Notes On Two Ancient Fertility Symbols

Notes on Two Ancient Fertility Symbols
Author(s): Balaji Mundkur

Source: East and West, Vol. 28, No. 1/4 (December 1978), pp. 263-282
Published by: Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29756463 .
Accessed: 25/07/2013 08:25
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Istituto Italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO) is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to East and West.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 71.172.231.99 on Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:25:13 AM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Notes
on Two Ancient
Fertility Symbols
by
Balaji
Mundkur
The
importance
of human
fertility cults, ranging
from those of the civilized cultures
of
antiquity
to the most
primitive
of
existing societies,
is
amply
illustrated
by myths,
rituals
and taboos which have been recorded world-wide. In the
agrarian
communities of the
neolithic and chalcolithic
periods,
anxieties about female
fecundity
must have been severe
and no doubt were
sharpened by
individual or communal needs for sufficient
offspring
to
overcome
high
infant
mortality
and the toll taken
by
disease. This concern is evident in
countless
archaeological
relics which
carry symbols
connected with the
propitiatory
rites
of
fertility
cults.
The artistic
expressions
of these were
diverse,
but
commonly
focussed
upon
a "mother
goddess"
who
presided
over,
and
granted
the boon
of, fertility
to her devotees. This
power
was
symbolized by
her
images,
in which her
genitals
and breasts were exhibited
promi?
nently,
or
invitingly portrayed.
She was
frequently imagined
as
pregnant,
or as
suckling
an
infant,
and her idols were often
steatopygous.
Such
representations
are well-known
and need no further discussion.
In several ancient
cultures,
the
symbolic
abstraction of the
mother-goddess
and her
maternity-granting potential
was a
triangle
whose
apex pointed
downward,
and which
was reminiscent of the
pubic region
of her idols. This motif
?
the
pubic,
or
sexual,
triangle
?
was
variously depicted:
it was unadorned
or filled with decorative
detail,
or
a
simple bisecting
line or
depression
indicated the vulva.
Frequently,
the
pubic triangle
was
anatomically inappropriately
located or so
casually
represented
that its
apex pointed upward,
but without at all
impairing
its
powerful
sym?
bolism. An incised
phalanx
of a
horse,
found in the Danubian
region
of Rumania and
radiocarbon dated to the
epipaleolithic period,
about
8,759 years ago C)
is an
example
(fig.
la, b, c).
It is
shaped
like a
headless, limbless,
human
body.
The inverted
pubic
triangle,
at the lower
extremity,
is shown
by
stacked chevrons.
Adjoining
it is a diamond
shaped pattern
which
depicts
the
navel;
clever use seems to have been made of the
condyles
of the bone to
suggest
the breasts. The nine horizontal strokes
on the
upper
(*)
This work is
part
of a
project supported
by
the
University
of Connecticut Research Foun?
dation. I am
grateful
to Dr William W. Hallo
of the
Babylonian Collection,
Yale
University,
for
permitting
me to
photograph
the shrine shown
in
fig.
5 and for
drawing my
attention to the
article
by Heimpel.
(*)
V.
Boroneant,
? Noi date
despre
cele mai
vechi manifestari de arta
plastica pe
teritoriul
Romanei?,
Studii
?i
Cefcet?ri de Istoria
Artet,
Ser.
Plastica, 19, 1972, pp.
109-16.
263
back
may
have had
magical significance
or
may represent
hair. Other bones found near
it bore incised
meanders, zigzags
and
triangles. Fig.
2
a, b,
shows
ochre-painted
human
bones,
of the "advanced eneolithic"
period,
from Southern
Spain.
The inverted
triangle
on one of them is
recognizable
as
pubic only
because a
stylized
face with
eyes
is
depicted
above it and because it is
correctly
oriented on other
specimens. Zigzags
sometimes
replace
the
triangle.
Another remarkable
bone,
also from the neolithic
period,
found in north?
eastern
Italy,
near
Trento,
is seen in
fig.
3
a,
b
(2). Suggestions
of
maternity
are
conveyed
by
a human
figure, perhaps
of an
infant,
incised on it. Below the
figure
are three
zigzag
lines whose
meaning
is
conjectural. Pointing
towards the inverted
pubic triangle
at the
base of the bone is what
appears
to be
a
symbolic representation
of a
phallus
and tes?
ticles. Whether at this
early stage
in man's social
evolution,
a
biological
connection was
seen between
copulation
and eventual childbirth is moot
and,
in
any case,
irrelevant for
our
purpose.
Yet another ancient
example
of the
pubic triangle
are the small natural
clefts or
depressions occurring
in rock formations in northwestern
Libya
(3). Engravings
of female
figures
in
exhibitionist,
"erotic"
postures incorporate
these natural
shapes
as
vulvar
representations.
The
purpose
of all these
objects
was in all
probability
cultic.
Clearly,
the
pubic triangle
has had a
long history paralleling
the
development
of mo?
ther-goddess figurines. However,
on artifacts of the neolithic and
subsequent periods
from
the
particular regions
discussed
here,
the use of
triangles
as isolated motifs is so
frequent
and
seemingly
so
decorative,
that their value as
expressions
of cultic fervour
may
be
questioned.
The
danger
is that even
triangles
whose
pubic
connotations are indubitable
are
apt
to
pass unrecognized
or at
least,
to be
neglected.
This is
particularly
true in the
great majority
of
archaeological
studies of
painted
or
engraved ceramics,
or of
glyptic
objects,
such as
seals and
amulets,
where the
analytic emphases generally
lie in directions
other than the
interpretation
of
symbols.
Even less stressed is an
ancillary
motif which often occurs
alongside
of the
triangle
in so
stylized
and
"disintegrated"
a manner as to obscure its
equally long history
as a decor?
ative device of
symbolic
value. This is the
representation
of the
serpent;
and its
origins
are rooted in the
primitive religions
of the neolithic
period. For,
the belief that the
serpent
is the
harbinger
of human
fertility
was held almost
universally,
as it is
among
innumerable
societies even
today (4).
Veneration of the
living reptile,
or of an
image
of
a
fully
therio
morphic
or
anthropomorphic deity
with
ophidian
attributes,
derives from human attitudes
of
great antiquity.
This
requires separate
and detailed consideration in
anthropological,
archaeological, psychological
and
mythological
terms. Thus the association of the
serpent
with the
pubic triangle
was a
joining
of two sacred
elements,
and it must have seemed
a
(2)
B.
Bagolini,
?
Scoperte
di arte neolitica al
riparo
Gaban
(Trento).
1.
Figurina
femminile
e manico decorato in osso dai livelli della cultura
dei vasi a bocca
quadrata
?,
Bollettino del Centro
Camuno di Studi
Preistorici, 10, 1973, pp.
59-78.
(3)
P.
Graziosi,
?Le incisioni
rupestri
del
FUdei El Chel in
Tripolitania
?,
Libya Antiqua,
5, 1968, pp. 9-36, pis. 10, 28,
29.
(4) J. Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion
and
Ethics,
13
vols., Edinburgh,
1952-56.
264
logical
one for
primitive
mankind in certain areas of the world. This
aspect
of the evolution
of
early religious
beliefs can be illustrated
by archaeological examples
so as to facilitate
the derivation of
imagery which,
at
first, might
seem
merely
decorative.
I must at the outset state
my
view
regarding
the
symbolic depiction
of
serpents.
Zigzags
and sinuous
lines,
with or without
a terminal arrowhead or dilatations
signifying
the
serpent's head,
stacked chevrons and
scale-patterns
are the commonest substitutes for
naturalistic
depictions
of the
animal, though
chevrons
are sometimes used in
place
of
a
pubic triangle.
This is
specifically justified by examples given below,
but it holds true
even in innumerable cases
where the
pubic triangle
is not involved.
Zigzags
and undulat?
ing
lines have sometimes been
equated
with
lightning
or
water;
and
chevrons,
with
or
without a central
connecting line,
have been
regarded
as
symbols
for
vegetation.
This
may
be so in
particular
cases;
and there is
always
the need for cautious
separation
of
those situations where similar
designs may
be
purely
decorative. Yet there is
compelling
evidence from the
regions
where
ophiolatry
was an established cult that these
symbols
primarily identify
the
serpent
in certain
objects
included
among grave-goods
and devotio?
nal
offerings.
Thus,
a naturalistic
effigy
of a
coiled
serpent
of the neolithic
period
from
Pristina,
Southern
Yugoslavia,
is
engraved dorsally
with
a
prominent zigzag
which follows the coils
from head to
tail-tip
(5).
Archaic seals from Susa bear
serpent
and
scorpion figures,
identically arranged except
that both are
natural-looking
in some but
stylized
in
others,
the
serpents being represented by zigzags (6).
Effigies
in
clay
of
bulls,
from Bronze
Age
Cyprus,
where both the
serpent
and the bull were cult
animals,
sometimes bear
a natu?
ralistic
serpent
in
applique winding
over the bull's
foreleg
and the side of the neck. It
is more often
duplicated
as an incised or
painted zigzag
or
sinuosity (7). Chevrons,
scale
patterns,
undulations and
zigzags,
all
clearly
intended to
signify
serpents,
are
legion
on
the
funerary pottery
of neolithic and Minoan Crete and of classical Greece
(8),
where these
animals were connected with the
regeneration
of the dead
Our
examples
will be taken
primarily
from Western
Asia,
and from the Hellenic
world of the Eastern Mediterranean. In certain
regions
where
ophiolatry
and
fertility
cults
were
important,
as in Central America and
India,
the
joint symbolism
of
serpent
and
pubic
triangle
is absent. This is remarkable in the case of
India,
where traditions of
yoni-
or
vagina-worship
and of
ophidian fertility goddesses
are
strong;
remarkable also because
(5) J. Pavuk,
?
