ACTA TERRAE SEPTEMCASTRENSIS V

The Gradešnica script revisited

Marco Merlini,

General Director of the Prehistory Knowledge Project (Roma, Italy)

Director of the Institute of Archaeomythology (Sebastopol, USA), marco.merlini@mclink.it

ABSTRACT. The article (The present article is under the frame of the project MU.S.EU.M. (Multimedia system for a European Museum) within the Leonardo da Vinci program) presents new evidence on the signs of theGradešnica platter through a direct check of them and applying to them a matrix of semiotic markers and rules in order to inspect the internal structuring of the sign system developed in Neo-Eneolithic times in the Danube basin. The matrix is intended: a) to verify the possibility that these cultures might have expressed an early form of writing; i.e. the so called “Danube script”; b) to investigate the organizing principles of this system of writing; c) to distinguish inscriptions of the Danube script composed of two or more signs, without of course knowing what any of them stand for, from compounds of signs associated with other communication codes, among which decorations, symbols, and divinity identifiers. The matrix has been recently tested on some recent discoveries selected from the core area of the Danube civilization and from the peripheral regions in order to document the existence and how widespread the Danube script was.

 

One inscribed object, many version of its signs

Sometimes also the celebrities under the spotlights for decades still have hidden unexpected features. The well known Gradešnica platter It is kept at the Museum of history of Vratsa with inventory number A-2700. The object is displayed on line in 3D and accompanied by a identity card at the “Virtual Museum of the European roots” managed by the MU.S.EU.M. project: http://www.europeanvirtualmuseum.it/museum/schedabase.asp?reperto=113) was unearthed in 1969 in North-western Bulgaria on the second building level of the dwelling n. 1 from a prehistoric settlement next to the village of Gradešnica (Vratsa County). In the same site signs have been discovered on the bottom of pottery incised before firing. The signs from Gradešnica have different shapes: some of them depict stylized human figures, other represent geometrical patterns, other are very difficult to interpret. Anyway they are more than 40 and B. Nikolov considered that they compiled the most ancient set of ideograms from this area of South-eastern Europe (B. Nikolov 1974: 33).

Concerning the Gradešnica platter, the problem of its dating is not secondary after the claim of the discoverers B. Nikolov, V. Mikov and G. Georgiev that it was bearing signs of literacy and that its marks on four rows are from the oldest script in Europe or even in the world ( V.I. Georgiev 1969: 32-35; B. Nikolov and V.I. Georgiev 1970: 7-9; B. Nikolov and V.I. Georgiev 1971: 289). It is worth noticing that the signs on the Transylvanian Tărtăria tablets had been relegated to Coţofeni cultural horizon in order to argue that the marks on the Gradešnica platter, as well as on the Karanovo seal and other Bulgarian artifacts, are the first written record in human history (G.I. Georgiev and V.I. Georgiev 1969).

The discoverers attributed the findspot to the first half of the Chalcolithic period corresponding, according to them, to the cultures of Karanovo V (Marica culture), the late Vinča-Turdaş and Boian-Vidra- Gumelniţa I (B. Nikolov, 1970; B. B. Nikolov 1974: 34). On the basis of uncalibrated C14 results, the linguist V. I. Georgiev placed the Gradešnica shallow receptacle in alater period; i.e. in the second half of the fourth millennium (Georgiev 1970: 8; for a critic viz Winn 1981: 214). Makkay inclined to the early Vinča C phase (Makkay 1990: 78). Gimbutas considered Gradešnica to be a Vinča settlement and ascribed the shallow vessel to the Vinča B culture dated around the 5000 BC (Gimbutas 1982: 87) or the early 5 th millennium BC (Gimbutas1991: 313). This date has been substantially challenged by J. Todorović who believed that the Gradešnica evidence could not be synchronized with Vinča B framework because of the higher level of development of its script compared to that of Turdaş (Todorović 1970: 82). Nowadays scholarship agrees to inscribe the Gradešnica platter to early Chalcolithic; III phase. Accepting this date, itis chronologically positioned before another Bulgarian icon of the Neo-Eneolithic script: the Karanovo seal which is ascribed to Karanovo VI (B. Nikolov et al 1970).

However if the dating of the Gradešnica artifact is quite settled, are we sure that it actually bears signs of literacy and not merely decorations, symbols, or even simple scratchings? Its marks has to be analyzed by semiotic criteria, but one immediately discovers that most of the authors, dazzled by a first-eye of its shape and its aligned signs along reading rows, consider it to be a tablet or a plaque (Winn 198: 210, Renfrew 1973: 177, Masson 1984: 108) even if it is actually a little, rounded shallow tray (12.5 cm. long by 10.5 cm. wide and 2 cm. high) with evident lips and two holes for suspension (Gimbutas 1991: 313 fig. 8-12). The misunderstanding started from the excavator who judged it a “plaquette en argile, ayant forme d’un petite pot, sur laquelle sont incises des signes écrits” (B. Nikolov 1974: 33).

According to the archaeologists in charge the small tray was discovered, in a cultic place, together with a well-preserved figurine and two clay vases (B. Nikolov 1970). The bottom of one vase is inscribed with an anthropomorphic figure, while the bottom of the other is bearing script-like signs. Therefore the context of the Gradešnica evidence is religious although there is not an adequate amount of information to discuss if the mentioned occurrences (the place, the location, the assemblage, and the marks) formulate a symbolic system employing signs of literacy. For example only a protein residue analysis would tell us what the platterwas used for (to display/offer sacred liquid or oil, for example?)

Another problem involves the outline of the signs: which are actually the marks incised on the Bulgarian artifact? Few badly-taken, developed and reproduced photos of them have been published. The situation is made more complex by the fact that sometimes the signs have not an obvious silhouette because of indecisions on the part of the scribe (Fig. 1) (Masson’s judgment about his/her un-handiness is too severe), the platter is filled by scratches (Fig. 2) and some areas are covered by abrasions. A number of drawings are available but some signs they are depicting are divergent (B.Nikolov 1970 figs. 6 and 7, 1974 figs. 68 and 69, 1986; Masson 1984: 109 fig. 9; Todorova 1986: 211 fig. 116; V. Nikolov 1990: 49). Even the discoverer published in different articles dissimilar version of the marks. Unfortunately most of the information circulating out of the Bulgarian scholarship is based on these unclear photos and conflicting sketches (Masson, for example had only the opportunity to work on the image from the inside of the platter published on the cover of a book).

During the spring of 2005 I had the opportunity of checking the object personally at the National Museum of History in Sofia. The platter is made of clay, the color is grey and the preservation state is quite fair. It was never restored. Inscriptions are incised on both sides, many of the signs are crudely marked and sometimes they are superimposed by scratches and fortuitous lines made after firing, nevertheless in general they are quite distinctive in shape. In the next paragraphs I will present some epigraphic observations on the signs of the Gradešnica little tray and then I will apply on them a matrix of semiotic markers and rules in order to evaluate the possibility of the presence of elements of literacy (Danube script – I employ the term "Danube signs"/"Danube script" as general allocution for the form of literacy which flourished in Neo-Eneolithic times in the great Danube basin (Danube civilization) and "Vinča signs"/"Vinča script" strictly limited to the Vinča culture which developed in the central area of it. This terminology is coherent with the challenge to demonstrate that the "early civilization" status can no longer limit itself to the regions which have long attracted scholarly attention (i.e. Egypt-Nile, Mesopotamia - Tigris and Euphrates, the ancient Indus valley), but it has to expand to embrace the Neo-Eneolithic civilization of the Danube basin. The presence of a system of writing is only a mark - although important - of the high status of the civilization which flourished along the Danube river at these times) and to distinguish the potential text, without of course knowing what it stood for, from compounds of signs associated to other communication codes, among them decorations, symbols, divinity identifiers (A version of the matrix of markers and rules has been published in “ The ‘Danube Script’ and the Gradesnica Platter. A Semiotic Study based on most recent autopsy of the Bulgarian item”, Lolita Nikolova & Jude Higgins (eds.) Prehistoric Archaeology & Anthropological Theory and Education. RPRP 6-7, 2005. Another version has been published in “Semiotic approach to the features of the ‘Danube Script’”, Documenta Praehistorica XXXII, Ljubljana, 2005). Of course these indicators and guidelines are in progress because one will be able to distinguish without errors the different communication channels only when one is be capable of reading the script. But, on the other hand, one will not even be capable of reading the inscriptions if one is not able to isolate their signs from the others. It is really a loop that one has to break step by step and by progressive approximations.

A pregnant anthropomorph

Regarding the outside of the artifact, I present a montage showing also the lips (Fig. 3). One can recognize at one look a human-like stylized figure fixed in a ritual posture with arms raised, surrounded by numbers of triangular, V-shaped and meandering motifs. This makes one concentrate instinctively. In fact, as we will discuss below, the starting sign for decoding the message is the focal point of the anthropomorph: i.e. the deep dot placed inside the central lozenge which depicts the torso (Merlini 2004: 87).

The symbolic figure is quite correctly rendered in the published drawings, although with some discrepancies also in the discoverer’s presentations (see for example B. Nikolov 1970 vs. B. Nikolov 1974). The stylized figurine is positioned prominently on the platter. Besides it is in high-relief and its outline is much more deeply incised compared to the surrounding signs. Generally speaking it is supposed to be standing (Winn 1981: 212 ) or sitting ( V. Nikolov 1990 ), with arms rose in ritual adoration toward a god and possibly looking downwards ( V. Nikolov 1990 – it is a unconvincing position that one in adoration remaining in a sitting posture ). However it is reasonable to consider it to be in a dancing pose as suggested by the high curved arms outgoing from a torso-rhombus and hands as open spirals as well as the posture rendered in dynamic balance on a little triangle representing legs. Following the liturgical suggestions one can consider it an “oranting dancer”. The anthropomorph is composed of a rhombus and four triangle-like forms: each of them shows a dot incised in the barycentre. The dots follow two typologies: the one in the central lozenge is much more deeply carved than the others which form an ideal cross. A sixth dot is less profoundly incised than the others and is placed at the end of a > motif located in the lower register. The “oranting dancer” is evidenced and highlighted by a doubled outline: a) the head is composed of a twofold triangle with a dot inside; b) two arcuate arms create open triangles with a dot inside; c) a double lozenge with a deep dot stands for the body. Only one single-lined triangle with a dot in the centre constitutes the oscillating base of the stylized anthrophomorph, actually the legs.

