LOT 1579

Stone Age Polished Tortoise Idol

NEOLITHIC PERIOD, CIRCA 6TH-4TH MILLENNIUM B.C. OR LATER

5 3/4 in. (756 grams, 14.5 cm).

Plano-convex in section with tapering body and radiating limbs. [No Reserve]

From a collection acquired on the UK art market from various auction houses and collections mostly before 2000.
From an important Cambridgeshire estate; thence by descent.

Cf. Various, Idoles, au commencement était l’image – 22 Novembre 1990 – 28 Février 1991, Paris, 1990, fig.11, for a Neolithic sculpture in similar style; Nanoglou, S., Representation of Humans and Animals in Greece and the Balkans during the Earlier Neolithic, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18, 2008, pp. 1-13, fig.3, nos.2-7, and fig. 6, for similar; also see the view of Caldwell, Duncan, The Use of Animals in Birth Protection Rituals and Possible Uses of Stone Figurines from the Central Sahel, 2015 winter issue, vol.48, no.4, Nov., pp.14-25.

The sculptures represent farm animals in the Neolithic period. Animal figurines seem to be a recurrent feature in the earlier Neolithic settlements, in the Balkans and in the Levant. It is significant that in the Neolithic Mediterranean, the animals depicted seem to be domesticated, thus suggesting that its reference points were within the confines of the community.