz 1988, 117). Reason does not let us understand how this simple fact – the point of spring projected on the starry sky – can produce such phenomena when it moves into a new sector. But the fact remains and can be confirmed. In the story above there is an issue directly connected to the epoch of the Danilo Culture. Schwaller de Lubicz presents it in the following way: “We must imagine that similar grave crisis for the same reason during the passage of the vernal point from Gemini to Taurus, a moment that is situated toward the year 4200 BC” (Ibid.) This year corresponds approximately with the decline if not the complete extinction of the influence of Danilo as a cultural and spiritual centre on the eastern Adriatic coast in the Middle Neolithic. That, of course, must not be taken in a strict

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sense as the year of the “extinction of a culture”, but more as an indication by way of general orientation. At Krivače near Bribir, a case in point, a rich layer was excavated with material from the Hvar cultural group on the basis of which we nowadays can look in a different way at the relations among Neolithic cultures that came into contact at early Neolithic sites (at Danilo, for example). It has generally been held that the end of the Danilo Culture represented the beginning of the Hvar Culture. However, as M. Menđušić correctly supposes, the Bribir Neolithic picture shows that the Hvar group is nothing other than a further development of the Danilo (Menđušić 1998, 52). Somewhat earlier, about 4400 BC according to radiocarbon findings, the acropolis was completely destroyed in Sesklo, one of the most significant Greek Neolithic cultures. The settlement was totally wiped out by a fire of unknown cause and from then on was uninhabited for more than five millennia. Recent excavations have shown that the final phase of the Greek Middle Neolithic in the settlement outside the acropolis was highly similar to that on the acropolis so that it can be concluded that their destruction and devastation were shared. That was the end of the period of development which at that site had lasted a full 1500 years. Comparative studies have shown that the violent destruction of the acropolis and settlement did not happen only in Sesklo but also elsewhere. The annihilation of the settlement at the site Tsangli IV, which likewise belonged to the last phase of the Greek Middle Neolithic, happened at almost the same time as in Sesklo. Unlike Sesklo, which never recovered from the consequences of the destruction, the settlement at Tsangli soon came back to life so that it existed anew from the beginning of the Late Neolithic. Likewise in Servia, near the Aliákmonas [Haliacmon] River, in the extreme north of Thessaly [Greek Macedonia], the archaeologist Heurtley observed the results of a great fire in the fifth and last layer of the settlement, which agrees with the end of the Middle Neolithic. The fire caused great destruction (Theocharis 1973, 79). A. Whittle observed that from 4000 to 3000 BC “the accents of change became more pronounced. Many of the previously established cultural groupings changed radically, and the whole nature of materiality with it.” He emphasises: “Many tells were abandoned (but not all, as in Thessaly), some to be later reoccupied....” (Whittle 1996, 363). The latter in any case is true of Tsangli, about which Theocharis too reports. Likewise “from about 4000 BC” in a large part of Europe (“a very broad area of west, north-west and into parts of central Europe”) there begin to appear “carefully built mounds, cairns and platforms which usually contained internal chambers and other structures” (Ibid., 243–44). The transition period from Early to Middle Neolithic, marked by ceramic mastery, as achieved in the Urfirnis-wares class, at Corinth appears to have

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been a peaceful evolution, accomplished no later than 5750 BC, just like the transition from the Middle to the Late Greek Neolithic (c. 5250 BC). Wishing to show just how peaceful that transition indeed was, J. Lavezzi points out that “the evidence of some other sites in Greece and of ethnology suggests that some ceramic changes can even be explained as the result of marriages of men of the black-burnished tradition to local women of Urfirnis ware tradition” (Lavezzi 2003, 68). Likewise, the beginning of the Bronze Age at Corinth toward the end of the 4th millennium BC took place gradually and peacefully. However, the transition from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries at the end of the 3rd millennium BC appears to have been disastrous for the advanced second phase of Early Helladic Culture (EH II) in Corinth, that “begins with a second fruitful phase of close contacts with Early Cycladic Culture, the ‘Second Cycladicizing,’ which enhances the development of Corinth as a flourishing communal center in early EH II” (Lavezzi 2003, 72). Some facts, like “the lack of a definable EH II late subphase at Corinth, such as would be characterized by Lerna type IV sauceboats or a desultory use of ‘glaze’, suggests that the EH II inhabitation terminated somewhat before the more universal end of Early Helladic II at about 2200 BC...” Speculating about the possible cause of the disappearance of EH II, Lavezzi also offers the possibility of worsening climate, but whatever it was the irrefutable fact remains that “EH II in the central excavation zone of Corinth terminates rather abruptly” (Ibid., 73). For the sake of a more complete picture, by the way, let us add two more events significant for the earlier precession cycles: The beginning of the intensive penetration of a Neolithic economy into Europe begins somewhere around 6000 BC (the end of the Age of Cancer and the beginning of the Age of Gemini). In addition, even earlier, is the intentional burying of huge megalithic structures in Anatolia, “the recently discovered Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) site of Göbekli Tepe. Architecture at Göbekli Tepe is distinctive, consisting of larger curvilinear and smaller rectangular structures with megaliths in the form of T-shaped stone pillars. The monoliths from the curvilinear structures stand 3 to 5 m high, weigh up to 20 tens and have been positioned in a symmetrical arrangement. An approximate date for the burying of the megaliths comes from a PPNB soil (Layer II) overlying the filling (Layer III) of enclosure D.” J. Peters and K. Schmidt report C-14 dates by K. Pustovoytov showing that “this soil has been dated to 8880±60 BP (or 8240–7780 cal. BC). Pedogenic carbonate coatings on wall stones of enclosures B and C produced somewhat different dates, i.e. 8960±85 BP (c. 8300–7800 cal. BC) and 8430±80 BP (c. 7600–7200 cal.),” and both authors conclude that “all in all these 14C dates suggest that the filling of the megalithic architecture took place in the 8th millennium cal. BC

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at the latest” (Schmidt and Peters 2004, 182–83) which, from the standpoint of precession, can easily be an event from the end of the Age of Leo and the beginning of the Age of Cancer. From the first Egyptian dynasty, which de Lubicz places around 3500 BC, during the second decan of Taurus the founding of the cult of the Bull can be witnessed. The cult dedicated to Gemini, as has been noticed at the mounds of Medamud, as well as burial in foetal position, disappears completely from this time on (Schwaller de Lubicz 1988, 117). Quite similarly, the beginning of the renaissance of Amon’s cult of the Ram is recorded in the period of Sesostris III, around 1900 BC, approximately three centuries after the transition from Taurus to Aries. Unrest in Egypt late in the rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty took place on the eve of the transition of the vernal point from Aries to Pisces. Three centuries later, in 325, under Constantine, Christianity, born under the sign of Pisces, became the main religion in the Roman Empire. Acceptance of these principles, astrological in character, would, according to de Lubicz, surely throw light on those dark places which to this day puzzle historians in connection with the beginnings and upheavals in Egypt, so mysterious to our rational mentality. Although historians explicate these strange religious and social upheavals, they do not explain the possible connection that existed between these phenomena and the shift of the vernal point from one celestial region – marked by a group of constellations – to another. His opinion is that we lack knowledge about the influence of the zodiac on vital phenomena, although it appears that such lore existed in China, India, Chaldea, Egypt, probably among the Mayans, and even in our Middle Ages, as witnessed by the representations of signs of the zodiac in medieval cathedrals (Ibid., 119). At this point it is appropriate to mention that the turbulent events that engulfed Danubian Europe before and around 1800 BC, thus at approximately the time of the above-mentioned renaissance of the cult of Amon in Egypt, eliminated nearly all local Chalcolithic cultures. In the general mixing of different populations, of new and old ideas, the cultural scene changed radically almost overnight. In this maelstrom the group of late Vučedol cultural phenomena also disappeared (Dimitrijević 1994, 317). Two tumuli accidentally discovered during construction of the Danilo-Kraljice motorway can be dated to the same period. The opened parts of both tumuli are very rich in fragments of ceramic vessels, decorated and plain. The archaeologist M. Menđušić, who excavated at the site, mentions as especially interesting those having ornamentation “of Vučedol character”, closest to the Adriatic type of the Ljubljana Culture, which is, however, quite a rarity in these areas. He dates the mounds at Ulnovac to the very transition from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age (Menđušić 1993a,

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26). The Vučedol Culture, as is well known, was an Indo-European group. In Europe the penetration of the Indo-Europeans everywhere was a synonym for change. In an inexplicable way precession appears to have fit together with these turbulent periods at Danilo as well. Likewise, a few hundred kilometres north along the Adriatic Coast from Danilo, near today’s city of Rovinj, around 1800 BC or a little earlier, hence at the turbulent transition from the Age of Taurus to the Age of Aries, there was built one of the largest and best fortified hillforts in Istria – Monkodonja. Life in it lasted until about 1200 BC. “This impressive construction feat consists of a structure that is almost a kilometre long, approximately 3 m wide, and at least 3 m high, which represents the walls enclosing the hillfort. It was erected in the dry-wall technique, without any binding materials [such] as mortar or cramps, with stone blocks weighing up to a few tonnes, which were then hewn at the spot where they were installed. The fortification walls were constantly repaired and reinforced” (Mihovilić et al. 2009, 27). The finds testify how stormy the precessional transition must have been: “An axe, the point of a spear, and a number of bone arrowheads were unearthed in the walls in the acropolis as well as in its immediate vicinity – signs of the battles fought to gain control over the fortification” (Ibid., 28). The lack of evidence for war before the beginning of the 4th millennium BC is truly striking. Thus, for example, in 1999 three different reviews of archaeological finds from different parts of the world showed that nowhere was evidence of warfare during the upper Palaeolithic period (40,000–10,000 BC) found. Nowhere were signs of violent death found, nor signs of destruction caused by war; although numerous artifacts were found, nowhere were there weapons. Nor in any one of more than three hundred cave galleries have archaeologists found scenes of war, weaponry and warriors (Taylor 2005, 32). Up until 4000 BC, the anthropologist R. Gabriel writes, there exists no evidence that man waged war on any level whatsoever and certainly not on a scale that would have required organized group violence; indeed, there exists little evidence of killing altogether (Ibid.). It was similar on the Adriatic, for example on Nakovana plateau on Pelješac and in the Cave there, where after the changes marking the beginning of the Neolithic there followed a long period of stability. Forenbaher and Kaiser note that there “other than a change of styles and craftsmanship of earthenware vessels nothing dramatic happened for nearly four millennia” (Forenbaher and Kaiser 2003, 48). Danilo, like the majority of sites in the Balkans, likewise developed in that peaceful and stable period. The rise of art and spiritual culture that occurred in these places was the natural result of longlasting enjoyment of the fruits of peace, the most suitable atmosphere for the subtle functioning of the

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human creative spirit. Highly valuable remains of material culture are the mute witnesses to that golden age. Nevertheless, that does not mean that in the period before 4000 BC there was not violence, no, not at all! In the late 6th millennium some Neolithic settlements in Anatolia were laid waste in battle (the mutilated bodies have been found), including even the famous Çatal Hüyük, which was finally destroyed around 4800 BC. Likewise the Semitic peoples from the Zagros Mountains attacked Syria and Mesopotamia causing great destruction, after which the first fortifications began to appear around settlements in which archaeologists have found layers of destruction. However, only after 4000 BC did social violence become endemic, with unceasing wars and a broad spectrum of social oppression, in step with which came domination by males. Many agree that this male domination overthrew the so-called matriarchy, cultures which were democratic, egalitarian, sexually affirmative, with a negligible level of violence among adults, and replaced it by patriarchy, a culture with a high degree of violence by adults, which inflicts pain and trauma on children, subordinates women and founds social institutions that are an articulation of sadistic aggression (Taylor 2005, 49–50). The Age of Gemini was the era in which the Danilo Culture arose and probably was extinguished, and with it the tradition of cult vessels, rhyta. The planet that rules over this sign of the zodiac is Mercury (Hermes). One of the most famous intersexual beings recorded in myth is Hermaphroditos, who is the son of Hermes and Aphrodite. He was depicted as an attractive youth with female breasts or as Aphrodite with a male sexual organ. Then he would be called Aphroditos. Hermaphroditos is, above all, the god of procreation “closely linked and ultimately identified, with the Gemini archetype” (Cirlot 2002, 145). Among the anthropomorphic figurines of the Vinča culture (in one of its periods contemporary to the Danilo) there were found a certain number of hermaphrodites, twins and two-headed figures5 so that some scholars see in them images of specific deities: the Great Goddess, the Bird and Snake Goddess, the deities of the seasons of the year, of vegetation etc. (Cermanović-Kuzmanović and Srejović 1992). M. Vasić, the first researcher of the site at Vinča, divided the whole of the Vinča anthropomorphic statuary by sex into male and female statuettes, while he placed the hermaphrodites in a group of statuettes “of varying significance”. The latter statuettes have “modelled breasts and genitalia” (Korošec 1959a, 86). Hermaphroditic figurines from the period of the Greek Neolithic are truly extraordinary. They show a person in sitting position, which 5

The two-headed figurine found at Vinča is popularly called the “Siamese twins”.

