Pages: 131-139

This article deals with the grille-like images appeared in Europe during the Neolithic-Bronze Age mostly in megalithic art. Their interpretation is based on the comparison with similar images found in Mesopotamian art of the 4th millennium BC. There the composition consisted of a grille-shaped construction, a young animal emerging from it, and a pair of adult ones in front of them was widespread at that time. The whole of it bears the distinct mythological meaning — delivery of the newborn by the reed byre/stall, the latter functioning as the temple with reproductive ability of a womb. Such scenes are now discovered in art of Old Europe too. The other grille-like figures, taken into account, are not accompanied by the images of animals, however, some of them show bucrania emerging from them. To add, a number of “grilles” are demonstrated on torso of the female sculptures or together with female images/attributes. The author proves that the grille-like figures are functionally identical to “the bucklers” in megalithic art of Brittany. The scutiforms on the deer stones of Central Asia, despite the territorial distance from the European monuments and chronological gap between them, display the full structural similarity with the grille-like figures in Europe, up to details and context. It is very likely that numerous representations of deers depicted near them point to the identical function of these images, that is, the reproduction of progeny.

Keywords: European neolithic, megalithic art, Mesopotamian temples, female deity, scutiforms, fertility cult

Information about author:

Aleksandr Smirnov (Saint Petersburg, Russia). Candidate of Historical Sciences
E-mail: [email protected]