Grab des
2eliezovce-Typus
in
Dvory
nad Zitavou ?,
Slovensk?
Archeologia, 12,
1964, (pp. 5-68), pp.
13 f.
(6)
G.
Jequier,
Cachet et
cylindres archdiques,
(Memoires
de la
Delegation
en
Verse, VIII),
Pa?
ris, 1905, p. 25, figs. 56,
68.
(7)
E.
Gjerstad, ?Supplementary
Notes on
Finds from
Ajia
Irini in
Cyprus
?,
Medelhavsmu
seet
Bull, 3, 1963, pp. 3-40, figs. 2a, 4;
V.
Karageorghis,
?A
Deposit
of Archaic Terracotta
Figures
from
Patriki, Cyprus
?, Report, Dep. of
Antiquities, Cyprus, 1971, pp.
27-36.
(8)
W.
M?ller,
F.
Oelman, Tiryns,
I.,
(Deutsches Archaeologisches
Institut), Athen,
1912;
C.
Zervos,
L'art de la Crete
neolithique
et
Minoenne, Paris, 1956, pi.
56.
(9) J. Harrison, Prolegomena
to the
Study of
Greek
Religion,
3rd
ed., Cambridge,
1932, pp.
328 ff.
265
India's cultural links with Elam and
Mesopotamia,
where the
joint symbolism
is outstand?
ing, go
back at least to the
Sargonid period,
c.
2370-2284 B.C. I will show
by
means of
a selected series of
early archaeological
relics the artistic
range
of this dual
symbolism,
leading
from the most
obvious to the
highly stylized.
This
assemblage
demonstrates
cer?
tain
underlying regularities
of
pattern
over a
far-flung
area of the ancient world. How much
these
regularities
derive from
independent expressions
of basic human attitudes about
pro?
creation,
and how much from
protohistoric
diffusion from a central area or areas of an
thropogenesis,
it is difficult to
say.
I shall comment
briefly
in terms of
migration patterns
in the
concluding
section.
I. The Near East
Among
the earliest
Mesopotamian examples
of the association of the
serpent
with
child-birth are the
nude,
terracotta
figurines (fig.
4)
from
al-Ubaid,
c. 4200
B.C.,
excavated
by Woolley
(10).
Their svelte
bodies, reptilian visages
and the circumstances of their dis?
covery
leave no doubt that
they
were
intentionally
fashioned to
represent
an
ophidian deity,
and had votive or
magical significance.
Their
precise identity
is not
known,
but
Lang
don
C1) provided strong
evidence of the
ophidian
nature of several deities in the Sumerian
and
Assyrio-Babylonian pantheon.
The
pubic triangle
of the al-Ubaid idols is
prominent
and shown
by
four or five chevrons. It is of interest that
pottery accompanying
them
bore
simple,
bold rows of four
chevrons,
or a
prominent triangle,
or a
single,
narrow,
hatched
parallelogram
which
may
have
symbolized
the
serpent.
The
object
in
fig.
5 is
Babylonian,
and is dated to c. 2700 B.C.
(12).
It is of baked
clay
and measures 35
x
15
x
7 cm. A
pair
of
hand-moulded,
entwined
serpents,
a well
known
Mesopotamian symbol
of
fertility,
is affixed all around the outer sides
except
in
the rear.
Inside,
three
undulating serpents
in
applique
are
aligned
in
parallel,
their heads
resting
on inclined
planes
set before
a
stepped chair,
or
throne,
whose back is now dam?
aged.
This
object
was
probably
meant to
represent
a
private shrine;
its exact
significance
is not clear but it is
likely
that it is a
portable
votive
offering
of the kind
commonly placed
in
temples
before the
principal deity.
In this
case,
the
personage imagined
as seated on
the
throne,
or whose
effigy may
once have
occupied it,
could have been the Sumerian
Innana,
or
Ishtar,
her Semitic
equivalent.
As the
goddess
of love and
fertility,
her
primeval,
ophidian aspect
is evident in a number of
ways
in
liturgical
and oracular texts translated
by Langdon
from cuneiform tablets. It is
explicit
in her title
usumgal (Akkadian
for
cgreat serpent5);
and Sumerian
hymns
which invoke
a
specific
"wombsnake"
{mus-satur)
are
(10)
Sir L.
Woolley,
Ur
Excavations,
IV. The
Early Periods, Philadelphia,
1955.
(u)
S. H.
Langdon,
Tammuz and Ishtar,
Oxford,
1914.
(12)
E. D. van
Buren, ?Gay Figurines
of
Babylonia
and
Assyria?,
Yale Oriental
Series,
Researches, 16, (Yale Babylonian
Collection,
No.
2240), 1930, p.
248
266
listed
by Heimpel (13).
Thus the three
appliqued serpents
before the
stepped
throne
pro?
bably represent
the numinous attributes of the
goddess.
That miniature shrines of this kind were the
appurtenances
of a
fertility
cult is evident
from the
simple, yet powerfully suggestive
votive thrones
or chairs found at
Lagash,
in
Babylonia (figs. 6, 7).
These are datable to the third
dynasty
of Ur
(I4).
The front
legs
of one of these also serve as
the
deity's legs.
In the
other,
the
artist, by masterly place?
ment of the
hands,
has utilized the
pregnant belly
and the entire
pubic triangle
as if to
represent
the head and
torso,
respectively.
In both these
cases,
the
ophidian
character of
the
goddess
is stressed
by zigzags
incised within the
triangles.
These
symbols
were anti?
cipated
even in
pre-Sargonid
times on a
sherd from
Lagash (fig.
8) painted
with
paired
sinuous lines to outline the
pubes,
which is
recognizable
as such
only
because the vulva
also is
painted
on it.
That
zigzags
and sinuous lines were not
merely
decorative,
but meant to recall the
fertility goddess's primeval ophidian
nature,
is
proven by
numerous
images
of
Ishtar,
and
of her Canaanite and
pre-Israelite counterparts,
Astarte or
Ashera,
and
Ashtoreth, respec?
tively.
In
these,
the
goddess
is
portrayed
naked and
offering
her breasts.
Serpents
en?
graved
on her
body, usually
one on each
leg
and
thigh, creep
toward her
pubes.
Such idols occur
early
in the 3rd
millennium,
for
example
at the
important temple
of Ishtar at
Ashur,
in
Assyria (15).
These
images
were
crudely
fashioned in
clay,
and are
eloquent expressions
of the devotee's desire to be fertile. In some of
them,
lines re?
presenting
a
serpent actually
touch the
pubic triangle (fig.
9).
In addition to votive chairs
like those from
Lagash, pottery
found in this
temple
often bore chevrons incised within
bisected
triangles.
At
Nahariyeh,
now on Israel's northern
coast,
Ben-Dor
(16)
excavated
a
remarkable silver idol of Astarte
measuring only
about 50
mm. in
height,
from below
the lowest floor of a
Canaanite
temple
dedicated to this
deity (fig.
10).
This location
clearly suggests
her
chthonic, ophidian character,
which is further
emphasized by
the lithe
body
and the form of the head. In
addition, upon
careful
inspection
one can notice
a
gently wavy
ridge
over each
leg
and knee
?
emblematic
serpents creeping
toward the
genitals.
There are
several other idols
(17)
in which the association of
serpent
and
pubes
is
very pronounced.
In still
others,
the
deity
assumed
serpent
form
fully.
One of these
specimens
even has human breasts and a
cup
beneath to catch their milk
(18).
All of these
examples prepare
us for the
recognition
of
pudenda
as
symbolized by
(13)
W.
Heimpel,
? Tierbilder in der Sumeri?
schen Literatur
?,
Studia
Pohl, 2,
1968: cf.
hymns
nos. 87 ff.
(14)
H. de
Genouillac,
Fouilles de
Telloh,
II, Paris,
1936.
(15)
W.
Andrae,
Die archaischen Ischtar-Tem
pel, Leipzig, 1922, pp. 36-38, fig.
5.
(16)
I.
Ben-Dor,
in
QDAP, 14, 1950, (pp.
1-41), p. 26, pi.
XII 5.
(n)
W. F.
Albright,
? The Second
Campaign
at Tell Beit Mirsim
(Kiriath-Sepher)
?,
Bulletin
of
the American Schools
of
Oriental
Research, 8,
1928, pp. 1-11;
E.
Grant,
?Beth
Shemesh, 1928?,
Bulletin
of
the American Schools
of
Oriental
Research, 10, 1929, pp. 1-15;
C. F. A. Schaeffer,
Ugaritica,
II. Mission de Ras
Shamra,
vol.
5,
Paris, 1949, fig.
10.
(18)
A.
Rowe,
The Four Canaanite
Temples of
Beth
Shan,
Part
1, Philadelphia, 1940, pi. 42A,
2, 5, pi.
XLIV
A,
4.
267
triangles,
and of
serpents
as
zigzags,
chevrons and
wavy
lines in works of art which evoke
the
goddess
of
fertility only
in subtle
ways.
