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KIBELA'S TEMPLE
Shown here are the ruins of Kibela's temple lying north of the mysterious tombs.
The age of the temple is some twenty five hundred years. It is not a solid age though, for the near-by stone settlement is good eight thousand years old.
The ancient temple site is located in Dobroudja and is the oldest one in continental Europe.
The original name of the prehistoric settlement (which must have existed from 5400 to 4100 B.C.) is unknown. I feel free, therefore, to call it Lake Town. We are going to make a tour around the place following our guide - Todor Dimov - the person in charge of the research work at the archeological site.
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GROUND GAINED BY WEEDS
The ancient settlement site lies on an island in the freshwater Lake of Durankulak (Durankulashko ezero).
Over the millennia, the Lake was at times connected, at times disconnected from the Black Sea. It was separated from sea waters by a narrow strip of sandy land - one of the longest unexploited Bulgarian beaches - a fact explained with the cold sea current flowing past the shore. The beach stretch ends in Romania.
Today only random rows of stone piles have remained of Lake Town (5400--4100 B.C.). No more. During its construction, the ancient people began using wood as a building material.
By way of landmarks, I would like to refresh your memory and mention that:
- The pre-dynastic period in ancient Egypt dates back to the 4th millennium B.C.
- The Sumerians appeared in the Mesopotamian region around 3300-3200 B.C.
- The Phoenicians settled in the lands of would-be Phoenicia, their kingdom, in the 3rd millennium B.C. (tribal legends say they had come from the Black Sea areas).
- The Israelites conquered Palestine in the 13th-11th centuries B.C.
- The first historical kingdom, Shan-Yin, arose in the 16th century B.C. in the territory of modern China.
The development of Neolithic cultures in the lands lying south of the Danube, reaching as far down as the Crete Island, followed more or less the same pace. Naturally enough, the Neolithic people did not care about our modern national borders.
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EUROPE'S OLDEST STREET
It is the grandmother of all European streets. In our guide's opinion, the walls were constructed out of stone and initially raised to a height of about one metre and a half. Afterwards, they were built on by adding layers of dried clay.
This is a stone wall. Spread from one end to the other would be a clay layer, about twenty centimetres thick. The clay was first mixed with chaff and, while still moldable, spread over the wall. After waiting for it to dry up, applied in the same way were the next layers, one over the other. By using this technique (some sort of a climbing shuttering construction) the ancient people could build as high as two metres. Finally, the structure was covered. In all probability, the roof was made of straw, reeds, or grass. The walls were plastered from the inside. We can conclude from some archeological finds that the walls were also dyed and painted.
The living space of residential structures ran upwards of one hundred square metres. It may be hypothesized that these homes were inhabited by all the kinfolk - i.e. the whole extended family, although we could hardly say today what family meant to the people living in those times.
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ADORNMENTS FOUND IN LAKE TOWN
One's confusion at the sight of all those scattered piles of stone is gone as soon as one looks at the articles the ancient people used in their everyday life. Walking past each other along the oldest street were people of whose dignity and sense of beauty we can judge by the ornaments they left behind. The necklaces and bead strings betray a mature aesthetic taste.
Community life is integral - it is a system, all at once aesthetic, moral, intellectual, pragmatic, religious, institutional, hierarchical and so on. The relationship between the individual subsystems is of a statistical character.
The King's crown alone would allow us to form an idea, with close approximation, of the most likely profile, state and characteristics, of his kingdom. Every modern firm in straightened circumstances would rely on this sort of thing when deciding to renovate its office. The inhabitants of Lake Town certainly did not choose the items to be found by us - the people to live 7 500 years later. Anything found at the site should be conceived as a reliable indicator of the level of their society.
1.
Necklace of gold and chalcedonic beads from tomb No 211 of the necropolis at Durankulak (the second half of the 5th millennium B.C.) - Late Neolithic-chalcolithic Age, Varna culture.
2.
Strings of gold and malachite beads from the necropolis at Durankulak (the middle of the 5th millennium B.C.) - Varna culture
3.
Anthropomorphic amulet, tomb No 694 of the necropolis at Durankulak (the middle of the 5th millennium B.C.) - Varna culture
4.Spiral of gold wire (probably a head ornament), tomb No 165 of the necropolis at Durankulak (the middle of the 5th millennium B.C.) - Varna culture.
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THE SUPERNATURAL
Shown below are four idols
They are made of clay.
The idols found in necropolises were made for the respective funerals. Some of the items are not fired. However, there are statuettes found outside the graves.
The latter finds were part of the rituals related to the beliefs of Lake Town's inhabitants. These represent female figurines, but I am sceptic as to their being an evidence of "matriarchy". In much the same way, in the millennia ahead, our times may be conceived as being "matriarchal" on the account that we worship the Virgin and Child.
It seems these figurines are images of one and the same goddess. The Great Mother of Gods. One of the first representations of a primary archetype.
