Before you go running off to New York, remember this exhibit was in 2010...sorry about that. I just thought it was worth commemorating here, as written.
Observations on The Lost World of Old Europe Exhibition
by Lydia Ruyle, Artist, Author, Scholar
One of the highlights of a holiday trip to New York City in 2009 was a visit to The Lost World of Old Europe, The Danube Valley, 5000-3500 BCE exhibition at New York University. We arrived just after a huge snowstorm had blanketed the east coast. The city streets were piled with snow and ice and we were bundled up from head to toe to deal with the cold.
A large banner with a Goddess image on it stood at the entrance to the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World building a block east of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on 84th. Walking inside, we deposited our gear in a closet and walked into the surprisingly small exhibition space. Visually the entire exhibition is a celebration of the feminine.
A case with a vessel, a large map of Old Europe, and an introduction to the exhibition are on the wall in the foyer. The introduction states:
“In 4500 BCE, before the invention of writing and before the first cities of Mesopotamia and Egypt were established, Old Europe was among the most sophisticated and technologically advanced regions in the world. The phrase “Old Europe” refers to a cycle of related cultures that thrived in southeastern Europe during the fifth and fourth millennia BC. The heart of Old Europe was centered in the Danube River’s fertile valleys, where agriculturally rich plains were exploited by Neolithic farmers who founded long lasting settlements—some of which grew to substantial size, with populations reaching upward of 10,000 people. Today, the intriguing and enigmatic remains of these highly developed cultures can be found at sites that extend from modern day Serbia to Ukraine. The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000-3000 BC presents extraordinary finds from the three countries with the richest Old European archaeological heritage—Bulgaria, the Republic of Moldova, and Romania.
While Old Europe can be defined geographically with relative simplicity, the identification of cultural groups who lived there is more complicated. Since these cultures did not leave behind any written sources, the material remains from excavated settlements are the only tools that scholars can use to reveal both localized and common customs. Archaeological exploitation began throughout the region at the end of the nineteenth century but systematic excavations did not commence until the 1930s. During these formative years, when a common Old European culture had not yet been identified, archaeologists began classifying individual cultural groups based upon the site where each was first recognized. Hence, the Cucuteni culture is named after the modern Romanian village of Cucuteni, where the first remains from this culture were excavated. The same is true for the lower Danube site of Gumelnita and Hamangia, and Varna in Bulgaria, all highlighted in this exhibition.
Modern observers have projected quite different visions on the remains of Old Europe. But this much is clear—far earlier than is generally recognized, southeastern Europe achieved a level of technological skill, artistic creativity, and social sophistication that defies our standard categories and is just beginning to be understood in a systematic way. New studies of old collections, future excavation projects, and exhibitions such as this one hold out hope for a clearer understanding of Old Europe, the first proto civilization of Europe itself.”
There are two rooms for the exhibition which you can see from the foyer through tall glass doors. One is filled with exquisite ceramics, large and small, small gold objects and items made from spondylous shells which were traded across the Danube area. A raised rectangle platform displays the ceramics at waist level making it very easy to see the details. The size of some of the vessels is astonishing, some two to three feet in diameter. The patterns and details on the full rounded vessels are stunning. The artistic ability and skill to create the vessels, decorate them with symbols and the technology to fire them in kilns are most impressive.
A figure seated in a vessel decorated with symbols connects a female figure with vessel as a shrine. There are also several large clay figures of females, approximately twelve to fifteen inches high which are hollow, in cases along the wall.
I’ve found only by actually seeing and experiencing objects can you appreciate their scale and detail. I use what I call my artistic sight, trained now for over fifty years, to see, feel and touch the gorgeous, sophisticated objects. The ceramics symbolize to me the abundance of creation and creativity in female forms.
The second room, which you enter by parting two tall glass doors, felt like entering a shrine or sacred space. At the center of the room across from the doors is a case with the Thinking Man and Thinking Woman in it. The Thinking Man has breasts and I think is a female. Douglas Anthony, one of the exhibition curators, stated in a radio interview that The Thinking Man could be a woman. Hooray Women can think Amazing
In the middle of the room are two cylinders lighted from within displaying groups of clay figurines, one titled a Council of Goddesses. One cylinder has the figures arranged in a circle, the other has the figures in a vessel. The figures are small, the largest perhaps eight inches, and half of them are seated on seats or thrones.
The text labels on the circle of figures states:
“This group of twenty-one figurines (thirteen large and eight small) was found together with fragments from two large ceramic vessels, one meant to contain them and the other functioning as a lid. The figurines and the fragments were placed adjacent to a hearth inside a large building, interpreted as a sanctuary, which from archaeological remains appears to have been intentionally destroyed by fire.
