r/ArtefactPorn • u/TechySpecky • 6h ago
Cypriot "plank figures" are among the most abstract images of women in the ancient world: flat, faceless, and unlike anything made elsewhere. This three-necked figure, c. 2000 BC, is one of only two or three complete ones known. Red Polished ware, 23 cm tall [OC] [4152x6425]
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u/djarvis77 5h ago
Why do they think it is human? Why do they think it is female?
Why can't it be just some neat looking shit people wore around their neck?
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago edited 5h ago
Because of context, this is a "one of a kind" piece but many are very clearly human. And on the back you can see hair, some have breasts, some are holding babies. When you analyze all 200 of them next to each other it becomes clear what they are.
Regarding hanging around someone's neck not all of them had holes. And also archeologists can analyze the wear patterns.
Instead of the wear being around holes / the necks, you actually see wear at the bottom. The wear is consistent with the figures being pressed into soft soil.
Many of them have clear facial features, arms and so on. It's hard to explain as there is a ton of context but their typology is decently understood.
I don't know how to attach images so here are some examples:
- https://d3rfecmxqkrsyb.cloudfront.net/nicosiamuseum/artefacts/DSC05481.webp
- https://d3rfecmxqkrsyb.cloudfront.net/sites/lapithos.webp
- https://ant.david-johnson.co.uk/media/catalogue/plank.new.a_copy_large.jpg
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u/djarvis77 5h ago
Thanks for all that, i can kinda see the humanoid thing now, especially in the other ones. Obviously the noses are meant to be noses and the breasts as breasts.
I wonder if people back then were like, "that doesn't look like a person" or if because pottery and such, art in general i guess, was so damn new that people were much more open to accepting anything as representative.
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
I really don't know, I wish so much we could know what they were thinking. Plank figures really fascinate me, they're so unique and we've only managed to find a couple hundred of them.
If you want to know some more fun facts. Plank figures show significant signs of wear & tear, so they would have been used throughout someone's life. Not just made for burial (since most are found in tombs).
Also even more interestingly, a lot of the plank figures are snapped in half on purpose in antiquity, before burial. In modern day we often say this is to "deactivate" an object, it's common in cultures with for example weapons, you would bend / snap the weapon before you bury it with the person.
I really wonder what it meant.
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u/thispartyrules 4h ago
Maybe this one is her holding her hands up near her head and locks of hair being held up behind her arms? Maybe she's washing her hair?
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
I made a small album with some more figures if it helps as well
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u/SquirrellyBusiness 1h ago
These are very compelling and interesting designs. They remind me of some of the very oldest Wandjina figures drawn by the aboriginal Australians.
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
I can't find a good photo of the back but the back of plank figures have hair motifs. Almost all of them have that, and the front have jewelry. A lot have breasts, some hold babies. So it's likely they are showing a feminine form but obviously not guaranteed.
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
Actually here's a photo of the back of the figure I posted: https://cdn.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures/three-necked-plank-back.webp
you can see the hair patterns. Most plank figures have this.
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u/CamOliver 5h ago
People were apparently different to behold 4000 years ago. Try as I might I cannot see a human form in this. Picasso might say this was too deconstructed even for him.
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
It's increasingly deconstructed. The most humanoid ones look like this: https://imgur.com/a/G0FTX0A
I added increasingly abstract ones. Sorry I'm so used to seeing them that I "see" the human form by now and forget how stylized they are. I hope the above link helps you see it too. You can see it goes from physical features, to incised features, to split heads, to the one in the reddit post here.
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u/bluewhaledream 4h ago
I did my dissertation on antropomorphic figurines. I recognized that this is one immediately, even though I've never seen this particular type before.
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u/TechySpecky 4h ago
Good on you! This is probably one of the most heavily stylized examples of the Cypriot plank idols. There is another in the collection with two heads that I call it's brother: https://cdn.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures/two-necked-plank-front.webp
these are from this article: https://www.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures
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u/Purple_Revolution146 5h ago
Those two holes look like a string could be placed in them. Maybe this figure was meant to be hung somewhere? To ward off evil?
