Neolithic sanctuary from Parţa

The Parţa tell, located about 18 km SW of Uivar one, was situated on the banks of one of the a major branch of the Timiş River and, as it is shown by the 19th century maps drawn before the complete regularization of the river. Prior to channelization, the site was surrounded by a series of meanders channels to the west and south, and by marshy land to the east.

The first Parţa dwellings were hollow pits, which have been taken for hovels and surface dwellings. The houses from this were are small and usually grouped in pairs. This lay-out presumably was determined by the organization of the family and by certain property relations. At the core of the settlement, an isolated house has been uncovered which, due to its central position and due to the fact that it was built above the sanctuaries 1 and 2, has been taken for a possible building for worship. In this first stage, the Parţa settlement was not fortified.

A virtual visit in the settlement.

Further, a settlement planning can be observed, in which the dwellings have been grouped around two structures of similar sizes, erected in the middle of the settlement, so reflecting the social value of the sanctuary as place of manifesting magical rituals. Around the two structures, the houses lied at a certain distance forming a small square. With only two exceptions, all the houses were aligned along the east-west axis, the orientation being dictated, by the strong gusts of the summer storms blown from the west.

The research carried out has shown that the two structures in the small square played a special role for the community life of Parţa. One of the structures, 12.6 m long and 7 m wide, is a sanctuary inside of which altars for offerings, monumental statues and columns once stood. On the northern wall there was an altar-table A which was oriented towards the south. On a clay socket stood an idol bust. In the western part, guarded by two posts, lay altar–table B. Inside the altar, several flint blades which were used for sacrifices were discovered. In the eastern part lay altar C, and at the center of the sanctuary there stood a clay column.

The exterior shows symbolic elements as the Moon and the Sun, the sacred hand grinding mill – which intensifies the magical power of the place. The Neolithic sanctuary from Parţa, the construction, which was favored by the existence of a strong religious, economic and social center, reflects the transmission of basic elements necessary for the creation of a spiritual-magical space according to the beliefs and rituals of that time, transmitted from one prehistoric civilization to another, originate from the latest Neolithic settlements – ancient cultural centers; meanwhile becoming traditional.

To the south of sanctuary 1 lay a structure of similar size that might have fulfilled a social function and namely that of “the house of the tribe”. A fortification system also was built into this level of habitation and was made up of four parallel ditches, lined inwards by four palisades that protected the settlement from the west, north and east sides.

Beginning with these elements that are part of the expression of the important place held by the religious space in the life of the human communities, built from resources of nature – as wood, clay, different vegetal materials, rock – which are crossed on magical symbols, we reach the recognition of all these during historical periods accurately maintained by the local popular tradition. Like the maintenance of the tradition of using natural materials as raw materials in the construction of different buildings and religious places, other practices, rituals and object have been maintained, which can be found nowadays in the popular tradition.

Sources: Muzeul Banatului, European Virtual Museum.

Uivar, a Neolithic akropolis

Uivar is a late Neolithic - early Eneolithic fortified tell site belonging to the Vinča culture, located in Timiş County, Banat, western Romania. Ten years ago, the archaeologists Florin Draşovean from Timişoara and Wolfram Schier from Wurtzburg began the exploration of the site in Uivar, making several discoveries which had revolutionized the way the Neolithic society was considered by now.

The fortress
The study of the archeomagnetic plan, whose precise outline has been generally confirmed by the excavation, permits a very accurate model of the settlement organization to be constructed. It can clearly be seen that the settlement was protected by a fortification system made up of several concentric ditches that enclosed a central area, a settlement with proto-urban character, a real "akropolis". The fortification system of Uivar is one of the most elaborate and complex ones from this part of Europe. Though built in several stages, it is the result of a unitary defense conception being made up of a double ditch ring and stockades that protected the central area and additional concentric ditches, 3.5 m deep, outwardly laid out beyond the central ring. The digging of defense ditches at Uivar led to the removal of more than 10,000 cubic m (!) of soil of which more than half is yellow clay.The fortification ditches, in addition to protecting a certain area of the site, were also used to delimit several areas for specific functions within the social space. While the akropolis was meant for habitation-, social life-, and spiritual life-related purposes, the inner ring space and the outer ring space had different purposes.

