Pair of ceramic statuettes belonging to the late-Neolithic culture of Hamangia (from 5000 to 3000 B.C.). This culture developed in the region of the Danube and Black Sea (in present Romania and Bulgaria). The male figure, holding the head with his hands, is beside a female figure apparently in pregnant condition. According to Marija Gimbutas’s interpretation, these two images represent the goddess of the harvest and the god of vegetation dying and resurrecting. But in this case, too, no significant element is advanced to corroborate the hypothesis. It seems plausible, however, that they represent two opposing principles, perhaps on the one hand the winter season, which appears as saddened and closed on itself, and on the other hand the rebirth of the vital and generative force in the springtime. In contemporary Carnivals, couples of old men and old women are frequently accompanied by a couple of young bride and groom, recalling the passage from the old to the new year, from death to rebirth. The objects are in the National History and Archaeology Museum (Muzeul de istorie nationala si archeologie), Constanta, Romania.

[Image: http://my.opera.com/micro27/albums/showpic.dml?album=7051612&picture=105861292]