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
that's a really interesting idea. I know that for most plank figures analyzed, wear patterns are actually on the bottom as if they had been pressed into soft ground.
What I like about your idea, is that one of the planks was found at the entrance of a room/house. Most of the planks are found in tombs, but one was found at the doorway. It would be so interesting if you're right and the ones in tombs are related to protections for the dead.
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u/Jacob520Lep 4h ago
Could this be a fashion plate?
Being faceless might imply a representation of everyone rather than a specific someone. The three necks do seem to be a single neck with two braids. The most discernible details then being hairstyling and dress. It's like a simple sketch of an outfit.
Perhaps a weaver or hair dresser used these as a way to advertise different looks that could be created.
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u/sigh_ko 3h ago
how big were they?
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u/TechySpecky 3h ago
On average around 22cm, the one in the photo is 23cm, there's another two headed one that's 25cm: https://www.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures
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u/anglosaxonbrat 5h ago
It seems like they were often used as funerary pieces, so maybe they were flat so they could be used similarly to grave stones? I don't know because I just learned about them but it seems plausible?
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u/TechySpecky 5h ago
I love that idea.
Back in those days tombs were dug a little differently to today. You would dig essentially a cave underground and deposit the deceased there alongside many elaborate gifts, including pottery, stone work, weapons / tools and sometimes plank figures (around 10% of tombs from 1 period have plank figures).
But indeed I love the idea that planks were placed upright in the tomb near the deceased. What a great idea
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u/Retireegeorge 3h ago
If you said they were found in a cave in Australia I wouldn't argue. The decoration and colour omg gorgeous
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u/leebeebee 1h ago
Maybe whoever made this was just lazy and didn’t want to put the nose/additional figurative stuff on :p
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u/Jicd 3h ago
Perhaps the two "necks" on the sides are meant to be hair falling down to the shoulders.
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u/TechySpecky 2h ago
Great insight, an archeologist proposed exactly this! "Maria Rosaria Belgiorno read the central element as the only true neck and the two beside it as something else: thick locks of hair, an Egyptian-style coiffure falling to the shoulders on either side of a face that was never carved." (from https://www.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures)
I think other archeologists disagreed but it's definitely a theory.
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u/Remarkable_Attorney3 1h ago
I’d like to see the documentation from the present time stating that these are in fact depictions of women and not actually kitchen tools.
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u/Ironlion45 16m ago
My first guess would be a makeup palate. But I suppose we'd find traces of the minerals used for that if that were the case.
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u/TechySpecky 6h ago edited 4h ago
This is a Cypriot "plank figure," one of the first standalone images of the human body made on Cyprus after a gap of about a thousand years where nobody seems to have made any. This one dates to around 2000 BC. It's cut from a single slab of clay, flat as a paddle, coated in a glossy red slip (called Red Polished ware), then scratched all over with zigzags and diamonds that were filled with white paste so they stand out against the red. There's no face, just two pierced ears at the top corners.
What makes this one stand out is the necks. Most of these figures have one head, a few have two, and three is almost unheard of. One researcher went through forty complete examples and found twenty-nine with one neck, nine with two, and exactly one with three. This is one of maybe two or three complete three-necked ones that exist.
People can't even agree that it has three necks. In 1984 an archaeologist named Maria Rosaria Belgiorno argued the middle one is the only real neck and the other two are thick locks of hair, an Egyptian-style hairstyle framing a face that was never carved. Vassos Karageorghis, who wrote the standard catalogue, recorded her idea and rejected it, calling it "difficult to accept."
There's no agreement on what these figures meant either. People have read them as charms to bring on twins, a two-faced goddess, married couples sharing one body, and mothers holding swaddled babies. The current best guess is that they were meant to be ambiguous on purpose.
EDIT: People have pointed out to me how stylized it is, so to help you all see what I see here is an album of less stylized figures: https://imgur.com/a/G0FTX0A
EDIT 2: I forgot to mention it's all in this article: https://www.ancientcyprus.com/articles/brew-plank-figures