Similarly to the Ocna Sibiului “not phallus” and other incised objects of the Danube Civilization (Paul on-line, 2002, Merlini 2005a), the back of the Gradešnica flat platter seems contemporaneously to employ two communication channels: iconic symbolism and an inscription. The starting sign for interpreting the message is also the focus of the figurine as well as of the object: the deep point inserted inside the body-lozenge. Since Palaeolithic times, the lozenge is one of the most social used geometric shapes, as the triangle with the vertex downward is, to express the feminine body as receptacle of fertility. The reason is obvious: rhombus and triangle allude to the vulva, the pubic triangle, and the womb; therefore they are connected to the life-source. Such social symbolism covers the entire Neolithic period up to historical times, as recorded by a famous passage of Herodotus. For example, in Mesopotamia the lozenge was closely associated with Inana/Ishtar (Farmer 2003a: 20).

In the Danube Civilization a lozenge is frequently depicted on the conspicuous abdomen of pregnant figurines which, in their turn, show a body in the shape of a lozenge. Coupling iconic representation with geometric symbolism, the seminal potentiality of a woman, a female forebear, mythical progenitor, or divinity is doubly emphasized (Merlini 2004: 89). Consequently if the diamond encloses a point, like in the Bulgarian shallow vase, it evidently marks the uterus containing the fetus because impregnation is implied (this conception is very widespread in time and space. For example in dreams and hallucinations of the Tukano Amazonian peoples “diamonds or lozenges represent the female organ. When marked with a central dot, impregnation is implied. A coherent group of diamonds, each with a central dot, represents the relationship between various exogamous groups. A vertical chain of diamonds represents a line of matrilineal descent. The motif stands for biological and social continuity” (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1987:16)). Does the female Gradešnica anthropomorph tell us about expectancy and birth? Has one to deal with pregnancy and giving birth of a definite woman, a mythical ancestor, or a divinity? Was the platter used in liturgies to challenge the infecundity?

Support to this interpretation comes from other Neo-Eneolithic pregnant anthropomorphic figures according to which the incision or the paint of a rhombus with a dot or a dash (in the centre or in all four corners) on the belly-womb (not on the vulva) or on fat parts of the body (buttocks, thighs and hips) (All fat parts of the body were significant, considered to be growing, or pregnant) communicates the condition or period of expecting a baby and “must has been the symbolic invocation to secure fertility” (Gimbutas 1982: 205). The stability and importance of this symbol, often arranged in chains, are evident throughout time in all the Neo-Eneolithic cultures of the Danube basin. A very ancient occurrence (c. 6000 BC) is from Gladnice, near Priština and on the bank of the river Gračanica (Kosovo), which is the first Starčevo settlement which obtained a reliable data concerning the vertical stratigraphy (Fig. 4). Over a pregnant statuette in a squatting position of Gladnice I period, a dot has been deeply dig into the centre of a rhombus which was positioned above the belly (Gimbutas 1982: 206 plate 203, 160 ). The schematized figurine is made of terracotta and is characterized by three and three diagonal incised lines which mark vulva and thighs.

Dotted lozenges are depicted on the base of the throne on which Lady I of Kökénydomb is seated: a cultic vase from house 24 unearthed at the site of Hódmezövásárhely-Kökénydomb (South-eastern Hungary) in the shape of an enthroned female divinity open in the upper part and without face representation (Banner 1959) (Fig. 5). The vase is a bit older than the Gradešnica platter and the rich decoration on the lower part of its garment shows rhombuses, “Ms”, “Xs”, circles, striated triangles, zigzags, lines parallels and “script signs” (Gimbutas 1991: 71) made of white incisions and incrustations which are embedded inside panels for "reading". Dated at Classical Tisza period (early 5 th millennium BC according to Gimbutas 1982), it was originally painted in red and contained grain and ash: the offer to the divinity. The seed of the wheat is sowed inside the body of the holy mother; the ploughing stands for the act of impregnation, the coming out of the new plant represents birth. Gimbutas suggested that the anthropomorphic vessel could have been put to ritual use filling it with water and then carrying it over the countryside (Gimbutas 1982: 208). The symbolic code of Lady Kökénydomb makes clear that the dot within a lozenge represents not only the fetus in the womb, but also the seed inside the cultivated land. Therefore the dotted diamond indicates the sown earth and attests the intimate link between female fertility and vegetation fertility (Rybakov 1965 1: 30-31). Gimbutas reminded that some figurines were impressed with actual grains on belly, buttock and thighs (Gimbutas 1974: fig. 156)

Several authors refer the dotted lozenge to a conventional representation of the seed in the field, but it is a misleading conception for three reasons. Firstly it is improbable that at the initial phase of farming people formed quadrangular plots. Archaeological data show that plots of tilled soil usually had geometrically non-regular outlines (Golan 1991: 218). Secondly the lozenge is a very strange shape for orderly spatial regulations of fields: I have never seen rhomboid plots of cultivated land. Thirdly the supposition that the diamond became symbolic of the quadrangular cultivated plots contrasts the fact that this motif emerged as early as the Upper Palaeolithic period when the land was not being cultivated yet (Golan advanced the idea that in Palaeolithic symbolism the rhombus signified a snare for an animal and the zigzag an animal’s track and that only later these motifs became symbols of earth and water (Golan 2003: 220)). At the same time, for such very early cultures it is hard to follow Golan’s suggestions connecting - as in ancient China, Greek and Rome - the rhombus as well the square with the earth and its prominent deity in opposition to the circle and the oval which represent the celestial sphere (Golan 2003: 219). It is much more plausible to connect this symbol with the cultivated land generally speaking and its power of growing.

Several dotted sketching quadrilaterals, have been found at Sitagroi (Greece) depicted during the 5 th millennium BC. This mark is the focus of the belly on highly schematic figurines or charms made in light-brown fabric around the first half of the 5 th millennium BC, during the Period II of the settlement (Gimbutas 1982: 207 fig. 159, 160 ) which was more or less coeval to the Gradešnica culture (Fig. 6). The lower abdomen from a fragment of a sitting pregnant little figure shows a system of lozenges and triangles with a point into the centre: the symbols are positioned inside a frame made of corpulent body, prominent belly; navel emphasized by a hole and nicely rounded buttocks. The symbolic design has been painted in black on red slipped terracotta during the Period III of the tell (around 4500 BC). On the upper left an egg has been depicted (Gimbutas 1982: 207 fig. 162; Renfrew C., Gimbutas M., Elster A. 1986 fig 9.54) (Fig. 7).

Schematic figurines incised with a dotted diamond have been found in the culture Gumelniţa A1 phase, c. 4500 BC at Vidra (northern Romania) (Rosetti 1938: fig 12) which was quite contemporary to the Gradešnica platter. The first statuette has holes for suspensions and is distinctive for a complex ornament over all the body which seems to be a liturgical garment and is made of a combination of geometric elements between them a dotted diamond in front and on the back. In both cases the diamond is the vertex of a triangle with long curved segments (Fig. 8). In the second figurine the dotted lozenge is positioned on the back and a meander is on the belly (Fig. 9). Dots are transformed into minute disks on the ‘Goddess of Vidra’. Being a key element of its complex excised decoration, dotted-disked lozenges adorn the nape, the back, the bellies as well as the hips of this anthropomorphic ritual vase which is one of the masterpieces of the Gumelniţa culture (Fig. 10). Made by “specialized workers with an acute artistic sense” the ‘Goddess of Vidra’ may has been used “in large worship rituals regarding the life of the entire community, thus having a general representativity” (Andreescu 2002: 106). Analogous signs are aligned and incrusted in white on a face of a black polished clay disc from Ploskata Mogila (Plovdiv, central Bulgaria). The disc is c. 4 centimeters in diameter, belongs to Gumelniţa culture, is dated c. 4000 BC and bears also a dotted triangle (Detev 1952: 337, fig. 333;Gimbutas 1982: 208) (Fig. 11).

The single dotted lozenge also occurs on figurines from Stoicani-Aldeni culture, local evolution of the Gumelniţa/Karanovo VI-Kodžadermen cultural complex with Precucuteni and Cucuteni influences (Fig. 12). This motif appears as well on several figurines from Precucuteni and Cucuteni culture. The rounded buttocks of a Precucuteni-Tripolye A statuette from Lencăuţi show a complex outline composed by a diamond-with-dot connected to curved “Ys” and surrounded by “Us”. V motifs are incised on the womb; curved lines are evident on front and back of legs (Fig. 13). Another figurine belonging to the same settlement and the same period has dotted lozenges over the hips (Fig. 14) as well as a Cucuteni A figurine from Frumuşica (Matasă 1946) (Fig. 15). Sometimes the dot inserted in the diamond stretches out in a dash. A lozenge with a vertical stroke is the only symbol on a figurine from Klišcev (Ukraine) (M. Lazarovici 2005) (Fig. 16).

The presence of several statuettes from Cucuteni A culture which are bearing a diamond inserting a diagonal dash attests to the symbolic importance of this motif. Four statuettes from Răuceşti-Munteni are wearing elaborate garments which are decorated with this symbol (Dumitroaia 1987). In the first occurrence the dashed lozenge is on the chest as element of a complex pattern composed of < and > signs which is surrounding a chevron containing multiple diagonal strokes and two circles representing the ovaries (Fig. 17). A multiple rhombus with a diagonal stroke occurs on the belly of a second statuine and echoes a second one positioned on the womb. The chest is adorned with seven diagonal strokes surrounded by 12 dots. All the design seems to represent the irrigated earth by rain and may be interpreted as a symbolic incantation to ensure falls of rainfall for sown soil (Fig. 18). In the third statuette the dotted rhombus is a part of a sequence of three vertically aligned lozenges of different type accompanied with diagonal lines. Also in this occurrence the rain invocation is obvious (Fig. 19). Finally this symbol is positioned on the front (the abdomen and the throat) and on the back of a statuette with a necklace and a multiple three-dotted diamond positioned on the womb (Fig. 20). On a figurine from Bodeşti-Frumuşica which is wearing a rounded medallion, a lozenge with a diagonal stroke occurs in the middle of the shoulders (Matasă 1946) (Fig. 21). The same symbol appears on the back of a statuine from Bereşti (Dragomir 1985) (Fig. 22).

