Cambridge Archaeological Journal 8:2 (1998), pp. 207-37
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
in the Early Village Communities of the Near East and
Southeast Europe
Yosef Garfinkel
Dancing is depicted in the earliest art of the ancient Near East. It appears in many
variationsfromthe ninth to the sixth millennium BP over a vast geographical range. This
article discusses the dancing performance, the social context of the dance and cognitive
aspects ofthe dancing scenes. Ethnographic observations are used in order to gain a wider
view ofdancing and dancing scenes in pre-state societies. A correlation can be observed
between art, symbolism, religion and social organization.
Ethnographic observations on the ritual and religious
activities of pre-state societies emphasize the
importance of speech, singing and dancing. Bloch
Wrote of this situation: 'I very much doubt that an
event observed by an anthropologist which did not
contain these three elements would ever be described
by him as a ritual. In other words these phenomena
have been implicitly taken as the distinguishing
marks of ritual' (Bloch 1989, 21). In the case of prehistoric
pre-state societies, speech and singing are
lost for ever, but some evidence of dancing has survived
through art objects. The earliest scenes of interaction
between people in the ancient Near East
depict dancing. From the ninth to the sixth millennium
BP this subject appears in many variations, covering
a vast geographical expanse: the Levant,
Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia, the Balkans, Greece,
the Danube basin of southeastern Europe and Egypt.
Dancing has been described as:
rhythmic movement having as its aim the creation
of visual designs by a series of poses and tracing of
patterns through space in the course of measured
units of time, the two components, static and kinetic,
receiving varying emphasis and being executed
by different parts of the body in accordance
with temperament, artistic precepts, and purpose.
(Webster's Dictionary 1965)
Elsewhere dance has been defined as a
complex form of communication that combines the
visual, kinesthetic, and aesthetic aspects of human
movement with (usually) the aural dimension of
musical sounds and sometimes poetry. Dance is
created out of culturally understood symbols within
social and religious contexts, and it conveys information
and meaning as ritual, ceremony, and entertainment.
For dance to communicate, its audience
must understand the cultural conventions that deal
with human movement in time and space. (Kaeppler
1992,196)
Dancing is an activity which is not limited to humans.
As a means of communication it has been
observed in insects (the bee dance: Frisch 1967), and
in the courtship interaction of birds and various mammals'
courtship interactions (Wilson 1975, 176-241,
314-35). In human society, dance is a cross-cultural
phenomenon which has been observed all over the
world (Sachs 1952; Kraus 1969; Lange 1976; Bland
1976; Blacking & Kealinohomoku 1979; Clarke &
Clement 1981). It has been suggested that dance, as a
medium of non-verbal communication, was already
practised during the Lower Palaeolithic (Blacking
1976; McNeill 1995,13-35).
In this study discussion will be limited to the
evidence for dancing activities in a specific chronological/geographical/socio-economic
mileu, i.e. the
village communities of the Near East and southeastern
Europe, from c. the ninth to the sixth millennium
BP. The term 'village communities' refers to what are
207
Yosef Garfinkel
commonly called the Natufian, Neolithic and
Chalcolithic periods. At this stage of human history
the Palaeolithic way of life based on small bands of
nomadic hunter-gatherers disappeared, but cities and
states had not yet developed.
Earliest art scenes of the Near East
Before presenting and analyzing the depictions of
dance, the context of these scenes within the development
of symbolic expressions should be examined.
The nomadic hunter-gatherer societies of the
Upper Palaeolithic and Epi-Palaeolithic in the Near
East hardly produced artistic expressions, and only
isolated art objects have been reported from this
region. With the establishment of sedentary settlements
in the ancient Near East the situation changed
completely. The earliest permanent villages were
built in the Natufian culture of the Levant, dated as
early as the twelfth millennium DP. Natufian sites are
characterized by rich symbolic artworks, including
anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines and
items engraved with geometric patterns (cf. Perrot
1966; 1979; Belfer-Cohen 1991; Cauvin 1994).
In the tenth millennium DP, the period commonly
designated Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA),
the corpus of symbolic depictions unearthed includes
anthropomorphic figurines, zoomorphic figurines
and various stone objects engraved with geometric
patterns (cf. Noy 1989; Cauvin 1994).