A few illustrations will suffice to call atten?
tion to the
range
of
specimens
in which the
symbolism
becomes
progressively
less obvious.
It was
customary
for devotees at the
temple
of Ishtar at
Ashur,
mentioned
above,
to
place
before her main
image offerings
in the form of small terracotta altars in the
shape
of houses
(fig. 11).
Most were in two
stages,
with
rectangular
doors and
triangular
windows.
They
were
normally empty, yet pregnant
with
meaning.
Each
represented
the
house of
Ishtar,
or
rather,
her
brothel,
since in her
capacity
as universal lover and
pro?
genitor
she was the
archetypal
harlot. In
Assyria
and
Babylonia
she was called
Kilili,
and the
epithets
Kilili
Musirtu,
cKilili who leans
[peeps]
out*5 and Kilili sa
ap?ti,
cKilili of
the windows5
aptly
call attention to the characteristic stations used
by
her
profession
for
enticing
men
passing by
and
filling
them with lust. Thus the
triangular
windows
are
hardly coincidental;
and the
appliqued serpents winding
about
them,
as also Ishtar's other
emblem
signifying
love
?
tiny
doves affixed to the eaves
?
complete
the
symbolism.
Such a terracotta house is also known from Palestine
(Rockefeller Museum, Jerusalem,
Acc. no. P.
1804)
but its windows are not
triangular.
It is
thought by
some to be an
"incense burner".
However,
a
figurine
of a woman is seated in one of its
window,
her
thighs spread
out to exhibit her
genitals.
There is a
serpent
in
attendance,
and remnants
of the forefeet of a
goat
and the head of a lioness in relief
?
Astarte's other emblems
?
enhance the
homology
with KililFs house.
Garstang (19)
describing
his
extensive, carefully catalogued
finds at
Jericho,
stated that
?
the snake is the
only
cult emblem
appearing among
Middle Bronze
Age [c.
1700
B.C.]
deposits
?. This assertion is a
commentary
on how even an
experienced
and
perceptive
archaeologist
is liable to overlook the emblematic
triangle occurring
on the same
objects.
For, by
the Middle Bronze
Age
this motif had become
so common on
painted pottery
that
it is
easy
to see
how it
might
strike one as
only
an
embellishment, especially
when it oc?
curs in clusters or is inverted.
History
attests that the cult of Astarte or Ashtaroth was
still
firmly
entrenched in Palestine. Both of her
fertility symbols
appear
in
profusion
on
the
pottery
from the
palace
store-rooms at
Jericho (figs.
12, 13, 14).
Naturalistic models
of
serpents
occur on
jugs
and their handles
during
the
Early
and Middle Bronze
Ages;
but, according
to
Garstang, by
the Late Bronze
Age,
c. 1500
B.C.,
these
serpent effigies
gave way
? in the course of time
[to]
a
wavy
line between two
straight
lines which
presumably represents
its hole or
cage
?.
Epstein (20), describing
Palestinian
pottery
of
the 16th
century B.C.,
does not discuss
symbolism yet goes
so far as to
regard
as
unlikely
that even
wavy
lines were
originally
intended to
represent any specific object.
But this
is an extreme view and it is
disproved by
innumerable works of art about a millennium
older,
for
example by
the sherd in
fig.
8 and the terracotta thrones and shrine in
figs.
5,
6
(19) J. Garstang,
?
Jericho: City
and
Necrop?
olis
?,
Annals
of Archaeology
and
Anthropology,
XXI, 1934, pp.
99-136.
(20)
C.
Epstein,
Palestinian Bichrome
Ware,
Leiden,
1966.
268
and 7.
Droop (21)
noted that the sinuous
lines,
chevrons and
triangles
of Bronze
Age
pottery
from
Jericho
are
anticipated
earlier in the neolithic
period.
The
high frequency
of such
stylized
decorations on Palestinian ware can be
appreciated
in the documentation
by
Amiran
(22).
A
simple,
but
symbolically forceful, painted,
Canaanite
jug
of this kind
found in the
royal
tombs of the First
Dynasty
of
Egypt,
c. 2900 B.C.
(23)
is shown in
fig.
15.
The cultural ties between
Mesopotamia
and the western Iranian
regions
of Luristan
and Elam were as continuous and ancient as were
Mesopotamia's
links with her Semitic
neighbours
in Palestine and
Syria.
The western Iranians shared with the
Mesopotamians
certain features of
early religious development,
and these are reflected in the
many
simi?
larities in works of art of the
protohistoric
and later
periods. Mother-goddess figurines
(24)
were
common,
and
cult-practices involving serpents
were
pronounced
(25).
I have submit?
ted for
publication
elsewhere a discussion of
specific
historical and
archaeological
facets
of the
early religions
of these
contiguous regions.
The
glyptic
art and
painted pottery
of Elam are a
rich,
varied
source of
geometric
motifs and of animal
representations, principally caprids, cervids,
birds and
serpents.
Though
these were on occasion treated
naturalistically,
the decorative
patterns
shown in
figs.
16 to 20
speak
for themselves.
They
are taken from the extensive
description
of
the
serpent
motif in Elam
by
Toscanne
(26) who, however,
does not comment
upon
the
symbolic implication
of the
triangle. Fig.
17 is an obvious variation of the
pattern already
encountered in
Lagash
and in
Jericho.
In
fig.
19 three
opposed pairs
of
serpents placed
concentrically
in
"kissing"
attitudes as a
group
come so close to
suggesting
the
vagina
that
one
might
well
suspect
this was the artist's intent. That these decorative
patterns
and
their countless variations were
originally inspired by religion
is clear from relics of
appa?
rently
cultic
significance.
I shall cite two such.
Fig. 21,
taken from
Mecquenem (2T), represents
a small archaic button-seal
? en
pierre
tendre
?,
possibly
steatite,
excavated at
Tepe
Cheshme
Ali, just
outside Tehran. A simi?
lar one is also known from Susa
(28).
Deeply
incised undulations and
triangles
mark its
surface. The boss on the reverse side bears a hole from which a
clay effigy
of a ram was
suspended. Fig.
22 shows an
impression
of one side of an archaic
stamp seal,
c. 4th
(21) J.
P.
Droop, ?Jericho: City
and Necro?
polis,
VIII.
Pottery
of the Chalcolithic and Neo?
lithic Levels
?,
Annals
of Archaeology
and Anthro?
pology, XXII, 1935, pp.
169-73.
(22)
R.
Amiran,
Ancient
Pottery of
the
Holy
Land, Rutgers,
New
Jersey,
1970.
(23)
H.
Bonnet,
Ein
fr?h geschichtlich
es Gr??
berfeld
bei
Abusir, Leipzig,
1928.
(24)
Ph.
Ackerman,
?Cult
figurines?,
in A.
U.
Pope, ed.,
A
Survey of
Persian
Art, Oxford,
vol. I.
(25)
P.
Amiet, Elam, Paris, 1966;
W.
Hinz,
The Lost World
of Elam, London, 1972;
P.
Toscanne,
?fitudes sur le
serpent: figure
et
symbole
dans
l'antiquite
filamite
?,
Memoir es de
la
Delegation
en
Perse,
s.
4, Paris, 1911, pp.
153-228.
(26) Toscanne,
loc. cit.
(27)
R. de
Mecquenem,
?Notes sur la cera
mique peinte archa'ique
en Perse
?,
Memoires de
la Mission
Archeologique
de
Perse, 20, Paris,
1928, pp.
99-132.
(28)
M.
Pezard,
? Etudes sur les intailles Su
siennes?,
Memoires de la
Delegation
en
Perse,
12, Paris, 1911, pi. 1, fig.
149.
269
millennium
B.C.,
from
Luristan,
whose intimate and
early
cultural links with
Susa,
in
Elam,
are reflected in art. It
portrays
the
fagade
of a
shrine,
or house.
Clearly,
the
zigzag
and
triangles
above the
portals
are not
only analogous
to the
design
on the button
seals,
they
also do not fail to recall the
serpents
and the
triangular
windows of Ishtar's
(Kilili's)
votive houses from
a
later
epoch
in
Assyria.
The reverse side of the Luristan
stamp-seal
bears a human
figure
with the head of a
mountain-goat,
or other
caprid.
This
personage
is
quite commonly represented
on seals
(of
a
type
also found at Tell Asmar in central
Mesopotamia) accompanied by naturalistically depicted serpents (29)
and is believed to be
a
primitive divinity comparable
with divinities with
caprine
associations from a later
epoch
in Iran
(30). However,
as I have elaborated elsewhere
(31),
the
primeval
antecedents of this
goat-headed deity may
well have been totemic animals or
fully theriomorphic caprid-deities
of either
sex;
whether these were the
precursors
of the Sumerian Innana and her consort
Dumuzi
(the Assyrio-Babylonian
Ishtar and
Tammuz)
cannot be
proven.
But it is
highly
pertinent
that these
Mesopotamian
divinities were not
only intimately
involved in rites of
fertility
and
regeneration
but also
possessed
both
ophidian
and
caprine aspects,
as the
liturgies
translated
by Langdon (32)
and
Jacobsen
(33)
clearly
indicate.
Fig.
23 shows a terracotta
fertility
bed viewed from above. It is from
Susa,
and dated
to the 2nd millennium B.C. Other beds show
a
copulating couple.