The dotted diamond is particularly significant in Trypillya A culture. On a figurine from Ukraine with prominent breasts and tremendous posterior, a dotted rhombus over the womb (in fact a womb in shape of a lozenge-wit-a-dot) is part of a sequence of signs positioned in row on the front (five signs) and on the back (three signs). On the front one can see in sequence a zigzag line under the breasts, a snake-like spiral on the belly, a dotted lozenge on the womb, a bi-dotted sketching quadrilateral on the hips, and a sprouting vegetal sign from the vulva (Videiko in press). The chain of marks fits bio-energetic points, although in a different way from Chinese acupuncture and Hindu yoga, and each symbol may indicate one of them (Fig. 23). In another occurrence the dot within the lozenge over the womb was punctured and chevrons and stripes all over the body of the figurine as well as the lack of arms denote snake magic (Fig. 24).

Sometimes the lozenge has two or more dots or dashes inserted inside. Diamonds with two horizontal strokes positioned one over the other are present on Cucuteni A statuettes from Mărgineni (Monah 1997: 316 fig.6) (Fig. 25) and Truşeşti ( Petrescu-Dîmboviţa M. et alii 1999 ) (Fig. 26). On a figurine from Frumuşica (Matasă 1946) two dashes are diagonally positioned within two diamonds which are located on the belly and on the chest in a way resembling an image inside a mirror (Fig. 27). On the back of a statuette from Moldova the strokes are aligned (Monha 1997: 334 fig 82-5) (Fig. 28).

In Precucuteni and Cucuteni culture the association between rhombus and cultivated land on one hand and between dot and seed on the other hand, that we have above discussed presenting the symbolic code of Lady Kökénydomb, is emphasized by four-partite dotted lozenges inserted over the abdomen of several pregnant statuettes which are enthroned or standing in a reclining posture. Number of scholars certified the employment of these representations in magic-religious liturgies (Cucoş 1974; 1993; M. Mantu, Gh. Dumitoaia, A. Tsaravopoulos 1997: 179, 191, fig. 52, 127; Ursulescu et alii 2001-2002 ). Most of the figurines have been found in a fragmentary state indicating that they have suffered some kind of a de-sacralization process during magic-religious practices or at the end of them (M. Lazarovici 2005). A Precucuteni-Tripolye A figurine from Lencăuţi (Moldavia, Romania) has a quartered lozenge with a dot in each section incised above the belly (Fig. 29). The design of its tattoo (or garment) is completed with various magic-religious symbols between them lozenges with a vertical dash, lozenges with two diagonal strokes and dotted triangles. A figurine from Cucuteni-Cetăţuia (northern Moldavia, Romania) is marked by an elaborate magic-religious design with signs including, in the very centre, a lozenge interwoven with a cross and deeply incised with a dot in the middle of three sections whereas the above section shows a large spot in high relief (Buţureanu 1891). A snake-like sign is depicted on the chest; V-lines run below the schematized head with elaborate coiffure and pinched-up nose; parallel curved lines are incised on front and back of stumps arms; a second diamond with three diagonal dashes is represented on the kidneys (Fig. 30). Made in fine reddish-brown baked clay, the figurine is high schematized but with a very polished surface. It belongs to the Cucuteni A phase, mid of the 5 th millennium BC (Gimbutas 1982: 205). Other figurines from the same settlement and from the same period share the same symbol ( Petrescu-Dîmboviţa M. et alii 1999 ). On the belly of a statuette one can distinguish that three sub-lozenges have a long horizontal dash inside whereas the forth, on the right, is empty (Fig. 31). On the abdomen of a second typology of statuettes, two arms of the St. Andrews cross which quadripartite the lozenge overrun it as a sprouting bud making very clear the association between the pregnant female womb and the cultivated land growing of plants (Fig 32. Viz also Fig. 33). The same symbol distinguishes figurines depicted in Fig. 34 and Fig. 35.

The positioning over the abdomen of lozenges divided into four equal parts with a dot in each compartment characterizes many other statuettes belonging to Cucuteni A phase (4300-4100 BC). It is evident on a figurine found at Igeşti-Scândureni (Moldavia Romania) where a quadripartite dotted diamond is inserted inside another diamond (Coman 1980) (Fig. 36) and on a statuine from Truşeşti where the symbol is incised over the shoulders ( Petrescu-Dîmboviţa et alii 1999 ) (Fig. 37). The rhombus divided into four equal and dotted parts is present also on an incomplete figurine from Drăgusani at Botoşani (northern Moldavia, Romania) belonging to the Middle Cucuteni (Fig. 38). In the last instance a similar motif recurs also over the emphatic buttocks, but its shape is modified in order to adapt it to the rounded forms and it is surrounded by diagonal strokes (Crîşmaru 1977: 67 fig. 55/2;Gimbutas 1987: 116 fig. 14-6).

Sometimes the four-partite dotted lozenge incised over the belly is the most pronounced feature conveying the idea/desire of pregnancy opposed to infertility, the rest of the female body serving only as a background to the ideographic concept. This is the case of the lower half of a terracotta figurine from Luka Vrublevetskaja (Western Ukraine) (Fig. 39). The design of the statuette is completed with spirals on buttocks and horizontal lines on tapering legs totally schematized. Made of light-brown fabric, the symbols are incised white-filled. It belongs to Precucuteni-Tripolye A, late 5 th millennium BC (Bibikov 1958: 400, pl. 108).

In the Danube civilization lozenges and triangles with one or more dots or dashes are encountered not only on (in general pregnant) figurines, but also on shrine walls, vases, seals, and amulets. For example a polychrome Petreşti fruit stand vase from Pianul de Jos (Transylvania, Romania) (Paul 1992;Gimbutas 1989: 145) is decorated, painted dark and light brown on white, by a complex design composed by lozenges-with-seed and lozenges-with-snakecoil which are arranged in a chain in order to suggest the idea of seeds and serpents in the land, in the earth (4500-4000 BC). It was found with an assemblage of cult equipment on a tripod table and was probably used for autumn sowing rituals (Fig. 40).

The sketching quadrilateral with a dot was also employed on amulets to secure fertility. A clay egg-shape charm with a double diamond surrounding an evident point was found at Cìfer-Pàc (near Trnava, South-western Slovakia) from early LBK culture (Fig. 41). The excavator interpreted it as an anthropomorphic amulet of female gender (Kolník 1978). Correlating the symbol on this object and that on the already mentioned figurine from Gladnice, Ruttkay inferred the direct assumption that around the middle of the 6 th millennium BC the graphic and symbolic idea was taken by the LBK population from the south neighboring of late Starčevo culture (Ruttkay 1999. Viz also Kalicz 1990: Taf. 1/1; Pavúk 1994: fig. 3; Simon 1996: 72, fig. 15). As I have above documented, the cultural chain should be much more complex and articulated.

The flourishing rhombus as vital symbol of the pregnant four-sided moonwhich is dancing and thriving

A final typology of dotted lozenge is particularly significant because it lets us to move from this symbol occurring on the focus of the Gradešnica anthropomorph to the outline of the whole figure and from the symbolism of land to that of earth. The motif that I have in mind is the diamond with a dot in the center and in all four corners. This symbol is evident for instance in early Trypillya culture (initial stages of Trypillya B1 according to N. B. Burdo 2004) at Novye Ruseshty I (Republic of Moldavia), 4800-4600 BC, which on its upper part bears also a dotted lozenge (Fig. 42). According to Gimbutas “many dots within a diamond may signify multiplication of the seed, a general resurgence of life in the sown field” and the diamond with five dots (one in the center and one in each of the four corners) may denote “planting in all four directions”, a feature still present in European folk belief (Gimbutas 1989: 145). Throughout Europe, sowing in four directions is a ceremony carried out at the winter and spring planting to ensure that dead vegetation will come to life again. The graphic result of the five-dotted lozenge is very similar to the fourfold pattern of Gradešnica similar-human being: a cruciform design made of a central rhombus and four triangular dotted arms (Fig. 43). This fourfold pattern is on shown on Bohemian Linear Pottery dishes of the end sixth-early fifth millennium BC (Gimbutas 1974: fig. 46) (Fig. 44) and it is quite similar to a quadripartite mark incised on a schematic figurine from Ţigăneşti (Monah 1997: 316, fig.64/4) (Fig. 45).

The earliest occurrence of the typology of the fourfold pattern composed by a central lozenge-with-a-dot and four triangles-with-a-dot as arms is findable at Çatal Hüyük (Asia Minor) on a seal that may has been used to stamp this symbol on loaves of sacred bread. The dotted rhombic motif in the centre apparently links the symbol of a seed within cultivated land or within a womb and the notion of bread as gift of earth and its associated forces or divinity. The seal belongs to Çatal Hüyük II-IV, second half 7 th millennium BC (Gimbutas 1989: 144) (Fig. 46). At Hacilar (Asia Minor) on the early Neolithic pottery, dating from the 6 th millennium BC, is encountered the so-called ‘flourishing rhombus’ or ‘flourishing square’ consisting of these quadrilateral motifs with shoots at the corners. The design depicted in Fig. 47 (Mellaart 1970: 411) is interpreted by Golan in the following way: the rhombus containing zigzags represents irrigated land, the triangular appendages at its corner symbolize vegetation, clouds are pictured as arcs, and short dashes above stand for rain (Golan 2003: 221). The agricultural symbolism is obvious also in other flourishing lozenges with triangles (Mellaart 1970: 401; 350) (Fig. 48a and b) or with other lozenges (Mellaart 1970: 395, 409 ) (Fig. 49). In fact analysis shows that they are not arbitrary patterns but that they convey the same set of ideas in a certain way: according to Golan each of the five elements of the cruciform design is an earth sign, thus the pattern would imply the idea of “five lands”; the element of the middle is the particular locality and around it are the “four quarters of the world” (Golan 2003: 263 – Golan observes that the concept "south, north, west, east, and the middle of the earth" appeared in ancient Egypt, China, and pre-Columbian America. The formula recurred in ancient Egyptian texts. A similar idea concerning the structure of the inhabited world existed in ancient China: the world was imagined as consisting of "four quarters" and a central part with the "sacred city" in it, in this case "the great city of Shang", the residence of the rulers of the Yin state. When the lands of the state were listed, its five parts were mentioned as four peripheral and the central. In Aztec cosmology, the universe is comprised of four quarters and the middle region; the same view was shared by the Indian tribes of North America (Golan 2003: 263)).

