6,000 BC Bulgarian ceramic Mother Goddess figure uncovered

Archeology in Bulgaria
These stories always get to me.
Aside from the obvious, I wonder how similar hanging out and socializing would feel. I'll bet that a back patio party with friends wouldn't seem much different from a fire pit meal with 'paleoliths.'

The estimated date of the transition between hunter/gathering and agriculture gets another shove further back.

“This find shows that we can push back substantially the timing of the emergence of the transition from “an economy of appropriation" to “an economy of production", namely, to the 7th millennium BC. For me, this is a unique find, I hope we’ll be able to find the lower part of the Mother Goddess figurine," Ganetsovski elaborates.

They uncovered a settlement and a structure in Bulgaria’s Vidin District. It was a dugout home, so it was partially sank into the ground. Probably due to the environment. It's located between the Danube River and the Balkan Mountains in the country’s northwestern corner. I made a screenshot in Google maps for you:


The little sculpture had a unique feature. The extra parts that they found were assumed to be limbs or other body parts. Apparently they were part of a decorated veil meant to cover the face.

Other artifacts discovered during the 2018 excavations in Mayor Uzunovo include pottery discs which are believed to have been used for rituals, an arrow with a broken bone tip probably used for fishing, retouched flint tools, bone tools, pottery vessels, and other artifacts including a truncated ceramic cone and a ceramic spindle whorl. During the previous digs, a very intriguing bone harpoon was discovered. “These finds are representative of a mysterious civilization which used forgotten techniques that we are now trying to reconstruct… What makes the site significant is the very, very early period. It dates to the first years of the emergence of the contemporary European civilization," Ganetsovski says.

a reply to: LedermanStudio

These things must have been made about day 16 or so. There are a lot of folks who will tell you the earth is only about 6000 years old. So at the time these were made they still counted time in days, not years.

originally posted by: tinymind
a reply to: LedermanStudio

These things must have been made about day 16 or so. There are a lot of folks who will tell you the earth is only about 6000 years old. So at the time these were made they still counted time in days, not years.

Actually, the figurine is circa 6000BC, so it would have been made about 2000 years before the earth came into existence.

Is this is an early rendition of Dodol/Zizilia, or maybe their version of Gaia? Or a new(to us) goddess?

I say it everytime these Bulgarian posts pop up.... There is more history in Bulgaria, neolithic especially, than there is in an history book.

There are burial grounds everywhere. Unfortunately they are unguardedd so get raided regularly.

originally posted by: Klassified

Is this is an early rendition of Dodol/Zizilia, or maybe their version of Gaia? Or a new(to us) goddess?

Or maybe it was just dudes mom.

originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

originally posted by: Klassified

Is this is an early rendition of Dodol/Zizilia, or maybe their version of Gaia? Or a new(to us) goddess?

Or maybe it was just dudes mom.

Those mother figures tend to have exaggerated female
attributes.. so that would make the guy a perv, if your
theory is true.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Maybe his mom had big boobs.

a reply to: LedermanStudio

Very cool...but HOW on earth can they say that's a Mother Giddess figurine?? Also, the article says that his civilization used "forgotten techniques" that they (archaeologists) are still trying to reconstruct today. Forgotten to whom? Current day humans? Or the people of the dig? Forgotten techniques referring to the subjects of the dig doesn't make much sense.

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: LedermanStudio

Very cool...but HOW on earth can they say that's a Mother Giddess figurine?? Also, the article says that his civilization used "forgotten techniques" that they (archaeologists) are still trying to reconstruct today. Forgotten to whom? Current day humans? Or the people of the dig? Forgotten techniques referring to the subjects of the dig doesn't make much sense.

I agree. Without being able to ask the artist, it's all a guess.

I often wonder when they say 'forgotten' if they do so out of habit.

a reply to: LedermanStudio


I noted the OP linked statement:

Part of a ceramic figurine depicting the head of the Mother Goddess, the earliest deity of Europe’s first agriculturalists, has been discovered by archaeologists in an 8,000-year-old Early Neolithic prehistoric settlement...

wow, the team of Discovery is certainly making big assumptions...i.e. Agriculture Goddess


the ceramic figurine might be a Fertility Goddess instead... I note it was ceramic instead of carved bone or Ivory as many other early relics were sculpted from by the hunters... not shaped then fired by a niche specialist in an advanced community who were settled instead of being nomadic, (a specialized technology)


I suggest the missing lower part of the figurine was fashioned as the Robust body of an overly plump female (in the familiar Fertility Goddess style)


6000BCE ? what about that ancient site in Turkey...Göbekli Tepe (("The tell includes two phases of use believed to be of a social or ritual nature dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE ….. belonging to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age..")) see:en.wikipedia.org...öbekli_Tepe


Anyways, great/interesting find...

a reply to: St Udio

I note it was ceramic instead of carved bone or Ivory as many other early relics were sculpted from by the hunters... not shaped then fired by a niche specialist in an advanced community who were settled instead of being nomadic, (a specialized technology)

Grandkid made it for Grandma so it gets a special place of recognition in the home.
Sure would be a hoot if most clay "idols" and cave paintings were kid creations.