These
objects,
mea?
suring
no more than about fifteen centimetres
by
seven,
are votive
gifts importuning
the
fertility goddess
for her favours. Whether the naked
occupant
of the bed is the
goddess
or the devotee is not clear. Her submissive
posture
and the
engraved pubic triangle
ad?
vertise
concupiscence plainly,
but the
zigzags
incised on the bed need more
thoughtful
interpretation. They may
at first be taken to
represent
woven rushes used as
webbing;
and this
may
be so.
Yet,
because
symbols played
so dominant a role in ancient
beliefs,
and
considering
the innumerable
archaeological
relics connected with the cult of
fertility
where
zigzags
have obvious connotations of the
serpent,
I am inclined to
regard
the
present
instance as no
exception. Indeed,
a
stamp
seal from
Tepe Gawra,
of the
early
Uruk
period,
c.
3400 B.C.
(34)
depicts
a
couple
in sexual embrace on a small bed or couch
under which
a
huge serpent
is seen
emerging.
To conclude this section I have selected an
intriguing example
from northern Meso?
potamia.
An amulet or
stamp-seal
of c. 2900
B.C.,
from Tell Brak
(35),
bears on one face
three rows of three inset
triangles, probably
intended to take
inlay;
the other face is en?
graved
with what
appear
to be
representations
of human
footprints (a deity's?)
which
point
(29)
P.
Amiet, ?Quelques aspects peu
con
nus de Fart
iranien?,
Revue du Louvre et des
Musees de
France, 4-5, 1973, pp.
215-24.
(30)
R. D.
Barnett,
?Homme
masque
ou
dieu-ibex?
?,
Syria, XLIII, 1966, pp. 259-76;
E.
Porada,
The Art
of
Ancient
Iran,
New
York,
1965.
(31)
B.
Mundkur,
?Bull versus
Serpent:
Glimpses
of Three Ancient Civilizations ?
(to
be
published).
C32) Langdon, op.
cit.
(3S)
T.
Jacob sen,
Toward the
Image of
Tarn
muz
(W.
L.
Moran, ed.), Cambridge, Mass.,
1970.
(34)
A.
J. Tobler,
Excavations at
Tepe
Gawra,
vol.
2, Philadelphia, 1950, pi.
CLXIII 87.
(35)
M. E. L.
Mallowan,
?Excavations at
Brak and
Chagar Bazar?, Iraq, IX, 1947, (pp.
1-259), p. 122, pi.
XVIII a.
270
in
opposite directions; coursing
between these is the
neatly engraved figure
of a
serpent.
The
meaning
of these
patterns
is not
clear,
but
they
recall certain north African
rupestral
engravings
to be discussed below which also include
footprints
and a
serpent-like design.
II. The Eastern Mediterranean
The artistic treatment of the
symbols
of
fertility
in the
relatively
isolated maritime
regions
of the Mediterranean has
complex origins
and is distinct from that of the Near East.
There are no
religious
texts
comparable
in
age, clarity
and abundance with those of Meso?
potamia
and its cultural
dependencies
to enable more than a
superficial
characterization of
the earliest
icons,
or
deities,
of a
developing pantheon.
Nude
figurines
are not known in
which an overt
pubic triangle
is linked with the
serpent;
and it is
generally
much harder
to deduce the
meaning
of the
symbols
one encounters.
These are
problems
whose answers
depend finally
on
knowledge
of the
spread
of
the earliest
primitive
societies across the
sea,
their insular
religious evolution,
and the
diffusion of their crafts once these societies differentiated to
higher
levels.
Migrations, chronologies
and culture
sequences
enter in a manner too
complex
for
discussion in an article concerned
primarily
with the
significance
of certain
symbols linking
archaeology
with
a
phase
of man's social evolution. The reader should refer to detailed
treatments of the
archaeological background by
Renfrew
(36)
and Brice
(37) among
others.
Suffice it to state now that
Anatolian, Syro-Cilician,
and north African culture elements
have
variously
been invoked in
explaining
the material
products
of the
Aegean
cultures.
The cult of
Kilili,
or Ishtar the
harlot,
is believed
by
some to have
spread
westwards
from
Mesopotamia,
via
Syria
and
Phoenicia,
to
Cyprus. Here,
as
Aphrodite Parakyptousa
or
Aphrodite Porne,
she
personified fertility
in her role of
patroness
of lewd love.
However,
one must remember that Phoenician
penetration
of
Cyprus
occurred not much
earlier than 800 B.C.
Proponents
of the view that
Aphrodite's presence
in
Cyprus
ante?
dates the Phoenicians'
point
to the
many
Anatolian rather than Semitic features of her
cult. In
any case,
crude, votive,
terracotta naked
goddesses
of the kind shown in
fig.
24
are known in
large
numbers from
Enkomi,
eastern
Cyprus (38).
It is
improbable
that
they
are local versions of the
Phoenician,
Canaanite or
Mesopotamian models,
for
they
are dated to late
Cypriot III,
1220-1100 B.C. Neither relief nor incised sinuosities re?
presenting serpents
occur on these
Cypriot goddesses.
Their
pubic triangles
are extraordi?
narily large
and are as a rule incised
by
chevrons or
herringbones.
These incised motifs are sometimes described as
"pubic hairs",
but there are
strong
(36)
C.
Renfrew,
The
Emergence of
Civiliza?
tion
[The Cyclades
and the
Aegean
in the Third
Millennium
B.C.], London,
1972.
(37)
W. C.
Brice,
?The
Anthropological
and
Epigraphic
Evidence for Culture Contact in the
Early Aegean?,
Acta,
2nd International Collo
quium
on
Aegean Prehistory, Athens, 1972, p.
15-17.
(38)
A.
Caubet,
?
Terre cuites
chypriotes
ine
dites ou
peu
connues de
Tage
du bronze au
Louvre?, Report, Dept. of Antiquities, Cyprus,
1971, pp.
7-12.
271
Fig.
1
-
Incised
phalanx
of a horse. Danubian
Epipalaeolithic,
c. 8700
years
B.P.
Fig.
2
-
Ochre-painted
human
bones,
Late Eneolithic. Southern
Spain. Fig.
3
-
Incised human bone. Neolithic
period,
Northern
Italy.
272
Fig.
4
-
Ophidian idol, suckling
an infant.
Sumerian,
c. 4200 B.C. Terracotta.
Fig.
5
-
Votive shrine.
Babylonian,
c. 2700
B.C. Terracotta.
Figs. 6,
7
-
Votive thrones
representing
the seated
goddess
of
fertility.
Third
Dynasty
of Ur. Terracotta.
Fig.
8
-
Painted sherd. Third
Dynasty
of Ur.
Fig.
9
-
Terracotta idol.
Temple
of
Ishtar, Ashur, Assyria,
c. 2800 B.C.
Fig.
10
-
Silver
figurine
of Ashtoreth.
Nahariyeh,
Israel. Middle Bronze
Age. Fig.
11
-
Votive house.
Temple
of Ishtar
at
Ashur,
c. 2800 B.C.
Figs.
12-14
-
Painted
pots.
Palace store-rooms at
Jericho,
c. 1700 B.C.
^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Fig.
15
-
Painted
jug. Canaanite,
c. 2900 B.C.
Figs.
16-20
-
Painted
designs
on Elamite
pottery. Fig.
21
-
Archaic
button-seal. Northern Iran.
^^^^^
'
Fig.
22
-
Stamp
seal.
Luristan,
Western
Iran,
c. 4th millennium B.C.
Fig.
23
-
Fertility
bed.
Susa, Elam,
2nd millen?
nium B.C.
Fig.
24
-
Idol from
Enkomi, Cyprus,
c. 1200 B.C.
26
^^M^^^ ^^Wi^^
Fig.
25
-
Neolithic stone bowl.
Khirokithia, Cyprus,
c. 5800-5250 B.C.
Fig.
26
-
Composite mortuary
vessel.
Vounous, Cyprus,
mid-2nd millennium B.C.
Fig. 27 - Idol from Southern Anatolia, c. 5000 (?) B.C. Painted ceramic. Fig. 28 - Idol from Kos. Dodecanese. 8th cen? tury B.C. Painted ceramic.
^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Figs.
29-32
-
Cretan terracotta
images. Early
Minoan or earlier.
Fig.
33
-
Small
clay object
with incised
patterns.
Neolithic Crete.
Fig.
34
-
Slip
decoration on Amratian vase. Southern
Egypt. Fig.
35
-
Ship
motifs incised
on
Cycladic "frying pans*'.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ~"*^r^^^u^^<^^?S^?^H^^^^^^^^^^^^I n&iiuluLv^
Fig.
36
-
Cycladic "frying pans".
Terracotta.
Fig.
37
-
Stone stele from
Souphli, Thessaly.
Neolithic Greece.
Fig.
38
-
Statue-menhir. Mas
Capelier,
Southern France.
Megalithic period.
evidences of
a
serpent
cult in
Cyprus
and similar
markings
occur much earlier on
pottery
with definite neolithic characteristics
(39).
A
jug
of red
polished
ware from
Vounous,
like
many
others from this
site,
is decorated with
serpents
in relief flanked
by
incised
herring?
bones
(40).
In
addition, pyxides
of red
polished clay
are known
(41)
which I
suspect
were
ritual containers for
snakes,
unlike the
type
of "snake house" described
by Karageor
ghis (42).