Other evidence from Hacilar (Mellaart 1970: 350; 383) can be explicated as follows: the quadrangle may signify earth, the dot may designate the seed and the spiral-shapes resembling ram horns may symbolize plant shoots (Golan 2003: 150) (Fig. 50). Apparently this design is very similar to the silhouettes of the anthropomorph from Gradešnica but in the later case the curved-spirals appendages are all bottom down. Concerning the Danube civilization, a hooked and dotted lozenge similar to this grapheme is positioned on the upper chest of a statuine from Drăguşeni (Fig. 51).

However is the dotted lozenge (plain, multiple or quadripartite) a female or a male symbol? If most of the scholars follows Ambroz who suggested that the diamond symbolized fertility designating earth, plant, and a woman at the same time, Golan speculates that “during the Neolithic the rhombus was depicted on feminine figurines, symbolizing impregnation of the goddess by the earth god” (Golan 2003: 221). According to him this symbol represents the male deity of earth and its application on a feminine image means the idea that the male deity, the earth god, impregnates the goddess, the mother of all life. In any case a common point is hold on by all the authors: the meaning of the dotted diamond, typical transformational geometry, is apparent from its position on the figurines and is the representation of the state “to be pregnant” or “to be growing”. Dotted lozenges on the round portion of globular vases seem to express the same significance because this typology of vessel has been conceived of as maternal womb.

A similar four-folded pattern is present in coeval and subsequent civilizations attesting to its symbolic importance. Pottery decorated with cruciform design composed with four triangles positioned on the vertexes of a rhombus has been found in Mesopotamia dated c. 3000 BC (Golan 2003: 264, fig. 278-2) (Fig. 52). The symbol occurs also on seals of ancient Indus civilization where it is interpreted as the cosmic power in the city or citadel (Farmer 2004) (Fig. 53). On Neolithic pottery of 3 rd millennium BC from Iran the four triangles around the lozenge sometimes develop into goats (Herzfeld 1941: 241) (Fig. 54). Scholars are discussing if the picture depicts animals around a water basin (Parrot 1953) or animals around the earth and expressing the ideographic message “our locality and the four quarters of the world”, i.e. “the entire world, the whole earth” (Golan 2003: 264). Another Iranian fourfold painting (Herzfeld 1941: 241) is interesting comparing the pattern of the Gradešnica figure because it subdivides the outer space in four quadrants as the Bulgarian does (Fig. 55).

However the most significant comparison is between the layout of the Gradešnica figure and a more or less coeval Sălcuţa-Krivodol pintadera modeled as stylized schematic anthropomorphic figurine in adoration or dancing on an elongated six-angled base (Fig. 56) (it is hold in the National Museum of History of Sofia and has inventory number MIS A 5393. The object is displayed on line in 3D and accompanied by a identity card at the “Virtual Museum of the European roots” managed by the MU.S.EU.M. project: http://www.europeanvirtualmuseum.it/museum/schedabase.asp?reperto=123). The piece was discovered at Pekluk (near Galabovtsi in the area of Sofia) and is very massive. Light brown color, it is 8.5 cm. in length and 5.9 cm. in height with a massive cone-like handle. At a close look it is evident that the incised design had been represented by angular, double, and specular lines converging, but not uniting, in the centre (is one in presence of two interlaced human-like figures?). V. Nikolov interpreted it as a lunar cycle which has to be read from left towards right (V. Nikolov 1990: 45). According to him the first angular symbol represents the first phase of the lunar cycle as a growing moon, the third symbol (i.e. the opposite angular symbol) indicates the fourth phase (the descending moon), and the intermediate symbol, where the two angular parts join, marks a sort of overturning where full moon becomes half moon. This period includes also the full moon nights in which the earth's satellite has a perfectly circular shape. The vision of the full moon was evidently interpreted as a beneficial period for human, animal, and vegetal fecundation. Probably stamping the magic pattern of the pintadera brought good luck.

From the above evidence one can conclude that the human-like figure incised over the outside face of the Gradešnica platter is not the earth as postulated before but the moon. I am also persuaded that is necessary to make a revision of the symbolism of the dotted lozenge on the above mentioned artifacts generally interpreted only as sown land to that of earth. Indeed in some cases one has to look up at the fecund fields of the moon. Anyway I will come back to Nikolov’s interpretation of a lunar cycle when analyzing the signs incised over the inner face of the Gradešnica platter.

In conclusion one can consider the anthropomorph from Gradešnica as a pregnant lunar figure with cruciform design composed of a strong rhomboid dotted centre, two dotted triangles for head and legs, and curved arms which create other two dotted triangles due to a spiral movement. The dotted diamond indicates the sown soil of the moon attesting the intimate link between moon, female fertility and vegetation fruitfulness. The like-human moon is dancing with movements directed to the four corners. The hook-hands or branching lines attached to the curved arms (actually the arms of the cross) reinforce its dynamic expression. The figure sub-divides the space in four quadrants. The vital symbol of the pregnant four-sided moon which is moving-dancing and flourishing while its is dividing the space in four regions was employed widespread by the communities of the Danube civilization and was recurrently incised or painted on vessels, figurines, spindle-whorls, loom-weights, and stamp seals to promote good-luck. It is worth to note that the Gradešnica figure, combining repeated dotted lozenges-triangles and fourfold pattern, is neither a decorative motif nor a “schematic drawing”, but an ideogram “necessary to promote the recurrent birth and growth of plant, animal and human life” (Gimbutas 1974: 89-91 ).

Is the oranting and dancing moon surrounded by constellations of an archaic sky?

Nine signs or grouping of signs are inscribed surrounding the humanoid (they are not six-eight marks as described in literature because of the bad photos. See for example Winn 198: 213; Masson 1984: 109). Underscoring the circular layout of the vessel and of the anthropomorph, they are disposed in a round row sub-divided in four quadrants therefore they follow a precise spatial organization. Moving clockwise from the upper right quadrant, one can see at first sight a large area without any sign because of an abrasion, then a triangle which is positioned under the suspension hole, starts from the back of the hand, breaks through the edge and apparently continues with a “tail” on the lip. In the lower right quadrant a double Λ and a V are very clear (many published drawings catch only its segment on the left. The sketch published by Todorova (1986) is correct). In this area there are several scratches made after firing, possibly ritual marks because in a number of cases they are little V motifs of liturgical origin.

On the lower left of the figurine there are a > empathized by a dot at one edge, a very closely juxtaposed rectilinear meander (incorrectly, they are linked in their upper part according to most of the published drawings which also do not register the dot), and another rectilinear meander in opposition with the previous one positioned as in a mirror. Above there is a meandroid open triangle much more adjacent to the arm of the figure than in already published drawings. On the upper left quadrant there are two signs: a compounded sign formed by V motifs, a triangular open shape (it is not perfectly clear if triangle and stroke are two elements of a compounded sign or two separate signs. A close inspection of the marks let me opt for the first alternative. Anyway the outline of the sign is not a very close < as in most of the published drawings).

If one has the inclination to proceed with the nativity-symbolism of the anthropomorphic figure and follows at the same time Gimbutas’ approach, one can notice all around the human-like figure a series of signs suggesting the aquatic element and expressing the water of life that emerges during the event of birth. In this case the risk is to succumb to one of the most common errors in attempts at decipherment: the “pictographic fallacy” (Robinson 2002). In fact if one believes that the Danube script is mainly pictographic and, having searched for stylized pictographic elements also in signs which actually are abstract, one naturally finds them and then – under the influence of the determinatives found in Egyptian hieroglyphs (such as the shepherd's crook meaning 'ruler' in the cartouche of Tutankhamen) – one proceeds to treat the presumed pictograms as referring only to the objects they are supposed to depict, resulting in interpreting iconic representations and failing to read abstract signs. The pictographic fallacy is generally coupled with another misconception which considers the first phase in the development of literacy as a pictographic or ideographic one (Merlini 2004c). V. I. Georgiev applied both these false opinions to the Gradešnica inscriptions (V. I. Georgiev 1970: 3).

 

 

 

When one applies the “matrix of semiotic markers and rules” to the nine signs surrounding the stylized figure one is more confident of signaling geometric, abstract, high schematic, linear and not very complex signs typical of a script framework. The schematization of some signs (V-shapes, meandering open triangles, meanders) could has been originated by a long process of stylization, simplification, geometricization and abstraction by which some naturalistic symbols have, step by step, lost the “formal” connection with the old prototype in the natural or artificial world. Anyway such a naturalistic basis is no longer recognizable on the back of the Gradešnica platter where the scribe used signs that she/he considered mainly abstract with a linear shape.

Although the signs sometimes seem to be imprecise and carelessly made, they have not been inscribed haphazardly but with standardized knowledge and most of them can be definitely included in Winn’s inventory of Vinča signs (Winn 1981 ) (in Winn’s inventory 1981 one can identify seven on the nine signs which occur around the humanoid on the back of the platter. Following my sequence, they are: (rotated) 106, (variant) 111, 95, (rotated) 95, (inverted) 206, 206, 106) , in Haarmann’s inventory of the Old European script (on-line) (Haarmann’s inventory (on-line) was firstly published in Haarmann 1975 and rubricates the signs with the abbreviation OE: Old European. Eight on the nine signs which occur on the back of the platter are recognizable. Following my sequence, they are: (rotated) OE 159, OE 108, OE 76, (rotated) OE 76, (inverted) OE 63, OE 63, (inverted) OE 220, OE 159), in Winn’s repertory 2004 of the Danube script (on-line) (Winn’s inventory 2004 (on-line) indexes the signs with the abbreviation DS: Danube script. One can identify in it eight on the nine signs which surround the human-like figure on the back of the platter. Following my sequence, they are: (rotated) DS 51, (inverted) DS 15, DS 1, (rotated) DS 1, (inverted) DS 235, DS 235, (rotated) DS 168, DS 51) and in Lazarovici’s catalogue of sacred symbols and signs (2004) (In Lazarovici’s catalogue (2004) there are eight correspondences with the nine signs that I have identified on the back of the Gradešnica platter. They are (in sequence): (rotated) 152, 20=33, 1a=a, 1c=b, 191, (inverted) 191, (inverted) 128b, 152).

With regards to the techniques to modify the outlines of the signs, the back of the Gradešnica platter presents convergence and divergence with other Danube inscriptions. Like other Danube texts, some signs have been rotated in mirror-fashion (as the meanders were), other signs have been placed in opposition, and furthermore a probably compounded sign occur (it is the eighth in my sequence and may be formed by a ligature – a meander and the meandroid open triangle are not connected as in the already published drawings). However contrary to a general rule of the Danube script, the signs on the back of the Gradešnica platter do not seem to have been modified by the application of diacritical marks such as small strokes, crosses and arches (only in one case a > has been modified by a dot).

