The gate of the year

Terracotta statuette belonging to the Cucuteni culture (Romania), which flourished during the late Neolithic, between 5500 and 2750 B.C. The image has been defined by Marija Gimbutas as “Sorrowful Ancient God”: an aged man sitting on a stool, with his arms resting on the knees and holding the head with his hands. This typology is one of the only two models of male representation in the Prehistoric art of Old Europe, the other one being the Man holding a Crosier. According to her interpretation, it could be a representation of a dying god of vegetation (Gimbutas 2005b). Such an hypothesis is suggestive, but it is based only on conjectures, formulated from some aspects of mythologies of a much later period, while elements which could substantiate it are lacking. Furthermore, the “dying gods” of the Ancient Near East (Dumuzi, Osiris, Attis) are generally represented as young, not old men. However, a mythic parallel exists, though it comes from a faraway place, Native North America, which could suggest a new interpretative hypothesis. These male prehistoric representations could be interpreted as portraying a mythic being, with a grumpy and lonely temperament. Maybe, it could impersonate some of the more dangerous and unfriendly aspects of nature, like Winter or the Storm. In the mythology of the Wintu of California, it is found a character called Kahit Kiemila, the Old Wind. He is described as a very old man, living alone in the far north. “He sits with his head between his hands and his face to the north, and never looks up” (Curtin 1898: p. 21). He, together with the Water-Woman, made a universal flood, in order to extinguish the flames of a fire which destroyed the primordial beings who inhabited the earth before actual humankind. On the other hand, the figure of the old man recalls also the frequent presence in contemporary Carnivals, mostly in “nuptial” parades, of the couple Old Man/Old Woman, among whom, often, one of the two enacts a pantomime showing his or her “death” and rebirth. The object is in the Museum of Cucuteni Neolithic Art (Muzeul de arta neolitica Cucuteni), Piatra-Neamt, Romania.

[Image: http://www.roconsulboston.com/Pages/InfoPages/Culture/Cucuteni/Thinker.html]




Male Symbols

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Terracotta statuette belonging to the Cucuteni culture (Romania), which flourished during the late Neolithic, between 5500 and 2750 B.C. The image has been defined by Marija Gimbutas as “Sorrowful Ancient God”: an aged man sitting on a stool, with his arms resting on the knees and holding the head with his hands. This typology is one of the only two models of male representation in the Prehistoric art of Old Europe, the other one being the Man holding a Crosier. According to her interpretation, it could be a representation of a dying god of vegetation (Gimbutas 2005b). Such an hypothesis is suggestive, but it is based only on conjectures, formulated from some aspects of mythologies of a much later period, while elements which could substantiate it are lacking. Furthermore, the “dying gods” of the Ancient Near East (Dumuzi, Osiris, Attis) are generally represented as young, not old men. However, a mythic parallel exists, though it comes from a faraway place, Native North America, which could suggest a new interpretative hypothesis. These male prehistoric representations could be interpreted as portraying a mythic being, with a grumpy and lonely temperament. Maybe, it could impersonate some of the more dangerous and unfriendly aspects of nature, like Winter or the Storm. In the mythology of the Wintu of California, it is found a character called Kahit Kiemila, the Old Wind. He is described as a very old man, living alone in the far north. “He sits with his head between his hands and his face to the north, and never looks up” (Curtin 1898: p. 21). He, together with the Water-Woman, made a universal flood, in order to extinguish the flames of a fire which destroyed the primordial beings who inhabited the earth before actual humankind. On the other hand, the figure of the old man recalls also the frequent presence in contemporary Carnivals, mostly in “nuptial” parades, of the couple Old Man/Old Woman, among whom, often, one of the two enacts a pantomime showing his or her “death” and rebirth. The object is in the Museum of Cucuteni Neolithic Art (Muzeul de arta neolitica Cucuteni), Piatra-Neamt, Romania. [Image: http://www.roconsulboston.com/Pages/InfoPages/Culture/Cucuteni/Thinker.html]