In the next chronological stage, the late tenth
and ninth millennia BP, the period commonly designated
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB), there is a rapid
growth of symbolic expression (cf. Rollefson 1983;
1986; Cauvin 1994; Garfinkel 1995). Rollefson suggested
subdividing these art objects into two groups
based on their size (1983; 1986):
1. small anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines,
usually smaller than 10 cm. These were
used by individuals and reflect household cults.
2. large anthropomorphic statues, plastered skulls
and masks, usually larger than 20 cm. These were
used on more public occasions and reflect rituals
performed at the community level.
All these items, however, are isolated art and cult
objects. Even when found in groups, like the plastered
skulls or anthropomorphic statues (Garfinkel
1994), they do not represent a scene, and no interdependence
between the items can be observed. Thus
the scenes recently reported from two Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B sites in the Levant — Nevali £ori and
Dhuweila (see below) — present a most dramatic
change. This aspect has been summarized by
Renfrew & Bahn as follows:
Painting, drawing, or carving on a flat surface in
order to represent the world offers much more
scope than the representation in three dimensions
of a single figure. For it offers the possibility of
showing relationships between symbols, between
objects in the cognitive map (Renfrew & Bahn 1991,
368).
Scenes, as opposed to figurines, are rather rare in the
proto-historic Near East. They can be divided into
three main categories:
1. the £atalh6yuk wall-paintings and reliefs, a
unique assemblage which has been discussed on
various occasions (Mellaart 1967). Another example
of a wall-painting depicting a scene has
been reported from Umm Dabaghiyah (Kirkbride
1975, fig. 7a).
2. pottery vessels depicting human figures together
with animals or architectural elements. This rare
category has been reported from only a few sites
(see, for example, Oppenheim 1943, fig. LX;
Ippolitoni-Strika 1990; Breniquet 1992a; Tobler
1950, pi. LXXVIH:a-b; Amiet 1979, figs. 15-17).
3. scenes depicting dancing figures. This is the largest
category, in chronological duration, geographical
distribution and the number of examples
reported.
It is therefore rather surprising to see that dancing
scenes have never been the subject of a comprehensive
analysis, and that only some aspects of them
have been discussed (Herzfeld 1941, 29-42; Mesnil
du Buisson 1948,23; Parrot I960,44-6; Gulder 1960-
62; Vanden Berghe 1968; Nitu 1970; Marinescu-Bilcu
1974a; Meyerhof & Mozel 1981; Yakar 1991,314; Esin
1993; Mantu 1993; Matousova 1993). The aim of this
work is to describe the dancing scenes and to discuss
various aspects of this phenomenon.
Methodological remarks on the depiction of dance
Prehistoric depictions of dance raise all kinds of methodological
problems, some of which are specifically
derived from the subject of dance, while others are
related to more general concerns of archaeological
analysis. Dance experts argue about reliable methods
for identifying dance versus other possible bodily
activities (Hanna 1979). If there are problems with
recognizing dance when it is actually in progress/
problems with recognizing depictions of dance are
even more complicated since dance activity is not
always self-evident. Can one suggest objective criteria
for the identification of dancing scenes? This issue
should be tackled on both the theoretical and the
208
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
practical level.
The theoretical level
Dance is created out of culturally understood symbols
within social and religious contexts. Are we
capable today, thousands of years later, of recognizing
and understanding all of the cases in which dance
is expressed in art scenes?
The practical level
The talent and executive ability of the individual
artist to express the motif, the items' state of preservation,
as well as the style and raw material used
affect our ability to identify a depiction as representing
dance.
In order to overcome these and other problems the
following methodological remarks are in order.
1. Dance, dancing scenes and the decorated items
The first point which needs to be clarified methodologically
is that three totally different subjects are
involved in this study.
The dance
Dance is a cross-cultural phenomenon which has
been observed in every human organization. In traditional
communities it bears various social and
religious functions. Unlike ritual paraphernalia, however,
which are a direct product of rituals and religious
ceremonies, dancing does not leave direct
evidence in the archaeological record.
Tlie dancing scenes
This is an artistic motif which depicts the activity of
dance. In some periods dancing scenes were very
popular while in others they were neglected. The
case of the Bushmen of South Africa shows that
there is no direct correlation between the importance
of dance in daily life and the importance of the
dance motif in the symbolic expression of the same
communities (see below).