Concerning the space organizational principles of the inscription, the nine signs are all surrounding the figure along a circular row (none of the marks is located inside the anthropomorph), are positioned inside quadrants derived from the fourfold outline of the figure, and do not saturate the entire available space. They are obviously positioned in a functional way for the purpose to carrying a specific message and not as a decorative framework.

In conclusion, one can infer from the above observations that the focus of the outside of the Gradešnica platter is a pregnant four-sided moon depicted as a human-like figure who is dancing/praying and flourishing according to circular, rotating movements and sub-dividing the space in four quadrants filled by emblematic signs. As working hypothesis one can contemplate that a 360° inscription could surround the humanoid dealing with and specifying the same theme possibly depicting constellations and that it could be an arbitrary classification of the bright stars in the galaxy into prominent configurations positioned serially.

An ancient star atlas that could provide a definitive answer to this question has yet to be discovered. Although scientists have made much progress deciphering cuneiform astronomical tablets from 700 BC, we still have no complete and accurate map even of the Babylonian sky (Gurshtein 1997: 47). With regards to the Neo-Eneolithic Europe, images of the stars do adorn rock walls in many regions but it is a real challenge to understand how prehistoric peoples connected the points of light into patterns in the night sky. According to the astronomer Gurshtein the oldest constellations were created 16,000 years ago, with an uncertainty of not more than 2,000 years, and seem to fall into three groups: animals and objects associated with water, humans and other land-dwelling animals, and flying creatures. These strata reflect a kind of world view held by early humanity: a lower world existing as a water kingdom, a middle world for humans and animals, and an upper world populated by flying creatures. The symbolism on the sky, therefore, may be the manifestation of a sense of division developed by our ancient ancestors (Gurshtein 1997: 48 – the three-stratum conception of the sky seems to be identifiable also in cuneiform texts. Many mention three pathways -those of the gods Ea (Enki), Anu, and Enlil. The historian and linguist Samuel N. Kramer proposed that Ea was the deity of water, Enlil of atmospheric phenomena and storms, and Anu, the supreme god of gods, of the middle world). When the ecliptic – the path of the Sun among the stars – was discovered around the 6 th millennium BC, it was located against the background of the land and water strata. It never reached the stratum for airborne beings. Therefore zodiacal constellations were represented only by land and water creatures, and those in a three-to-one ratio. Furthermore, three distinctive points on the ecliptic (marking the northern spring and autumn equinoxes and the summer solstice) lay on the land stratum; only one (the winter solstice) lies on the water one (Gurshtein 1997: 49, 50). Around 5600 BC, probably in ancient Babylon, four constellations were contrived to mark the equinox- and solstice-points at that time. These were the modern zodiacal constellations Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces ( Gurshtein 1995: 33).

Concerning the single constellations recognized by the Neo-Eneolithic Europe, a pattern of signs over a pintadera from Gulubnik is believed to be a graphical representation of the Taurus constellation (Dzhanfezova 2004) . Gh. Lazarovici has studied in deep the signs “M” and “W” considering them astronomical representations in connection with the Cassiopeia constellation which 6 months is on the sky as “M” and the next 6 months through rotation becomes “W” (Lazarovici 2002). Butterfly as a constellation was depicted in 5 th millennium BC in the Northern Italy (Valcamonica, Foppe di Nadro, Rock n. 27) (E. Anati 1982: Fig. 7). A double symbol characterized by a butterfly and the Cassiopeia constellation occurs over a statuette from the Southern Italy (Passo di Corvo, Foggia) modelled about 5500 BC (Gimbutas 1991: 23, fig. 36).

T he possibility to be at Gradešnica in front of a representation of constellations is supported by seven observations: the revolving movement of the signs around a barycentre (the stylized figure) and along the circumference; their number in 12 if three of them would not have been cancelled by the upper-right abrasion; their organization in quadrants; their rectilinear outline with angles (there are no curves in their silhouettes); their unchanging shape due to the absence of diacritical marks; the fact that no sign is similar to another; the resemblance between some of them and the marks incised on Karanovo seal which are considered by some scholars to draw a map of sequential constellations (Flavin 1991; 1999 ). In addition the astral-interpretation of the signs incised on this face of the platter is in tune with V. Nikolov’s interpretation of the signs on the other face as a synodic lunar cycle (V. Nikolov 1990).

The proposed interpretation is consistent to ancient concepts where the four-folded pattern is a symbol of life as a continuum based on the belief that the moon, embracing the four cardinal points and passing in front of the twelve zodiacal regions, transmits forces to the earth which operate the maturation of the plants. The moon makes a revolution around the earth every 27 days, 12 hours, and 43 minutes and in the course of the revolving movement pauses approximately two days and half in the region of every zodiacal sign. Its enter and stay in a zodiacal region is traditionally believed to influence the vegetal cycle, therefore the careful choice by the farmers of the times for the different activities (sowing, hoeing, harvesting, and so on) is supposed to increase health and grows of the plants. Still nowadays some farmers act in the fields according to the following chains of traditional beliefs: Constellations of Pisces, Cancer, and Scorpion > Wet > Leaves; Constellations of Ram, Sagittarius, and Leo > Warm > Fruit; Constellations of Taurus, Capricorn, Virgo > Cool/Cold > Roots; Constellations of Balance, Aquarius and Gemini > Light > Flowers (this method of celestial guidance has been in part ost as modern techniques have been developed. Nowadays a research in this field has been done for four decades by a German biodynamic farmer, Maria Thun, who publishes an agricultural calendar: The Stella Natura ).

The twelve ecliptical constellations commonly referred to as the solar zodiac, along with ten or so circumpolar constellations and a varied amount of ‘paranatellonta’ (peripheral star groups or asterisms, usually minor, which rise in conjunction with a major or well-known constellation) have been combined by ancient peoples to create calendric lunar zodiacs (Flavin 1998).  Even the Antikythera device of the first century BC was capable of predicting the positions of the moon (as well as the sun) in the zodiac at a given date.

The signs incised over the outside of the Gradešnica platter are not dealing with the much more known and easy observable synodic lunar cycle of 29 days, 12 hours and 44 minutes (from new moon to full moon) but with the sidereal lunar cycle (ascending and descending moon; lunar winter and summer) according to which every 27 days the moon is at the farthest point, from the earth, that its orbit reaches. If the first lunar cycle takes in account the time employed by the moon to revolve around the Earth and return in conjunction with the Sun, the second considers the orbit of the moon around the Earth regarding its motion in relation to the firmament, which is presupposed to be motionless and in which the constellations are discernable, i.e. its complete cycle around the Earth returning in the same position in relationship with a fixed background of stars, or constellations.

The elliptical path of the moon around the Earth is different from that one of the sun (ecliptic) and it runs half over the ecliptic and half under it. Its orbit around the Earth is tilted, and therefore twice a month the moon intersects the ecliptic and these points are called “lunar nodes” (it is the moment when eclipses can occur). The moon, cutting the line of the Equator, raises towards the summer zodiacal constellations, then comes down towards the winter ones. The circular path of the sun employs a year and the moon a bit less than a month, but both seem to pass through regions in the sky occupied by twelve specific constellations. Observing the moon from the Earth, during the year it acts two rhythmic processes moving forward in the zodiac : one ascendant and one descendent. At first it traces step by step a greater arc in the sky (ascending) then a smaller (descendant) one. From the lower position in Sagittarius it begins to rise, its circle grows in the sky, the point from which the moon springs out moves in direction north-east, and the point of the sunset moves towards north-west. The higher point is in Taurus, then reaching Gemini the Twins , the moon begins to come down, its circle lowers in the sky, it rises toward south-east and sunsets towards south-west. The lower point is in Scorpio. During the ascending moon plants are believed to be luxuriant and strong in the upper branches, the lymph comes up with force; it is time to pick up fruits. During the descendent moon the lymph comes up with a weak force and it is better to seed or to transplant the plants because they root better.

In conclusion, the Gradešnica lunar zodiac regulated time by noting which stars, planets, and constellations appeared in the night sky simultaneously with a specific (usually new or full) phase of the moon. Connecting moon and zodiacal constellations, which mythological chronogram is explaining the outside of the Gradešnica platter? One can presume that it reports a myth which exploited in Danube basin as one of the foundation of all the regional spiritual beliefs and which was common also to other primitive agricultural societies. It could well concern the creation and re- creation of the world, which is closely connected to the dancing moon in the sky and the giving birth. The motion of the universe is a perpetual act around motherhood and its rotating life on the one hand is generated by it while on the other hand supports the creative action. Motherhood creates sky and constellations and is sustained by them in its generative process.

The initiating nature and the magic-religious function of the fourfold anthropomorphic figure and the surrounding signs of constellations are outlined by their location on the non-visible part of the ritual vessel. The magic-religious marks are visible only when the platter is moved, stored, or transported, but not when it is posed. During the rituals, the marks faced the ground possibly for the giving and the taking of lunar-forces then they were put in motion and became visible reversing the tray maybe for pouring sacred liquid contained in the little try. W as the non-visibility not only a supplementary symbolic meaning but also an integral part of the message and a necessary condition for setting cosmic symbols and inscription into motion?

The question of the non-visibility of some texts is very significant and is indicative of magical associations and sacral meaning of the Danube script connected with initiation processes . Also the cultic, discoidal medallion found by Sabin Luca at Turdaş and more or less coeval to the Gradešnica platter belonging to the early phase of the Turdaş culture, had been used with its inscription facing the ground. In this case the inscribed artifact laid in the middle stratum of a pit among the ashes of a deep steep dwelling, may be a granary or a shaman’s habitation, and accompanying six vessels containing cereals (Luca 1993; Merlini 2004a). In parallel it is noteworthy to consider the possibility of placing one of the rectangular Tărtăria tablet on top of the circular tablets with holes in perfect alignment. The hole of the rectangular tablet fits precisely that of the circular one and the former tablet covers the upper register of the latter perfectly (Fig. 57). This means that they have been worn one over the other and the resulting compound had overt and essoteric signs on the rectangular tablet and the lower register of the circular one, and hidden and esoteric signs on the upper register of the circular tablet. Was the sacred assemblage used during initiation ceremonies? (Merlini on-line, Lazarovici-Merlini 2004).