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was usually reserved for men. However, all the figurines have female breasts and male genitalia (Talalay 1997). According to the archaeologist J. Chapman, sex and individuality can be regarded in three ways. We can see female and male as a polarity, as individual or contextual. In the first case everyone is an individual defined as male or female, and these are seen as congenital characteristics, while in the second case everyone is an individual who has both female and male characteristics, and one is defined by the more prominent category. In the last case, different parts of people are defined as male or as female and can change according to the situation or the action undertaken. They are regarded as dividuals, whose characteristics are expressed in their relationships with other people (Chapman 2002). But Chapman does not limit himself to theoretical speculations. Convinced that every culture incorporates these three different types of features in different proportions, he finds confirmation in the clay figurines of the Neolithic agricultural Hamangia Culture on the west coast of the Black Sea (about 5000 BC), whose members conceptualized sex/gender mainly in an androgynous manner. Figurines were found as different male or female parts or as entire bisexual figures. The latter figurines are composed of male and female parts different from one another, but in such a way that these parts could be separated and distinguished. By using different lumps of clay and leaving the joint incompletely finished, the figurines could be divided in a prescribed manner, making the male and female element separate. This wholeness and divisibility of the elements are emphasised differently depending on the place at which they were found. Entire figurines are found only in graves, whereas parts are found mainly in settlements. Only in two pits were the one and the other type found together. In this way they contain both aspects of gender in the Hamangia Culture (Ibid.). Although the female features on the figurines from the Black Sea Hamangia Culture appear to have been dominant, in his book about fragmentation in archaeology Chapman also compared these figurines with those from the early Greek Neolithic whose cylindrical necks/heads gave a phallic appearance, independent of other sexual characteristics on the figurines, and came to the conclusion that, on account of such balanced sexual presentation, entire (unfragmented) figurines from the Hamangia Culture are – hermaphroditic (Chapman 2000, 76). While the male features on the figurines can be detected on the basis of the phallic neck, there exist other traits as well, which, on the contrary, characterise a female body. Aside from four exceptions, entire figurines are all hermaphroditic. The broken ones change their sexual identity. In short, if the “neck” is broken off, maleness is “lost” (no examples with a penis exist),

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or separated from the female part of the figurine. The female part is of clearer identity on account of the larger number of female traits: “breasts, pregnant stomach, pubic triangle and wide, exaggerated hips, as if ready for childbirth”. Fragmentation of the figurines, according to Chapman, changes not only the “gender perspective” in relation to the material culture, but also the sex of the figurine itself. “The loss of the typical bisexual traits of complete Hamangia figurines leads to dynamic gender changes in the use of material culture” (Ibid., 79). Before we continue with the presentation of this material it would be appropriate to emphasise the difference between “sex” and “gender”, especially because these two terms in our language do not describe exactly what they imply in anthropology. In the scholarly literature in English and in other world languages, the term “sex” refers exclusively to biological, genetic, i.e. physical sex. On the other hand, the expression “gender” describes the social and cultural category of male and female, but also numerous variants of transitional genders. In short: biological sex and social gender do not have to correspond at all, as in the examples of modern transsexuals, mythical Amazons etc. Therefore, the whole story about sexual dimorphism is a more complex question than that of physiological, i.e. genetic differences between men and women. This question also implies a whole range of psychological (intellectual, emotional etc.) distinctions, which are perceived differently in different models of social communities. So it is not strange that the archaeological study of some human community of the past places the question of sex roles at the centre of attention today, since that is often what reflects the complete ideology of that society. There is no doubt that our biases with regard to gender are deeply rooted, beginning with the identification of sexual attributes. N. Hamilton in her work (Hamilton 2000, 17–30) presents images of human figures with breasts and a beard which were characterized en masse as male on account of the beard, while the breasts were overlooked; large, well-modelled figures of people on a throne are seen as male, although there were no recognizable features of that sex on them; two-headed figures, it was supposed, represented male and female, despite explicit indicators to the contrary. Hamilton questioned the thesis prevailing until then that early societies necessarily divided the human group into mutually exclusive categories – male and female. She observed that both figurines, which often can not be unambiguously assigned by sex, as well as ethnographic analogies, suggest that the early Mediterranean cultures could have had “different gender concepts and structures from our own” (Ibid., 28). Reacting to the work of Holmes and Whitehouse (Anthropomorphic Figurines and the Construction of Gender in Neolithic Italy), who described sixty freestanding

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figurines from the Italian Neolithic, mostly female, with two males and not one without sex, L. A. Talalay says that there were clear indications of the existence of mixed sexual symbolism. There are, for example, explicitly phallic-shaped heads on female bodies and “a hybrid category which seems to meld human and animal or human and bird characteristics”. Unambiguously sexual (female) figurines come primarily from households, whereas sexually combined (male/ female) and hybrid figurines (man/animal or man/bird) “are found primarily in cult caves or burials. Holmes and Whitehouse do not conceive of these figurines as depicting ‘third’ or ‘other’ genders,” nor is their opinion based on dyadic western concepts, but it is close to the model from Melanesia, “where sexual and gendered identities are viewed as flexible and separable”. As a case in point, in “certain Melanesian groups gender does not reside in or adhere unequivocally to the individual.” Rather it is perceived there as an essence – something that can be divided, mutually shared, united or combined either in the same, or in a crossed sex. “Individuals are not viewed as ‘irreducibly unique’ components, but as composite sites of relationship. Identities are therefore not complete in themselves, but are unbounded and divisible” (Talalay 2005, 136). It is just the expression “composite sites of relationship” that best describes the internal structure of the Danilo rhyton, a union of man and woman, and their offspring. The primordial deity is androgynous; the dual system is structured for the sake of the procreation of the world. Thus the state of bliss and blessedness disappeared, which can temporarily be recreated, or reintegrated by the union of opposites in the rapture of love. The androgyne, who is undivided, represents absolute sensual pleasure. Certain authors, such as A. Daniélou, believed that the progressive reintegration of the sexes until androgyny is attained should be the goal of humanity as a whole (Daniélou 1995, 93).6 The rhyton is painted in the colour red, as we have seen, in part, and that on the inner or female sides. Had its Neolithic creators intended to depict it as female, they would have painted it entirely red. But then, probably, they would have had to change its appearance a little, for the structure of this find as we know it today is the structure of Hermes’s and Aphrodite’s bisexual child. The red paint on its internal (yin) and the unpainted external (yang) parts, as well as the presence of decorations on the external (male) and their absence on the internal (female) parts of the rhyton are clear evidence that our ancestors 6 The same author asserts that developed creatures move toward bisexuality. In the bisexual being communication between the two halves of the brain is especially well developed. This is likewise the reason why, Daniélou judges, creative artists are frequently bisexual.

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in the 6th millennium BC knew the meaning of the expression “two in one”. From the unseverable ties of “the two golds” (male and female) “it becomes our Hermaphrodite, being mighty in both sexes”, as the pseudonymous hermetic adept Eirenaeus Philalethes explains this Arcanum (Alch. Works 1994, 386). I. P. Cory, briefly summarising the concept of “theology of the ancients”, concludes that ancient theologians recognised “as the primary elements of all things, two independent principles, of the nature of male and female. And these, in mystical union, as the soul and body, constitute the great Hermaphroditic deity, the One, the Universe itself...” (Cory 1832, XXXIV). At Danilo this theology was perfected and was baked into the clay of the rhyton seven thousand years ago.

10 The Phallus

Aside from rhyta, there are other no less interesting finds from the Danilo Culture, such as what Batović calls bell-shaped or funnel-shaped human figures, which are a prominent feature of the Danilo Culture. They most often have a bell-like body form: the full, cylindrical upper part gradually widens into a hollow bell-shaped lower part. Body parts are not especially distinguished. At the top they end rounded off, or broaden in various ball-like or egg-shaped ways, or have one or several nipple-like protrusions, or two thickenings like stylised shoulders, etc. (Pl. XIV, fig. 24, 25, 26, 27, 28). Some (Smilčić) end with a realistic depiction of human or animal heads: cow, bird, etc. Some have the form of a phallus (Batović 1979, 548–49). Since the phallus is also known in other places as a symbol of a male deity, J. Korošec thinks that we can suppose that the specimens found probably represent phalluses and that the cult of the phallus was quite widespread in Danilo. A relatively large number of phalluses, without other figurative or idolic statuary that would represent female deities or a fertility deity, led Korošec to the idea that the population of the Danilo Group is “some other population” (Korošec 1958, 140), that primarily worshipped the cult of the phallus, or a male deity, while the fertility cult despite the farming population was not so popular, although neither can we entirely exclude it, even if we have no material evidence of its existence. Therefore, according to Korošec, in the Danilo Group there are no artistic depictions of women and female fertility deities such as there are in the Butmir and Vinča cultures. On the other hand, the Butmir group, closest to the Danilo, is marked by a large amount of figurative statuary in the form of female statuettes, while there are no phallus figurines whatsoever, so Korošec concludes that the population of these two cultural groups were different both in their views and in religion, and perhaps even ethnically as well (Ibid.). At this point it would perhaps be good to add that G. Novak, on the basis of some analogies between placenames on the coast and islands of the Adriatic Sea with those on the shores of the Mediterranean, draws the conclusion that before the Indo-European Illyrians the northwest coast and the islands of the Balkan

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peninsula were inhabited by a population that belonged to a pre-Indo-European ethnic group. This group “compactly” populated the islands and shores of the Aegean Sea, and some settlements on the shores of the Apennine peninsula, Sicily and northern Africa. These were Mediterranean peoples and their kin, Novak is convinced, who lived on the whole coast of Asia Minor, the islands of the Aegean Sea, and the shores of later Greece, and apparently also the whole southern part of the Balkan peninsula already in the 3rd, and probably also in the 4th millennium BC. They were later, in the 2nd millennium, to develop a high culture on Crete, spread it throughout the islands and definitively influence the creation of the Mycenean culture (Novak 1955, 12). Two skeletons of adult males, 20–30 years of age, found at the top of the cultural layer of the last or third phase of the Danilo Culture at Smilčić belong to the Mediterranean type of people – with gracile and harmonious proportions, of medium height (Zlatunić 2003, 62–63). In addition, it is interesting to recall that, for example, a skeleton discovered at Gura Baciului in Cluj in Romania from the early Starčevo period, due to pronounced brachycephaly takes on the appearance of the Alpine type, but it cannot be asserted that it is not a specific variant of the Mediterranean type; and that skeletons from Vinča show elements of the Mediterranean and Nordic types (Garašanin 1973, 29), which to some extent suggests possible penetration of the “Mediterranean type” deep into the continental part of southeast Europe. It is possible that the population of the Danilo and Butmir Neolithic groups were ethnically distinguished, as Korošec reports, or racially; Benac supports this to some extent (based on the results of the research of F. Fiala and M. Hoernes from 1898) stating that in Butmir 72 more or less damaged human figures of baked clay were found and a certain number of animal figures. The human statuettes were executed in such a way that racial features could be distinguished on them. According to these features three main groups can be distinguished: those with Armenoid, Europaeid (Alpine) and Negroid characteristics. With regard to the latter, Negroid features were noted on several preserved heads among which are seen a very prominent forehead, flattened nose, slanting eyebrows, eyes projecting outward, curly hair, etc. All these are clearly Negroid characteristics that were faithfully transmitted to crafted figures. It is to this racial group that the so-called Black woman belongs, the torso of a figure who has sculpted scars on her back (Benac 1964, 123). Today’s molecular genetics have contributed some very important discoveries with regard to the history of the population of the European continent, especially in prehistory. By analysis of mitochondrial DNA B. Sykes and M. Richards came to a conclusion about the presence of several haplo-groups in the modern European population. According to their findings, about 20 percent

