A Cucuteni-Trypillian Binocular Vessel

Clifford C. Richey October 2012

Illustration 1: Credit: The Museum of Russian Art, tmora.org

Illustration 2: Total Form: Her Body, The Great Earthen Vessel

The Total Form of this vessel is rather ambiguous. It may represent a rather crude depiction of a Body with truncated arms and legs , a Midsection, and a Neck or Throat. We have seen, in previous papers, that the body of a vessel represented the Body of earth-female the earth itself. There are multiple references, painted on this vessel, to the earth through the use of Triangular earth-female signs that were based on the Form of the human female genital area. In order to better understand how this vessel composition was organized based on what is presently called Native American Sign Language please read: http://www.scribd.com/doc/85335148/Native-American-Written-Sign-Language and A Cucuteni-Trypillian Composition: A Comparison, The Comparison paper will assist the reader in understanding the use of Severed Finger Form and Imagery in the dual chambered vessel discussed in this paper. Many textbooks credit the Native Americans with the creation or invention of a gesture sign language that was used for communication and trade purposes between a variety of Native American cultures who spoke a variety of different languages. But because the gestures signs are found in a written

form depicted on a variety of materials such as wood, rock, fabric, and ceramics it would seem that these signs are very ancient and may have accompanied the various migrations from Asia to the Americas. While individual signs made by different cultures may have very different meanings to the cultures that use them such differences may be lessened if one finds that the system by which they were organized was based upon the same principles. When the signs are found within such a system their meaning is more contingent upon their context than they would be as individual isolated signs. It could hardly be considered a historical accident that these same signs are found in the Americas, Europe, Africa, and within the same rather complicated compositional system.

Illustration 3: Two Chalices or Vessel Forms Joined Together

At the Imagery level the vessel appears to have bee composed by joining two goblets or chalice shaped vessels together. These vessels, surprisingly, have no bottoms so were unable to contain any liquid for utilitarian purposes. They are, essentially, what they are described as being by the signs, as two holes. Viewing the vessel from above would show the hole signs as forming the Mouths of the dual chambers. Below are the gesture and written signs for, holes. The two holes are shown as connected to each other through the ceramic tubes that join them.

Illustration 4: Drawn Signs for Holes

The signs1 for holes have darkened centers to indicate an indentation or depth. A light center Circle would indicate the opposite such as a high point or a hill. Such signs are topographical and a number of Circles can be compounded to indicate levels of height or depth.

Illustration 5: Imagery: A Face

1 http://www.manataka.org/page312.html#E All illustrations for the signs in this paper are from the above or from Tomkins, William, Indian Sign Language, Dover Publications, Inc. New York, 1969.

The two chalices, goblets, or containers were positioned on the Left or east and on the Right, west. In gesture signing the left hand represents the east while the right hand represents the west. Together they Form a Face (his/her appearance) as the central space was made in the Form of a Nose (tan) alluding to the Nostrils or dual holes. The lower space was made in the Form of a Mouth (pink). The upper Eyes (blue) are held as in a bowl signified by the (dark black) Curved Lines below them. This idea is further enhanced by the bowl shaped Mouths of the chalices. The Mouths (a Mouth, any Mouth indicates, a water source or water hole) of the chalices are in the Form of the signs for holes that would have been based on the gesture sign (see above) and drawn as a Circle with Dark Circle in its center. The Eyes are positioned over the area of the Face where the eyes would normally be. The Form of the Eyes are in the shape of the sign for underside or underworld. The Eye(s) in the underworld . Next we come to the Form of the Space used to define the shape of a Mouth (again with the same meaning as the Mouth of a vessel). Near the top of the vessel we see the two (blue) Eyes of the Face. There is one Eye positioned on the Left (east) and one on the Right (west). This positioning leads us to think that the Eye refers to the same Eye of the Sun found in Native American compositions. In other words Venus as this is the only star that arises and descends in both the east and west.

