A Cucuteni Figure and Dual Vessel

Spread over an impressive area of more than 350 000 km 2 (Ellis 1984.12-14; Monah 1992.392) and lasting more than a millennium (Mantu 1998.187, Fig. 51), the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture is part of the last great Eneolithic/Chalcolithic complexes in central and southeastern Europe.

In the course of time the ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic Writing was substantially trans for­ med, as is the case for every other scripture, due to various socio–cultural and linguistic reasons. Even tually new signs came into use or were devised, based on more ancient archetypes, whose very con ception was an outcome of the imme­ diate ambience of the Egyptians. Some of them fea ture a clear cosmovisional meaning and their symbo lism is related to either astro nomical or cos­ mo graphic notions. As each hieroglyph (phono­ grams, but mainly semo­ grams and taxo­ grams) was the carrier of some appropriate semantics, similar was also the ca se for these 'cos mo vi sio­ nal' hieroglyphs. In this article an attempt is made to study their evolution and signifi cance, starting from a certain group of signs (namely C199­C204, C296­C297 & C314) (cf. Gri­ mal et­ al., 1 1993: 1C­6; Grimal et­ al., 2 2000: 1C­4, 1C­5, 2C­8). The example of these hiero­ glyphs [especially of that depicting Nūt with a scarab (xprr), perso ni fication of the newly born morning Sun, and/or a divine baby/youth (Hwn nTry) between her and the earth, car rying also a certain solar sym bo lism (cf. BM 552, VIII, pl. xxvii)], are examined and their astro no mical and cosmo gra phic se mantics are studied. Although these were signs mainly used at a later period, they do incorporate several notions that date since many centuries earlier. Some remarks on their aesthe tic appearance and their sub se quent calli graphic function are also gi ven. We con clude that these signs, their form and their meaning being always deeply interlaced, present us with vivid paradigms of how im por tant astro no mi cal and cos mo vi sional no tions (that are also discussed here) can be com mu nicated through the vehicle of rebus and sym bolic writing, although in a pre– scientific level.

Journal of Archaeomythology 7: 204-218, 2011

This paper presents an alternative (depicted sign language) translation for a Mayan Face Glyph that is presently considered meaning, “Meh” or zero. The use of the depicted signing system leads to a more extensive message than found in the Maya Teacher’s Directory. The Nazca Cat Demon vessel Imagery was used to quickly explain the basis for the ancient water cycle based cosmology. In the process it was forgotten that the Maya had their own name for Venus, Xux Ek, the Wasp Star. This oversight has been corrected.

Times is Power. Who Makes time?, 2021

S. Valentini, G. Guarducci, and N. Laneri (eds.), Archaeology of Symbols: ICAS I. Proceedings of the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (MaReA vol 3), Oxford: Oxbow, 2024

This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasises the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology. Symbols must not be conceived only as allegory but also, and perhaps mainly, as reason (raison d'être) and meaning (culture). They may be considered key elements leading to interpretation, not only in their physical manifestation but by being infused with the gestures, beliefs and intentions of their creators, created in a specifi c context and with a specifi c chaîne opératoire. In this volume a variety of case studies is offered, representing disparate ancient cultures in the Mediterranean and central Europe and the Near East. The thread that connects them revolves around the prominence of symbols and allegorical aspects in archaeology, whether they are considered as expressions of iconographic evidence, material culture or ritual ceremonies, seen from a multicultural perspective. This (and subsequent ICAS) volumes, therefore, aims to embrace all the different aspects pertaining to symbols in archaeology in a specific 'place', allowing the reader to deepen their knowledge of such a fascinating and multifaceted topic, by looking at it from a multicultural perspective.

10-13-2024 This is an update to include Sylvanus Morely’s classifications found in the Maya language. It was, inadvertently left out of this paper. However it can be found in the Gobekli Tepe: The Navel, The Center of the Earth paper written in February 2018. These classifications are important for understanding their relationship to depicted signing. These classifiers are also found in Navajo and Apache, and may also be found in other ancient languages.

The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution

This chapter explores the symbolic and conceptual relations between prehistoric groups and the sky. The study of how people engage with the sky is known as cultural astronomy, a term that comprises any field concerned with sky and culture, including archaeoastronomy. The latter focuses on analyzing the archaeological record for evidence of past skyscapes, i.e., past forms of engagement with the celestial objects, and how they would feature in the world views of the societies under study. The chapter discusses six case studies from the Western part of the Iberian Peninsula that are representative of prehistoric contexts found in other parts of the world. They illustrate how prehistoric skyscapes provided not only spatial axes for the construction of structures that align to celestial objects and events but, more importantly, how such alignments served as temporal anchors moored to key environmental, social, and symbolic moments of transition.

PECULIAR W-LIKE SIGNS AT TELL ES-SAWWAN