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of the modern European genetic pool comes from the first agriculturalists who arrived from Anatolia over 8500 years ago (haplogroup J). About 10 percent fall into the autochthonous European population from over 50,000 years ago, whereas a huge 70 percent belong to haplogroups whose expansion took place 14,000–11,000 years ago, in a migration wave from Anatolia. The geneticist A. Torroni examining mtDNA and the Y-chromosome comes to the conclusion that the main population expansion from the “Atlantic Zone” of southwest Europe took place 15,000–10,000 years ago after the late glacial climatic maximum. This expansion is connected with the autochthonous European haplogroup (haplogroup V), whose origin may be in northern Iberia or southwest France 15,000 years ago. These conclusions were strongly supported by studies of the Y-chromosome. In the period before 15,000 years ago during the glacial maximum the European population, Torroni asserts, withdrew into local refuges, to repopulate Europe in the following millennia. As matters stand today, scientific results support a picture of several waves of colonisation from Anatolia, with very important internal European demographic episodes activated by climate changes during and after the Ice Age (Renfrew and Bahn 2006, 476–77). “Haplogroups G, E, and J have been associated with the contribution of Neolithic farmers to the European gene pool. Decreasing frequencies of haplogroup G from the Middle-East to Europe have been observed with the highest frequency noticed in Georgia.” On the other hand, “its frequency is low in the investigated Croatian population with the exception of the most southern and the most distant investigated island Korčula (10%), suggesting that the Neolithic spread may have come by sea rather than by land” (Barać et al. 2003, 539). “Croatian Y chromosomal lineages testify to different migrational movements carrying mostly Palaeolithic European ancestry, a minor Neolithic impact from the Near East, as well as a Slavic (Croatian) influence.... Haplogroup I, one of the few haplogroups of Palaeolithic European origin, present in Croatians in the highest frequency noticed in Europe so far, could potentially classify this area as a birthplace of this mutation as well as source of its post-GM [last glacial maximum] spread in Europe” (Ibid., 541). King and Underhill, who studied “geographic correlations between the occurrence of Neolithic/Chalcolithic painted pottery and ceramic figurines and the frequencies of various Y-chromosomal haplotypes that evolved over time without recombination” (King and Underhill 2002, 707) noticed in the Croatian region an absence of distribution of Neolithic figurines and painted pottery that are associated with [the] early agricultural period. The two authors remark that “the Eu9 haplogroup is the best genetic predictor of the appearance of Neolithic painted pottery and figurines at various European sites.” However, “Hungary,

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Croatia and the Ukraine, which contain sites of Neolithic painted pottery, had low frequencies of the Eu9 haplotype (2–6%). Perhaps Mesolithic populations in these regions,” King and Underhill conclude, “indigenous [sic] independently utilized anthropomorphic figurines and painted pottery concurrently with the transition to agro-pastoralism” (Ibid., 712–713). This finding could imply that in this region transition to agriculture occurs later and less because of a replacement than by diffusion. Let us return to the controversial “phalluses”. For Benac these objects in the Danilo Culture represent a phallic cult and male deity, or a fertility cult connected with cult vessels and with child sacrifices. He rejects the opinion of J. Korošec about the worship of a male deity, and not a fertility deity, like the female statuettes at Butmir. He agrees with the thesis that the phalluses served cult purposes (Benac 1964, 78). Benac considers a phallic cult a fertility cult characteristic of a matriarchal society and mentions the example of a tribe in Brazil, and of such a cult in ancient Greece, and hence supposed that at Danilo phallic cults and child sacrifices (children’s skeletons found there) were closely connected in fertility magic. He emphasises that among the Neolithic groups of the northwest Balkans a phallic cult appears only in the Danilo Group (Ibid., 120–121). Fragments of ceramics and remains of a hearth that come from the mid 4th millennium BC, as well as fragments of fine Hellenistic ceramic vessels used for drinks, but also for food, were found in Spila cavern by Kopinje Hill near Gornja Nakovana on Pelješac, in front of a stalagmite in the form of a phallus about 65 centimetres high. By the C-14 method it was determined that the stalagmite began to grow about 2000 BC, and it is a question how high it was at the transition from BC to AD when the underground corridor that leads to it was closed. The stalagmite/phallus, which was evidently worshipped in the Neolithic as well, is still active today (Menalo 2005, 8). T. Kaiser, an archaeologist from the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Canada, who together with the Croatian S. Forenbaher participated in the discovery of the Nakovana stalagmite, mentions that the stalagmite was “purposely placed at the center of the cave, in a strategic location that allowed a shaft of light from the cave entrance to shine directly upon it” at a certain time every year (ROM 2000). It is quite possible that it is just that property of growth, that symbolic erection, that was the reason for its worship. If we add to that the cave and the darkness, which since time immemorial have been the symbol of the woman/womb, it is not hard to answer the question why Spila was a cult place for several millennia. The cult of the phallus obviously was not unknown to the Neolithic inhabitants of the southern Adriatic in that cultural transition period from the

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Danilo cultural group to the Hvar one in the first half of the 4th millennium. Late in that millennium on Malta and Corsica, but also in other parts of the western Mediterranean, huge stone phalluses were erected. These menhirs, whatever they represented, carved so as to resemble humans, were dated from the fourth and third to the early 1st millennium BC. They were distributed over a broad area in great groupings in Iberia, on Corsica and in the Alpine area. They are often found together with megalithic graves hollowed into rock faces, but they can equally well be found in isolated places or conforming to the natural landscape, thus in all probability making it sacred. It is worth noting that A. Benac considers the Hvar-Lisičići group to be “a reflection of one wave of immigration across the Adriatic at the beginning of the early Neolithic”. Moreover, the Neolithic settlement at Lisičići is according to him “a product of western Mediterranean inhabitants moving toward the Adriatic, and from the Adriatic through the valley of the Neretva to Lisičići”. Many authors who have worked on the prehistory of Malta, as Benac says, consider this island to have had an exceptionally important role in the western Mediterranean in the prehistoric period, and to have been a centre of migration and one of the centres of Neolithic seafarers. Only if we thus understand the role of Malta in the Neolithic world of the western Mediterranean, can we explain such a distant penetration of western Mediterranean cultural elements, this respected archaeologist is convinced (Benac 1964, 86). The results of radiocarbon dating on wood charcoal from the remains of a hearth in Spila at Nakovana indicate the middle of the 4th millennium BC (Forenbaher and Kaiser 2003, 65). Is it possible that the worship of the stalagmite-phallus in Spila cave at Nakovana was also initiated by such a western Mediterranean “penetration” along Pelješac peninsula toward the delta of the Neretva, the dating of which approximately corresponds to the finds around the cavern’s stalagmite from the mid 4th millennium?1 Similarly, a series of results obtained from the “facies” in the Nakovana Cave relate to the last third of the 4th millennium (cal BC), which according to J. Chapman indicates that these materials are contemporaneous with the transition from the Late Neolithic to the early Chalcolithic in Slovenia, Montenegro and the greater part of the Apennine peninsula. The lack of “isotope” dates for Dalmatian Late Neolithic groups necessarily rules out any definitive commentary relating the Hvar Culture and the finds at Spila. On the basis of finds from a few Dalmatian sites (Smilčić, Škarin Samograd) it can be concluded that the production of black polished pottery was common to the cultures of the 1 Certain artifacts excavated from the cave floor can, as we have said, be dated to the early Neolithic period, 6000 BC, which suggests that the Nakovana Cave could have been an important ceremonial site over a very long period.

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last period of the Middle Neolithic, as well as to those from the Late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic. Chapman agrees with B. Marijanović’s assertion that the “facies” from Nakovana are an outgrowth of the Hvar Culture, which finds at the Neolithic site Buković-Lastvina (group 1 and 2) also confirm; the fine pottery is very similar to that of the Hvar Culture (Chapman et al. 1990, 40–42). On account of this cultural influence, which, of course, also presupposed the intellectual transmission of ideas from the Hvar Culture to the Nakovana one, the origin of phallic worship could also have been drawn from the Danilo Culture as that cult was passed down in the Hvar-Lisičići and subsequently in the Nakovana Culture. For all three material evidence exists that supports this assertion. Here nevertheless it is worth knowing that in the Hvar phase on the territory of Dalmatia no such funnel-shaped objects, as Batović calls them, have been found. It does not mean, Batović emphasises, that we will never find them in the Upper Neolithic in Dalmatia, at least in some stages of the Hvar phase, since all indications are that we must count on several developmental stages of that phase, and it is possible that not all of them are known yet (Batović 1968, 14). However, since the site in Lisičići, near Konjice in Bosnia and Herzegovina, was closely connected with the Mediterranean and Adriatic in the features and origin of its culture, in scholarly circles it has been customary to take them together with the Hvar phase in Dalmatia and from that has arisen the expression “Hvar-Lisičići Group”, to designate a single cultural group. It is known that on the territory of Herzegovina the predecessor of the Hvar phase was the Danilo phase, individual elements of which were kept and transmitted to the Hvar phase at Lisičići. These were not, as Benac says, only those funnel-shaped objects, but also numerous other elements at Lisičići that are connected with the Danilo Group and phase, such as the motifs of garlands, bundles of zigzag lines, meander and spiral motifs, triangles, lozenges etc., also ball-shaped vessels, oval vessels, biconic cups, half-spherical and biconic bowls, incrustations etc. (Benac 1958, Plate IX, 1–6, 9, 11, 13, 14; X, 2, 3, 11, 13; XI, 1, 3, 4, 5; XII, 1; XIII, 1 etc.). It is uniformly the opinion of experts that in the Nakovana Cave certain secret rituals took place since it is located in a hidden and hard to reach place. Only a small number of persons participated, which is clear from the size of the space. Undoubtedly it was a hallowed place since there existed a physical focus of the ritual, represented by the stalagmite in the form of a phallus, before which was found a great concentration of fine ceramic vessels, “which the participants used during the ritual feast according to precisely determined rules, as was done in prehistoric and classical Europe” (Menalo 2005, 25). Gimbutas mentions throughout the Mediterranean caverns with stalagmites which, like the Nakovana one, were places of pilgrimage.

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Stalagmites (and stalactites) in central places in the cavern for her represent “the life-force pillar”, or “the embryonic, concentrated life force materializing in the womb of the Goddess” (Gimbutas 1989, 223). C. Kerényi expresses himself similarly although in less picturesque terms, writing about the Cretan cult caves, referring in particular to the cave of Eileithyia, dedicated to the goddess “who presided over births and who presumably governed everything connected with the life of women”, and in which “in the second, inner, and more important enclosure there rises a solitary stalagmite....A masculine cult object is unmistakably present in the midst of this feminine sanctuary”, asserts Kerényi, convinced that “such emphasis on a natural phenomenon suggests insight and recognition among the visitors, whose visionary power no doubt helped to make the cave into a cult site.” Likewise, statuettes of mating couples from the cave sanctuary of Inatos on the southern coast of Crete leave no room for him to doubt “as to the extreme concreteness of the Cretan view of the origin of life” (Kerényi 1996, 18–19). Although he admits the possibility that the form of the clay objects was inspired by a phallus, and that “they sometimes symbolise a phallus”, Š. Batović insists that it cannot be proven convincingly that Korošec’s Danilo clay “phalluses” really represent phalluses, and that they most probably indicate symbolic visual images as an autochthonous product of the Danilo Group, under whose influences they also spread to other cultural groups of that time. For him these are not at all images of phalluses, but of a “specific type of visual depiction”, primarily stylised, while some have a stylized body – a woman’s dress(?), a realistically depicted human or animal head (Batović 1968, 8). In addition, in the Danilo Group, there also appears various other statuary so that a cult of the phallus and of a male deity, as well as their connection with cult vessels (rhyta, author’s note) cannot be accepted (Ibid., 9). Regarding animal heads, it is possible that this is some form of prehistoric proto-Dionysian cult in which his followers, as is known from the historic period, wore animal skins and masks. Dionysos is first and foremost a god of fertility; his most natural symbol is, of course, the phallus, most often represented by the thyrsus, the staff of cane wound with ivy and grape vines, on top of which was a pine cone, which in its form unambiguously symbolises male sexual prowess. Unlike the doubting Batović, M. Gimbutas, who was familiar with his work, asserts that figures in the form of a phallus are found in all periods and cultural groups of “Old Europe” in numerous diverse forms in Neolithic Greece and former Yugoslavia, especially on the Adriatic coast. They were manufactured in all sizes, from miniatures to oversized images, and decorated with naturalistic or fantastic motifs. Some phalluses have a “cap” or a circumcision and an opening

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on top; others are geometrically decorated by painting or incision; still others spiral upwards like snakes. A clay phallus from Tsangli in Greece (the Sesklo site in Thessaly) is painted a cream colour so that its naturalness is reinforced by reddish-brown bands and a wide cut-out at the top. From the late Sesklo phase there also comes to us a huge marble phallus with red meanders on top and at the bottom (Gimbutas 1982, 217). In Elateia, in the same trench (no. 3) in which the rhyton was found, Weinberg also found a “pillar of clay”, which he shows in Table 68 (Weinberg 1962, 200). Referring to Korošec’s connection of the rhyton with a “water cult” and pointing to the similarity of the position of Elateia, Corinth and Danilo, especially on account of their location near a source of water, Weinberg draws the conclusion that at Danilo there most probably existed an aspect of fertility in that cult, since a large number of clay phalluses were found there decorated with incised ornaments and red paint in the same manner as the “four-legged vase”. These “four-legged vases”, i. e. rhyta, could then represent the female aspect of such a cult (Ibid., 195). Vinča clay or bone phalluses and those from the Lengyel Culture are decorated with horizontally incised bands and white, incrusted patterns of dots, which symbolise snakes. Eastern Balkan phalluses and those from the Cucuteni Culture are most often unadorned (Gimbutas 1982, 217). The sites Danilo, Butmir and Vinča, writes Gimbutas, have yielded hundreds of “wineglasses” with stems in the form of a phallus. Many of them have straight stems while others are charmingly decorated and skilfully formed sculptures. Batović does not question at all the autochthonous nature of the so-called phalluses since that is in its entirely “an essential and specific element, an independent product and essential component of the Danilo Group in Dalmatia”, so that, he holds, one can speak “only of an impulse from Greece” (Batović 1968, 36). By analysis of the artifacts he draws the conclusion that they could not have had the function either of a vessel, or of a lid, or of a handle, as was supposed in some places, but that they are objects with symbolic significance. He sees a confirmation of that symbolic purpose in the practice of painting the point of these objects with red paint, whose symbolic meaning as well as belief in its symbolic power were well known in prehistory. At the end of his study Batović says that the researcher of the Vinča Culture M. Vasić sought an analogy for the examples of Vinča phalluses in Greek and Mycenean culture and that A. Cermanović found similar objects from the Early Iron Age on the model of the cult of the Greek Dionysos. The last-named holds that in such phalluses two fertility deities are reflected, a female one and a male one, Demeter and Dionysos. Other authors too speak of bisexual symbols, such as James Giedion, likewise Korošec, Weinberg, etc. (Ibid., 41)