Illustration 7: Star Form

Illustration 6: All Major Signs Color Coded

Beneath the Nose we see a possible sign for a star (black Form) that is half above and half below the Straight Line (green) that indicated a surface (i. e. partly above and partly below the land's surface). The Star Form does not appear completely blackened which may be the result of wear over the ages. However, the lower curved Form for the star sign (red outline) is part of the molding of the vessel that Forms the Notch (pink) in the upper Lip (edge) of the Mouth. The Eye Form (yellow) is within the center of the star sign. The black around the (yellow) Eye form indicates, surrounded by darkness. The Star sign was also placed at the Notch of the upper Lip and was based on the V shaped sign (pink) for an opening. The dual (eastern and western) holes (Nasal orifices) are marked by two Severed Fingers (brown) pointing to their position (that alludes to the underlying Nostrils). Alongside these Fingers are two further (tan) Severed Fingers The one on the Left pointing downward and the one on the Right pointing upward. The star, the Eye of the Sun -Venus, that descends into the water-hole in the east and arises from a water-hole in the west. The opening in the water source (i. e. the Mouth)

Illustration 9: The House

Illustration 8: Color Coding Continued

The Cheeks of the Face bear a compound sign that looks to be in the shape of the German Iron Cross with a Horizontal Rectangle in its center. The Rectangle also has a series of Horizontal Lines within it. The Arms of the Cross are Triangles indicating the earth-female and pointing towards the center. The Rectangle is a horizontal-place sign and the Series of lines indicate a flow or flowing. The meaning is something like, Within the center of the earth, a place of flowing (usually referring to water). The placement (position) of this sign on the Cheeks of the Face was probably not accidental. There is a bulge in the Chalice that may refer to the bulging cheeks (buccal pouches) that would relate to storage or the carrying of something (similar to a squirrel storing nuts in its cheek pouches in order to carry them). Thus the star-spirit is being carried or stored in the flowing water. It was the flowing waters that

connected the two holes in the earth. There are (yellow) Four (the number 4 as shorthand for, all directions or everywhere) Eyes placed within this almost Square (house). The Curved Severed Finger to its left of this house sign also results in a curve in the sign. As a compound this would indicate, the house of the arising. The (yellow) Eyes Form an X (exchange or in the context of cosmology, a transformation sign). These signs would mean, the house of arising, the transformation within. The place of the flowing water. The base of the dual vessels are the opposite of the upper area. The Eyes (gray) are covered (sign Form) by Severed Fingers (tan) pointing a direction here, below and positionally on the side of the (red) Triangle indicating, the earth-female. It can also be seen that the bowls of the vessels are open and facing upwards in opposition to the bowls that form the base of the vessels. The chambers of these vessels are bridged by connections between them indicating the pathways of the waters of the underworld. The shape of the vessel's chambers may tell us where the inspiration for our present day chalices was derived. The Face of the vessel probably represents the Face of the earth (Her appearance). We note the three black Bars beneath the Lips of the Mouth. There us some, albeit rather slim, evidence that such lines were tattooed on the chins of women2 at the time of their their first menstruation. This is mentioned here because the Lines were positioned on the Chin just below the lips of the Face embedded into this vessel. It is possible that there was some ancient metaphorical connection that was made with the earthfemale and young women and their menses --springtime or the wet season metaphorically representing the flowing waters (menses) of the earth-female. But there were many different tattoos made on women's chins by a variety of cultures and not all of them were related to menstruation. Different designs could reflect various tribes, the woman's rank or status, etc.

Illustration 10: Olive Oatman

Illustration 11: Innuit

2 Olive Oatman, of European ethnicity, was captured as a child by a tribe in Arizona in the 1850s. She was given the chin tattoo as part of the tribe's puberty rites. http://tess45.hubpages.com/hub/OliveOatman-More-than-the-girl-with-the-chin-tattoo http://www.vanishingtattoo.com/arctic_tattoos.htm: There seems to have been no widely distributed
tattoo design among Eskimo women, although chin stripes (tamlughun) were more commonly found than any other. Chin stripes served multiple purposes in social contexts. Most notably, they were tattooed on the chin as part of the ritual of social maturity, a signal to men that a woman had reached puberty.

This composition is different from the others that have been discussed in previous papers in that there is no mention of male-spirits. This leads one to wonder whether the Eye or Venus as referred to in this vessel was considered the Eye of the Earth female as opposed to the Eye of the Sun, in the role of the warrior-star. This vessel seems completely feminine in nature. But it may be that Venus was used by the females in the culture to announce the earth-female's menstrual flow (the beginning of the wet season) and the resultant appearance of Flowers. Looking back at the (yellow) X shaped sign it does not take too much imagination to view it as the Form of a Flower. It will take much more work with Cucuteni-Trypillian ceramics in order to determine whether there was indeed a more female oriented cosmology than some of the other neolithic cultures that may have put more emphasis on the role of the warrior.