Originally wrapped in straw to protect them, the figurines can be identified as female by their clearly marked anatomy. All have schematically rendered bodies with abbreviated heads and arms, and exaggerated hips. The thirteen larger statuettes are set apart from the eight smaller ones by their painted decoration and the individualized chairs that accompany them. Two of the figurines could possibly be identified as senior by the fact that they sit on horn-backed thrones, a type of seating that in later cultures held ritual or religious significance. The intentional placements of these figurines next to a hearth, the emphasis on female anatomical details, and the hierarchy among the statuettes have prompted some scholars to identify the group as a “Council of Goddesses.” The lack of specific information concerning a Cucuteni or Old European pantheon, however, prevents a specific identification of this intriguing collection.”
The second lighted cylinder features figures seated around a central opening in a shrine like vessel again connecting figures with vessel suggesting female ritual in a defined ritual space.
There are cases around the room with more figures in them. An explanation text on the wall in the second room states:
“Old European Figurines: Materials, Composition and Technique
Anthropomorphic figurines were fashioned by Neolithic cultures from Anatolia to Thessaly, from Egypt to the Levant, and from Mesopotamia to Southeast Asia. Made in a wide array of materials—stone, metal, fired clay, ivory, shell, and bone—they are found in domestic and funerary contexts and probably played a central role in the social and ritual life of the communities producing them.
Among Old European cultural groups, figurines were predominantly modeled in clay. Bodies were usually composed of two modeled pieces that were pressed together and then covered with an additional layer of clay. For larger figurines, a two-piece mold may have been used. The body of each figurine was then decorated. Pierced holes, incision work, and painted motifs were frequently used to enliven the surface. After firing, small attachments, often in copper, were inserted in the holes as ornaments.
Each cultural group living in the Danube Valley developed a unique tradition for the depiction of the human body, favoring specific shapes, forms, and decoration. For example, the Cucuteni culture created highly stylized bodies with abbreviated heads and arms, and decorated them with extraordinarily precise incision work and painted motifs to create complex series of signs and symbols. In contrast, the Hamangia culture preferred more accurate representations or figures that combined realistic bodies and unrealistic “pillar” heads, while generally avoiding painted decoration.
An element common to all figures is their miniaturization. The small size, resulting from compression and abstraction of the human body, must have been fundamental in defining the function and meaning of these objects. It has been suggested that they were used in initiation rites, to prompt narratives or as magical depictions of deities. Regardless of the various interpretations, it is certain that the size allowed a person to interact with these tiny bodies, moving and arranging them with respect to surrounding space and to one another, thus creating a highly individualized relationship between each user and the figurines.
The female figure was of great symbolic significance during the Neolithic period, as attested by a proliferation of figurines in a variety of materials, here including stone, lime plaster, and clay. Although we cannot be certain whether these figures represent humans or deities, some scholars have identified them as representations of a Mother Goddess, possibly linked to the importance of fertile land in agricultural societies.”
(underlined emphasis mine)
The majority of the figures are small and female in form. Usage of the term figurines rather than figures suggests to me a subtle method of diminishing their significance as sacred objects. Their size could be a function of the physical properties of clay itself as larger figures must be hollow in order to keep clay from exploding at high firing temperatures.
The texts for the objects and explanations attempt to reflect a “scientific” left brained approach to the material. I included the mounted texts from the exhibition in this review in order to give a framework for what the exhibition organizers present. Like any selection process, the objects chosen and the texts are the choices of the organizers. I do not interpret them as negative just limited as to the concept of a Goddess. For me, the missing element is the artistic spiritual insight of the material which celebrates the fecundity and abundance of life in the female form as a Great Goddess. I agree with Starhawk that “Goddess is a metaphor for the great force of creativity and compassion that underlies existence”. From my experience, western archaeology avoids the term. Eastern European archaeology uses the term Goddess with respect and reverence.
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The perfect artist/scholar to review this exhibit, find out more about Lydia Ruyle.....
Getting inside her head:
"Seeking with my mind and body, knowing with my inner being, life gives me wake-up calls. Art and the Ancient Mothers call me on a journey. Art is my soul language. I create because I must. After exploring many media, I began to make icons, sacred images of the divine feminine, to tell herstory and share my art with the world."
--- Lydia Ruyle
To see Lydia's incredible banners, true Ambassadors of Goddess, that have traveled around the globe for years raising awareness of the Feminine, go to www.lydiaruyle.com
The Goddess figure featured on a banner outside the exhibition and on the front page story in The New York Times about the exhibition opening is similar to Cucetani Venus, a Goddess Icon Banner Lydia created in 2006 for an Archaeomythology Conference at the Brukenthal Museum in Sibiui, Romania.
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Source: http://www.examiner.com/article/goddess-of-old-europe-debuts-new-york-exhibit-at-new-york-university
Please note, by checking for info on Lydia Ruyle, I only was able to get a link that worked to her art, which is very interesting! http://www.lydiaruyle.com/artpage1.html
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