The decorated items
An object decorated with a dancing motif had a function
of its own, over and above the dance and the
dancing scene. Moreover, alongside the items decorated
with depictions of dance, identical items apPear
in the archaeological record which are decorated
w
ith other motifs, or left undecorated.
There should therefore be a clear division between
the items decorated with dancing scenes, the
dancing scenes and the dance; each subject has to be
analyzed separately.
2. Depiction of movement in a static medium
When dealing with the depiction of dance in painting,
plastic representation or carving, a fundamental
difficulty must be taken into account. "Dancing is, in
and of itself, a dynamic activity performed at a certain
time and place, while painting and carving are,
by their very nature, static. How can one document
movement in a static artistic medium?' (Bellugue
1963).
Documenting dance is a difficult task:
An adequate system of dance notation, which is
one kind of permanent record, must deal successfully
with three different elements: movement
through space, movement through time, and the
stylistic variations and idiosyncracies that comprise
what we may call 'performance' (Royce 1977, 39).
These difficulties exist today, even with the development
of modern choreography (Hutchinson 1954;
1984; 1989; Eshkol & Wachmann 1958) and the use of
advanced filming techniques (cf. Royce 1977, 54-5;
Brooks 1984; Morphy 1994). They were much more
severe when the media chosen were painted pottery
vessels or engraved stone objects. Thus, there was
no intention of notating dance at all, and it seems
that the aim of a dancing scene was to provide a
memory-aid for those who already knew the style
and sequence of the movement. Indeed, in many of
the items presented below, no attempt was made to
represent dancing situations realistically. On the contrary,
the artists pursued a minimalist approach, using
the three stylistic categories defined below as:
naturalistic, linear or geometric. All three approaches
concentrate on expressing a small number of characteristics
which represent dance.
The circle
The archaeological examples show a clear preference
for round objects when portraying dancing
scenes. Only in very few cases were other objects
used, such as stone slabs, walls, or stamp seals. On
pottery vessels and cylinder seals the figures were
arranged around the perimeter in one line, parallel
to the rim — not at random or freely all over the
surface. Whether dozens of figures are represented,
or only two, they are organized in a circle around
the vessel.
Arranging the figures in a circle like this creates
a symmetrical pattern, usually described as an 'endless
motif. When the components are geometric,
209
Yosef Garfinkel
zoomorphic or floral the arrangement is merely decorative
(Wickede 1986). When the 'endless motif is
composed of human figures presented in a dynamic
posture or holding hands, however, it cannot be considered
as merely decorative any longer, but represents
a circle of dancing figures. Moreover, the
dancing figures were sometimes drawn on the inner
rim of jars where they are not easily visible. These
cases emphasize that the dancing figures convey a
more complex message than the zoomorphic or floral
endless decoration.
Direction of movement
In the archaeological examples, the movement of the
dancers in each scene is always uniform and all figures
always turn in the same direction, thus strictly
regulating the direction of movement.
Rhythm
The effect of rhythm, so essential to dance, is achieved
in each scene by the arrangment of the figures at
constant distances from each other.
Body position
In many examples of the naturalistic and geometric
styles, the dancers' bodies are represented with the
limbs bent — the part nearer the body horizontally
and the further limb part vertically, with the arms
turned upwards and the legs downwards. This is
not a static standing or sitting position, but rather a
dynamic one requiring great effort. In addition, despite
the schematic representation of the figures, fingers
were also depicted in some cases. Hand and
finger movements constitute an important component
in various forms of dance and this may be the
reason for their inclusion in the dancing scenes, despite
the fact that fingers are usually absent in schematic
depictions of human figures.
3. Depicting the richness of dance in limited
conditions
Dance is usually characterized by a plethora of details:
the position of the body and limbs, various
articles of dress such as hats or coiffures, ribbons at
the back of the neck, belts and special shoes. Some
figures appear to be wearing masks. The drawing or
carving of such details, particularly when executed
on a miniature scale, are inevitably limited. How can
one document the richness of dance with extremely
limited means of expression? The artistic solution in
this case, as can be seen from the examples presented
below, was to select only one or two of the
above-mentioned elements for a specific scene. Many
details have been deliberately omitted, so that only a
segment of the entire dance and dance decoration is
expressed in the depictions.
