Indo-European ornamental complexes and their analogs in the cultures of Eurasia. S. V. Zharnikova

similar to the ancient rhombo-meander, but while the texture of the white canvas repeats the ancient compositions with practically no changes, on the spacers we see, as it were, fragments of an archaic scheme, its parts divided and grouped according to some new principles.

      North Russian weaving

      Weaving Central Russia

      Ukrainian weaving

      Weaving Hindustan

      It must be said that the possibility of such variability was laid in the Mezinian ornaments. Despite the outward similarity, the ornaments of items from the Mezin site have a number of differences. So on the bracelet there is a carpet-meander pattern, but on the figurines from the mammoth tusk the pattern is already somewhat different: it is a meander spiral placed among zigzags, parallel meander stripes and a meander, depicted in motion from right to left and left to right, in which the outlines are already quite clearly read one of the most widespread signs during the Eneolithic and copper-bronze on the territory of Eastern Europe – the swastika (Table 4).

      This ornamental differentiation becomes even more evident in the Neolithic. So a large number of different variants of ornaments based on the rhombo-meander Paleolithic composition give us Neolithic “seals” (on which one can find rows of S-shaped meander elements – “jibs”, and meander stripes, and swastika elements) and Neolithic clay statuettes depicting women, covered with all sorts of meander composition motifs. B. A. Rybakov notes that if the meander pattern was widely used in the Neolithic for ornamentation of ceramics in general, then “for ritual dishes and plastics, it was almost mandatory”.

      There is an opinion in science that the geometric ornament was transferred to ceramics made of soft materials.

      Agreeing with this, we can assume that, probably, the same ornaments were obligatory for clothing, at least for clothing that performs ritual and protective functions. We can assume that already on the border of the Neolithic and Eneolithic, marked by an even more vivid flourishing of geometric ornament in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, clothes were decorated with woven ornaments.

      This is all the more likely, since “the second half of the 3rd thousand BC refers to the mass distribution of spinning, i.e. the intensive development of spinning, noted not only for Eastern Europe, especially for the Tripolye circle, but also for Asia Minor”. Naturally, we can only roughly imagine what the fabrics from which the clothes of the Eneolithic people were made, but as for the rhombo-meander pattern in its various modifications, its development and transformations at this time are very well illustrated by the ceramic products of the brightest culture of the Eastern Eneolithic and South-Eastern Europe – Tripoli-Cucuteni. B. A. Rybakov notes that in this culture: “The rhombo-meander ornament is found on dishes (especially on ritual, lavishly decorated vessels), on clay anthropomorphic figurines, too, undoubtedly ritual, on the clay thrones of goddesses and priestesses.” V. N. Danilenko, speaking of the fact that even in the early Neolithic in the territories later occupied by the Tripolye culture, meander compositions almost completely dominated, comes to the conclusion about the substrate nature of the meander ornament of the Tripillya dishes and its deep archaism, which numerous positive-negative compositions.

      On the ceramics and cult sculpture of the Eneolithic, we find a steadily repeating scheme of the meander pattern, which already somewhat differs from the Upper Paleolithic Mezinian and Neolithic in its great geometrism and clarity of rhythm. This is evidenced by the decoration of ceramic products found in Moldavia in the settlements of Frumushika I, Hebeshesti, Gura Vey. The meander pattern adorns the sides of the Kernosovsky idol found in the Dnieper region: the central phallic image is, as it were, supplemented by side compositions, one of which is represented by a set of zigzag and meander stripes, on the other such zigzag and meander stripes rise above the fertilization scene and the image of a bull with moon-shaped horns under this scene. The whole complex of plots leaves no doubt about their sacred character. A. A. Formozov writes: “Sometimes ancient things have a magnificent pattern covered with areas hidden from the viewer’s eyes – the bottoms of vessels or the reverse side of the plaques sewn onto clothes. From an aesthetic point of view, this is meaningless”. A lot of such senseless from the point of view of aesthetics, but probably playing a huge ritual role of ornaments, we meet precisely on the bottoms of Tripolye vessels.

      Tripolie ornament

      Ornament of Seroglazov ceramics (Neolithic)

      Among these sacred signs, first of all, it is worth mentioning the meander spiral, the swastika used in its simplest version or complicated by new composite elements in the form of additional processes on each curved side of the cross, and the peculiar transformation of the meander motif, represented by the S-characteristic ceramic decor next to S- shaped “geese” (tab. 5). It must be said that throughout the history of Tripoli culture, in any case, at its early and middle stages, two main directions in the development of ceramic ornament can be distinguished.

      On the one hand, this is a geometric angular style, using various variations of the meander pattern and most clearly developing the archaic rhombus-meander ornament. On the other hand, this is a drawing of smooth, wilted forms, gravitating to a circle.

      V. N. Danilenko writes that: “By the time of the spread of the most ancient painted utensils, the beginning of the bifurcation of the development paths of the Trypillian culture was an obvious fact,” but it manifested itself most vividly when in the eastern half of the Trypillian area – on the Middle Dnieper region, in the Bug region and partly in the Middle Dniester region in the ethno-historical process “a powerful eastern component was included – the early links of the ancient pit culture”. It was here that by the time of the beginning of the transformation (in the process of mutual influences) of both the Trypillian and Yamnaya cultures, which served as the basis for many cultures of the Bronze Age, that circle of ornamental motifs was formed, rather limited and not exhaustive, no doubt, of the entire richness of the Tripillian ceramics decor, but nevertheless less characteristic of this culture, with which materials of subsequent historical periods are to be compared in the future. This is a meander and its varieties: meander spiral, intricately drawn cross-swastika, S-shaped figures – “jibs”.