The akropolis
It is apparent that most houses are laid out on two concentric circles surrounding a possible square at the heart of the tell. At the same time, most houses are perpendicular to the inner fortification ring that belongs to the final, third stage, of the defense system development. All this information bears out the idea of a well-conceived settlement plan that was followed by the Neolithic inhabitants of Uivar. This plan underwent alterations over time due to the necessity of the enlarging the habitation area beyond the akropolis, under the standing conflict for space between the area outlined by the fortification and the continuously expanding population. This conflict was resolved very efficiently and, using a modern term, with professionalism, via the already mentioned southward enlargement of the area allotted for dwelling.

Neolithic villas
This need for more room is also reflected by the enlargement and two-storied design of some houses. One of these is a feature, whose development could be determined throughout its use life. Having its long axis running north-east to south-west, the structure has imposing dimensions (14 m x 6 m) and was made up of ground floor and upper floor. Most significant is its final stage in which the structure was to have three rooms of which the one to the west was covered by the flooring of an upper storey. This organization into three rooms and two stories did not exist in the structure’s first stage, and was added only in the last construction stage. This building had a purpose beyond its profane use, thus taking on a ritual role, and namely that of a sanctuary. Two-storey houses crop up in the Carpathian area in the late Neolithic and are strongly correlated with the appearance of tells.

The mask
In the Neolithic settlement were discovered pots, carved and polished stone tools, clay idols. But by far the most sensational discovery is a fragment of a mask of clay, brought to the surface in 2001, which, so far, is unique in Europe. "The piece is a half of a mask, one can see the eyes and mouth. It is a ritual mask used by tribal shamans, which was intended to turn a man into god. An analogy might be a statue discovered in Caraş-Severin, who has in hand a mask such as this one, because in the primitive world, this was an accessory of those who practiced magic", explains Florin Draşovean the meaning of the mask.

From Muzeul Banatului and other minor sources.

Vădastra Project

Vădastra is a small village in Olt County, Oltenia, Romania. During the Late Neolithic the territory of the present-day province Oltenia witnesses a cultural diversity. The area has an abundant hydro-graphic basin which will play an important role in the dynamic of the Neolithic people situated in the southern part of the Carpathians.

Between the Jiu River and the Olt River a complex cultural display can be registered, one can notice settlements belonging to Vădastra culture (6000-3500 BC; first evolution phase surpasses the Olt - including northeastern Bulgaria, in the second phase is restricted only between the two streams). Vădastra culture reached during its evolution a high degree of development, highlighted among other achievements in the field of anthropomorphic art. Representative is the complex pottery excised and heavily encrusted with white substance, of an unprecedented splendor in the Middle Neolithic, highest expression of art of decorative pottery of all European Neo-Eneolithic.

The Vădastra Experimental Archaeology Project, unique to Romania, was initiated in year 2000 by Professor Dr. Dragoş Gheorghiu of the National University of Arts of Bucharest, who is pioneering the research in this field by recreating artifacts and using ancient techniques, but is also re-enacting the use of space, water and fire to reproduce perceptions that are both ancient and inspiring for the new generations. His project is part of a new field in archaeology, often labeled as archaeology / anthropology of perceptions / senses, which merges art, cognitive sciences, archaeology and especially experimental archaeology, anthropology and philosophy, or phenomenology in archaeology. The project was initially supported by the Archaeology Department of the Ministry of Culture.

In Romania the traditional ceramic wasn't studied from the point of experimenting clays and ways of burning like does in European Countries for some years. It is still an unknown domain not only for the Romanian archaeologist but for the foreign ones. The research project initiated by the University of Arts Bucharest is trying to make known the values of prehistoric ceramic art from Romania to Europe, as well as the information about the color, the shape and technology employed. The Vădastra 2000 Project is the first international project in which UAB led the initiative and which involved several important European and American Universities.

The principal method involved was the reconstruction of the technological chains of making and burning the ceramic items, by this meaning the materials analysis and several tests of clay and finally making objects as close to the prehistoric ones as possible. This experimental method is essential for the revival of the traditional ceramic art and also for the experimental archaeology. In Vădastra are developed also a series of pyrotechnic applications and vernacular architecture designed to bring to light and highlight the technologies of the past.