These
pyxides
have lids with clear connotations of the
fertility
cult. One is
decorated in relief with
figures
of a
sleeping
man and woman in embrace. Chevrons
are
incised on their necks and on the woman's forehead. A bird in the round is affixed
at each corner of the "bed". In another
pyxis (Cyprus Museum,
No. VT
2/91)
the lid bears
a
large
central
zigzag,
at one end of which stands the
figure
of
a man and at the other
of a woman
holding
an infant. Still another lid is flanked
by
birds in the round. It is
incised with two
long
rows of stacked
chevrons,
five
parallel zigzag
lines and dashed
parallel
lines.
That the
serpent,
like the
bull, figured very prominently
in the
fertility
rites of
pre?
historic
Cyprus
is traceable at least to the
Early
Bronze
Age,
c. 2800 B.C. The
use of
chevrons on
pottery
continued
up
to about the 8th
century
B.C. But whether the
origins
of
ophiolatry
were
indigenous
or should be ascribed to
migrations prior
to the
Early
Bronze
Age, perhaps
from the Asian
mainland,
we do not know. Neither
serpents
nor
bulls,
caprids,
cervids or other animals are
naturalistically depicted
on the Neolithic I
(5250-4750
B.C.) pottery
of
Cyprus. Groups
of
wavy
incisions occur
quite frequently
on the "combed
ware" of Neolithic II
(3500-3200 B.C.).
It is difficult to establish their
symbolic
cor?
respondence
to
serpents.
The finds at
Khirokitia,
one of the neolithic sites
illustrating
the earliest
stages
of
human
activity
in
Cyprus,
now dated to 5800-5250
B.C.,
include two
mortuary objects
of interest. Both are of stone.
Judging
from the
craftsmanship
bestowed on
them, they
appear
to be cultic vessels. One is a
tray (43)
with five
parallel zigzags engraved
across its
face. As we shall see
later,
there are several instances from the Mediterranean area where
the number five seems to have a
mystical
value and is sometimes involved in relics which
depict serpents.
The other
(fig. 25)
is a
square, spouted
bowl with a cruciform
pattern
of
raised
points
on the side and
edges.
However,
its
distinguishing
decor
comprises groups
of five chevrons carved in relief on either side of a
triangular spout.
It is
tempting
to
regard
these
as the
joint symbols
of our
theme,
but this should be resisted in the
present
case,
which is
exceptional,
until more direct evidence is
yielded by
other
early
neolithic
finds.
(39)
P.
Dikaios,
?The Excavations at Vou
nous-Bellapais
in
Cyprus, 1931-1932?,
Archae
ologia, 88, 1940, pp. 1-174, pi.
XXXV
a;
E.
Sj?qvist,
?Die
Kultgeschichte
eines
Cyprischen
Temenos?,
Archiv
f?r Religionswissenschaft, 30,
1932, pp.
308 ff.
(40)
E.
Stewart, J. Stewart,
Vounous 1937
38. Field
Report
on the Excavations
Sponsored
by
the British School
of Archaeology of Athens,
Lund, 1950, pi.
LUIa
(41) Dikaios,
loc. cit.
(42)
V.
Karageorghis,
? A "Snake House" from
Enkomi?, Report, Dep. of Antiquities, Cyprus,
1972, pp.
109-12.
(43)
P.
Dikaios,
Khirokitia
[Final Report
on
the Excavations
of
a Neolithic Settlement in
Cyprus, 1936-1946], Oxford, 1953, pL
LXII 1.
273
For clearer
suggestions
of
serpents
linked with the
mother-goddesses
of
Cyprus,
we
must turn to Vounous for its red
polished pottery,
which abounds in
relief-figures
of
serpents,
and to a
special type
of
composite
vessel found in the elaborate tholoi of
Early
Cypriot
II and III
(2500-2100 B.C.).
In one such
group-burial,
bodies of
twenty-five
infants were located on successive
floors in small holes covered with stone slabs. On an
upper level,
a
clay head, perhaps
a
deity's,
bore a
serpent-design
on its back.
The
composite
vessels consist of four
hemispherical
bowls
adhering by
their
edges,
the front
right
bowl often
having
sinuosities,
stacked chevrons
or
zigzag
incisions.
Rising
vertically
from the centre of the
grouped
bowls,
and
similarly
ornamented,
is a thin rec?
tangular plaque
of varied form. Some are
simple
with
no
appliqued
reliefs,
others have
snake-like
appliques
or a miniature
jug
at the
top.
Almost all
plaques
have
two,
some?
times
three, prominent
oval
openings.
In the
specimen
in
fig.
26,
the armless human
figure
with its
long
neck
may
or
may
not be
ophidian
in nature
but,
as if to denote
childbirth,
a
pair
of limbs in relief
emerges
from above the
upper opening.
Thus the
latter
probably represents
the
vagina,
no more bizarre in its location than in the
specimens
shown in
figs.
1-3. The lower
opening
defines the
legs.
In another
composite vessel,
there are diminutive arms
holding
an infant
near the
upper opening
but the infant's
body
is
separate
from the
limbs,
which
emerge
from the
opening exactly
as in
fig.
26. The idea
of rebirth could not have been
conveyed
more
plainly by
these
composite, mortuary
vessels.
If,
as seems
plausible, they
bear witness to the
primitive
notion of the
serpent's
involvement
in
rebirth,
vessels of this
type
must have served
as
feeders,
with the
openings
and the
plaques
meant to be sanctuaries for the
twisting reptile
like the "snake-tubes" and
perfor?
ated vessels of Crete and Greece.
Passing
westwards from
Cyprus
we need
pause only briefly just
five kilometres off
the southwest Anatolian coast at the island of
Kos, which,
like the
nearby Rhodos,
was
a maritime
waystation
for the Achaean Greeks who colonized
Cyprus
in the Late Bronze
Age.
The circular alabaster idols with
long
necks and
prominent pudenda,
of the late 3rd
millennium,
from
Kiiltepe
in central Anatolia
(44)
are well-known. Yet in none of these
can the connection between
serpents
and human
fertility
be deduced
more
vividly
than in
certain
prehistoric
Anatolian ceramic idols of another
type.
One such
specimen (fig. 27)
should be
compared
with
a ceramic idol from Kos
(fig. 28).
The latter was excavated from a tomb for children and is dated to the 8th
century
B.C.
(45).
That it
portrays
a
pregnant
female as
part
human and
part serpent
is a reasonable
pre?
mise consistent with the
deeply
rooted
veneration, throughout
the
Aegean world,
of
ophi?
dian deities and of
serpents
as the
harbingers
of new life
(46).
In
addition,
the emblems
(44)
N.
?ZG?g,
?Marble Idols and Statuettes
from the Excavations at
K?ltepe
?, Bell, 21, 1957,
pp.
71-80.
(45)
L.
Morricone,
?
Scavi e ricerche a Coo
(1935-1943)?,
Bollettino
d'Arte, XXXV, 1950,
p.
320.
(46) Harrison, op. cit., pp.
269
ft.;
M. P.
Nils
son,
The
Minoan-Mycenaean Religion
and
Its Survival in Greek
Religion, Lund,
1950.
274
painted
on the distended bellies o? the Kos and Anatolian idols are
basically
alike
and,
together
with other
features, bespeak
a continual
stylistic
influence from the Anatolian
peninsula.
The emblem on the Kos idol can
hardly
tax one's
imagination.
It is that of
an
infant,
whose
body
is
triangular.
Its arms and
legs
are
recognizable enough but,
like
the
processes
at the
apex,
even
they carry suggestions
of a
serpent's
bifid
tongue.
In
describing
the Anatolian
specimen,
Parrot
(47), despite
the
symbolic
infant marked on its
belly,
the
pubes represented by
a
chevron beneath
it,
and the
zigzags,
summed
up
too
cautiously:
? Le
visage n'est,
en aucune
fagon,
celui d'une
femme,
mais d'un animal bien
difficile ? identifier
...
Cet etre
etrange
se derobe ? toute
explication
?. Its
comparison
with the idol from Kos should reduce doubts as to what the artist intended to
deify.
The bare-breasted
*csnake-goddesses"
of Crete are famous. These faience
figurines
of the
Palatial,
Middle Minoan III
period
with their colourful flounced
skirts, headgear,
ample
bosoms and
serpents twisting
about their arms and torsos have
popularized
aware?
ness of the cult more
effectively
than
any
other Cretan relic. Totemistic
aspects
of the
goddess's
evolution are considered
by
Willets
(48),
and
Branigan (49)
has discussed
a few
disparate religious appurtenances
of the
Early
Minoan
period
which
eventually
were ab?
sorbed into a
single
cult with the
serpent
as its dominant
symbol.
This
dominance,
and
the characteristic
exposure
of the
goddess's
breasts
contrasting
with her otherwise elabor?
ately
concealed
nudity,
culminated a
long development going
back to the
neolithic,
from
the naked
figurines
of which
period
she cannot be dissociated.
There is
hardly
a naked
figurine
from neolithic Crete in which the
pubic region
is
as
clearly
delimited as in the cases described
above,
or which has a
serpent
in intimate
association with it. For the closest Cretan
parallel
to the
Mesopotamian
or Canaanite
images
of the latter
kind,
one should turn to a
small, neolithic,
three-sided
prism
bead
from Kalochorio discussed
by
Kenna
(50).
One face of it shows a
human
figure
with
outstretched arms and
legs.
On either side is a
winding serpent,
its head directed towards
the
groins
or
hips.