The above mentioned inscribed artifacts document that Neo-Eneolithic communities of the Danube basin were just at the beginning of the development of a script with a mainly cultic, initiation-ritual character; therefore many meanings were esoteric and revealed only at the occasion of specific initiations (Lazarovici-Merlini 2004). This does not facilitate any attempts to decipher the Danube script since one is dealing with texts which are aimed to convey the un-expressible, which not only reveal but also conceal and divert, and finally which indicate something to actually mean something else.

A vertical inscription

The inside of the Gradešnica flat vessel bears a long inscription which, according to the majority of scholars, is divided into four horizontal registers. In fact all the researchers are working from the drawings published by B. Nikolov (1974), Masson (1984), and Todorova (1986). But if one looks at the humanoid stylized on the outside and turns the vessel, one can see that the signs on the inside are actually aligned vertically and not horizontally (Fig. 58): a layout which has been judged very strange by several scholars for a written text structured in supposed guidelines for the scribe. Being aware of the problem Todorova decided to loose the pictographic force of the anthropomorph turning it 90° in order to save the horizontal alignment of the script-like marks on the inner face. The scholars who have the script choice in mind are inclined to perceive the characteristic layout (according to our contemporary eyes) of complex writing messages, whereas scholars who have the decorative option in mind tend to force the original patterns in a symmetric way.

The difference between the horizontal and the vertical layout is not unimportant. We can mention three erroneous lines of thinking induced by the mistaken perspective. Firstly, one of the markers used by Masson in order to document that the Gradešnica platter carries a written message (“comme il arrive généralment sur les inscriptions véritables rédigées en toutes sortes d’écriture”) is the decrease of the space employed by the registers and the diminishing size of the characters when one goes from the top to the bottom (Masson 1984: 108). Secondly, due to the distorted perspective Masson believed to have distinguished a sign which evoke the letter M (Masson 1984: 110). Thirdly, V. I. Georgiev identified a number of notations in the sequences of supposed vertical segments starting from the erroneous observation that the lower register bears a single sign of writing surrounded by eight little vertical strokes (three on the left and five on the right) (Georgiev 1970: 8). In fact the view of a forest of numeral sticks is based on the perception of vertical segments due to the incorrect layout as well as other two misunderstandings: the idea that the artifact is a “tablet” and some missing distinctions between the lines which are signs of writing and the lines which are elements of the reading frame.

If our contemporary eye is costumed to connect writing with a horizontal alignment of the signs, it was not for necessity the layout employed by the ancient scribes-priests who wrote according to the particular demands of the architectural setting. I will present just few examples of vertical texts ascertained to the Danube script. One of the two rectangular tablets found at Tărtăria bears signs aligned in vertical rows. A vertical inscription is exhibited by a quite flat figurine found at Vinča-Belo Brdo at the depth of 5.5 meters (Fig. 59). It was briefly discussed by Vasić as a possible Minoan-related script of ca. 1600 BC on a figurine wearing a “long chiton” (Vasić 1936: 664; 666, fig. 8). Then it was analyzed by Popović (Popović 1965: 30 ff.). The figurine is roughly made and damaged. The marks are concentrated on the upper area of the left side, are very little, very superficially incised and not very carefully-designed. Consequently any determination of individual signs is hazardous but they are clearly vertically aligned in groups and Popović could guess the direction of the inscription noticing that it is crowded near the head, where the signs (presumably) terminate, whereas it is free and unpacked at the end nearest the foot. Through this reasoning he concluded that the figurine was held in the left hand with the head toward right and was inscribed from left to right, but without allowing enough space to finish the inscription when the region of the head was reached. Instead according to Masson shape and disposition of the inscription indicate that the direction of reading is from left to right positioning the statuette horizontally with the head toward left. Therefore she hypothesized one direction for the scribe and the opposite for the reader; a possible but not very frequent situation. The fact is that it is not always functional to determine the direction of a text on the basis of the increasing crowd of the signs. The scribe could have held the figurine in the left hand with the head toward left and, having to write a precise text, could have started to incise it from the throat region packing a number of signs in a limited space then he/she had a crescent room for the remaining signs. The understanding of the inscription is very hard because of the publication of different drawings of it and I did not have the possibility to check it directly. Anyway, all the signs have a linear and un-complex shape. It is worthy to mention the tri-repetition of a V-motif. The modality of the incision and the repartition of the signs suggest that the inscription is a “veritable inscription” and that it is articulated in four groups of signs. According to Masson, the first is composed of two signs followed by a vertical stroke; the second is composed of only one Y-like mark followed by a vertical stroke; the third is composed of the same sign followed by a vertical stroke; the fourth is composed by a y-shape positioned a little apart and incised more deeply than the other signs (Masson 1984: 97). The figurine has one or two marks also on the back. I reproduce the Masson’s sketch just to document the verticality of the inscription (Masson 1984: 95, fig. 3-7)

A terracotta statuine from Vinča is wearing elegant bracelets and is walking with a stiff, erect, and conceited gait, but has little recognizable features because it is wearing a ritual mask. Even the gender is unclear. Nevertheless the inscription which turns on hips and thighs is obvious: a linear sequence of /\, \ /, F, U, >, <, bi and tri-lines. We are probably "reading" a formula for offer, a dedication composed at late fifth millennium BC (Merlini 2004a: 139) (Fig. 60). Other vertical inscriptions occur on statuettes from Vinča-Belo Brdo. On a fragmented and now disappeared figurine unearthed at the depth of 2.5 m. some marks occur between waistline and haunch which have been interpreted by Vasić as meander motifs (Vasić 1936: 95, fig. 471 a, b, c). The upper sign is vague and it is composed by discontinuous elements whereas according to Masson the lower sign reproduces very clearly two walking legs and it is very similar to the Egyptian hieroglyph which stands for the verb “to move”. The graphic parallelism and the evocative quality of the Vinča sign give to it a comparable symbolical value: to be the ideogram of movement (Masson 1984: 96) (Fig. 61). A schematic figurine from late sixth millennium BC is vertically inscribed on the back (on waistline and haunch) with signs composed of two identical marks although differently oriented: a equilateral triangle downward oriented and with a row of four vertical strokes (Popović 1965). Masson noticed the precise (standardized?) outline of the signs (Masson 1984: 93). The figurine is made of light-brown fabric and has symmetrical perforations on ears, arms and hips (Fig. 62). An interesting vertical inscription based on lozenges occurs on a figurine from Potporanj (Brukner 1968, tab. IV,1) (Fig. 63).

With regards to the other ancient scripts, the vertical layout was very widespread therefore the inscribed columns of the Gradešnica platter are not at all a unique wonder. The archaic cuneiform signs, which were still quite pictographic, were etched into wet clay on tablets in vertical columns from top to bottom and right to left. Subsequently scribes began to write the wedge-shaped characters in horizontal rows rotating counter-clockwise all of the pictograms 90° in the process. The vertical progressing direction of a text is one of the most important indicators in order to distinguish between the earlier cuneiform scripts of the Old period Babylonians to those of the later period. The question of when and why the Babylonians changed direction of their script from columns to lines has long been debated and still now remains open. If F. Delitzsch, A. Deimel and A. Falkenstein proposed the "rotation theory" for a very early date, just after the Fara Period, S.A. Picchioni pointed out that until the Kassite Period most of the inscribed objects whose orientation can be established – such as vases, stelae, and statues – are bearing texts that run in columns from top to bottom (Picchioni 1984-5: 19 – still in 516 BC Darius' scribes composed a famous royal proclamation on the Rock of Behistun in three languages (Old Persian, Akkadian , and Elamite ) chiseling columns in the smooth vertical surface). Madeleine A. Fitzgerald gave the tantalizing hint that change in direction may have been in order to bring Babylonians in line with contemporary writing practices because the alphabetic scripts of Ugarit and the Levant as well as Egyptian cursive were written oriented horizontally: a sort of application of an internationally agreed interface standard to facilitate communication (Fitzgerald 2003). It is remarkable noticing that still now many modern scholars read even the earliest cuneiform texts in lines from left to right although they are clearly lying on their sides if not read in columns from top to bottom and right to left.

The texts in the hieroglyphic script had varied direction: they could have been written in horizontal lines running either from left to right or from right to left, or in vertical columns oriented from top to bottom. Anyway in many cases hieroglyphics were organized in vertical columns and have been read from top to bottom generally, but not always, starting from the far right column. The vertical columns were separated by thin rules and delineated by one or two colored horizontal rules across the top and bottom of the adjoining columns. If before the Middle Kingdom most writing followed this layout, it continued thereafter in formal religious texts such as the Book of the Dead (whose sanctity required the cursive hieroglyphic). In earlier times t he characters of a third form of a script, the Hieratic (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics well adapted to the expendable medium of papyrus ), were transcribed in vertical columns and the format was also commonly retained in the most basic instructional texts used in the scribal schools (even the Book of Kemyt (i.e. the "Book of Perfection"), which was apparently the first text learned by scribal students, is an 11 th century BC form letter which was written in cursive hieroglyphs in vertical columns) . However during the Twelfth Dynasty most hieratic texts began to be arranged in horizontal lines from right to left, and then this become the standard practice for as long as the language itself survived.

In Indus script inscriptions can occur vertically. The Old Elamite, a partially deciphered syllabic script derived from Proto-Elamite and in use between about 2250 and 2220 BC though it was probably invented at an earlier date, consisted of about 80 signs written in vertical columns progressing from top to bottom and left to right.

Sometimes Linear A and Linear B inscriptions had a vertical layout.

Chinese, Japanese, and Korean were traditionally written in vertical columns, proceeding from right to left on the page with each new column starting to the left of the preceding one. B efore the invention of paper, in China documents were ordered in vertical files on strips of bamboo and the strips were then bound together with strings. Still this approach is used today because Chinese can be written in vertical columns when it is read from right to left or in horizontal lines when it is read left to right. Taiwan follows the traditional method often organizing texts in vertical rows, while China under the influence of European system of writing usually arranges them horizontally. Chinese numerals are more common in vertical text. Nushu (Chinese for "women's writing"), an ancient syllabic script of 1200 characters created and used exclusively by women in Jiang Yong Prefecture, Hunan Province (China), is written in vertical columns running from top to bottom and from right to left. The women were forbidden formal education for thousands of years then developed this secret script in order to communicate with one another weaving Nu Shu characters into cloth or placing them on paper fans. Nushu writing was passed on to daughters and granddaughters. It has curves and tilted lines, unlike regular Chinese which has mostly straight lines or strokes (Silber 1994; P McLaren 1996). Japanese can be written from right to left in vertical columns or left to right in horizontal lines.