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Perhaps because fertility was worshipped, and the best way to symbolize that would be...?

Perversion notwithstanding, I'll go with that they had a higher purpose in mind other than some Bronze(?) Age pron (sic). IMO.

originally posted by: SeaWorthy
a reply to: St Udio

I note it was ceramic instead of carved bone or Ivory as many other early relics were sculpted from by the hunters... not shaped then fired by a niche specialist in an advanced community who were settled instead of being nomadic, (a specialized technology)

Grandkid made it for Grandma so it gets a special place of recognition in the home.
Sure would be a hoot if most clay "idols" and cave paintings were kid creations.

When I see those silhouettes of handprints made with red dye, I can't help but think of some teenager who has been given a snack of red berries, a torch and told to go and play in the back of the cave on a rainy day. Getting bored he/she chews up the berries, blows them out on their hand, and then lets the dye dry along with their drawings and scratchings. Several millennium later, archaeologists discover these pictographs and declare them religious items of unknown purpose.

originally posted by: Gravelbone
a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Perhaps because fertility was worshipped, and the best way to symbolize that would be...?

Perversion notwithstanding, I'll go with that they had a higher purpose in mind other than some Bronze(?) Age pron (sic). IMO.

Personally I'm a huge fan of the concept of 'the mother' as a social
bonding mechanism, that preceded the highly destructive patriarchal
wave, that is still destroying our world to this day.

But I'm not sufficiently educated on this topic, as there is real knowledge
to be had with anthropology, etc.

My loud mouth I use in other nebulous topics (ufo's etc) does not buy
me a ticket in this sort of conversation, so I try to be respectful
with these types of discussions, and ask, not tell anything.

But it's still one of my favorite personal topics.. I just don't have the
time to ramp up on it sufficiently.

Kev

I was just having an argument with a friend who's been out of grad school for a decade about the age of civilization being pushed much further back since we found Gobekli Tepi (9000 b.c.) ... his knowledge stopped at Catuyl Huyuk (7500 b.c.).

The ceramics from 6,000 b.c. is certainly interesting, but the monoliths at Gobekli Tepi indicate that humans had been "humaning" in a civilized fashion a few millennia longer than once thought. The Sumerians are less "from out of nowhere" than they were. It only makes sense that writing and domesticated crops and livestock took some time.

I wouldn't be very surprised if the ideas about a high level of civilization being obliterated by the Younger Dryas event weren't correct. I don't mean 19th century ideas about Atlantis or that they were taking the expressway to the burbs, but some intercontinental contact with developed sea routes, organized warfare and such.

There's a whole lot of untouched history in the jungles of South America, too. The reported miles of long overgrown grid roads and irrigation ditches in the jungle along the coast of Guyana, where pottery shards on the surface were dated at 6-8000 b.c. but is otherwise completely unexplored/unknown, come to mind. (eta: not to mention the "anomalous" traces of basic stone age hunting/fire that are found in the Americas with ages ranging as far back as 75,000 in some cases)

Time will, literally, tell.

a reply to: Baddogma

This should interest you.

originally posted by: Baddogma
I was just having an argument with a friend who's been out of grad school for a decade about the age of civilization being pushed much further back since we found Gobekli Tepi (9000 b.c.) ... his knowledge stopped at Catuyl Huyuk (7500 b.c.).

The ceramics from 6,000 b.c. is certainly interesting, but the monoliths at Gobekli Tepi indicate that humans had been "humaning" in a civilized fashion a few millennia longer than once thought. The Sumerians are less "from out of nowhere" than they were. It only makes sense that writing and domesticated crops and livestock took some time.

I wouldn't be very surprised if the ideas about a high level of civilization being obliterated by the Younger Dryas event weren't correct. I don't mean 19th century ideas about Atlantis or that they were taking the expressway to the burbs, but some intercontinental contact with developed sea routes, organized warfare and such.

There's a whole lot of untouched history in the jungles of South America, too. The reported miles of long overgrown grid roads and irrigation ditches in the jungle along the coast of Guyana, where pottery shards on the surface were dated at 6-8000 b.c. but is otherwise completely unexplored/unknown, come to mind. (eta: not to mention the "anomalous" traces of basic stone age hunting/fire that are found in the Americas with ages ranging as far back as 75,000 in some cases)

Time will, literally, tell.

Trust me, I am a long time follower of Gobekli Tepe.
To a large degree, these little finds scattered all over the timeline continue to build a huge photoalbum of puzzle pieces.

There was a documentary that suggests evidence of aboriginals arriving in South America over 35,000 years ago. It offers an explanation for the ruins in the Amazon and some of the misplaced genomes of many people.

Everything ancient makes my mind hum.

a reply to: LedermanStudio

Do you have some sort of belief system dealing with all this,
or is the raw mystery of not fully knowing our origins that
has you fascinated?

originally posted by: tinymind
a reply to: LedermanStudio

These things must have been made about day 16 or so. There are a lot of folks who will tell you the earth is only about 6000 years old. So at the time these were made they still counted time in days, not years.

Providing the dating techniques are right
Want to discuss dating economies

Those dating techniques are not science