4. State of preservation of items
When dealing with items 9000 to 5000 years old
made on breakable materials such as pottery vessels,
we do not usually have complete objects at our disposal.
In many cases only fragmentary parts have
been preserved. Since this study concentrates on
dancing scenes, a single dancing figure on a pot
sherd raises a problem, as it may imply two different
situations:
• these items could come from vessels bearing several
such figures, and could thus be fragments
of a larger dance scene.
• these items could come from vessels on which only
one figure was depicted, and would thus not
be fragments of a dance scene.
Items of the first type may be included in the assemblage
while items of the second type should not be.
However, almost all examples of complete vessels or
large sherds which have been preserved show two
or more identical dancing figures. Thus the decision
was taken to include sherds with a single dancing
figure in this study.
5. The relevance of the dancing scenes to the study
of dance
The dancing scenes are not direct products of dance
activity but are an artistic transformation of reality
into depiction. This situation has been described by
Longstreet:
The skill of the eye and fingers of the artist does
not merely try to capture reality — for reality is far
from the purpose of the dance — but the impression,
the fleeting stop-motion of an intricate spin or
turn... the dance becomes the memory of a line, a
form, a color; and a drawing an impression, an
expression, usually abstract (Longstreet 1968).
Taking into account these limitations, it is clear that
not every question concerning the dance can be answered.
Only a rough general outline can be reconstructed,
while the minor details are not retrievable.
In order to verify the relationship of the dancing
scenes to the study of dance, it is important to establish
who produced the items decorated with depictions
of dance, and who were the intended audiences
of these scenes. Most of the items in the early village
communities were pottery vessels made by local
210
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
potters to be used by members of the same communities.
In order for the dancing scenes to communicate
amessage they should deliver a meaningful image,
i.e. be understandable by the inhabitants of the early
villages. This implies that the dancing scenes were
comprehensible representations of dance activity.
6. Categories of dance analysis
The analysis of dancing scenes can be supported by
the discipline of dance research. Beside numerous
case studies, there are specific works that have been
devoted to a more general level of dance analysis (cf.
Sachs 1952; Rust 1969; Lange 1976; Royce 1977). This
rich reservoir of resources should be integrated in
any study that deals with depictions of dance. Dance
activity is composed of individuals who are acting
together. Thus there are two levels of analysis: the
individual on the one hand and the community on
the other.
7. Assemblage analysis
The focus of analysis should be the assemblage of
dancing scenes rather than individual objects. Isolated
scenes, when examined alone, cannot produce
much information owing to the difficulty of expressing
the richness of dance by minimal schematic means
of expression. Only the combination of all the relevant
data, when bits and pieces are placed one
alongside the other, can produce meaningful analysis.
A critical mass is needed in order to produce a
multiple effect.
The dancing scenes
In my study over 300 examples of dancing scenes,
discovered at some 140 sites, have been recorded. In
this preliminary presentation only a few examples
are presented, due to space limitation. One can summarize
the main features relevant to the origin and
distribution of the dancing motif in the ancient Near
East and southeastern Europe as follows.
Ninth millennium BP (Pre-Pottety Neolithic B)
At this stage the earliest evidence for the dancing
motif comes to light at two sites in the Levant —
Nevali £ori and Dhuweila. Nevali C^ori is located in
the middle Euphrates region in southeastern Turkey.
A large Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) village
Was unearthed, including rich assemblages of art
objects (Hauptmann 1991-92; 1993; Yakar 1991, 65-
8; 1994, 13-21). One outstanding find was a large
public structure with benches, two monumental pillars
and a niche. A collection of life-size anthropomophic
stone statues was unearthed inside it. This
building is one of the earliest examples of a temple
in the ancient Near East. An item of special interest
from this site is an engraved fragment of a rounded
stone basin (Bienert & Fritz 1989; Yakar 1991, 315;
Hauptmann 1993, fig. 27). It bears a scene depicting
three complete figures presented enface in line (Fig.
1:1). At the broken edges traces of additional figures
can be seen but their nature remains unclear. The
two outer figures are clearly human. They resemble
each other, and both are larger than the figure in the
centre. Many details of the human body are shown:
head, face, two hands, fingers, torso, legs and toes.
