Mysterious Neolithic People Made Optical Art

Discovery News ^ | September 22, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi

[SunkenCiv]

Running until the end of October at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican, the exhibition, "Cucuteni-Trypillia: A Great Civilization of Old Europe," introduces a mysterious Neolithic people who are now believed to have forged Europe's first civilization...

Archaeologists have named them "Cucuteni-Trypillians" after the villages of Cucuteni, near Lasi, Romania and Trypillia, near Kiev, Ukraine, where the first discoveries of this ancient civilization were made more than 100 years ago.

The excavated treasures -- fired clay statuettes and op art-like pottery dating from 5000 to 3000 B.C. -- immediately posed a riddle to archaeologists... "Despite recent extensive excavations, no cemetery has ever been found," Lacramioara Stratulat, director of the Moldova National Museum Complex of Iasi, told reporters at a news conference recently at the Vatican.

Before their culture mysteriously faded, the Cucuteni-Trypillians had organized into large settlements. Predating the Sumerians and Egyptian settlements, these were basically proto-cities with buildings often arranged in concentric circles... in what is now Romania, Ukraine and Moldova.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Sounds like a sound idea.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1955169/posts?page=94#94

[Fred Nerks]

Trypillian Civilization 5400 - 2750 BC.

...All the structures in a settlement were erected in concentric circles around the central “square.” Once in fifty or seventy years the settlements were abandoned and the people moved elsewhere, burning down the abandoned settlement.

The Trypillia people, in addition to farming and animal husbandry, knew metalworking, weaving and pottery. Their copper technology was quite advanced. A wide variety of implements made of copper or flint — knives, axes, bores, scrapes, sickles and others, and they are a good indication that various crafts were developed in the Trypillia culture to quite an advanced level. “Shops” were set separately and some distance away from dwellings, close to the quarries or deposits of ore. The Trypillia people invented the potter’s wheel and two-tier ovens for baking their earthenware...

Egyptian, Phoenician Idols,Osiris found in Romania. The places where these statues have been found, belong to civilizations much older than the Ancient Egypt, like Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, 5508 -2750 BC.

Note location: Gobekli Tepe:

Gobekli Tepe: Concentric circle lay-out reconstruction.

[SunkenCiv]

ah, this is what I was looking for:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=59#59

and as long as you’re there:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=50#50
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=47#47
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=42#42
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=38#38
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1773755/posts?page=33#33

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks. Too bad there’s no (known) archive. It would be difficult to impossible to crack though...

[Fred Nerks]

Is this the world’s oldest statue? [Anatolia, Gobekli Tepe]
The First Post ^ | November 24, 2006 | Sean Thomas

Posted on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 4:01:06 AM by SunkenCiv

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930666/posts

[gleeaikin]

“intentionally burning thousands of their houses.”

Perhaps this was a plan to exterminate vermin like rats, mice, fleas and lice. Supplemented with a good bath and plenty of nit picking, it could have been quite effective. If there was a disease epidemic they might have done this to appease the gods and discovered that it also eliminated disease for a time.

The circle design reminds me of similar marks carved into early celtic/british stone dwellings. Also the circle sites remind me a little of stonehenge.

[Fred Nerks]

Perhaps this was a plan to exterminate vermin like rats, mice, fleas and lice...

Once in fifty or seventy years the settlements were abandoned and the people moved elsewhere, burning down the abandoned settlement...

that's a long time between pest-control treatments!

Ornaments and symbols.

[CholeraJoe]

There have been spiral art renderings discovered in other countries, too, like Ireland, for example. They date from about the same period.

[wildbill]

I would have posted some myself if i knew how to do html images.

I keep forgetting how to do it because I do it so infrequently or my latent Alzhiemers kicks in.

[SunkenCiv]

Uh-oh, I’m gettin’ the infamous “image hosted by Tripod” filler image. :’(

[SunkenCiv]

Can’t post images? Excellent, one less person to post you-know-who... ;’)

[wildbill]

You mean...she who cannot be named?

[SunkenCiv]

That’s the one.