Talmudic can be written vertically.

The Zapotec writing – which appearing as early as 600 BC in the Valley of Oaxaca was older than Maya or Aztec systems – placed glyphs in vertical columns and often with numerals (Marcus 1980: 113). In inscriptions, the Mayan hieroglyphics were often arranged in T rectilinear compartments in which characters step down successive horizontal levels of successive paired vertical columns from left to right in a sort of a downwards zigzag pattern, unlike Chinese texts which characters descend through successive vertical columns. Mayan numbers were counted in twenties with the lowest value place at the bottom and higher value places stacked on top as high as necessary. Until relatively recently the general point of view was that Mayan hieroglyphics were not true writing, but were merely decorations. One of the texts used by the linguist Michael Coe in deciphering this writing system was painted on a polychrome four-legged lidded jar in 6 vertical columns representing the day signs of the Mayan calendar (Coe 1992).

The famous Lemnos inscription consists of two vertically and one horizontally written part. In Muslim calligraphy the calligrapher can draw also vertical lines. Kufic and Thuluth script employ both horizontal and vertical inscription bands.

Even alphabets are sometimes arranged in vertical columns read in general from right to left . The hieroglyphic form of the Meroïtic alphabet, derived from ancient Egyptian writing sometime during the 2nd century BC and deciphered by the British Egyptologist Francis Llewellyn Griffith in 1909, was written in a vertical layout from top to bottom and from right to left. A number of vertical inscriptions occur in Etruscan (For example a vertical inscription on the right jamb, in Etruscan, relates to the construction of the Hypogeum of the Volumni near Perugia ). One of the earliest inscriptions in the Latin alphabet is vertical and appears on a small pillar in the Roman Forum. The Celtic alphabet Ogham can either be used vertically (in inscriptions) or horizontally (in manuscripts). Sometimes the runes were written vertically with the letters rotated by 90º and the texts should be read from the top to bottom and right to left. Most of the early inscriptions on stone in Scotland and Ireland are written in the vertical form. The Hangul (Hanguù l, Hangeul), the Korean alphabet, is sometimes written in vertical columns from right to left .

Unusually Uighur alphabet ( It is also known as Uigur, Old Script, Mongol Script, Script Mongolian, or Classical Mongolian ) and derivate scripts are written vertically from left to right. Uighur alphabet, belonging to the Southeastern Turkic sub-arm of the Turkic sub-branch of the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages, was written in vertical columns read from left to right. In this script, the pen writes a continuous line, for the most part, from the beginning to the end of the word. A continuous baseline runs vertically with the majority of lines and loops sticking out to the left as the word progresses downward. Mongols conquered and destroyed the Uighur kingdom but adopted Uighur-derived Mongolian scripts including the vertical layout. The Traditional Mongolian alphabet, which was adapted by order of Genghis Khan from the Uighur alphabet in 1204 for writing Mongol tongue, is arranged vertically from top to bottom progressing from left to right. 'Phags-pa syllabic alphabet (It is sometimes referred to in English as the "Mongolian Quadratic Script"), a script derived from Tibetan in order to write Mongolian, Chinese and other languages during the Mongolian Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), is written vertically from top to bottom and from left to right. The Manchu alphabet, which was commissioned in 1599 by the Manchu leader Nurhaci (1559-1626), the founder of the Manchu state in China, employs letters based on the Classical Mongolian alphabet which are written in vertical columns running from top to bottom and from left to right.

In ancient inscriptions of Tifinagh alphabet ("Lybico-berber"), used by Berber speaking people in Northern Africa and the Canary Islands, one can find both bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom organization of the text.

According to a crescent number of scholars the “portrait”-orientation” (taller than wide) of written information is not a merely archaic feature, but a more natural and efficient way to communicate. “Today’s computer screens … are the wrong shape. They are designed for watching, not reading; they are descendants of television sets, not books. That is why their displays have a “landscape” orientation (i.e., they are wider than they are tall). Most printed and written reading materials are ‘portrait’-oriented (taller than they are wide)” (The Economist 1998). Experiments by Stanley Wearden at Kent State University’s Information Design Laboratory in 1997 and 1998 showed a strong preference for portrait orientation and for two-page spreads (Wearden 1998). Intriguingly, this predilection may reflect more than just the fact that people are used to books. James Craig and Bruce Barton, who chronicle 30 centuries of graphic design, found that all but one of the examples in 3,000 years is portrait-oriented. The sole landscape-oriented design is from the 1980s. People have chosen to make their reading materials portrait-shaped for the past 3,000 years. Craig and Barton reminded that even Egyptian hieroglyphics were commonly organized in vertical columns read left to right (Craig and Barton 1987).

The signs on the inside of the Gradešnica platter

The interior face of the Gradešnica platter is divided by five vertical lines into four registers of slightly unequal width, narrowing from left to right. There are three or more signs in each column. According to the matrix of markers and rules the asymmetric co-ordination of the signs along a linear alignment is one of the main space organizational principles of a system of writing (although not exclusive of writing). It is also noteworthy, although not conclusive as stated above, the estimate that the direction of reading is from left to right due to the decrease of the space employed by the vertical registers and the diminishing size of the characters when one goes from the left to right.

Complementing the vertical development of the layout, s ome of the more isolated horizontal segments intersect the upright lines giving the sensation that the signs have been inscribed inside metopes. Each metope may represent an idea (or a word?) as perhaps on Lepenski Vir stone sphere or on the circular Tartaria tablet (Merlini 2004a: 89). With reference to the Gradešnica shallow vase, this hypothesis has been postulated by V.I. Georgiev (1970: 8). The custom of incising texts inside a reserved space is not a once-off case in the region. In the early Chalcolithic, at the neighbor settlement of Brénitza, according to B. Nikolov (1986: 167) the external surface of containers employed for the maintenance of food presents rectangular spaces designed as if they were metopes in order to bear sign groups which give recommendations about the conservation of the alimony. The Brénitza’s signs are symbols and ideograms, specifies B. Nikolov. The use of a layout in rows and in metopes at Gradešnica as well as in Brénitza evidences that the scribe had to trace a defined number of signs of a standard outline for shape and size. In conclusion, on the inside of the Gradešnica little tray signs are assembled in a functional way in order to express a message and they definitely do not follow an aesthetic design.

A direct check of the distinct signs inside the platter evidences that some of them look rather different from the previous published drawings. On the left column there are two metopes: the first shows a meander (actually an open rotated P) and a vertical stroke (the sign is neither a meander with a very open loop as in B. Nikolov 1970 and 1974, not a meander with a close loop as in Masson 1984); in the second there are a horizontal line and a multiple Λ with curved segments (Todorova (1986) depicts a meander confusing a line of the framework with elements of a script). The signs of the second vertical row are very complex and difficult to identify. Also this column is subdivided in two metopes. In the first there is a lightly curved hook (or a > motif) (according to my system it is a hook) starting from the frame and opposed to (the actual sign is neither a T –shape formed by two separated segments as in Nikolov 1974, nor a line as in Winn 1981, nor a sort of Π as in Masson 1984. Todorova (1986) depiction is quite correct ) a quite close meander (B. Nikolov 1974 wrongly detected two separated signs: a meander with four segments and a horizontal line); in the second metope there are above a compounded sign formed by joining some basic signs (among which one can distinguish with some difficulty a J, a meander and a V – B. Nikolov 1970 distinguished only an open meander contained within a J-shape geometry; Masson 1984 inserted some sketch lines and did not depict others in order to save the script-like form of this compounded sign but the first are just scratches and the second actually are as deeply incised as the outlines of the supposed sign) and below a very open V.

 

 

The upper part of the third column starting from the left is not very clear because of many superimposing scratches. From top to bottom one can catch a glimpse of a very open V motif which expands itself in the next column, a V motif so open that becomes a ∟-like (the blending of the two distinct sign in one made by Winn (1981: 212) and its identification as “a typical three-toothed comb frequently found at Vinča but also at other later sites and in many scripts” is inconsistent), an almost horizontal stroke, the sign which has a dot inside (it looks like the rotation of the Hittite hieroglyph which resembles a chain of mountains or towers and stands for “country” and has parallels on the Karanovo seal), a meander, and a horizontal segment. On the right row four marks are visible; from top to bottom: three horizontal segments, a horizontal stroke very near to an unclosed triangular meander, and other three-lines.

According to the matrix of markers and rules, the signs of the Gradešnica platter belong, with a high probability, to the script framework having geometric, abstract, high schematic, linear and not very complex outlines. Of the 10 signs which are not horizontal segments and grouping of signs, five could be categorized as various types of meanders, and five as V-forms (a chevron included). But could they also be included inside the inventories of writing units made by Winn (1981, on-line) and Haarmann (on-line)? Let’s check this fundamental point noticing at first that both the researchers rotated the platter 90° in order to present horizontal layout and then my signs cannot fit precisely them. The sign on the top of the left vertical row matches an inverted and rotated sign 205 (in Winn 1981), DS 233 (in Winn on-line), and OE 52 (in Haarmann on-line). The horizontal stroke which does not have the purpose of dividing the space for reading finds counterpart in a rotated sign 1, DS 87 and OE 144. The multiple Λ corresponds to a variant of sign 111, DS 15 and OE 108. The top sign in the second column corresponds to a rotated variant of sign 7 and DS 138 in Winn’s inventories and to a rotated OE 211b in Haarmann’s. The components of the subsequent compounded sign could be partially paralleled to the rotated signs 204, 205 and 95 in Winn 1981, to rotated DS 231, DS 235, and DS1 according to Winn’s inventory on-line and to rotated OE 51, OE 52, and OE 76 according to Haarmann’s. The V-shape is equivalent to sign 95 in Winn 1981, DS 1 in the last Winn’s inventory (on-line) and to OE 76 in Haarmann’s (on-line). In the third row, the sawing sign is not present in Winn 1981 and it is comparable (but not equivalent) to a rotated DS 22 and OE 91b. Finally, in the fourth column the three-lines correspond to rotated, in the respective inventories, sign 32, DS 85, and OE 149. The unclosed triangular meander can be paralleled to the above mentioned meanders.

Significant correspondences occur between my signs and Lazarovici’s catalogue of sacred symbols and signs (Lazarovici2004). The sign on the top of the left vertical row could be paralleled to sign 192; the horizontal stroke finds counterpart in 0a; the multiple Λ corresponds to 20=33. The top sign in the second column is consistent with 229b, the components of the subsequent compounded sign matches 230b, 192 and 1a=a; the V-shape is equivalent to sign 1a=a. In the fourth column the three-lines correspond to a rotated 163. The unclosed triangular meander can match the above mentioned meanders.