But one cannot be certain whether this
personage
is male or
female.
In another neolithic
specimen (51)
a small
figurine
with
stubby
outstretched
arms, pre?
sumably
a female
deity,
a
symbolic serpent
is emblazoned across the
chest,
not the
pubes.
The
symbol
is a five-fold
zigzag
of two
parallel
lines which widen at one end and termin?
ate in short indents
as
if to
suggest
a
serpent's gaping
mouth and
fangs.
On the other
hand,
there are innumerable
crudely
made terracotta
figurines
of
females of a
type
not considered
by Branigan. They
occur in Crete and elsewhere in
the
Aegean
over an extended
period beginning
with the Late Neolithic and
especially Early
Minoan I.
They
have sinuous
lines, zigzags
or
intertwined meanders incised or
painted
(47)
A.
Parrot,
?
Figurines
et
ceramiques
ana
toliennes
?,
Syria, XLVI, 1969, pp.
45-56.
(48)
R. F.
Willets,
Cretan Cults and
Festivals,
London,
1962.
(49)
K.
Branigan,
?
The Genesis of the House?
hold Goddess
?,
Studi Micenei ed
Egeo-Anatolici,
8, 1969, pp.
28-38.
(50)
V. E. G.
Kenna,
Cretan
Seals,
with a
catalogue of
the Minoan
gems
in the Ashmolean
Museum, Oxford, 1960, fig.
30.
(51) Zervos,
loc.
cit., pi.
56.
275
on them. These
markings usually
rise
vertically
over the front
part
of
full-length
skirts
from foot-level to the level of the
pubes.
Thus, they
are reminiscent of a
symbolism
al?
ready
encountered in the idols of Ishtar and Astarte. It must be
admitted, however,
that
while more evidence than this is needed to
prove
a
derivation from
Mesopotamia
or the
Levant,
an
ideological equivalence
with the
symbolism
of these
regions
seems not
unlikely
since survivals of the
anthropologically primitive
notion that women can be fertilized
by
serpents
are
equally
well-entrenched in
Aegean mythology:
Alexander of Macedonia was
fathered
by
a
serpent;
and
Zeus,
whose
origins
are
Cretan,
assumed the form of a
serpent
for intercourse with
Kore,
his
daughter by
his own mother
(52).
A
specimen
with a
zigzag
on the skirt
(fig.
29)
was found at Inatos in the sacred cave
of the
goddess Eileithyia, protectress
of
childbirth,
amidst
clay
models of
ships,
double axes
and
couples
in erotic
postures.
In another
(Iraklion Museum,
No.
13196,
case
149)
from
the same
cave,
a
figurine
in
black-painted,
buff
pottery,
now
damaged,
has an infant
feeding
at the breast and
a
pair
of intertwined meanders rise
upward
to the level of the
pubes.
In an
anthropomorphic
vase from Koumasa a
serpent
is coiled around the
neck and a
pair
of intertwined
zigzags
ascend towards the breasts
(53).
A
Mycenaean
figurine
of a woman
offering
her
breast,
found amid two
complete effigies
of coiled
serpents
and
fragments
of at least four
more,
is illustrated
by
Ervin
(54). Intertwined,
meandering
lines decorate the front of her robe. In an
archaic,
Boeotian cult
vessel,
sinuous
bands are
painted vertically
on the fronts of the skirts of
Hera, goddess
of
maternity
and
conjugal
love
(55).
In most
cases,
the embellishments rise no
higher
than the level of the crotch and are
not mere decorative
representations
of
laced-up
skirt fronts. Ceremonial
skirts,
at least
those worn
by
Cretan
priestesses,
were slit in the back or
partway up
on either
side,
but
not in the
front,
and
surviving
costumes continue the ancient traditions
(56). Thus,
in the
context of
Aegean ophiolatry,
such
zigzags,
meanders and sinuosities must
represent
the
serpent.
This view is fortified
by
the
depiction
of an
open-mouthed,
naturalistic
serpent
on an
unpublished
Cretan
image
in
black-painted,
buff
pottery (fig.
30).
The
serpent's
pubic association,
if one
may envisage
such in this
idol,
is
only subtly manifest,
and its
orientation seems to
symbolize
not the
phallus,
but birth
itself; or,
as the Greeks of
a
later
epoch believed,
rebirth of a dead hero in the form of a
serpent.
Another
symbol
sometimes seen on archaic Cretan terracottas has heretofore been
neglected.
It consists of a series of miniature
cupmarks,
and is as
intriguing
as it is hard
to
interpret.
A
hollow, cylindrical figurine
of the
Protogeometrie phase,
from Anavalokhos
(fig. 31)
has
a
noseless,
mouthless face with
pellet-eyes,
of which the
right
one is
missing.
(52)
A. B.
Cook,
Zeus. A
Study
in Ancient
Religion,
2
vols.,
New
York, 1964-65,
vol.
I,
p.
394.
(53) Zervos, op. cit., pi.
222.
(54)
M.
Ervin,
?Newsletter from
Greece?,
AJA, 73, 1969, pp. 341-57, pi. 88, fig.
22.
(55)
E.
Simon,
? Hera und die
Nymphen.
Ein
B?otischer Polos in
Stockholm?, RA, 1972, II,
(pp. 205-20), p. 209, fig.
6.
(56) J.
L.
Myres,
? Minoan dress
?, Man, 50,
1950, pp. 1-6;
A. C.
Vaughan,
The House
of
the Double
Axe,
New
York, 1959, pp.
125-26.
276
It is
only
about 8 cm. in
height.
The head is
shaped
as if a cloth hood covers it
up
to
the shoulders. The left arm is
stubby
and
outstretched,
the
right
arm is broken. Two
vertical rows of seven
cupmarks,
each with a central
pin-prick,
are
engraved
in front and
on each side. The idol
probably represents
a female with
pellet-bosses
for
breasts,
now
detached,
for there is faint indication of this on the
proper
left side. A
flat,
notched
strip
of
clay,
now
broken,
is
appliqued
to
the torso and
may
once have
passed
over the
shoulders. The unbroken end
tapers, giving
the
impression
that it
represents
a
serpent's
head. The cultic character of the
figurine
comes
through strongly.
A second
type
of
cupmark symbol
found in Crete occurs on an
archaic, damaged
ter?
racotta
measuring
about seven centimetres in
height (fig.
32).
The
body
is
solid, roughly
rectangular
and
represents
a
female. A
straight
narrow
groove
is incised from foot level
to the level of the
pubes;
five shallow
cupmarks
are
aligned
on each side of the
groove.
This
symbol
also occurs on a
very tiny, clay object
of the neolithic
period (fig.
33).
The
sketch combines features seen in a
photograph by
Zervos
(57)
of the unrestored
object
with features observed
by
the author after its restoration. Evans
(58)
regarded
it as a
spool
for
winding thread,
but the
numerological
overtones of the
markings
on its surface
betray
a cultic
significance.
The
symbol
in
question
is on the
upper
surface and has six
pairs
of
"cupmarks"
filled with white
paste. Diagonally
from it is a
group
of five
tiny
circular
marks in each of five rows
(Zervos'
photograph
shows
only
three
rows).
A sinuous line
with two
"eyes",
and a broad
zigzag
also mark the
upper
surface. Two
groups
of incised
circlets occur on one of its sides. Each
group
has five circlets in each of three rows.
There are two five-fold
zigzags
incised on the lower surface. The
symbol
common to the
upper
surface of this
object
and to the one in
fig.
32 has a
counterpart
outside Crete:
It occurs on the neck of a Late
Mycenaean
terracotta bull
(59)
and consists of five
pairs
of
circular, painted spots separated by
a line.
Such
symbols, typified by
a
painted
line or
groove
which
separates pairs
of circular
spots
or
cup-marks,
have
a
parallel
in
Libya,
and this
may
be of interest to
proponents
of
north African contacts with Crete
during pre-Minoan
times. At Udei El Chel in
Tripolitania,
where "erotic" female
figures
are inscribed around
natural, pudenda-like depressions
in rock
surfaces,
there is a
large, rocky outcrop
which
probably
was used in
primitive
rituals
(60).
Its surface has a
slightly wavy,
narrow
groove
about three metres
long.
It is
mainly
a
natural
fissure,
which terminates at one
end in a
man-made,
oval
cupmark
and continues
on the other side of this
cupmark
as a short
taper. Aligned
on either side of the fissure is
a row of five circular or oval
cupmarks scooped
in the rock. There is also
a cluster of
five
(?) spots engraved
within
a circle close
by. Footprint patterns,
of which at least one
pair
is
pointed
in
opposite directions,
are
also
engraved
in the rock. If the
symbols
on
the terracottas described above are at all cultic
homologues
of this narrow
fissure,
the
(57) Zervos, op. cit.,
pi.
63.
(58)
Sir A.
Evans,
The Palace
of Minos,
vol.
I, London, 1921, p.
42.
(59)
V.
M?ller,
?
Mykenische Fundgegenst?n
de in Berliner V?lkerkunde Museum ?,
Prae his to?
risches
Zeitschrift, 19, 1928, pp. 307-39, pis.
34,
35.
(60) Graziosi,
loc.
ciL, pl.
29 a.
277
terminal
cupmark
and
tongue-like taper tempt
one to
suggest
that it
may
be a
serpent
symbol. However,
I know of no clear evidence from
Libya
itself to
support
this inter?
pretation.
