Statuettes of Vinca culture with heads made apart

Abstract

As yet, in the figure plastic art of Vinca there are known two sta[1]tuettes with conic hollows for heads made apart to be put in. One of them belongs to the older epoch of Vinca culture (it was found in a depth of 7.8 meters), the other belongs to later periods. As the second statuette was found quite accidentally its stratigraphic depth is not known. Statuettes with heads made apart are known from elsewhere, too, e. g. from Rumania (Gumelnita) and from Thessaly. Thessalic heads are of different material, stone. Garašanin used the later Vinca statuette with a hollow for comparing with the examples of Thessaly, and basing upon this he gives a chrono­logical conclusion (Arheološki vestnik, Ljubljana 1951, 251). Though his conclusion may be very ingenious, such a way of concluding must not be accepted, it is incompatible with the older Vinca statuette. Besides, these statuettes, in this place, must be considered as an isolated fact which cannot and must not be connected with facts in another, far distant country. With the exception of hollows they do not show anything of common with those of Thessaly. The Vinca statuettes of this kind, which have nothing of common with the Thessalic statuettes, may be interpreted in a simple way. The plastic figures of the lower Vinca strata — to which one of the two statuettes with hollow is belonging, too — had been frequently worked out in single parts which later on were cemented together, e. g. legs, trunks etc. Such examples are very fragile in joints where they had been stuck together. Fractures prove that the composing parts had been stuck together in a very bad state, among the rest many of them had been stuck together when already dried up. Such is the case with the two statuettes or their heads respectively. It is most probable that the heads fell off later on, and perhaps the statuettes came into the kiln when they had been already handled for some time. It cannot be excluded the head fell off in the kiln. There is no proof that the head and the statuette might have been burnt apart, likewise there is no proof that the head might have been made of another material and then put into the hollow. Therefore, these Vinča statuettes with hollows only show a detail of technical skill, but no parti[1]cularity of style which could be used for chronological problems or pro[1]blems of development