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Neolith of Kosovo and Metohia as a special cultural phenomenon

Abstract

In the conclusion of the work on interpretating the conclusion of the two most beautiful Vinčan sculptures from Kosovo and Metohia, one from the locality of Predionica and the other from Bariljevo, the author l says some facts interesting to all which have been so far overlooked by all previous researchers. They are to explain why the Vinčan civilization and its eponymous locality at 15km from Belgrade produced more than 1000 sculptures, made of baked earth in an almost identical manner, and then as a form of fashion dispersed across the Balkans and where elsewhere produced identically. Our conclusion tries to solve the dilemma of prof. Nenad Tasić - why all sculptures were dispersed only within the settlement, mot at special cult places and why they mute, not having mouths? Therefore, the author returns again to the Avala mine of cynabarite, which was a unique cult place for this part of Europe and the world; in ancient times only one such a mine was known of, that in Asia Minor, on Kilbian Fields near the town of Ephesus, near Artemis Temple. The author remembers that Temple of Artemis of Ephesus was one of the seven world wonders of the time, and her zoomorphic hypostasis being just the deer. This was in an ancient time. On the other hand, the mine of cynabarite in Šuplja Stena on Avala, near Vinča, was the most renowned mine of cynabarite in prehistoric times. The back of some formed sanctuary within Vinčan settlement where the sculpture would have been deposited, as well as the back of mouths with all Vinčan sculptures, led him to reread ancient sources related to these problems. Dioscorides (V, 109), while explaining that the ore of cynabarite consisted of droplets of quicksilver, pointed to the danger of inhaling quicksilver's vapours from the ore of cynabarite, giving this description: 'In the mines of quicksilver a choking vapor develops. Therefore, the people (working there) put on their faces bovine and carvel bubble so that can see through them but not inhale those quicksilver evaporations'. Roman historian Plinius (XXXIII, 122) adds to this Dioscorides conclusion the following: 'The people that work in the workshops of cynabarite till marks to their faces best inhale the noxious vapour, but to be able to see through them'. These cited historical sources, Dioscorides and Plinius, as if give a true mine and workshop context in processing of cynabarite are from Šuplja Stena. Thousands of found Vinčan sculptures similar to the figurines of servants found in Tutankhamen tomb are a memory of the death danger of the royal medicine, powder of cynober whorled men strove once for immortality. Therefore, in Vinča all sculptures were dressed in leather skirts that served for collecting golden dust and ore of cynabarite, while on their heads, over faces, they were masks with cuts for eyes but not for mouth as well, lest be poisoned by quicksilver vapours. The most of the decoration on their sculptural bodies was a mixture of schematized form of swastika - the sun, played out by quicksilver vapour that caused death. But the fruit of this work was the powder of 'cynober dye', which perhaps meant for some not only a long life, but also immortality. The deer and the form of Magna Mother Deorum, the pregnant prohemititrix of all prehistoric people, here in Vinča meant: Deer's skull and horns always represented an annual sacrifice which marked the death of nature of one year and heralded the birth of the nature of the coming year. Then it is no wonder that the principal Greek goddess of Cretan and Mycenaean age from 3000 to 1200 BC was Artemis of Ephesus, the protectress of the mine of cynybyrite from Kilbian Fields. Perhaps most interesting with the most of the bodies of Vinčan sculptures is the disposition of a schematized, geometrical ornament in a form of swastika - the sun which is a mark of winter solstice of 26 December and of birth of anew life of nature, by quicksilver vapor, whereby one attained, trough death, immortality.

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