The arms are bent upwards and the hands clearly
end in fingers. The legs are separate, also shown
partly horizontally and partly vertically, and end
with feet and toes. This is a very dynamic representation
of the human body, clearly expressing a dancing
position.
The character of the central figure is less clear
since it was schematically engraved. The head is
shaped like a rhombus with two eyes. The body is
rounded in a very exaggerated way. Two arms rise
diagonally, and two short legs extend diagonally
downwards. When published, this figure was identified
as a turtle (Bienert & Fritz 1989; Hauptmann
1993). But it has no tail or chequered shell. It seems
that the central figure should rather be interpreted
as a woman, or as a scene representing a family
celebrating a new birth (Uzunoglu 1993, 43, item A-
43), and a 'tortoise-like pregnant figure' (Yakar 1991,
315). Similar depictions of the female body can be
found at the site of K6§k Hoyiik in Anatolia (Fig.
1:5). A scene of two dancing men flanking a woman
also appears on a stamp seal from Tepe Giyan (Fig.
6:2), dated to the sixth millennium BP (Herzfeld 1933,
fig. 25; Barnett 1966, fig. 1:16, pi. XXIII.-2). A rounded
body was used as a gender characteristic signifying
a female figure, and does not necessarily indicate
pregnancy, as suggested by Uzunoglu.
The Nevali £ori basin fragment is one of the
earliest art objects in the Near East depicting a scene
which represents men and women dancing together.
Dhuweila is a small camp site located in the
Eastern Desert of Jordan. Several rock carvings were
found in a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B layer (Betts 1987).
One basalt slab bears a row of four human figures
presented en face, standing in a line, and holding
hands (Fig. 1:2). The bodies are relatively thin and
tall with elongated necks, quite similar to each other.
No specific gender characteristics are shown, but the
211
Yosef Garfinkel
6
••
•, \
8
Figure 1. Near Eastern Neolithic dancing scenes: 1) Nevali Qori, c. 19 x!3 cm (Hauptmann 1993, fig. 27);
2) Dhuweila, c. 9x7cm (Betts 1987,fig. 2); 3) Qatalhoyiik, c. 11.5x11.5 cm (Temizer 1981,fig. 22); 4) KalavasosTenta,
c. 120 x 60 cm (Todd 1987, fig. 39); 5) Kosk Hoyiik, c. 16x11 cm (Silistreli 1989, fig. 111:1); 6) Tell Sotto, c. 9
x 7 cm (Bader 1993, fig. 3.6); 7) Kosk Hoyiik, c. 19x11 cm (Silistreli 1989, fig. 11:1); 8) El Kowm 2, c. 12x18 cm
(Cauvin 1994,fig. 64:2).
212
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
general impression is that they are all males.
Each figure's head is portrayed somewhat differently.
The head of the figure on the left is elongated
like an animal head. The head of the second
figure from the left seems to have a hat or a coiffure.
The third has a very small head, and the head of the
fourth figure has unfortunately been broken off. The
heads are very small in proportion, and give a generally
non-human impression. Configurations of hurnan
bodies with non-human heads in the art of the
protohistoric Near East have been described as: 'demons'
(Herzfeld 1941, 30), 'demons with ibex horns'
(Porada 1965, 32), masked persons (Barnett 1966;
Kaplan 1969) and 'bird-headed men' (Fukai et al.
1974,51). It seems to me that rather than being mythological
demons, the figures at Dhuweila represent
masked individuals. Masks have been discovered at
contemporary Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites in the
Levant (Bar-Yosef & Alon 1988, pi. X; Nissen et al.
1987, fig. 16:1).
Early eighth millennium BP
The dancing motif becomes common throughout a
broader geographical expanse, including northern
Mesopotamia, Anatolia and Cyprus. The best examples
include applied plastic decoration on a pottery
vessel from K6§k Hoyiik (Fig. 1:5&7), a carved stone
slab from (^atalhoyiik (Fig. 1:3) and a painted fresco
at Kalavasos-Tenta (Fig. 1:4).
One item from K6§k Hoyiik includes the lower
part of two identical figures presented en face, holding
hands (Fig. 1:5). The breasts, the emphasized
pelvis and the fat folds indicate that only women are
participating in this dance. The figures are arranged
in a horizontal line on the shoulder of a closed vessel.
