ABSTRACT
In the late 1960s Colin Renfrew and Marija Gimbutas directed excavations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement tell at Sitagroi near Drama in eastern Macedonia (Renfrew et al. 1986). Almost 250 figurines typical for the region were recovered from the site’s Neolithic phases (Sitagroi I-III) (Gimbutas 1986a, 1986b). One fragment from Phase III (4600-3500 BC) is particularly evocative (fig. 6.1): a poorly preserved head only 5.2 cm from chin to forehead and 3.7 cm from one cheek to the other. Both sides of the face are damaged and the upper right portion of the forehead is missing; the neck is broken under the chin and the rest of the figurine is long lost.1 The fragment was not found in any clear architectural structure or other special context (Renfrew 1986: 212). Gimbutas does not discuss the figurine in detail other than to suggest that it is probably a human (and not a divine) head (Gimbutas 1986b: 298). It is the black-painted decoration of the figurine face and head that is so striking. Eight parallel lines run from the bottom of the forehead, up and over the top of the head and straight down to the back of the neck (and perhaps further down the back – the fragmentation interrupts the lines), and probably represent hair. The eyes, made from the application of oval clay pellets and horizontal slits, bulge out from below eyebrows; above and below the slit of each eye is a painted line of triangles that represent exaggerated eyelashes. The mouth also bulges out though it has no painted details. Running from each side of the nose and mouth towards the side of the face and along the jaw-line are other painted lines. Two lines run down from the mouth over the chin and onto the neck. Other lines are on the neck, though the break of the neck from the body cuts them off just below the chin. Gimbutas comments on the protruding ‘high cheek-bones’, and that the figurine is a naturalistically rendered face of a woman (Gimbutas 1986a: 239). It is a highly decorated face, painted and modelled in order to create a particular appearance. Gimbutas recognizes eyelashes as female; in the cheek-bones and thick lips Gimbutas sees a shape that ‘does not reflect a Mediterranean type’, that is specific to another type of people, from another place, that even may be a mask (Gimbutas 1986a: 239). I am struck by the attention to painting the face, to marking the head, the eyes, the cheeks, the chin and the neck with decoration.