The nearest African
rupestral engravings
of footmarks and
cupules (not grouped)
amid an obvious
serpent representation
are from
Ango, Uele,
in
Zaire, bordering
southern
Sudan and
Uganda (61).
Still,
the
parallelism
between the five
pairs
of
rupestral cupmarks alongside
the cana
licular fissure at Udei El Chel and the
symbols
on the
Aegean objects
remains an extraordi?
nary
fact.
An
equally intriguing parallel
between north African and Cretan
symbolism may
exist
on a
painted jar
from
pre-Dynastic Egypt (fig.
34).
It
belongs
to the Amratian
culture,
a
neolithic
society
with
Libyan
affinities. Hornblower
(62)
identified the taller of the two
painted figures
as masculine
owing
to the
penis-like
appendage
with its
apparent penis
sheath,
a
device of
Libyan origin
but also known in
early
Crete.
However,
Scharff
(63)
suggested
that the
figure
could
represent
a female since another
Libyan
relic is known
which shows a woman
wearing
an
object shaped
like a
penis-sheath. Murray (64) regards
both
figures
on
the Amratian
jar
as
female. That the scene in
fig.
34
represents
a
fertility
rite is not
disputed.
The features of interest are that the
zigzags
between the
legs
are
analogous
to the
zigzag
on the Cretan idol in
fig. 29,
and that the hatched
triangle
has
numerous,
exact
counterparts
in the
Aegean:
Matz
(65)
describes
a Late Minoan
jar
with
a band of
small, closely spaced triangles
of this kind
painted
below
a broad
panel
consist?
ing
of a
[probably] serpent-scale
motif.
Hogarth
and Welch
(66)
noted a ?
predilection
for
[hatched
and
chevroned]
triangles
and
zigzags
? on the Kamares ware of Crete and
its immediate neolithic
predecessors.
A
pot
from the
Cyclades (67)
has
large
hatched tri?
angles
and
immediately
below them is an
encircling
sinuous line.
However,
the
symbolism
of
serpent
and
pubic triangle
cannot be
firmly
deduced in such
examples,
since naturalistic
equivalents
are,
as
far
as I am
aware, unknown,
and the
analogies ultimately hinge
sole?
ly upon
how one
interprets
motifs like those in
figs.
29 and 30.
Though pudenda
are
generally
not
depicted
on
Aegean anthropomorphic figurines,
the
folded-arm idols of the
Cyclades
are an
exception.
In
Early
Bronze
Age II,
c.
2500
B.C.,
pudenda
are common on the
Cycladic
ritual vessels termed
frying pans (fig.
36).
Placed
in the
exergue
of these
clay vessels,
the sexual
symbolism
contrasts with the uncertain
meaning
of other motifs
accompanying
the
pudenda
?
the
sun,
the
ship,
and the
sea as
represented by
linked
spirals.
To these should be added the
zigzag,
whose
interpretation
(61)
G.
Derkinderen,
Atlas du
Congo Beige
et du
Ruanda-Urundi, Paris-Brussels, 1955, fig.
5.
i62)
G. D.
Hornblower,
? The
Egyptian
Fer?
tility
Rite: a
postscript?, Man, 43, 1943, p.
29.
(63)
A.
Scharff,
?Some Prehistoric Vases
in the British
Museum?, Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology, 14, 1928, pp.
261-76.
(64)
M. A.
Murray,
?Burial Customs and
Beliefs in the Hereafter in
Predynastic Egypt?,
Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 42, 1956, p.
92.
(65)
F.
Matz, Forschungen auf Kreta, 1942,
Berlin, 1951, pi.
49.3.
(66)
D. G.
Hogarth,
F. B.
Welch,
? Primitive
Painted
Pottery
in
Crete?, JUS, 21, 1901, (pp.
78-98), p.
96.
(67)
C.
Zervos,
L'art des
Cyclades
du debut
a la
fin
de
Vage
du
bronze, 2500-1100, Paris,
1957.
278
so far has been
neglected.
It
figures prominently
on the sides
of,
sometimes
above, ships
incised on these ritual
objects
as in the
examples
from the island of
Syros
in
fig.
35,
taken
from Tsountas
(68).
In a
polychrome
sherd from
Iolkos, Thessaly,
a
bold
zigzag
enclosed
within an
ellipse
is the
only
decoration on the side of a
ship
with
a
ramming
fore-end
(6e).
It is dated to c. 1600
B.C.,
which indicates the
prevalence
of the
symbol
over an extended
period
outside the
Cyclades
as
well;
similar
specimens
are also known from
Mycenae.
The
only
clue as to the
meaning
of these
zigzags
comes from
literary
sources: ?
Hip
ponax urges
a
painter
called Mimnes "not to
go
on
painting
a snake on the
many-benched
side of a
trieres,
so that it seems to be
running away
from the ram towards the helmsman"
(possibly
the
ship's peculiar
device
or
semeion)
?
(70).
But
Hipponax
lived in the 6th
century B.C., so,
even
granting
a
continuity
of artistic
traditions,
it is not clear whether
the
serpent
motif on the trieres
preserved
an ancient
religious
sentiment or was no more
than a
naval
badge. Thus, though
the
primeval meaning
of the
symbols
on
Cycladic frying
pans
remains
obscure,
there
is,
is view of their
undisputed
cultic
character,
a
plausible
basis for the belief that the
zigzag
inscribed over their
ship
motif denotes the
serpent.
It will be noticed that a
profusion
of
tiny, stamp-incised triangles
fill the borders
of these
pans.
Whether
they
are
purely
decorative or
repeat emblematically
the
pubic
triangle
which is so
unambiguous
on the
exergue
near the handles is
conjectural.
In
many
Cycladic pots,
these
tiny,
incised
triangles
fill bands and
large, triangular
spaces.
In the
frying pans, they
fill
triangular spaces
between the
rays issuing
from the sun's disc
(fig.
36).
Or
they
fill the circular borders in double rows. The close association of these
tiny, stamp
incised
triangles
with the sun motif and with
zigzags
on the
ships
in
fig.
35 is
noteworthy.
In the
complex symbolism
of the
Cycladic
Islands these motifs
probably
are more than
a
part
of the decorative art of
a
cult centered around
fertility
or rebirth and the veneration
of
serpents.
Excavations on the island of
Melos,
which had cultural contacts with Crete
at least
by Early
Minoan
II,
have
yielded
not
only
sherds
bearing naturalistically
drawn
serpents
but forms
suggestive
of them occur also
as
"serpent ring vases",
as
markings
on
a bull
(?)
rhyton
and on numerous other
mortuary clay objects (71).
Conclusion
As some of our
examples show,
it is
possible
to
envisage
the derivation of
symbols
from cult
objects
which
express
the notion of
fertility
or rebirth
unambiguously through
motifs of the
pubic triangle
and the
serpent.
This is most
apparent
in certain
anthropomor?
phic figurines
of the Near East and we need not discuss the evidence further. But in
(68)
Ch.
Tsountas, ?Kykladika II?, Ephe
metis
Archaiologike, 1899, p.
90.
(69)
D. R.
Theochares, Archaeology, 11, 1958,
(pp. 13-18), p.
15.
(70) J.
S.
Morrison,
R. T.
Williams,
Greek
Oared
Ships,
900-322
B.C., Cambridge,
1968,
p.
120.
(71)
T. D. Atkinson et
al.,
Excavations at
Phylakopi
in
Melos, London, 1904, p.
21 and
pi.
4
q.
279
the
Aegean
world the evidence is not
equally direct;
it is
only highly suggestive
in some
cases and concealed or absent in others. In
general
terms,
the hazards of
reading meanings
different from those intended
by
the
prehistoric
artist are formidable. It is
surely
for this
reason that concerted efforts at
interpreting
a
particular genre
of
symbols
over a wide
geographical
area are
infrequently
made.
Archaeological reports
do not often
overstep
broad
comparisons
of
style;
or are "scientific" in the sense that the
hazy
zone of
symbolism,
excepting
the obvious
cases,
is either avoided or the more elusive
graphic
and
plastic
forms
are
subjected
to
accurate,
but
neutral, analysis
under the
category
of decoration.
Yet,
it is
likely
that
primitive
man
embellished his cult
objects
not for decorative
effects
alone,
but to
identify
their ritual connections and to enhance their
magical power.
Of
course,
with the
passage
of time the
original designs
become
stylized
and tend to lose
meaning
with
repeated
or mechanical
use,
especially
on secular articles. But the
symbols
of the
serpent
and of the
mother-goddess's sexuality
are
expressed directly
so often that
the more
cryptic
artistic
examples
need not be
played
down
overcautiously. Ophiolatry
appears
to have been
prevalent
with
varying emphasis
almost
everywhere
in the ancient
world. The
serpent
is
regarded by
some as a
phallic
emblem. There is
support
for this
view from the areas we have
considered,
but
owing
to the
complex origins
of
serpent
worship
a world-wide
generalization
is not warranted. In
particular, serpent worship
must
be
analysed
as a
phase
of man's
religious
and social
evolution, using very
diverse
sources
of
data, including
extensive
support
from
anthropology.
The
ophiolatrous
side of man's
religious development
must
already
have been an old
one as
the
migrations
of the earliest neolithic
period
were
taking shape. Symbols
of the
cult were
constantly undergoing regional differentiation,
and
transmuting
and
submerging
themselves into the
designs
we
today
term
"art". The remarkable
thing, however,
is that
striking parallels
can also be found in
far-flung regions.
