From the Chalcolithic/Copper Age of Iberia come a series of absolutely charming figurines of owls, crafted primarily on sheets of slate, but also on other materials such as bone or other stones. Described as palm-sized, these figurines are thus only a few inches high and have been completed with varying degrees of detail and precision.
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"In the Copper Age, slate engraved plaques were produced massively in the southwestern corner of the Iberian Peninsula. Researcjers jave speculated about the function of these palm-sized stone objects for more than a century, although most have favored the idea that they represent goddesses, and served ritual purposes. The plaques are engraved with different designs of varying complexity. In some of them. the ones sporting two large frontal eyes, we clearly see owls medeled after two species present in the area: the little owl (Athene noctua), and the long-eared owl (Asoi otus)." (Negro et al. 2022)
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"The engraved slate plaques of southwestern Iberia were crafted in a relatively narrow time window about 5500 to 4750 BP, and rank among the most emblematic and unique objects of the Chalcolithic/Copper Age cultural period. These palm-sized plaques were engraved with geometric patterns and often had a 'head' with two round circles generally described as eyes, and a 'body' below. Most of them had one or two perforations at the top of the head purpostedly used to pass a string. In addition to the flat slate plaques, similar objects carved in sandstone or in mammal bones such as horse phalanges, have been found, also exhibiting a pair of eyes on one of the extremes. About 4000 plaques have been located so far, many on communal graves such as tholos, but also in pits. Today they are dispersed in a multitude of archaeological museums and ethnographic collections, mainly in Spain and Portugal." (Negro et al. 2022) The fact that they were found in the megalithic graves would seem to reinforce the idea that they had some sort of spiritual significance - I believe this is what the authors mean when they say "ritual significance."
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"Since the discovery of the first engraved slate plaques, they were ascribed a profound symbolic and ritual purpose. Despite its simplicity, their atristry was also praised and readily compared to other crafts produced in other parts of the Old World, from the Iberian Peninsula to Mesopotamia. Gimbutas visually described the plaques as 'owl goddesses on a trapezoidal plaque of schist', also carved on bones of in pottery. After Gimbutas, only the goddess interpretation remained, and the owl model was forgotten." (Netro et al. 2022) To describe them as profoundly symbolic is a reach. A symbol is something that by association or convention represents something else. Anything pictorial is symbolic, any sign or representation is symbolic. This should come under the category of "it goes without saying."
"This approach assumes that the owl like objects may be the archaeological trace of playful and learning activities carried out by youngsters, who were possibly the largest demographic group and therefore a fundamental part of Chalcolithic society. Ignoring this fact may have led to identifying certain finds as symbolic or ritual when, quite simply, they are the trace of playful behaviors or learning activities. So far, the earlier set of toys may be the one found at the Siberian Upper Paleolithic site of Mal'ta, which included human, bird and other animal figurines. Also in Siberia a human figurine and several animals, have been found at baby graves, dated 4500 years BP in the Bronze Age. Whether or not the Chalcolithic slate plaques can be considered toys will remain speculative, but it is a fact that in ethnographic examples worldwide, many artisan practices, including pottery are learned in childhood." (Negro et al. 2022) While it is true that these artisan practices are learned beginning in childhood, children do not attain the highest level of achievement. This is reached as one is reaching adulthood and has the greatly increased level of experience that comes with not only considerable repitition, but learning self-evaluation and self-criticism. Some of these owl images are masterfully created, it is hard to imagine a child accomplishing that. Additionally, it must be kept in mind that the majority of toys for children are made by the adults in their lives.
"To gain support to our hypothesis that the slate plaques and some related objects were children dolls or toys of little ritual value that may have been crafted for young people and not necessarily by experienced artisans of the community, we establish a comparison with owls as seen by contemporary children, taking therefore a n actualistic approach. We assume that the differences in the craftsmanship of the plaques may well result from differences in the technical skill of the engravers associated by age and experience, as we see today in owl drawings depicted by children of different ages. With this in mind, we extracted owl images using Google. We specifically searched for images drawn by children 4 to 13 years-old. We selected 100 drawings in which the age of the children was specified, and generated a score for each image based on the presence/absence of the same six owl traits (i.e., two eyes, feathery ventral area, rostral marks, facial disk, bill and wings) that we described above to evaluate the owliness of the slate plaques. Every recognizable trait adds one point, allowing us to obtain a complexity score for each drawing. We related the score with the age of the children through a Spearman correlation." (Negro et al. 2022)
It seems to me that comparing the output of modern children with works that the authors assume to have been done by children from 5500 to 4750 BP is somewhat of a stretch given differences in culture and technology. Modern children have been absorbing cartoonish representations of owls from the media all of their lives. This reasoning strikes me as comparing apples and ducks.
"Our actualistic approach, in which we resorted to a comparison with owl drawings by contemporary children of different ages clearly reveals two facts: (a) owls are always drawn with the head situated frontally, with the owl's eyes staring at the observer (as if there were no othr ways to depictd an owl), and (b) there is a prograssion related to age in the owliness of the depictions, with more and more owl characters added by older children." (Negro et al. 2022)
This analysis may be overlooking one very important fact in the analysis of works of art. In assuming that the completeness and exactness of detail correlates to the age of the creator the authors are failing to account for the importance of the amount of previous experience involved in the accuracy of any artistic portrayal. Novody starts out as a master craftsman, everybody gets there through repetition and experience. The varying levels of competency would also be visible if one were observing the first and tenth example created by a craftsman of any age.
NOTE: Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner will contact me with them. For further information on this report you should read the original report listed below.
PRIMARY REFERENCE:
Negro, J. J., Blanco, G., Rodriguez-Rodriguez, E., et al., 2022, Owl-like plaques of the Copper Age and the involvement of children, Sci. Rep. 12, 19277, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-23530-0. Accessed 2 December 2022.
SECONDARY REFERENCE:
Gimbutas, M., 1974, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, University of California Press.
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