The "7000-year-old mystery" was shown to the general public for the first time. That rare case when only one artifact, presented at the temporary exhibition, received a separate note from Reuters.
This is about unusual figurine of the Neolithic era, nicknamed the "7000-year-old mystery": scientists do not know what it is, who made it, where and why.
The 36 cm high granite figurine is presented surrounded by more typical examples of Neolithic sculpture: small figurines made of clay and soft stone. Photo: Alkis Konstantinidis / REUTERS
A figurine with a "bird" face is exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens as part of a temporary project with the self-explanatory name "The Invisible Museum" - it is a hint at the museum storage rooms invisible to the general public, which contain almost 200 thousand ancient artifacts, from statues and household utensils to gold decorations.
The small figurine, recovered from the storerooms and set in a brightly lit display case, lacks the grandeur of the marble and bronze statues of Classical Greece. In the general exposition, it might not have attracted much attention from visitors. But, as museum archaeologist Katya Manteli aptly put it, "the mystery surrounding this figurine gives it a special charm."
There are really many mysteries. To begin with, the place of origin of the ancient statuette is unknown: it came to the museum from a private collection, but no one knows where it was found. Scientists suggest that the figurine was made in the north of modern Greece, in the historical regions of Thessaly or Macedonia.
When? Everything suggests that the figurine belongs to the late Neolithic era, the dating range is from 4500 to 3300 BC. But, unlike the overwhelming majority of sculptural works of that era, the figurine with a "bird" face was carved from stone, and not from a soft pliable rock like limestone, but from hard granite. How - it is not clear: there were no metal tools suitable for processing hard rocks in the Neolithic era.
The size of the figure is also unusual: 36 cm in height. Neolithic craftsmen, if they created stone figurines, were limited to small sizes - only 5% of the known Neolithic stone figurines exceed a height of 35 cm, and all of them are made of soft rocks.
For example, the world famous Neolithic "grandmother" from Chatal Huyuk, found last year, made from a local variety of marble, weighs a kilogram, but its "height" is limited to 17 centimeters. In addition, the Turkish "grandmother" has undeniably recognizable forms, which cannot be said about the Greek artifact.
“Perhaps this is a human-like figurine with a bird's face, or vice versa - this is a bird-like creature that is not associated with human appearance, but is the embodiment of the beliefs and symbols of the Neolithic society,” says archaeologist Katya Manteli.
The face of the granite figurine is really very birdlike- a sharp nose-beak, large hollows of the eyes, a long neck … A small, very “birdlike” tilt of the head is noticeable, as if a statuette is pensively looking up at the viewer.
The graceful top blends into a massive, elephant-like bottom. The long neck flows into a rounded tummy, but the figure's back is unnaturally flat and straight. Legs like sausages are sharply "chopped off" - perhaps so that the figurine could stand upright.
Granite figurine from different angles. Photo: National Archaeological Museum of Greece / namuseum.gr
No less strange is the complete absence of allusions to the sex of the mysterious creature. Is this due to the "technical" difficulties of working with hard stone, or was this the original intention of the sculptor? On the one hand, the figurine was polished - this is done only with finished pieces.
However, on the surface of the figurine, there are unpolished areas where the original color of the stone is visible - it is curious that these areas coincide with… let's call it the intimate areas of the human body. Perhaps the craftsman lacked the skill or the right tools to give the figurine a more definite - masculine or feminine - appearance?
“A rounded tummy may hint at a pregnant woman, but the figure doesn't even have a hint of a breast. And in the Neolithic era, the image of the breast clearly and unequivocally indicated the female identification of the artifact. But this figurine also lacks typical male characteristics. Surprisingly, she is completely sexless,”says Manteli.
All these oddities, according to Manteli, make the funny granite figurine one of the rarest artifacts of the Neolithic era.
After March 26, the mysterious statuette will return to the vaults of the National Archaeological Museum of Greece inaccessible to ordinary people.