On another item from this site a single figure has
one arm bent upwards and the other bent downWards
(Fig. 1:7). The arm positions indicate a dynamic
dancing pose, which is clearly emphasized in
the first example in which two figures are holding
each other.
(^atalhoyiik is one of the most famous Neolithic
settlements in the Near East, located on the Konya
plain in Anatolia (Mellaart 1967; Todd 1976; Yakar
1991, 201-18). From Layer VI, dated to the first half
of the eighth millennium BP (Waterbolk 1987), came
an engraved plaque described as follows (Fig. 1:3):
On the left a couple of deities are shown in embrace;
on the right a mother holding a child, whose
head is unfortunately lost. It is possible, if not probable,
that the two scenes relate a succession of
events; the union of the couple on the left and the
intended result on the right. The goddess remains
the same, the male appears either as husband or as
son (Mellaart 1963, 148, pi. 83).
These four figures, however, are rather similar to
one another, and bear no gender characteristics. It is
impossible to decide whether they are males or females,
which makes Mellaart's interpretation groundless.
The two couples are clearly presented in a
dynamic position, embracing and with bent legs.
The pelvises are at the two extreme ends of each
composition rather than touching one another. This
is not necessarily a 'union' (Mellaart 1963, 148) or
'copulation' (Todd 1976, 93) but could be interpreted
as a dancing posture. I therefore suggest that the
plaque depicts the performance of a 'couple dance'.
Kalavasos-Tenta is an aceramic Neolithic village
site in Cyprus (Todd 1987). In one of the houses
a wall-painting in a fragmentary state of preservation
was unearthed. Two human figures are shown
with arms upraised (Fig. 1:4). The figures in this
wall-painting share basic similarities with figures
discovered in a number of protohistoric sites in the
Near East: Nevali £ori (Fig. 1:1), 'Ein el-Jarba (Fig.
2:10), and Tall-i Bakun A (Fig. 4:8). In these cases the
figures were depicted in the same position:
• en face pose;
• the arms are bent upwards, partly horizontal and
partly vertical;
• the legs are spread apart, their upper part horizontal
and their lower part vertical, and
• an identical figure is depicted again, side by side
with the first one.
In spite of its fragmentary state of preservation, the
item from Kalavasos-Tenta falls within a common
and well-documented class of motif from this area
and period: that of dancing figures.
Further examples of dancing figures from
eighth-millennium BP sites have been discovered at
Tell Sotto (Fig. 1:6), El Kowm 2 (Fig. 1:8), Umm
Dabaghiyah (Kirkbride 1973, pi. Ill) and Kurugay
Hoyuk (Duru 1988, fig. 14:1). The item from El Kowm
2 bears an incision showing a very schematic anthropomorphic
figure presented en face (Fig. 1:8). The
arms are bent upwards and the legs are bent downwards.
The line of the torso projects down between
the legs and seems to indicate the male sex organ.
This is the earliest example in the assemblage with
such a degree of abstraction of the human body. The
tendency towards abstract figures becomes stronger
in later chronological stages (Figs. 4-5).
Late eiglitli millennium and early seventh millennium BP
At this stage the distribution of the motif expands
213
Yosef Garfinkel
Figure 2. Near Eastern dancing scenesfrom late eighth and early seventh millennium BP: 1) Tell Sabi Abyad, c. 9 x6
* cm (Akkermans 1989,fig. IV.43:349); 2) Samarra, c. 5 x5cm (Herzfeld 1941,fig. 36); 3) Tell Halaf, c. 9x6 cm
(Oppenheim 1943, pi LX:2); 4) Tepe Djowi, c. 3.5 x 6 cm (Dollfus 1983, fig. 31:18); 5) Khazineh, c. 3 x2.5 cm
(Gautier & Lampre 1905, fig. 255); 6) Tepe Sabz, c. 2 x3.5 cm (Hole et al. 1969, fig. 63:n); 7) Choga Mami, c.8x6
cm (Ippolitoni-Strika 1990,fig. P); 8) Djaffarabad, c. 24x9 cm (Dollfus 1971, fig. 9:1); 9) Khazineh, c. 6.5x6.5 cm
(Gautier & Lampre 1905Jig. 254); 10) 'Ein el-farba, c. 27 x 23 cm (Kaplan 1969, fig. 7:1).