The figure is a symbol of the robust woman, physically healthy, with her genitals well-indicated, with strong legs, while the breasts, head and arms are much less overt - only barely distinguished. The goddess is a child-bearer. She is not a worker, a thinker, or a child-tender. She symbolizes "pure" birth-giving, the "origin", the "starting point"...
The goddess is adorned with rings and necklaces - presumably an expression of worship using the "circle". The circle is a symbol or proto-conception of the idea of rotation, of cyclicity, of infinity...
There are signs drawn on the chest of the unknown goddess - she was invoked and pleaded. The ancient people communicated with her. They perceived their own needs as part of a whole (global, universal), where their goddess was in control, and were able to incorporate these needs in a cause-and-effect chain.
The existence of prayer in their daily life means that from a spiritual perspective they built temples because God (the Supreme Power) was present wherever there was a prayer extended to him. This is the universal human understanding. The rest is a matter of arrangement to designate the physical site for worship, to enclose it, to erect a structure... And they did build material temples. A temple was found in Lake Town where there was a "sitting anthropomorphous full-length representation". The latter was made of white kaolin.
What might have been the name of this goddess? What were the myths about her? Possibly some "proto-Kibela"?
See the article by Ivan Vayssov in the "Dobrudja 9" collection published by The Museums of History in Dobrich and Silistra, 1992. Mentioned there is also the presence of "Anatolian" influence, "The Anatolian prototypes are a whole millennium older than the Hamangia culture itself." Similar figurines have been found in Thessaly, Pelagonia, Southwestern Bugaria.
See also the article by Henrietta Todorova in the same volume.
In Lake Town, they sought contact with the World Beyond by the agency of the Great Mother and the Bull.
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THE BULL
A burial included two bull heads. This is the only instance out of 1204 tombs. Probably it is a matter of a special distinction of the deceased.
Definitely, in Lake Town the bull was ascribed mystic properties. People there associated it with the supernatural, but we can only make guesses in what particular way.
[imagehttp://www.omda.bg/BULG/HYSTORY/zzz.selishte_19_02_2001_dve_bichi_glavi_namereni_v_grob_3.jpg][/image]
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THE TUNIC
Besides being the result of a labour-consuming effort, the tunic is also a product of dexterous craftsmanship. It required skills: regarding the overall designer's vision, the cut, and the sewing. The maker (no matter whether the same person as the user) did not improvise. In order to reach the point of making the item, he/she went through a role-dependent socialization linked with a well-established tradition. Similarly, the Bulgarian maidens of two centuries ago used to skillfully craft the multiple and varied items of their elaborate dowry.
"restored tunic made of spondylus beads"
To make the tunic, there had to be people with training:
- for collecting and processing the beads;
- for making the threads (to string together the beads);
- for weaving the cloth onto which the network of beads was attached;
- for making the needles to thread the beads;
- for making the scissors to cut the cloth.
It could also be assumed there were regular trade relations between Lake Town and other settlements, as well as certain occupations (or a developed system of household labour skills) which met the needs of other communities too.
These conclusions have been supported by other finds as well.
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THE BELT
We are going to use this belt to tie up our amateur narrative of Lake Town.
The pattern of this belt is the same as that of the tunic, but it is a separate part of the dress. The presence of style is among the most conspicuous features of Lake Town's inhabitants.
It is not possible that they had a perception of dressing style without being aware of style in all other sphere of life. What we are witnessing here are not the ruins of an eclectic primitive world, but rather the remains of a harmoniously developed society whose culture was perhaps part of something awesome and yet unknown. Most likely, in that society:
- the basic human needs were met (within the scope of the then existent standard);
- there was a high measure of division of labour;
- stone and wood were used as building materials;
- people had knowledge of settlement planning and building;
- there existed wall painting;
- people's beliefs were related with the cult of the Mother Goddess and, presumably, the cult of the Bull;
- the miniature pottery items found in the tombs are characteristic of Lake Town inhabitants' representations of After Life;
- present was the class of priests;
- judging by the available indisputable evidence, there existed a sign-system;
- the pottery decoration provides grounds for concluding there was a well-developed abstract thinking and a definite feeling for rhythm;
- Lake Town people knew and used the: number, straight line, plane, circle, sphere, triangle, square, rectangular, rectangular parallelepiped;
- they implied meaning in the notions of: similar, male-female, the four cardinal points, the lunar phases, the annual cycle;
- the miniaturized pottery, as well as the gold ornaments allow us to presume that in Lake Town the sense of detail was part of the understanding of harmony and style;
- the dress had both aesthetic and prestige value, which means the same held true of the dwelling;
- there were intensive trade relations with other human settlements...
If the hypothesis of Petko Dimitrov, and of Ryan and Pitman about the Flood as a Black Sea episode that took place some 5 500 years ago is true, then Lake Town must be the cultural and historical site where Noah and his family started from after leaving their Arc. It was they that founded Lake Town thus also laying the foundations of the building of modern civilization.
If this hypothesis is true, then the cultures of Hamangia and Varna represent the beginning of the World.
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