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Spurred on by the latter hermaphroditism, Batović mentions the cult chariot from Dupljaja near Vršac from the Dubovačko-Žutobrdska Group (ca. 1500– 1200 BC), on which swans are depicted (a solar chariot), and a male figure is driving it. In view of the outstanding similarity between the figure on the Dupljaja chariot and the Greek myth about Apollo, it is considered to represent Apollo as an ancient deity of fertility and vegetation – a solar cult. According to the myth, Apollo when he came to Delphi was clothed in woman’s attire, says Batović, who goes on to describe the figure according to the report by M. Garašanin, J. Kovačević and Đ. Bošković. The figure on the chariot, like figures of that period and that group in general, has a bell-shaped, allegedly woman’s dress, and in its entirety takes on exactly the same appearance as our figures and goods in the Danilo Culture, only it has arms depicted. In addition, on its head it has what appears to be a bird mask and in this is close to our objects (Ibid., 42–43). According to the illustrated supplement in the study (Plate XVII) it can be seen that in his description of the figure Batović left out an essential detail – three swastikas, which obviously with very indicative intent, are arranged on the body of the figure. Two are placed, each on its side, on the breasts (nipples), and the third on the place of the genitalia. The swastika, as an ancient solar symbol, is thus joined with female attributes in a bisexual union expressed through one figure. An image from a later period, “a crater in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna shows an image of Apollo bearing the gammadion on his breasts” as he drives the sun chariot to which four horses are hitched (Goblet d’Alviella 2000, 55). P. Sudhi excerpts from the bulletin of a French anthropological society from 1888 the fact “...that women bore the svastika upon their arms as did the goddess Aphrodite. And, when they assumed the position of arms crossed over their breasts the Svastikas being brought into prominent view possibly gave the name to the position as being representative of the sign” (Sudhi 1988, 144). Figurines of worshippers with arms upraised and placed on their breasts are mentioned by Fiala and Hoernes (according to Benac 1964, 124). An earthenware female statue, very superficially and summarily executed, found on Čikat Hill above Mali Lošinj and described by the archaeologist S. Kukoč, has arms placed on her breasts. A comparative study of the stylistic features of that statue led to the conclusion that it most probably comes from the Iron Age, about the 7th to the 6th century BC, although it inherits earlier features of earthenware statuary (Batović 2005, 40). Describing anthropomorphic figurines that arose along the shore of the prehistoric Mediterranean which are so small that they easily stand on a human hand, E. Blake says that the postures of these figurines can be interpreted as unambiguous adoration or imploring, with one raised arm

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or with arms crossed on the breasts, or when they hold some object, which indicates that some physical effect is shown or possible encounter with the deity (Blake 2005, 107). In the preceding chapter we mentioned that R. P. Knight (1750–1824), probably one of the greatest experts in the symbols of mystic theology of the ancients, in his famous treatise Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology writes that this unity of male and female attributes, active and passive, was not unknown to the ancients, who expressed it in art by putting intersexual beings such as a sea snail or turtle (which was likewise considered hermaphroditic) alongside statues, pictures and images of gods, such as Apollo, Venus and Mercury (Knight 1997, 34). At one time near the city of Miletus in Ionia a temple was erected with a colossal statue of the androgynous Apollo Didumaios. On the frieze of the temple two animal figures composed from the body of a goat and a lion hold up a lyre, that ancient instrument of union and harmony. Diana (or Artemis) was the Moon, by means of which, it was supposed, the Sun fertilises the air and disperses generative principles, active and passive, over the earth. The bisexual figure from Dupljaja with solar symbols on its reproductive organs, which Batović mentions, is generative nature, which is, like Bacchus diphues [two-natured] and Apollo didumaios [twin], both: male and female, heat and moisture, since it was supposed that the Moon’s warmth is moist, and the Sun’s is that which dries. The Moon was called the Mother of the World, but also the Daughter, and also the Sister of the Sun, because its power of production and the light that illuminates it came from the Sun. Diana and Apollo are portrayed on the breastplate on the famous statue of Augustus Prima Porta (dated to the year 1 BC), which is today kept in Rome in the Vatican museums. “Diana as the goddess of night with a torch, and Apollo as the deity of light who rides on a griffin entering Delphi at the end of winter” (Sanader 1999, 120). M. Sanader, unfortunately, did not go into more detail about the symbolism of Apollo on a griffin and Diana with a torch, who was known to the Romans as Diana Lucifera,2 and to the Greeks as Hecate Phosphorus. “Lucifer” is the epithet that the “morning star” Venus also bore. The Christians later, as is well known, completely disparaged that name as part of their systematic efforts to reject ancient pagan spirituality and its main symbols. It is not only that Diana is the torchbearer who lights up the night and banishes darkness, as M. Sanader sees it, but that the light and fire symbolised by her torch are the very soul of life, the light of nature, which warms and solidifies, that is fertilises her cold, virginal, lunar, watery nature so that from her body in spring there would 2

An excellently preserved, artistically brilliant marble statue from Čitluk (Aequum) that depicts Diana Lucifera is kept in the museum of the Franciscan monastery in Sinj.

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arise innumerable new forms of life of the embodied soul. The Orphic choir, praising Diana/the Moon, who “Night’s torch extending, thro’ the heav’ns you ride”, sing to her: Female and male, with borrow’d rays you shine, And now full-orb’d, now tending to decline. (Taylor 2003, 41).

Doctor H. Khunrath, that most famous name in spiritual alchemy, who in 1598, four years after our own Croatian Faust Vrančić left the post, as personal secretary to Emperor Rudolph II Habsburg, received his notarised support (in cera rubra [sealed in red wax]) – leave to spend ten years publishing his works, in his Confessio, published in 1597, explains Diana’s torch: “Nature itself is a wise, quickening light and fire, moving in itself, and doing wonders....In God is the Soul of the World, the Light of Nature, shining in darkness. All possess, even the grass, an immortal spirit” (Craven 1997, 37). She (Diana Lucifera) can actually function on one level as a symbol of the androgynous while on another level, if we bear in mind that in alchemy a symbol is used likewise for the direct transmission of mystical experience, she can equally well represent the clear light of the albedo (the white stage of the Opus, the morning star) which leads the adept out of the black night of the soul (the nigredo), etc. M. Gimbutas connects the goddess’s torch with the fertilizing power of the moon, since Hecate’s torches were carried around the freshly sown fields to promote their fertility. With regard to Diana/Artemis, it is appropriate to hear the opinion of C. Kerényi, who mentions that “it will be remembered that one of the names of the Great Mother of the Gods in Asia Minor (a goddess who besides being a mother also had strong hermaphroditic characteristics) was Great Artemis” (Kerényi 1980, 145). On the other hand Apollo as the fiery, solar deity rides late in winter on a griffin, a fantastic mythical creature, “a symbol of the cold, moist lunar or female principle known in alchemy as argent vive or mercury. This mythical creature, with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion, is usually paired with the hot, dry, male principle known as sulphur and personified by the red lion” (Abraham 2001, 94).3 Moreover, the name “Delphi” comes from the word delphys, which means womb (Daniélou 1995, 22). In this way male and female, hot and cold, active and passive are united in one symbolic figure, an androgynous union, like that “phallic” one from Dupljaja. Plutarch explains that the Egyptians located Osiris’s potency in the Moon, considering Isis, as the maternal principle of production, to have intercourse 3 Independent of L. Abraham’s interpretation, we should not forget that the hermetic philosophers frequently saw the griffin symbol as a body homogeneous in substance, arising out of a fierce combat between the opposing terrestrial/fixed force (the lion) and the airy/volatile force (the eagle), i.e., as animated mercury, which is, of course, again of androgyne nature.

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with him. Therefore they called the Moon the mother of the Universe, which has both natures – male and female, which in the beginning is filled by the Sun so as to conceive and then sow the generative principle into the air, fertilising it like a man. In the same manner the Paphian Venus (Cyprus) too is depicted with a male beard and other appearances of virility. “They sculpture her (Aphrodite) with a beard, and as having both male and female organs. They style her the patroness of generation, and say that from above the hips she is male, and female below”, writes Suidas (Knight 1997, 29, 104). In this book, but also in the other, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, in which he investigates the various forms of worship of Priapus, especially in antiquity, Knight uses the method of syncretic comparativism on a diverse multitude of phallic and vulvic deities to demonstrate that they all point to the original concept of God as the hermaphroditic creator, who divided himself into two halves, male and female. The idea which he develops throughout, presenting numerous proofs from the mystic theology of the ancients, especially the Orphic and NeopythagoreanNeoplatonic ones, is that those deities are interchangeable since they all symbolise the original creator, or his active and passive side, hence male and female. R. P. Knight, himself a passionate collector, reports on the medallion of Demetrius II, the Syrian king, on which the local goddess from Hierapolis was depicted with a male sexual organ, “sticking out of her robe” (Knight in Knight and Wright 2006, 92). In that city a temple was dedicated to the goddess with huge phalluses placed on both sides of its entrance. Evidence of their imposing dimensions is the fact that every year a priest, or someone else, would climb onto that stone image of a male sexual organ and remain there for three days “thus to have a more intimate connection with the goddess while he prayed for the betterment of Syria” (Ibid.). In the neighbouring city Cyzicus they called the goddess by the name Priapic Artemis (Diana), for Priapus, the god who symbolised the male generative force. However, even Priapus, that ugly son of Aphrodite and Dionysos, that apparently phallic deity par excellence, sometimes is two-sexed and, therefore, equated with Hermaphrodite and Eros (Fasce 1977, 115; according to Kukoč 1994, 26). In an Orphic hymn dedicated to him he is called “immortal fire”, “divine power”, but also “the mighty queen of all” (Taylor 2003, 47). The internal structure of the Danilo “phallus” in its essence is a simplified version of the rhyton, that androgynous cult vessel of a male-female bisexual unified universe. The Neolithic phallus is the horn whose nature is hermaphroditic – it penetrates, enters into the hollow, but, as it is itself hollow, it too can be penetrated. Therefore the Danilo phalluses are halfway filled, half hollow. The phallus in one form reconciles and unites both opposites; therefore it is one.

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According to The Hermaphroditic Child of the Sun and the Moon, the work of an unknown hermetic author of the 18th century: “The One Substance is above all a unity, symbolized by the one horn of the unicorn. Denying this unity would overlook important mechanisms and laws of nature. The One Substance is a single material with both male and female gender” (Anon. 1998, 25). This, of course, does not mean that the Danilo phallus, in a physical sense, as a virile instrument of procreation, is not a phallus, not at all! Its androgynous structure, which the Neolithic mind recognised, detracted nothing from its male functionality. By adding a hollow to it, the Danilo artists who modelled it in clay emphasised the axiom of their Gemini Era already established above – wholeness, very much like the wholeness of nature, of the universe, of the Mother. They did not overlook the important mechanism of natural laws, the horn of the unicorn. This “phallus” several thousand years after the rise of the Danilo Culture was most probably articulated in Ancient Greece as the herm, a pillar with a square base on which is placed the head of the god Hermes, and at the bottom or middle of the pillar – a phallus in erection. In Greece they used them as boundary markers and road signs. M. Gimbutas too agrees with this assertion; she says that the independent, erect models of a phallus, especially those with a level base, produced during different periods of the Neolithic, could represent stimulators of life energy (Gimbutas 2001, 37).4 They can, she thinks, symbolise a phallic god, like the later Greek Hermes (Mercury). The same Hermes, of course, is himself androgynous. The caduceus, the staff that he carries, with two snakes coiled around it, represents the reconciliation of opposites, hence the androgyne. His stones, the square herm, represent the “Stone”, that “Single Substance”, which is a “simple unity and not a composite”, as is stated in The Hermaphroditic Child... “It has equal parts of Earth, Water, Fire and Air. It possesses equal attributes of heat and cold, moisture and dryness” (Anon. 1998, 19) or the four elements and the four qualities, just like those four sides of Hermes’ pillar. Hermes is therefore called quadratus. Moreover, he is the messenger of the gods, more precisely, the one who connects the upper and lower world, Sky and Earth, or perhaps better said: unites the male (sky) and the female (earth) principle. Although hermetic Mercury is formed as a universal substance which potentially contains all natural qualities, T. Burckhardt mentions that it is frequently shown as androgynous, polarised in relation to Sulphur on the one hand with its own, Mercurial, female qualities of cold and wet, in opposition to the warm and dry, male qualities of Sulphur. Both natures are 4 Like the anonymous author of The Hermaphrodite Child... the Lithuanian-American archaeologist also uses the symbol of the horn for Neolithic phalluses, for: “In depictions, the phallus emerges from the sacred horns like the tree of life” (Ibid.).