In conclusion the large majority of the signs incised on the front of the Gradešnica platter could be included in the surveyed inventories of the Danube Neo-Eneolithic script. This is a significant point because Winn, dealing only with the Vinča culture (in the area included between Turdaş in the North-West, Jela in the East, and Anza in the South) and not with the more general Danube civilization and not certain if Gradešnica belongs to it, published the signs from Gradešnica plaque both in 1973 book and 1981 book as well (Winn 1981: 210-211) but he did not used them for the inventory (At the opposite Gimbutas considered Gradešnica as part of the Vinča culture in northwest Bulgaria (Gimbutas 1991)).

With regards to the techniques and restrictions in modifications of the outlines of the signs, the marks on the front part of the Gradešnica platter contrary to other Danube inscriptions do not seem to have been modified by the application of diacritical marks such as small strokes, crosses, dots and arches. However some signs (meandering and V shapes) have been rotated like in other Danube inscriptions. One sign is clearly combined by ligatures: the third in the second column.

Interesting is V. Nikolov’s interpretation of the put in columns signs as a lunar cycle although he rated 24 marks (5-4-6-9 considering the columns from left to right) accounting also some horizontal segments which instead intersect the upright lines in order to frame the reading metopes, four angles positioned always alone and seven meanders (two in the first three columns and one in the fourth). According to the Bulgarian archaeologist the last symbol resembles the first one closing in this way a circle that he interprets as a schematic model of the lunar circle (not a lunar calendar), where its four phases are embodied in the four columns. The meanders play the key role: the first shows the new moon; the second indicates the first quarter at the seventh day; the third repeats the second; the fourth, particularly complex and located in a central position, symbolizes the arrival of the full moon at the 14 th-15 th day; the fifth stands for the end of the full moon; the sixth suggests the conclusion of the phase at the 22 nd day and the moon is again depicted as a half circle but now with the hump at Levant (the sign is inverted comparing the third); the seventh has the same position of the first but it is petite and stoop down like the last slice. What about the possible interpretation of the four and the three horizontal segments before and after the last meander? According to Nikolov they should indicate the nights without moon, but the scholar does not explain this interpretation and seven black nights are sincerely too many. He is also in trouble in order to explicate the meaning of the other two horizontal segments. In fact he considers them probably additional nights (V. Nikolov 1990), but they actually are just marks in order to frame the metopes.

Several signs on the lips are still now unpublished

A number of signs occur on the internal and external lips of the little Gradešnica tray. Unfortunately they have not been fully published up to now, but their identification is part and parcel of the inscriptions. It is not a fortuitous case that some signs start and develop on the back or on the front surface of the object ending on a lip. I present a montage showing both the outside and the inside faces with also the lips (Fig. 3; Fig. 58), publishing for the first times signs and photos. I begin the description from the signs on external lips which encircle the pregnant dancing figure outlining that they are not visible when the tray was put on altar or on hands.

The lip above the head of the humanoid is quite disfigured and its signs are missing in all the already published drawings, but it is possible to detect some signs among them – starting from left – a trapezium inserted by a line, a meandering figure, a rectangular shape connected to a bi-line, and a T-shape (Fig. 64).

The lip under the base of the pregnant orante-dancer is structured along three aligned spaces (Fig. 65). Of course the observer of the actual object has a reversed prospective then in the Fig. 3 and in the description of the marks I will follow this point of view. In the centre, a rectangular three-stratified structure is positioned. On the right one can notice two very deeply incised parallel lines placed below less evident hooks upstanding at a corner in specular opposition. On the left is visible a meander surrounded by a V, a diagonal line, a long line irregular connected with the multiple Λ located on the right bottom of the figure (in this case the sign could be a compounded one formed by a Λ surrounding a meander). Many signs of this lip seem to be pictograms/ideograms depicting structures with different functions.

 

 

The lips on the right and on the left of the figurine bear much fewer signs then the other two. Although the lip on the right is the most ruined because of large abrasions, breakings, and mainly post-firing scratches, one can catch a glimpse of a stroke which is completing a triangle starting from the back surface of the platter (from the humanoid’s arm). A similar development has a little inverted y (Fig. 66).

 

 

Also the lip on the left is much damaged and the only interesting signs that it bears (mainly little v shapes) have been made post-firing because of rituals or simply by accident. It is characterized by some not very clear lines and hooks (Fig. 67).

The internal lips are much less inscribed than the external ones. On the lip on the right a + occurs (Fig. 68).

The lip on the left shows an unclosed triangular meander similar to that one on the right column and two vertical strokes (Fig. 69).

Conclusions

The signs in sequence over the two faces of the Gradešnica platter prove that in Eneolithic time night sky and celestial bodies were studied. In fact it was assumed the general beliefs that they controlled life and events on Earth and that each of them symbolizes certain character, personality, gender, qualities, and meanings. Regarding the moon, it surrounds the Earth, in orderly procession and extends its influence in regular rhythms contributing by this way to life, growth, and form of the plants and also to animal and human fecundity.

And here it is the rationalized bulb of the understanding that these ancient cultures expressed in a mythical way: the moon has two orbital motions connected to two rhythmic activities and two cycles of times. With regards to the two revolutions, it has a rotating motion around the Earth running after the sun and an oscillating one connected to its traveling through an imaginary belt in the sky formed by zodiacal constellations. Concerning the rhythmic activities, the moon is employed in two basic: waxing-waning (connected to the synodic cycle – waxing describes lunar activity in the period between the new and the full moon. Waning occurs between the full and the new moon ); ascending-descending (connected to the sidereal cycle). As regards the two cycles of times, the synodic cycle follows a regular sequence of phases (new moon-crescent-full moon-decrescent). According to the sidereal cycle the moon raises from the line of the horizon, day after day until reaching its zenith in the sky (ascending moon) from south to north. During these 14 days the moon "enters" the zodiacal signs of the Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces, Aries and Taurus. Then it inverts its path in a descendant motion towards the horizon (descendent moon) from north to south. The two cycle times have different lengths: the moon revolves around the Earth through its cyclical phases in 29.5 days and it reappears in the same spot in the sky every 27.1 days.

The knowledge of the sidereal cycle was embedded over the outside of the Gradešnica platter and the knowledge of the synodic cycle was incised over the inside. The first was a esoteric (iniziatico) knowledge founded on the observation that the moon acts as a kind of gate as it passes in front of the 12 constellations of the zodiac, opening the way for specific influences which strengthen animal and human fecundity as well as the root, leaf, flower or fruit of plants which are sown and cultivated; the second was a essoteric (public) knowledge.

Both the sign sequences on the platter involve the "reading" of the time although they do not seem to be specific calendars. A major problem in understanding the precise functioning of a lunar zodiac such as Gradešnica one is that it was apparently designed for monthly and not for daily notations. Signs both on the faces of the lunar cycle and the lunar zodiac establish a working relationship between the two time systems giving the possibility of a daily application of the lunar zodiacs, as evidenced by the Chinese calendar and to a certain extent by the diagonal calendar divisions (or decans) of the ancient Egyptians.

Signs of both lunar cycle and lunar zodiac might have also been utilized as mnemonic and narrative devices for rituals with the accent placed on the full moon, in order to take care of animals, crops and plant according to cycles of cosmic rhythms of the moon although not in a calendrical way. For example, according to the synodic month the few days preceding the full moon are the most stimulating for the germination of seeds; according to the sidereal orbit vegetables planted when the moon is in the constellations of Taurus, Capricorn or Virgo (traditionally termed "root days") are more prolific than if they are planted when the moon is positioned in other constellations of the zodiac belt. And so on. Postulating gesture and effect of each particular rhythm, the ancient farmers timed ground preparation, sowing, cultivating, and harvesting to the advantage of the crops they were raising.

The relationship between the representation of constellations and the signs of the Danube script is a real challenge for the future. Are the silhouettes of the former the graphic roots for some signs of the script ( Regarding this point and focussing on Cassiopeia see Merlini 2004a) ? Which are the semantic connections between sky and writing? There was in European Eneolithic a divine word processor as Thoth was in ancient Egypt inventing hieroglyphic writing, reporting the court verdict of the dead persons, protecting administrative records and laws, and supporting the scribal elite? Was the European divine word processor also the lord of time and the keeper of the calendar as Thoth was? Was the first month of the calendar named to it as the first month of Egypt’s lunar-stellar calendar – the month that followed the first return of Sirius to the predawn sky – was named Thoth? There was a special relationship between the divine word processor and the Moon (which distinguishes seasons, months, and years) as the calendrical skill of Thoth made a Moon god out of it who often wore a crescent Moon on his head? And such a special relationship could become identity as in Egypt where Thoth as “reckoner of time” is sometimes the Moon’s guardian, but he is also equated with the Moon itself? (Krupp 2003: 86-87).

As starting point could be noteworthy to think that European Eneolithic cultures as the ancient Mesopotamians, although wrote in clay and not on paper, treated the starry sky as if it was a real page-turner and called the configurations of the constellations “writing of heaven” and “writing of the night sky”. The placement of planets, behavior of the Moon, and occurrence of eclipses on that celestial slate were messages under the form of legends left by divine forces to signal their intent. The night sky and its mythological patterns were full of advices and warnings.

Astronomical knowledge and related legends were used to make predictive correlations with natural events important to the group’s survival (such as the availability of particular foods or changes in weather conditions). Without any technological means of controlling their environment, the Eneolithic populations depended completely on the cycles of the natural world for survival. Not surprisingly, their interest in the stars was not in extraordinary occurrences, such as supernovae or comets, but in regular patterns and rythms. Regarding the signs over the outside of the Gradešnica platter, the entering of the moon into the different constellations was seen as indicator able to anticipate information regarding seasonal events prompting for example the beginning of harvesting a particular type of cereal.

Equally important to the survival was the sense of identity. Translated into signs of writing – as well as into ritual songs and dances – the information associated with the sky reminded each generation of the traditional beliefs, taboos, and behavioral codes that determined the community’s identity within the sky-Earth arena.

 

The artist and anthropologist Daniela Bulgarelli is the author of the painting appearing on this study.Marco Merlini is the author of the photos. Copyright© 2005 The Global Prehistory Consortium at EURO INNOVANET srl.

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