In the archaeological park annually develop new projects and continue the ones initiated in 2000, within an international approach - Dr. Alex Gibson (University of Bradford, United Kingdom), Dr. Richard Carlton (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK), Dr. George Nash (University of Bristol, UK), Dr. Kevin Andrews, Dr Roger Doonan and Dr. Bruce Induni (Bournemouth University, UK), Dr. Armand Desbat (Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, Lyon), Dr. Ralph Rowlett (University of Missouri - Columbia, USA), Marc van der Linden (Université Libre de Bruxelles). The project is in the database of Prehistoric Ceramic Research Group of United Kingdom, and students from USA, UK, Belgium, France, Finland, Poland, Romania.

Initially, a "World Team" of scientists tried to rediscover the techniques of pottery and ceramics burning practiced about 7,000 years ago - without potter's wheel, in kilns built with technologies and materials available in the Neolithic, using a natural fuel specific to the period. Gradually, were developed experiments of archaeo-metallurgy, eco-design, large ceramic objects, prehistoric architecture, practical lessons for the children from Vişina and Vădastra villages and for students with the purpose of revival the traditional ceramic art.

Photos from here.

Masterpieces of Neolithic Art

In 1956 in Cernavodă, Romania, near to the banks of the Danube, a strange neolithic statuette was discovered, dated to 4.000 – 3.500 BC. She represents a man in cogitant position, a motive for which she was baptized the Thinker. Since she belonged to the neolithic culture of Hamangia, she was named "Thinker of Hamangia". In respect to this value, the UNESCO soon approved his being part of the Cultural Patrimony of Mankind.

The Hamangia culture is connected to the Neolithisation of the Danube Delta and the Dobruja. It includes Vinca, Dudeşti and Karanovo III elements, but may be based on autochthonous hunter-gatherers. The Hamangia culture developed into the succeeding Gumelniţa, Boian and Varna cultures of the late Eneolithic without noticeable break. Painted vessels with complex geometrical patterns based on spiral-motifs are typical. The shapes include pots and wide bowls. Pottery figurines are normally extremely stylized and show standing naked faceless women with emphasized breasts and buttocks. Settlements consist of rectangular houses with one or two rooms, built of wattle and daub, sometimes with stone foundations (Durankulak). They are normally arranged on a rectangular grid and may form small tells. Settlements are located along the coast, at the coast of lakes, on the lower and middle river-terraces, sometimes in caves.


Thirty years later, in 1986 the Romanian researcher Vasile Droj presents at a symposion of the Romanian Academy an interesting discovery concerning the famous statuette. The Thinker of Hamangia unveils an extraordinary ‘synthetic’ geometry, codificated in his body through which comes out one after the other an ininterrupted cascade of impressing relations, as:

• his height in centimetres hides the only two whole numbers whose ratio gives the Greek pi with a precision of a millionth
• his height is exactly ten times less than the human one
• evident and indiscutable proofs for the presence of the decimal metric measure system
• the superior part of the Thinker geometrizated holds in itself the pyramidal archetype in a way that, superposed to the Pyramid of Cheops, it fits perfectly
• not only; but in a certain way two Thinkers (copy) combined reproduce always the pyramidal archetype by different parts of their bodies
• the Cheops Pyramid herself, in a scale of 1 : 10.000, has absolutely the measure of the Thinker
• the superior part of the statuette copies the equilateral triangle hidden in the head shape of the Sphinx in Giza
• the Thinker is conceived to be made as serial or in copies and therefor was found together with his wife (an other statuette, feminine, of the same dimensions)
• the copies of the Thinker join to each other like the reef stabilopoda of the sea, forming impressive couplings
• the simple combinations of the Thinkers reproduce the universal archetypes of the Phoenician and Greek – Latin letters
• between the Thinker and the Geto–Dacian Sanctuary of Sarmizegetusa Regia there is a close relation, in a discendent scale. The same statuette constitutes the module of collusion between the Sanctuary and the Pyramid of Cheops.

The Thinker of Hamangia, besides of the combinatorical module of pyramidal rapports, is also a key of access to the most profound mysteries of the Cheops Pyramid, as to be seen in the following article. And this is again a mystery, the Pyramid of Cheops was constructed about 2.500 BC., but the Thinker of Hamangia about 4.000 BC. The Thinker is much older than the Pyramid, for 1.000 – 1.500 years. Further, between Egypt and Romania there are thousands of kilometres as distance.