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ceaselessly in interaction as the active and passive principle (Burckhardt 1987, 136). Among his numerous roles, Hermes is also a psychopomp, a guide of souls in the Underworld, a role that Hecate also plays. There is no doubt that this was one of the channels through which flowed the water that flowed out from the quiet spring at Danilo Bitinj several thousand years earlier. The prototype of the four-sided herm and caduceus could easily be inferred from the object found in 1965 at the Danilo Culture site Krivače near Bribirska Glavica, in the bed of the stream Srčanac. “The object is in the form of a miniature enclosed vessel”, records archaeologist Paola Korošec, “which in its lower part is almost cylindrical in form, while in the upper part it broadens like a ball. ...On the very top are five moulded appliqués shaped like nipples, of which the middle one is somewhat larger, and the rest are arranged in a cross in a circle around it. The object is decorated with two kinds of motifs. One is in the form of an hourglass, stamped under each protuberance of the outer crown, so that they divide the whole circumference of the object into four fields. In them are found another motif – a vertically placed wavily incised branch with three leaves, in the upper part spherically rounded so that it leaves the impression of a bud. If we exclude three details which we interpret as leaves, the stems themselves of the little branch also suggest a wavy snake, whose rounded end forms the head, and the lower end gives a narrowed tail. The ornament begins under the middle protuberance, and goes across the widest, rounded part of the object to the top, so that above the edge of the bottom there remains an undecorated zone. The height of the object is 7.65 cm, the extent of the greatest circumference 5.3 cm, the diameter of the bottom 2.5 cm” (Korošec, P. 1974, 167). The five appliqués in the form of nipples on the top can easily be connected with bāna lingam, an arrow, from the late Hindu-historical period, which stimulates the phallus to fertilize or five arrows with which the god of love attacks the five senses. Therefore the arrow is symbolically connected with the principle that is at the basis of sensory perception and the five elements. In all symbolic structures five is the number of Shiva so the lingam is represented with five faces (Daniélou 1995, 42), “four facing in the four cardinal directions and the fifth facing upward. This is a pañchamukhi lingam, a five-faced or five-mouthed image” (White 2003, 101). On the surface of an interesting piece of ceramics from the Late Neolithic Bosnian site Obre II, the so-called “Sun disc”, four red lozenges are engraved around a fifth one (Benac 1971, T.XXVIII/8). Hermetically interpreted, the “nipples” from the Krivače phallus, arranged in a cross around the larger central one, represent the four elements, in the middle of which is the point of their union, the quintessence, the fifth element,

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the incorruptible and simple principle which is, by tradition, the substratum and principle of life. Hermes’s phallus in erection on the four-sided herm, that tetrad of elements, represents this fifth one, the central “nipple” from the Krivače find. So, it is no wonder that in numerology the number five is associated with the planet Mercury, nor that Plutarch thinks that panta “all” is derived from pente “five”, “in accord with reason” (Plutarch 1936, 453). Also, it is no wonder that according to the old astronomers the planet Mercury is resplendent with the colours of all other planets. Thus Baptista Porta (Coelest. Physiog., p. 88) notices: “You may perceive in this planet (Mercury) the pale colour of Saturn, the fire of Mars, the whiteness of Jupiter, and the yellow of Venus; and likewise the brillancy and hilarity of each. On this account it is not of a peculiar form, but receives the form of its associates, and thus causes astrologers to differ in describing its colour.” (Taylor 1994, 215). The quintessence is, according to Bishop Synesius, “the knot and link of all the Elements, which it contains in itself, as being also the Spirit which nourishes all things, and by the assistance whereof Nature works in the Universe. It is the force, the beginning and end of the whole work....” (Smith 1998, 7). Further, the wavy branch/snake is seen also on the ceramics of the Neolithic east-European Cucuteni Culture. The snake who winds vertically is seen on the stone phallus from Maryport-Cumberland (Great Britain). Gimbutas adds that the snake who winds vertically symbolises the upward climbing energy of life, seen as the column of life which rises from caves and graves. The symbol was interchangeable with the tree of life and the spine (Gimbutas 1989, 121). All this can also be seen on the Krivače phallus, on which are two snakes (branches) that climb vertically, prototypes of Hermes’s staff the caduceus. This phallic image that symbolises the union of opposites, solar and lunar, male and female, sky and earth, is Hermes’s androgyne essence, his true nature. Several thousand years before that androgynous ideal found its authentic expression in the mystic theology of the archaic Greeks, it was exploited at the site of the Danilo Culture in Krivače near Bribir. M. Gimbutas presents a sketch of coincidentia oppositorum – the goddess of regeneration whose upper part fully resembles a phallus, and the lower part of the body, depending on the point of view, looks like testes, but also like thighs, or like the goddess’s buttocks. The goddess has red coloured hair and, by all indications prominent breasts. The figurine comes from southeast Hungary, from the Starčevo Culture [5600–5300 BC] (Gimbutas 1989, 231; 2001, 37). Stylistically the same but with somewhat longer legs is the so-called Redhead Goddess, excavated by S. Karmanski in Donja Branjevina, a settlement of the Early Neolithic Starčevo Culture, in 1989. “On the head, the hair had been

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deeply incised and painted with relatively stable, paste-like red paint”, describes Karmanski, “as confirmed by remains of paint in the deep grooves. One lock of hair was incised on her ‘face’. On the lower frontal part is a shallow, triangular engraved apron. Exceptionally large glutei shape and position of breasts indicate that this was the representation of very young person ready to ‘procreate’, that is a classic example of fertility symbol” (Karmanski 2005, 27, 83, Plate 1).5 Unfortunately, Karmanski, who attributes this statuette to the late spiraloid phase of the Starčevo horizon with some archaic elements of the Körös Culture, failed to notice that the “goddess” is a double-sexed image; she has female and male characteristics (breasts but an upper part shaped like a phallus and buttocks/testes). Of particular importance for our previous discussion on this subject is also the find of Bos taurus horns. These usually were buried beneath hearths or in pits at this site, but one pair was towards the east – right in front of the figurine. An interesting censer of unusual shape with its receptacle broken, the sides of which are decorated with incised zigzag patterns and which, it is surmised, had probably been placed between the two horns, was also found in the same pit, but Karmanski is reluctant to offer an interpretation about the Redhead Goddess and her role within the shrine (?), except that “it is the only find of this size in the world”: 38 cm high (Ibid.). A “goddess” with accentuated buttocks, a horn, and red paint are not specific to the Starčevo Culture. This symbolic representation, judging by the famous Venus of Laussel, a carving on stone found at the entrance of a cave near Les Eyzies-de-Tayac (France), was also known in the Upper Paleolithic, about 12,000 BC. “The feminine figure holds in the right hand a horn of bison, but it could also be a half increasing moon, carved with signs referring to the lunar month. With the left hand the Venus indicates her womb, but her look is turned back to the increasing moon, perhaps wanting to indicate the possibility to be pregnant, given the correspondence between the lunar phases and the menstruations of the woman; more, the red ocher of which was covered the Venus probably alludes to the menstrual blood” (Filingeri 2000, 16). In this context it is worth mentioning Karmanski’s opinion on the symbolic role of horns, which he regards exclusively as symbols of virility [fertility symbols] (Karmanski 2005, 39). Hence, he rejects J. Mellaart’s hypothesis about the identification of horns with the new moon, referring to an “allegedly lunar deity and hypothetical estimated agriculture calendar”, because he is convinced that the discovery of cult pits and horns among the pits of Donja Branjevina refute any identification of horns with a lunar deity. 5

See also the same artistic expression in other similar objects: 84 (Plate II), 85 (Plate III), 86 (Plate IV), 88 (Plate VI).

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Nobody can disagree that in the latter case horns play the role of the virile instrument in the act of procreation that takes place in a pit/womb, a receptive part, but there is something more than this simple visual and external perception depending on the old-fashioned approach to cult objects with its strict division into two genders. What is new is the insight into the inner structure of “both”, which are very close to each other. That “closeness” transcends the rigid differentiation of particular cult objects into male or female; it takes them both as two different phenomenological aspects embodied in the common ground of the one, the whole. Such an approach also confirms that the Neolithic mind kept successfully in its prolific depths the shiny androgynous round jewel, the very foundation of a worldly array of innumerable phenomena. “The Redhead Goddess” was not the product of a primitive mind, quite the contrary! She/He was the product of a mind able to unite opposites within its very being and as such, paradoxically enough, it was not as shallow as we, due to the unjustifiable arrogance of our era, are apt to think, but deep, hard to fathom, profound. Finds of a similar type are also mentioned by the archaeologist L. E. Talalay, who analysed most of the 3600 figurines found up to now from the period of the Greek Neolithic, including among them a group that she describes as “visual puns” (Talalay 1997) since they can be categorised, depending on the side from which they are seen, as male and as female. On one side they have a penis and testes, and on the other female breasts, neck and head. The figurines mainly belong to the late period of the Greek Neolithic from sites in Tharrounia and Kitsos. Talalay mentions as particularly interesting, citing A. Kehoe, that similar finds were discovered in the upper Palaeolithic layers in France (Kehoe 1991, 129–131). W. Torbrügge confirms the same thing, noting that a small Palaeolithic figurine from Weinberg near Mauern in Bavaria is similar to the schematised female figurines found elsewhere in Europe. However, if it is seen from another angle, the find from Mauern reminds one no less of a phallus and scrotum (Torbrügge 1968, 6). From the Macedonian Neolithic site Anzabegovo in its phase IV, which corresponds to the late Middle Neolithic, a phase known, among other things, for decoration with spiral motifs, there comes to us a 4.4 cm high statuette – a stylised female figure with a moulded nose, incised eyes, elongated neck and exaggerated buttocks. On the statuette are visible traces of red paint (Garašanin et al. 1971, 40, illustr. 39). At first glance it appears that it is an image of a penis in erection and scrotum. The latter are, again, modelled in such a way that they fully resemble a vulva, so that the statuette indeed represents an explicit hermaphroditic symbol. Among the Chalcolithic finds at Sotira Arkolies on Cyprus, west of Limassol, a sculpture was excavated of a sitting human figure, made of limestone, which embodies both female

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and male traits. The sculpture has a high cylindrical neck with a “mushroom” head on top, without facial expression. Seen from the rear, one witnesses a perfect image of the male sexual organ, a penis in erection and testicles with the genital furrow represented by a deep groove. But, seen from above and below, the sculpture suggests female genitalia. M. Gimbutas praises the Cypriot sculptors who carved it as “quite inventive”, considering with reason that this is no accident (Gimbutas 1989, 232). The “goddess” must unite both her energies, male and female, so that the phallus can induce her regenerative power, so that she can indeed be a mater. Therefore she “embodies” phalluses because otherwise she cannot become the one from which everything swells and flows out. Speaking of the lingam, the stone formed into a phallus in India, Gimbutas takes exception for “although these stones are obvious phallic representations, most people mistakenly regard them (and most of the ‘goddess’ images) as mere fertility or sexual symbols.” These symbols, she is convinced, “intimately bind the male force to the goddess of regeneration” (Gimbutas 2001, 38). She gets support from the opinion of the anthropologist S. Kramrisch, who considers images of a phallus (linga) and womb/female sexual organ (yoni) not to transmit, as is usually thought, the force of the active male principle by representing the penetration of the linga into the yoni. On the contrary, as she emphasised in her study of the god Shiva, “the abstract geometric shape .... of the urdhvalinga (erect phallus)...placed on the yoni as its pedestal,6 rises out of the yoni; the womb; it does not enter into it. The linga in the yoni emerges from the yoni....” (Kramrisch 1981, 242–43). We will not be in error if we say that the same artistic concept also existed in the mind of the Neolithic Danilo artist when he mixed and modelled the damp clay into phallic form. For, indeed, from the lower, hollow, round part – the symbolic womb of the boundless universe – it rises up as if full of a beacon, a penetrating “cosmic pillar” of light both united in the same clay. In interpreting Masonic symbols, one of the best experts in this symbolism, A. G. Mackey, says: “...we find in the Cteis of the Greeks, and the Yoni of the Indians, a symbol of the female generative principle, of co-extensive prevalence with the Phallus. The Cteis was a circular and concave pedestal, or receptacle, on which the Phallus or column rested, and from the centre of which it sprang.” (Mackey 1982, 113). We also find interesting the continuation of his exposition, in which he states that “all the deities of pagan antiquity, however numerous they may be, can always be reduced to the two different forms of the generative principle – the active, or male, and the passive, or female.” However, this is still 6

The Śiva linga is most often placed in a pîtha, which has the form of a stylised vulva.

