Neolithic Double-faced pot with "M" -shaped line framing the face from Budapest, Békásmegyer

Morphology of the object:

The reconstructed flask-shaped vessel shows a strongly stylized human shape. Two identically executed human faces can be seen on the opposite sides of the funnel-shaped neck. Four knob ornaments, interpreted as stylised hands, sit on the shoulder of the vessels, adjusted to the faces.

The triangular faces located on the lower part of the neck were framed with lines depressed in an “M” shape starting from the knob ornaments on the shoulder. The nose and the eyebrows, depicted with a continuous line, were marked with a plastic ornament, while the eyes and the mouth were indicated with incised lines.

-

Face-pots appear in Transdanubia in the younger phases of the TLP. The especially characteristic “M”-shaped incised motive that frames the face was depicted in a similar manner from the southern part of the Carpathian Basin to Central and Western Germany. Only the above described item from Békásmegyer and a vessel from Biatorbágy could completely be reconstructed from the flask-shaped vessels of the TLP. They were evidently two-faced items. The two-faced vessels uncovered at Vinča and in the Bucovaţ group in the Banat attest to the southern contacts of the vessel. The closest analogues of the face-pots of the younger TLP can be found in the Szakálhát culture of the Great Hungarian Plain. The morphological similarities together with the M-shaped incised pattern proved the mutual contacts that appeared in the field of spiritual life as well. The contact zone of the two cultural complexes was around Budapest, which can be supposed from the especially large number of face-pots in the younger sites of the TLP in this region.

Face-pots could be the paraphernalia of the cult life linked with the assurance of fertility. Regarding the interpretation of the “M”-shaped incised line, which appears as a part of the face and which was prepared in an identical manner in a very wide sphere, various suggestions have been made. In certain ideas the sign represents a highly stylistic human shape, which being thus doubled, emphasises the significance of the anthropomorphic feature that is more-or-less expressed in the shape of the vessel. In other theories, the “M”-shaped line framing the face was simply meant to stress the face and the neck.

Kalicz, Nándor-Makkay, János: Gefässe mit Gesichtsdarstellungen der Linienbandkeramik in Ungarn. In: Idole. Prähistorische Keramiken aus Ungarn. Veröff. Naturhist. Mus. Wien 7, 1972. 9-15. Kalicz, Nándor: Figürliche Kunst und bemalte Keramik aus dem Neolithikum Westungarns. Budapest, 1998; Raczky, Pál – Anders, Alexandra: The internal relations of the Alföld Linear Pottery culture in Hungary and the characteristics of human representation. In: Jerem, E. – Raczky, P. (Hrsg.) Morgenrot der Kulturen. Frühe Etappen der Menscengeschichte in Mittel- und Südosteuropa. (Festschrift für Nándor Kalicz zum 75. Geburtstag) Budapest, 2003. 155-183; M. Virág, Zsuzsanna: Anthropomorphic Vessels of Transdanubian Linear Pottery Culture. In: St. Hiller-V. Nikolov (Hrsg.), Karanovo Band III. Beitrage zum Neolithikum in Südosteuropa. Wien, 2000. 389-405.