Proponents
of the view that north Africa and Crete had affinities in neolithic and
Early
Minoan times
might
see
significance
in the
peculiar design
and
numerological
features
common to the
rupestral engravings
at Udei El
Chel,
in
Libya,
and the Cretan and
Myce?
naean
objects
described
above;
some
might
consider the
zigzags
on the skirts of archaic
Cretan
figurines
and on the
figures
on the Amratian
jar
in
fig.
34 as more than coinci?
dences
?
not to mention the
widespread prevalence
in the
Aegean
of the hatched
triangle,
also seen on this
jar.
Still others
might
see
parallels
in the
upraised
hands of the Amratian
figures
and of certain
mortuary figures
described
by
Iakovidis
(72).
These are known
from
Rhodos, Naxos, Boeotia,
Attica and
Cyprus
but are commonest in
Mycenae.
In one
Mycenaean specimen,
four such
figures
alternate with
triangles
and are dressed in
typical
Minoan rather than
Mycenaean
skirts.
These
analogies
must be examined vis-?-vis other facets of north Africa. The
important
serpent-goddess,
Mert
Seger,
of
southern,
Pharaonic
Egypt,
as
Bruyere
(73) points
out,
is
C2)
S. E.
Iakovidis,
? A
Mycenaean Mourning
Custom ?,
A]A, 70, 1966, pp.
43-50.
(73)
B.
Bruyere,
?Mert
Seger
? Deir el Me
dineh?,
Memoir es de ITnstitut Francais d* Ar?
che
ologie
Orientale du
Caire, 1930, pp.
36-37.
280
?
thebaine de
naissance,
mais de filiation
libyenne
?. Archaic Nubian terracottas from
Aniba,
in southern
Egypt,
whose
populace
is
generally
believed to have been
Libyan
in
origin,
include
boat-shaped
cult vessels with
vagina-like spouts (even
flecked to
represent pubic
hair and
ridged
to
identify
the
vulva);
the oldest of the black
polished
bowls with white
filled incised decoration from Aniba bear
zigzags, chevrons, triangles
and naturalistic
representations
of
serpents
but of no other animals
(74).
Proponents
of Anatolian influence in the
Aegean might point
to
specific
resemblances
besides those noticed in the idol from Kos
(fig. 28).
Excavations at the Bronze
Age (c.
2400
B.C.) cemetery
at
Karatas-Semay?k,
not far inland from the coast of southwestern
Anatolia,
an area known to have had ties with Minoan Crete and with
Mycenae (75)
include
painted,
beaked
pitchers
with a remarkable motif. A
zigzag design
divides the
body
of these
pitchers
into
large triangular panels.
The
triangles
whose
apices point
downward each
contain a
prominent, rope-like loop.
Whether this Anatolian
design symbolizes
the
pubic
triangle
and
serpent
cannot be
proven. However,
on
Mycenaean mortuary
vases
{c.
1400
1100
B.C.)
on which
zigzags
and naturalistic
serpents
are so
common, the Anatolian
loop
and
triangle design
is
paralleled by many
variations
(76).
The latter have been identified
as
flower-buds
(77)
but since floral motifs are
hardly
seen in related
Mycenaean mortuary
ware,
this
interpretation
seems
unlikely. Indeed, Desborough (78)
shows two almost ident?
ical
vases,
one from
Ialyssos,
in the
Dodecanese,
and the other from the
Cycladic
island
of
Naxos, midway
to
Mycenae.
On each there is a
pair
of
serpent effigies appliqued
to the
top
of the vessel. Between these is a hatched
triangle (eroded
in the Naxos
vase)
but a
loop
is absent.
We shall conclude with two
intriguing examples,
whose
symbolic
features if not ac?
tual affinities take us much farther afield from the eastern Mediterranean.
We have seen in the
Cycladic frying pans
that while a sexual emblem is
clearly
recognizable
there is no
direct evidence as to the
meaning
of the
zigzag.
For at least one
variety
of the
latter,
that associated with
ships (fig. 35),
there are close
analogies
from
Scandinavia,
where sun and
ship
motifs are
frequent
in
rupestral engravings.
In several
of
these, serpents
loom over
longships
much like the
Cycladic zigzag (79).
The second
example
is an
extraordinary
stele
(fig. 37),
the
only
one of its
type
known
from Greece. It was excavated in
Thessaly by
Biesantz
(80)
at
Souphli,
near
Larissa,
a tract
(74)
G.
Steindorff,
Aniba. Mission Archeolo
gique
en Nubie
1929-1934,
Gl?ckstadt-Hamburg,
vol.
I, 1935, pi.
33.2-6.
(75)
M.
Mellinck,
?Excavations at Karatas
Samay?k
in
Lycia, 1965?, A]A, 70, 1966, pp.
245-57, pi. 58, figs. 11,
12.
(76)
R.
Wolf,
?Die
Nekropole
an
Prophitis
Elias bei
Tiryns?,
in
Tiryns,
vol.
6,
Mainz am
Rhein, 1973, pis. 55,
56.
(77)
W.
Voigtl?nder,
?Zur
Chronologie
der
Sp?tMykenischen Burger?,
in
Tiryns,
vol.
6,
Mainz am
Rhein, 1973, p.
251.
(78)
V. R. d'A.
Desborough,
The Last
My
cenaeans and Their
Successors, Oxford, 1964, pl.
7c,
d.
(79)
P.
Gelling,
H. E.
Davidson,
The Chariot
of
the Sun
[and
other rites
of
the northern bronze
age]>
New
York-Washington, pp.
41
ff., fig.
19.
(80)
H.
Biesantz,
?Bericht ?ber
Ausgrabun?
gen
im Gebiet der
Gremmon-Magula
?, AAnz, 72,
1957,
cols. 38-52.
281
where,
as Cook
(81) observes,
a chthonian cult of Zeus as the
serpent
Meilichios is attested
since
prehistoric
times. The stele is not
precisely dated;
but it is
significant
that it was
found in the
vicinity
of
neolithic,
cremation burials which
are
very
rare in the
region,
but
nothing
of later
periods
occurred here. It has diminutive breasts and
probably represents
a
mother-goddess.
The
right
hand
apparently
rests over the
pubes.
It is
important
to note
that the "head" is
triangular,
with a small face
(that
of an
emerging foetus?) peering
out
of its
centre,
and that
serpents
are carved in low relief on the sides of the stele.
The resemblance of this Thessalian stele to the statue-menhirs of southern
France,
such as the one from Mas
Capelier (Aveyron) (fig.
38)
is
notable, particularly owing
to
an
analogous positioning
of the
paired
feet.
Equally
remarkable are the heads of the Mas
Capelier
statue-menhir and
a
related one from Serre-Grand.
They
are non-human and
triangular, markedly
so in the
latter,
and their
visage
seems
reptilian.
It is
noteworthy,
moreover,
that
a stone head with a face
very
akin to that of these southern French
spe?
cimens is also known from Malta
(82).
It is the island's earliest known datable
piece
of
sculpture.
There are occasional overtones of
ophiolatry
in the
archaeological
records of
Brittany,
for instance on dolmen no. 4 from GavrTnis there are five
(six?) parallel,
vertical
sinuous bands with knobbed "heads" and
slightly tapered
"tails".
They
are obvious
re?
presentations
of
serpents,
identified as such and considered to be datable to the French
megalithic period (83).
The
many-stranded
"necklace"
pattern
of the Thessalian stele is
repeatedly paralleled by
the
engravings
on
the menhirs of
Brittany.
The relevance of these observations is that current views
regarding early patterns
of
culture diffusion
reject
the
possibility
of
Aegean origins
and hold that
developments
of
the
megalithic
cultures of
Malta,
Iberia and France were
independent
(84). Thus,
the
Thessalian stele is an
enigma.
Its salient
emblems,
the
serpents
on its sides and the trian?
gular head,
lead
us back to the
Aegean
where traditions of
serpent worship
and the
mother-goddess
are more
pronounced,
and
ultimately
to the Levant and
Mesopotamia
where
the
symbols
of her cult are most
transparent.
Their
assemblage
in these brief
notes,
how?
ever,
merely
calls attention to the occurrence of artistic
convergences among ethnically
un?
related
peoples
without
implying
that
symbols
are
necessarily
indicators of culture diffusion.
(81) Cook, op. cit.,
vol.
2, p.
1155.
(62) J.
D.
Evans, Malta, London, 1959, pi.
48.
(83)
S.
Minot,
?Les
gravures
et la
religion
megalithique? (chap. 12),
in Y.
Rollando,
La
Prehistoire du
Morbihan, Vannes, 1971;
M. et
St.
Just Pequart,
Z. Le
Rouzic, Corpus
de
signes graves
des monuments
megalithiques
du
Morbihan, Paris, 1927, pis. 5, 101, 110,
125.
(84)
G.
Daniel,
?
Spain
and the Problem of
European Megalithic Origins
?,
in Estudios dedi
cados al
Professor
Dr. Luis
Pericot, Barcelona,
1973, pp.
209-14.
282

Notes On Two Ancient Fertility Symbols

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Notes On Two Ancient Fertility Symbols

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Notes on Two Ancient Fertility Symbols

Author(s): Balaji Mundkur

Potrebbero piacerti anche