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not all. “...The ancients went farther,” Mackey announces. “Believing that the procreative and productive powers of nature might be conceived to exist in the same individual, they made the older of their deities hermaphrodite, and used the term arrenothelus, or man-virgin, to denote the union of the two sexes in the same divine person” (Ibid. 114). Androgyny is not modelled only in clay and limestone, but often also in live flesh, as is shown by the initiation subincisions customary among certain Australian tribes by which the neophyte is symbolically lent a sexual organ. The Australian aborigines belong to those primitive people who consider their uninitiated members sexless until they undergo the initiation by which they acquire “sexuality”. According to this, a man cannot become sexually mature until he has gotten to know the coexistence of the sexes, androgyny, or as M. Eliade formulated it, “there is no entry into a specific and precisely determined way of existence without knowledge of the totality of existence” (Eliade 2004, 125–26). A less violent and less painful method was disguising as the opposite sex recorded in ancient Greece. Thus Plutarch writing about the customs of the Spartans (Lycurgus, 15) mentions that a person who cares for a new bride shaves her head, puts man’s shoes on her and dresses her in male clothing, and then places her alone in the dark on the bed, where she waits for the husband who comes to her secretly. On the island of Kos a newlywed husband awaits his wife in women’s clothing (The Greek Question, 58). Even today in India a male adherent of Shakti (strength, female energy, the original creative principle which upholds the universe) becomes “perfect” if by ritual techniques he succeeds in awakening his own female features. For an adherent it is desirable that he experience the process of transvestism (known as Sakhi-bhāva, “unman men”) in order to achieve complete identification with the divinity. Ritual transvestism among men is practiced even today, especially in Vishnuism. Men wear women’s clothing and jewellery; they even withdraw for several days at the time of pretended menstruation. “According to Vaishnavite doctrine, ‘all souls are feminine to the Supreme Reality’” (Mookerjee 1988, 26). All that, in some way, is the symbolic heritage of the Danilo phallus, or the androgynous concepts that arose in the mist of prehistory.

11 Conclusion

The cultural evolution from the Upper Palaeolithic powerfully stimulated the formulation of expressions of symbolic values or the development of a system of symbolic images and, what is particularly important, the articulation of symbolic values in concrete material forms, of which the rhyton undoubtedly is one. If we take seriously the archaeologist B. Marijanović’s opinion that the rhyton had the same meaning for Neolithic communities of the Adriatic area as anthropomorphic statuary had for contemporary Neolithic communities in other areas, it is easy to agree with the thinking of A. Whittle, who explains that the wide distribution of figurine throughout Greece and the Balkans presupposes some kind of spiritual and conceptual unity among the early agricultural communities in the region (Whittle 1994, 140–144). This “spiritual and conceptual unity”, in the same way, could also have grown on the basis of the cult practice of worship of the rhyton, whose presence has been confirmed from the Aegean Sea to the Alps during the Middle and the beginning of the Late Neolithic. It is evident that on the basis of the rhyton cult there came about an irreproducible phenomenon – a sort of cultural unification of the indicated area. When in this context we consider the late 6th millennium BC we can rightfully speak of the first recorded integration of the European area south of the Alps, for which the integrating bond was the rhyton and, most probably, a certain form of cult practice connected with it. In its structure and symbolism the rhyton is, as we have endeavoured to prove, by itself a symbol of wholeness, an integral One, so no wonder that it contributed to the spiritual and cultural integration of the then inhabitants of that area. Later processes led to the fragmentation of its original essence, to the division of the unified territory, and by that ipso facto to the scattered, deviant forms of spiritual and cultural infrastructure whose consequences we feel even in our time. Form, rather than being something accidental to the object, determines its true actuality at the material level of existence. This “form” is at the same time a reflection of archetypal essence, a door that opens “inward” and “upward” toward the formless Essence or, expressed in “rhyton” terminology, the Source/Mother,

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which at every moment is transfigured, or manifested in all forms of Nature, in the micro and macrocosm equally. On the other hand, it can be said that every object possesses a form and the content which that form “contains” and transmits. As for so-called sacred art, of which the rhyton undoubtedly was an expression, this “content” is always sacred or designates the presence of the sacred, fixed in concrete form by means of the mystic revelation that sanctifies a specific symbol, form, concept so as to enable them to become “containers” that hold the sacred presence and “transforms them into vehicles for the journey across the stream of becoming” (Nasr 1989, 261–62). Moreover, thanks to those sacred forms, which the human being is capable of transcending from within, he is capable of penetrating into the internal dimension of his own being and on the basis of that process achieving a vision of the internal dimension of all forms, or, said in the language of the Neolithic Danilo symbol, able to unite with the very essence of the rhyton, that wellspring of all forms. Renewed attainment of the primordial totality through a rite of integral “cobbling together” of opposites, the experiencing of Chaos, that still undistinguished unity beyond time and space, hence of creation: quite possibly these were the goal of the rhyton cult. Hence the return to precosmogonic chaos, or, speaking in the appropriate Neolithic vocabulary, to the womb of the Great Goddess/Mother, who in her ultimate aspect of Reality is formless, attributeless. An elevated reality cannot be directly worshipped, only indirectly, as an aspect of that Actuality in the world of duality. Therefore the abstract must be made attractive. And indeed, the abstract was made attractive in the Middle Neolithic at Danilo by the artistic and cult reification of the rhyton. How did that ritual in which the rhyton was used look “technically”? Was it used exclusively in funeral rites of child sacrifice, which promised the worshippers reintegration of their fragmented being and establishment of harmony in nature? And who broke it and how? Were other rhyta too used at the same time in the ritual that were not broken and was their placement/orientation connected, perhaps, with the position of the sacrifices in the grave or with some other activity of the individual or society? What was the role of the phallus? Was there ritual copulation before the rhyton and phallus? What proto language was spoken then? What was sung? What kind of bodily gestures were performed and the like? Most probably, we will never find out. The Šibenik archaeologist M. Menđušić in the archaeological guidebook to Danilo writes that it is hard to speak precisely about the beliefs of the Neolithic population of Danilo. Surely, he says, they paid homage to natural forces and phenomena and the natural course of changes, and adapted their life needs and habits to them. For him the rhyton represents a stylised woman, mother

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and child-bearer, and the phallus a man. Together, however, they symbolise the fertility cult, thus childbirth and life (Krnčević et al. 2000, 17). Menđušić, who in simple language relays the idea of the contemporary archaeological mainstream, is here of course correct, for the Danilo rhyton and phallus together symbolise a cult of fertility and, inter alia, childbirth and life, but only if we take them as partial, fractional, incomplete symbols. To see the rhyton in such a way means to focus exclusively on its receptacle, accepting that it represents a vagina/womb, but meanwhile neglecting the two other inseparable parts of its dynamic and integral structure – the handle and legs, which in that case remain only mere carriers and supports of the receptacle, which they are not by far. On the other hand, by the same logic, to emphasise exclusively the virile aspect of the phallus neglecting that receptive, hollow part, means to mutilate it, to cut it off from the whole to which it belongs and which it is capable of articulating by its structure. The Danilo rhyton, and even the phallus, functions as an androgynous form, what we could call the integral aspect of the mind of Neolithic man. To reduce one and the other to simple symbols of biological sex means to underestimate the mind of Neolithic man. Thus N. Hamilton was right to remark that early Mediterranean cultures could have had “different gender concepts and structures from our own” (Hamilton 2000, 28). Seven thousand years later, we are still hard put to understand their archaic concept of two in one. And to see it in everything. On account of that inability to grasp the Whole, the One, unfortunately, fragmented as we are, we are in a state of constant conflict with ourselves and with the world around us, never for a moment ceasing the production of grief for ourselves and others. Obviously we should learn from Neolithic man, despite our high development. Therefore, there is no alternative to realising the depth and, at the same time, the simplicity and naturalness of the Neolithic mind from today’s perspective, if we want to escape the complete disintegration of our own culture.

Plate I Fig. 1 Recorded archaeological sites of rhyta [after Montagnari Kokelj, E. and Crismani, A. (1993)], supplemented by recent ones discovered in Croatia (blue dots): 1. Teresiana, 2. Pettirosso, 3. Edera, 4. Muschio, 5. na Dolech, 6. Tartaruga, 7. Zingari, 8. Lonza, 9. Monrupino, 10. Ciclami, 11. Gallerie, 12. Sermin, 13. Nugla, 14. Islam Grčki, 15. Smilčić, 16. Danilo Bitinj, 17. Bribir/Krivače, 18. Markova Cave, 19. Zelena Pećina, 20. Crvena Stijena, 21. Kakanj, 22. Arnautovići, 23. Obre, 24. Priština/ Prishtinë, 25. Reštani/Reshtan, 26. Kolsh, 27. Blaz, 28. Dunavec, 29. Vashtëmi, 30. Maliq, 31. Barç, 32. Dersnik, 33. Kamnik, 34. Cakran, 35. Servia, 36. Olint, 37. Rachmani, 38. Tsangli, 39. Elateia, 40. Chaeroneia, 41. Orhomenos, 42. Corinth, 43. Franchthi, 44. Raches Phourni, 45. Alepotrypa, 46. Lipari, 47. Rendina, 48. Passo di Corvo, 49. Kargadur, 50. Crno Vrilo, 51. Pokrovnik, 52. Vela Spila, 53. Sušac.

Fig. 2 Location of the site Danilo Bitinj (circled) on Danilo Field near Šibenik, Croatia.

Plate II

Fig. 3 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton (rear view). Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Tomislav Pavičić.

Fig. 4 Rhyton (front view). Photo by: Tomislav Pavičić.

Plate III

Fig. 5 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Krivače/Bribir. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Davor Šarić.

Plate IV

Fig. 6 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Darko Bakliža.

Fig. 7 Three ceramic ritual vessels – rhyta. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate V

Fig. 8 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton with decorations in the form of double spirals on the handle (front view). Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate VI

Fig. 9 Rhyton (rear view). Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate VII

Fig. 10 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton with two bent legs (modelled on a kneeling human figure). Hvar Culture, Late Neolithic, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate VIII

Fig. 11 Rhyton (rear view). Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate IX

Fig. 12 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton. Hvar Culture, Late Neolithic, Markova Cave on the island of Hvar. Archaeological Museum in Split, Croatia. Photo by: Tonči Seser.

Fig. 13 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Archaeological Museum in Split, Croatia. Photo by: Tonko Bartulović.

Fig. 14 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Davor Šarić.

Plate X

Fig. 15 Ceramic vessel decorated with spirals in relief. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Fig. 16 Vessel with painted motifs of linked spirals outside and chevrons inside. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia (above). Photo by: Davor Šarić. Fig. 17 Ceramic ritual vessel – a rhyton with decorated incised spiral motifs filled with white incrustation. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Krivače/Bribir. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia (left). Photo by: Davor Šarić.

Plate XI

Fig. 18 Deep ceramic bowl richly decorated with incised spiral motifs. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Fig. 19 Ceramic bowl with incised spiral motifs. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović

Plate XII

Fig. 20 Ceramic bowl with linked motifs filled with red incrustation. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Krivače/Bribir. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Tomislav Pavičić.

Fig. 21 Fragments of a vessel and the vessel (replica) with painted stylised motifs of a double spiral with ends in the form of flared horns. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate XIII

Fig. 22 Rhyton leg in situ, 2005. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Photo by: Jessica McAffree.

Fig. 23 Child’s grave in situ, 2005, with remains of a skeleton in contracted position. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Photo by: Jessica McAffree.

Plate XIV

Fig. 24 (top left) Stylised ceramic bell-shaped figure – a phallus with five excrescences on top. Middle Neolithic Danilo Culture, Krivače/Bribir. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Davor Šarić. Fig. 25 Phallus (top right, viewed from above). Photo by: Davor Šarić. Fig. 26 (right) Stylised ceramic bell-shaped figure – a phallus. Middle Neolithic Danilo Culture, Krivače/Bribir. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Davor Šarić. Fig. 27 (bottom left) Stylised ceramic bell-shaped figure – a phallus with clear motif of linked double spirals. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović. Fig. 28 (bottom right) Stylised ceramic bell-shaped figure – a phallus with vertical spiral coil decoration. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Smilčić. Archaeological Museum in Zadar, Croatia. Photo by: Branislav Grgurović.

Plate XV Fig. 29 (left) Leg of a rhyton decorated with a “barbed wire” motif. Middle Neolithic, Kakanj Group, Kakanj near Visoko. National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Fig. 30 (below) Rhyton handle. Middle Neolithic, Kakanj Group. Kakanj near Visoko. National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Fig. 31 (above) Fragment of a rhyton. Middle Neolithic, Crvena Stijena. Regional Museum of the City of Nikšić, Montenegro. Fig. 32 (right) Rhyton fragments. Middle Neolithic, Kargadur (Istria). Archaeological Museum of Istria, Pula, Croatia. Photo by: Slaven Radolović (Glas Istre).

Plate XVI

Fig. 33 Remnants of red paint on rhyton fragments. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Museum of the City of Šibenik, Croatia. Photo by: Tomislav Pavičić.

Fig. 34 Stone amulet in the form of a snail. Middle Neolithic, Danilo Culture, Danilo Bitinj. Archaeological Museum in Split, Croatia. Photo by: Tonči Seser.

Plate XVII Fig. 35 Rhyton-vessel. Middle Neolithic, Dunavec I, Albania. According to Korkuti, M. (1995), TXXVII. Courtesy of Dr. Muzafer Korkuti.

Fig. 36 Rhyton fragments. Middle Neolithic, Cakran, Albania. According to Korkuti, M. (1995), TXL. Courtesy of Dr. Muzafer Korkuti.

Plate XVIII

Fig. 37 Reconstruction of a four-legged vase from bothros in trench 3 and fragment of the vessel. Late Neolithic, Elateia, Greece. According to Weinberg, S. S. (1962), 191, fig. 12, nos. 1 and 2; pl. 63: a, c. Courtesy of the Trustees of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

Plate XIX

Fig. 38 Ritual vessel leg (front and side view), above; ritual vessel fragment and ritual vessel leg, below. Late Neolithic, Corinth, Greece. According to Lavezzi, J. C. (1978), pl. 108: 35; pl. 109: 39, 40 (front and side view). Courtesy of the American School of Classical Studies, Corinth Excavations, I. Ioannidou and L. Bartzioti.

Plate XX

Fig. 39 Sketch of a specimen of a rhyton from Edera Cave near Trieste, Italy. Courtesy of Dr. Paolo Biagi.

Fig. 40 Fragment of hollowed, red-slipped rhyton leg (?) from trench I/65, pit 2, layer II, spit 5/7 and the vessel (reconstruction). Early Neolithic, Donja Branjevina, Vojvodina, Serbia. According to Karmanski, S. (2005), pl. LXVII, fig. 1. Courtesy of Dr. Paolo Biagi.

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Wenzel, M. (1962) O nekim simbolima na dalmatinskim stećcima. Prilozi povijesti umjetnosti u Dalmaciji, vol. 13. Split, Konzervatorski zavod Dalmacije. White, D. G. (2003) Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in its South Asian Contexts. Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press. Whittle, A. (1994) The first farmers. In B. Cunliffe (ed.) The Oxford Illustrated History of Prehistoric Europe, 136–166. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Whittle, A. (1996) Europe in the Neolithic, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wilke, G. (1924) Ueber die Bedeutung einiger Symbole an den Bogumilendenkmälern. Sarajevo, Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja. Wolkenstein, D. and Kramer, S. N. (1983) Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York, Harper & Row. Wright, G. R. H. (2003) The fire of life and the fire of death. Journal of Prehistoric Religion, vol. XVI–XVII, 53–63. Sävedalen, Paul Åströms Förlag. Yakar, Y. (2005) The language of symbols in prehistoric Anatolia. Documenta praehistorica XXXII, 111–121. Ljubljana, Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana. Zaninović, M. (2002) Nekropole i naselja – primjer otoka Hvara. Histria antiqua 8/2002, 243–255. Brijuni-Medulin, Međunarodni istraživački centar za arheologiju. Zjačić, M. (1952) Spisi šibenskog notara Slavogosta: Quaternus imbreviaturarum Slavogosti notarii sibenicensis. Starine 44, 201–296. Zagreb, JAZU. Zlatović, S. (2007) Uspomene moga života. Šibenik, Gradska knjižnica “Juraj Šižgorić“. Zlatunić, R. (2003) Neolitički pogrebni ukopi na prostoru istočne jadranske obale i njezinu širem zaleđu (Prijelazna zona), tipološko-statistička analiza. Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu, 3 v., XXXVI, 29–95. Zagreb, Arheološki muzej u Zagrebu. Županović, Š. (1991) Starodrevna baština šibenskoga kraja. Split, Književni krug.

Index

Abu Hureyra, Syria 4, 109 agriculture 4–5, 19, 37–38, 50 fn4, 55, 74, 106, 108–10, 113, 123, 134, 138, 154, 166, 170 ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan 39, 42, 64 alchemy x, 31, 46–47, 51–52, 54, 79, 101, 112, 136, 161 Alepotrypa, Greece 6, 21 fn6 altars 7–8, 24–25, 42 fn1, 63, 101 amulet 7, 60, 69, 139 androgyne/androgynous 116, 125, 132–33, 136, 139, 149, 161 fn3, 163, 165, 169 Anzabegovo-Vršnik, F.Y.R. Macedonia 48, 167 Arene Candide, Italia 17 Argissa, Greece 43 Arnautovići, Bosnia and Herzegovina 23, 75 Badarian Culture 96 Bandkeramik Culture (LBK) 18, 49, 96 bear-goddess 28 bears/bear motifs 13 fn1, 26, 28–29, 31, 34, 62, 96 Belotić-Bela Crkva group 49 Bilcze Zlote, Ukraine 119 birth/re-birth 22, 27–28, 46–47, 49–51, 56–57, 60, 79 fn2, 79–81, 90, 97–98, 100–01, 114, 119–22, 125–26, 130–02, 148, 157, 172 bisexual 132–33, 136–37, 147–49, 149 fn 6, 158–60, 162 Bitinj, Croatia 1–5, 58 fn 2, 76, 104, 117, 128 see also Danilo Blaz Cave, Albania 6

Blaz Culture 11 Bolintineanu, Romania 14 bovine, see cattle Bribir, Croatia 142 Bükk Culture 93 Buković-Lastvina, Croatia 156 bull imagery/symbolism/cult 49, 70, 81–82, 84–86, 96, 103, 111, 118–22, 132, 140–41, 144 see also horn imagery/symbolism burials xix, 35–40, 42–49, 55, 60, 64, 98, 137–38, 144, 149 adult 35–36, 43, 48–49 child 35–40, 43, 46, 48–49 cult objects 42 infant 38, 40 ritual 35, 43 see also cremation; funerary rites/ practices; grave goods; ritual; sacrifices Butmir, Bosnia and Herzegovina 75, 96, 154, 158 Butmir Group/Culture 12, 15, 20, 39, 61, 75, 93–94, 96, 151–52, 154 caduceus 163–65 Cakran, Albania 9–10 Cakran Group/Culture 10–11, 15 Cakran-Dunavec Group 6, 11 Çatal Hüyük, Turkey 39, 49, 64–65, 69, 71, 73, 119–21, 146 wall paintings 49–50, 73, 123 cattle 5, 26, 29, 49, 58, 73, 85, 106, 120, 134 Caverna del Muschio, Italy 6, 12, 14 Caverna Elia, Italy 7, 11

208

The Rhyton from Danilo

ceramics viii, 1–4, 6–8, 11–13, 15, 17–19, 19 fn5, 20, 37, 42, fn1, 52, 61–62, 69– 72, 74, 78, 92, 92 fn 5, 93–97, 107, 113–14, 120, 154, 164–65 barbotine 6, 9, 10 impressed 6–9, 11, 15–16, 107 incised 9, 14–15, 19, 22, 24, 28 fn1, 53, 61, 72–73, 75, 92, 92 fn5, 93–5, 98, 113, 158, 164, 166–67 painted 9, 11–13, 20, 37, 61–2, 72, 92, 94–95, 97, 153–54 Chaeroneia, Greece 6, 21 cinnabar 50–52 see also ochre; red paint/pigment Corinth, Greece 6, 21–22, 32, 44, 76, 127, 142–43, 158 Hera Akraia temple 44 cosmogony 60, 65, 71, 127, 129 cosmos/cosmology 47, 65, 71, 84, 98, 109, 139 see also moon cult/symbolism; sun cult/ symbolism cows, see cattle cremation 37, 42, 45–47 see also burials Crno Vrilo, Croatia 9–10 Crvena Stijena, Montenegro 6, 16, 62, 76, 134 Crvena Stijena Culture 94 fn6 Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture 37, 158, 165 cult of animals 32–33 of birth 22 of the dead 21, 35, 54 of fertility xiii, 22, 29, 37, 51, 58, 74, 86, 103, 110, 151, 154, 158, 172 of life 22 of the rhyton 19, 22–24, 29, 32, 85–86, 125, 170–71 ritual 8, 21, 40, 130 of water 22, 40, 76, 158 see also cosmology; moon cult/ symbolism; phallic cult; rhyta; ritual; snake; sun cult/solar symbolism; water symbolism

Cybele 25, 31, 44, 58, 82, 84 Cycladic Culture 97–98, 143 Danilo, Croatia ix, 1–2, 4–6, 8, 10–14, 22, 26, 29–31, 35–37, 52, 59 fn3, 60, 62, 74–76, 78, 86, 93, 128, 142, 145, 150, 158, 171 Danilo Group/Culture ix–x, xii, 2–5, 7, 10, 12–21, 23–24, 42, 51–54, 58, 61–62, 72, 75, 88, 93–96, 108, 120, 129, 135, 137, 141–42, 146, 151–52, 154–59, 163–65 proto-Danilo 10 Diana Lucifera 160–61 Dimini, Greece 36, 96 Dimini Culture/Group/Period 10–11, 15– 16, 92 Djade al-Mughara, Syria 53 Dolni Věstonice, Czech Republic 49 domestication/domestic animals xvi, 5, 25, 64–65, 106–08, 120, 134 Donja Branjevina, Serbia 7–8, 42, 63, 70, 165–66 dragon 52, 66 fn4, 79, 90, 101, 103–05, 109–11, 110 fn 2 & 3, 115, 119, 130 Drakhmani, Greece 21, 53, 92, 127 Dubovačko-Žutobrdska Group 159 Dudeşti, Romania 14 Dunavec I, Albania 6, 10 Dunavec II, Albania 10 Dupljaja chariot 159–61 eagle symbolism 73–74, 105, 161, 161 fn3 Egyptian myth/symbolism 25, 32, 56, 75, 78–85, 118–19, 124, 128, 130, 139, 144, 161–62 Elateia, Greece 6, 9–10, 12, 16, 21, 26, 31, 51, 53, 76, 92, 127, 158 equinox 84, 87, 90, 140 precession 140–41, 143–45 entheogenic theory 68, 80 ergotism (St. Anthony’s fire) 68 exchange 52, 54, 59, 62 see also trade Fafos, Kosovo 14 farming, see agriculture

Index fertility 22, 37, 40–41, 43, 63, 70, 73–74, 81, 86, 89, 98, 111–12, 114, 120–23, 126, 128, 131, 159, 161, 166, 168 fertility cult, see cult fertility goddess 50, 50 fn4, 58, 78, 110, 114 god 128, 157 figurines anthropomorphic 33, 42–44, 69–70, 93, 146–49, 151–52, 154, 157, 159–60, 167, 170 female 18, 24, 30, 42, 44, 74, 146, 148–49, 151,159, 166–68 kneeling 24–25, 27, 127, 127 fn1 mushroom/‘ear plug’ [Ohrenpflock] 69–71 zoomorphic 18, 25, 70, 97, 122 see also rhyta Fiorano Culture 17–18 fish-hooks 17 fishing 59 fly agaric 66–69 Franchthi Cave, Greece 21 fn6, 38, 59 funerary rites/practices xiii, 40, 42–43, 45, 47–48 fn3, 54, 131, 171 goats 26, 106, 134 Göbekli Tepe, Turkey 64, 143 Grapčeva Cave, Croatia 39, 51, 61, 75, 122 grave goods 35, 38, 45, 54 ‘Great Mother’ see Mother Goddess Greek myth/symbolism 60, 84 fn5, 101, 103, 109, 111, 113, 123, 138–39, 159 Aphrodite 31, 60, 146, 149, 159, 162 Apollo 58, 84 fn4, 110, 159–61 Artemis/Diana 25, 31–32, 56, 81, 160– 62 Athena 31, 103 Demeter 25, 31, 48, 84 fn5, 101, 109– 10, 113–14, 119, 123, 158 Dionysos (Bacchus) 43, 84 fn4 & fn5, 111, 128, 131–33, 139, 157–58, 160, 162 Gaia 25, 51, 58, 113 Hecate 25, 32, 44, 56–58, 58 fn2, 60,

209 62–65, 79 fn2, 81–82, 101, 117, 119, 160–61, 164 Hera 31, 113 Hermes 58, 65, 146, 149, 163–65 Persephone 32, 57, 81–82, 84 fn5, 101, 123 Selene 32, 56, 81, 81 fn3 Titans 131 Zeus 103, 105, 111, 118, 128, 131 Grotta del Mitreo, Italy 19 Grotta dell’Edera, Italy xii, 10, 17, 19 Grotta delle Gallerie, Italy 74 Grotta Teresiana, Italy 74 Gudnja Cave, Croatia 94–95 Gura Baciului, Romania 152 Hacilar, Turkey 70 hallucinogens 66–69 Hamangia Culture 147–148 Hateljska Cave, Bosnia and Herzegovina 122 hemp seeds 62 Hathor 25, 81–83, 124 herm (square pillar) 163–65 hermaphrodite/hermaphroditism 113, 116, 125, 132, 139, 146–47, 150, 159–62, 167, 169 hierophany xvi hieros gamos (‘sacred marriage’) 57, 84 Hisar, Kosovo 14–15 horn imagery/symbolism 22, 29, 34, 80–86, 97, 110, 113–16, 118–23, 129, 132, 162–63, 163 fn 4, 166–67 see also bull imagery/symbolism Hotnica, Bulgaria 14 hunter-gatherers/gathering 4, 19, 25, 59, 64, 107–08, 134, hunting magic 32 Hvar Culture/Phase 12–13, 19–20, 51–52, 72, 91, 94–96, 122, 124, 127, 137, 138, fn4, 142, 155–56 Impresso 12, 16, 70 Indian myth/symbolism 25, 50–51, 54, 80, 101, 110, 115, 118, 168–69 Jaruge, Croatia 36 Jericho, Israel 39

210

The Rhyton from Danilo

jewellery 59–61, 98 fn7, 169 Kadunje Mounds, Croatia 137–38 Kakanj, Bosnia and Hezegovina 8, 10, 12, 15, 20–21, 23, 52, 75, 86, 94, 122 Kakanj Culture/Group 6, 8, 11, 14, 20, 23– 24, 26, 29, 39, 52, 61, 75, 86, 94, 127 proto-Kakanj 8–11, 29 Karanovo, Bulgaria 14, 18, 28, 39, 94 fn6 Karanovo Culture 14, 18, 39 Kargadur Cove, Croatia 16–17 Kephalovrysso, Greece 43 Knowth, Ireland 64 Kolsh, Albania 6, 10 Konispol Cavern, Albania 11, 107 Kopačina Cavern, Croatia 135 Korčula, Croatia 13, 62, 153 Körös Culture 94 fn6, 166 Kraljevine, Bosnia and Herzegovina 76 Krčevina-Milina Skela, Serbia 69 Krivače, Croatia 12–13, 29, 31, 53, 69, 75, 122, 142, 164–65 Kurilo, Bulgaria 14 kykeon 68, 123 Larissa, Greece 6, 14 Lasinja Culture 20 Laudishte, Albania 10 Le Macchie di Polignano a Mare, Italy 7, 11 Lerna, Greece 35, 143 lion 31–32, 119, 160–61, 161 fn3 Lipari Islands, Italy 6, 13–14 fn1, 62, 92 fn5 Lisičići, Bosnia and Herzegovina 37, 75, 113, 113 fn4, 122, 155–56 Lisičići-Hvar (Hvar-Lisičići) Group/Culture 16, 113, 114–16, 155–56 Ljubljana Culture 144 lunar, see moon cult/symbolism magic, see ritual Mali Kolač cove, Croatia 13 mandrake 57–58, 62, 64–65 Mariupol, Ukraine 49 Markova Cave, Croatia 6, 12, 14 fn2, 59, 127 menstruation 50, 79, 100–01, 114, 141, 166, 169

Mercury/Quicksilver/Argent vive (in alchemy) 32, 32 fn2, 47, 51–52, 79, 81 fn3, 113, 116–17, 136, 161, 161 fn3, 163 metals 47, 51 migrations 20, 24, 67, 106, 155 Minoan 31, 40, 69, 83, 96–97, 100, 138 moon cult/symbolism 44, 50, 54, 57, 60, 76, 79, 81–82, 89, 97, 111, 113–16, 118–21, 123, 126, 129, 141, 160–03, 165–66 Mostonga IV-Mostanica/Odžaci, Serbia 69 Mother Goddess (Great Mother, Great Goddess) 18, 24–25, 47–50, 50 fn4, 56, 82, 89, 97, 110, 113–14, 121–22, 126, 131, 171 see also figurines mushrooms 66–69, 70 fn6, 71, 80–81, 168 Mušego, Croatia, 16 Mycenaean 41–42 Nakovana Cave, Croatia 145, 154–56, 155 fn1 Nal’čik, Russia 49 Nea Nikomedeia, Greece 35, 43 Nebo, Bosnia and Herzegovina 53, 76 Neolithicisation 17–19, 106–07 Neretva valley/river 15–16, 20, 23–24, 115, 155 Newgrange, Ireland 64, 87, 123 Nugljanska Cavern, Croatia 16 Obre, Bosnia and Herzegovina 8–9, 12, 23–24, 26, 39–40, 61, 75, 94, 122, 164 obsidian 62 ochre (red) 17, 38, 42 fn1, 49–50, 50 fn4, 74, 97 see also red paint/pigment Ochre Grave Culture 49 Okolište, Bosnia and Herzegovina 75 opium/poppy 57, 62–63, 65 ox 81–2, 91, 119–20, 132 see also cattle oyster shells 60 Paradimi, Greece 14 Paralia, Greece 35 Paviland Cave, Great Britain 49

Index Philosopher’s Stone 52, 54, 101, 111, 128, 136, 163 Pokrovnik, Croatia 12–13 Pećina na Brehu, Croatia 16 Pelješac, Croatia 13, 94, 145, 154–55 phallic cult/worship 151, 154–56, 158 phallus/phallic 17, 43, 70, 96, 99, 110–12, 118, 147, 149, 151, 154–58, 161–69, 171–72 Phrygian myth/goddess 25, 31, 81–82 pigs 5, 26 Piramatovci, Croatia 75 plough 1, 109–11, 121, 123, 128 počivala/mirila (grave-like monuments) 88 Podgorica, Bulgaria 14 Podgorie, Albania 10, 70 Popelane, Croatia 36 Predionica, Kosovo 14 Prodromos, Greece 43 Pupićina Cavern, Croatia 16, 134 Qafzeh Cave 48–49 Quintessence (in alchemy) 164–65 Radimlja, Bosnia and Herzegovina 88–89 Rakhmani, Greece 12, 92, 94 Rast, Romania 42, 69, 93 Ravlića Pećina, Bosnia and Herzegovina 76 red paint/pigment 2, 7–8, 13–15, 20, 22, 24, 26–27, 29, 40, 47, 50–54, 56, 60, 84, 86, 95–96, 114, 125, 131, 149, 158, 165–67 see also cinnabar; ochre regressus ad uterum (‘return to the womb’) 47 Reštani/Reshtan, Kosovo 6, 15 rhyton/rhyta ix–xiv, xx, 2–4, 6–17, 19–34, 40, 43–44, 51–54, 57–58, 61–62, 65–68, 71, 74, 76, 78, 84–87, 92, 94–95, 98–99, 101–02, 104, 108, 112, 115, 117, 124–31, 137, 146, 149–51, 157–58, 162, 170–72 anthropomorphic 19, 25–27, 30, 33, 124, 127, 127 fn1 Danilo rhyton x, xx, 2, 13, 23, 25, 28, 34, 57, 65, 67, 71, 76, 78, 98–99, 125, 128, 130, 149, 172 ‘Daniloid type’ 29

211 decoration 6, 9–10, 12, 14, 21, 27, 52–53, 86, 92, 149 four-legged ix, xii, 2, 7, 8–10, 12–15, 20–22, 24, 29, 33, 40, 44, 84, 86, 124, 126, 158 handles ix, xiii, 1–2, 4, 7–9, 14, 16, 20–21, 24, 26–29, 31, 40–41, 52–54, 65, 74, 84, 86, 104, 112, 115, 124– 27, 129, 130, 158, 172 ‘Kakanj type’ 29 legs ix, 2, 7–9, 13–16, 21, 24, 26–27, 29–31, 40–41, 53–54, 65, 84, 86, 94, 113, 124–28, 172 ‘primitive type’ 29 receptacles ix, 1, 7–9, 20, 22, 24, 26–27, 29, 52–53, 65, 74, 78, 84–85, 104, 112, 123–27, 130, 172 theriomorphic form 28, 31 ‘Thessalian type’ 29 undecorated xii, 6, 10, 53 white painted 6 zoomorphic 1, 19, 25–26, 29, 33, 73, 86, 130 see also red paint/pigment Ripoli Culture 18 ritual ix, 1, 8, 21–23, 28–29, 32–33, 41–42, 58, 123, 130–31, 171 destruction of objects 40–42, 53, 131, 171 see also cult; funerary rites; grave goods Rudnik, Kosovo 14 sacrifices 79 animal 44, 64, 81, 84, 119, 123, 128, 132, 139 human 40, 42, 79 fn2, 132 child/infant 37–40, 43–44, 131–32, 154, 171 salt pots, see rhyta Sammardenchia di Pozzuolo, Italy 17 Servia, Greece 142 Sesklo, Greece 36, 43, 71, 92, 94 fn6, 142, 158 proto-Sesklo 71 shamans/shamanism 63–68 sheep 5, 19, 25–26, 34, 58 fn2, 106, 134 shellfish 2, 19, 59–61, 95, 134

212

The Rhyton from Danilo

shells 5–6, 9, 17, 42 fn1, 59 fn3, 60–61, 95 Slavonski Brod, Croatia 36, 42 fn1 Smilčić, Croatia 6, 12–14, 26, 28–30, 33, 35, 37, 62, 75, 86, 93–94, 127, 134, 151–52, 155 snails 60, 91, 133–139, 160 snake imagery/cult 34, 66–67, 72–76, 78–81, 83–85, 90, 96, 98, 122, 146, 158, 163–65 Sniježnica, Croatia 58, 62 solar, see sun cult/symbolism solstice 84, 86–87, 89–90 Sopot-Lengyel Culture 20 Sotira Arkolies, Cyprus 167–68 Soufli, Greece 43, 70 spiral motifs x, xii, 4, 13–15, 17–18, 27, 61, 64, 72–75, 80, 86–99, 102, 129, 156, 167 spiritual/spirituality x, xiii, xvii, xix, 23–25, 32, 34, 42–44, 47–48, 50–51, 53, 57, 61, 64–67, 69, 71, 73, 79–81, 113, 121, 123, 137, 139, 141, 145, 170 Starčevo Culture 6, 8, 10, 15, 18, 24, 36, 42 fn1, 94 fn6, 152, 165, 166 Starčevo-Körös-Criş complex 7–8 statuettes, see figurines stećak (gravestone) 88–89, 98 Stonehenge, Great Britain 87 Sulphur (in alchemy) 46–47, 52, 79, 81 fn3, 113, 116, 161, 163 sun cult/solar symbolism 26, 44, 54, 58, 72–75, 80, 83, 84, 84 fn4, 86–87, 89–90, 98, 98 fn7, 104, 110–11, 115, 118–19, 121, 129, 138–40, 159–60, 162, 164– 65 supernatural 46, 65, 67, 109 symbol/symbolism ix–x, xii–xiii, xv–xx, 23, 27–28, 33–34, 46–48, 51, 54, 60, 67, 71, 73–74, 77–78, 81–83, 87, 97–99, 110– 12, 114–16, 118, 120–28, 130, 137–39, 154, 158, 160–61, 163–64, 168, 170– 72 Szakalhat, Hungary 14 Šibenik, Croatia ix, 1–2, 21, 54, 60, 73, 75, 83, 90, 104, 106

cap 90–91, 99–100, 102, 139 Tepe Guran, Iran 119 trade 52, 61–62 see also exchange triangles x, 15, 18, 24, 27–28, 28 fn1, 73, 95–96, 130, 156 hatched 4, 14, 17, 72, 74, 92–93 pubic 98, 113–15, 119, 148 Trypillye Culture 92 Tsangli, Greece 6, 12, 21, 92, 142, 158 underworld 48, 57, 65, 72, 84, 101, 123, 131–32, 164 Usoe, Bulgaria 14 Ustje Culture 15 Vădastra, Romania 14 Varoš, Bosnia and Herzegovina 52–53 Vashtëmi, Albania 6 vasi a coppa 19 Vela Spila, Croatia 13, 38, 59, 62, 91, 122, 134–35 Veluška-Tumba, F.Y.R. Macedonia 11 Vinča, Serbia 28, 52, 61, 146, 152, 158 Vinča Culture/Group 10, 14–15, 18, 51, 69, 146, 151, 158 Vinkovci, Croatia 36, 42 fn1 Vlaška, see Danilo culture Volnishki, Ukraine 49 votive offerings 112 Vrbica, Croatia 69–71 Vučedol Culture 144–45 Vukovar, Croatia 36, 42 fn1 vulva 24, 89, 96, 110, 114, 122–123, 167, 168 fn6 war(fare)/warriors 112, 145–46 water symbolism 60, 73, 76, 77–78, 103–04, 111–12, 115–16, 119, 127, 136 see also cult weapons 104, 104 fn1, 112, 145 Zazidana Cave, Croatia 38 Zelena Pećina, Bosnia and Herzegovina 6, 11, 16, 23, 40, 62, 76 Zengpiyan Cave, China 133 zigzag motifs x, 18, 27, 64, 72–74, 76, 78, 80, 88, 92, 96, 156, 166 Žitkovac, Kosovo 14