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
considerably. It is evident at most of the Halafian
and Samarran sites in northern and central Mesopotamia
(see Figs. 2:1-3, 7 & 4:1-3). In western Iran the
motif is found on the Deh Luran plain (see Figs. 2:5-
6,9 & 4:8-9) and the Susiana plain of Khuzistan (see,
for example, Figs. 2:4, 8 & 4:4,10). Various decorative
styles can be noted. In Mesopotamia and Iran
the motif is presented through pottery painting. Three
basic styles of painting appear simultaneously: naturalistic
(Fig. 2), linear (Fig. 4:2-4) and geometric (Fig.
4:1, 8-10). Several local linear and geometric styles
developed, of which the most common are the fol-
lowing:
• in the Halaf culture, the common linear style depicts
the human figure with a triangular head,
two or three vertical lines representing the body
and two diagonal lines marking the arms (see
Fig. 4:2).
• at sites of the Samarra culture a more abstract linear
style is common in which the head is totally
absent and the human figure is composed of a
number of vertical lines representing the body,
while diagonal lines represent the arms (see
Fig.4:3).
• on the Susiana plain, the body of the human figure
is represented by one exceptionally thick line
(see Fig. 4:4).
• in western Iran, the human figure is represented in
geometric style in the form oi a triangle, set in
vertical rows (see Fig. 4:8-10).
In contrast to the painting technique which was preferred
in Mesopotamia and Iran, relief representations
were often used in the western and northern
regions of the Near East, from the Levant to Anatolia
and Armenia, as at 'Ein al-Jarba (Fig. 2:10), Korucutepe
(Brandt 1978), Tulintepe (Esin 1993, fig. 84),
Nor§untepe (Hauptmann 1976, fig. 48:6), Imiris Gora
(Masson et ah 1982, fig. XXXIX:17) and Arukhlo
(Chataigner 1995, pi. 45:la-b).
Further north and west, similar examples have
been discovered in Greece, the Balkans and southeastern
Europe (see below).
Late seventh millennium BP
In Iran the motif spreads northwards and eastwards
and appears at various sites on the Iranian plateau
and in Fars and Kerman; the easternmost example
comes from Mehrgarh in Pakistan. Local styles became
common in Iran, the most characteristic features
being:
• a naturalistic style, common at sites on the Iranian
plateau (Tepe Sialk, Tchechme Ali and Qabrestan),
which includes a row of tall figures in
profile, very carefully delineated (Fig. 3:2-3,5-
6);
• a geometric style, present in the Susiana plain,
Fars and Kerman, which includes a row of
rhombuses covered by a net pattern (Fig. 4:5-
7);
• a 'cubist' style, found at the site of Tall-i Bakun A
(Fig. 3:8).
In Mesopotamia and Iran, with the appearance of
stamp seals depicting scenes — as opposed to the
earlier seals which were decorated mainly with geometric
designs — the dance motif has been reported
from Tepe Gawra (Fig. 6:3), Tepe Giyan (Fig. 6:2)
and Telul eth-Thalathat (Fig. 6:4). At this point the
motif reaches its widest geographical distribution,
but in the centre, i.e. Mesopotamia, there is already
evidence that its popularity is on the wane.
Southeast Europe
The early agricultural communities of southeast Europe
in the eighth, seventh and sixth millennia BP
produced large quantities of art and cult objects:
figurines, statues, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic
jars, architectural models and decorated pottery vessels
(Dumitrescu 1974; Gimbutas 1982; 1989). Dancing
figures are a common motif on decorated pottery
and have been reported from quite a number of sites
(Gulder 1960-62; Muller-Karpe 1968,307; Nitu 1970;
Dumitrescu 1974; Marinescu-Bilcu 1974a,b; Dragomir
1987; Mantu 1993). From a technical point of view,
most of the examples from southeast Europe were
decorated with plastic applications. Only a few items
were incised or painted. Usually broken sherds with
one figure have been reported. The better preserved
examples, however, bear the following characteris-
tics:
• more than one figure is depicted on the item's
perimeter;
• the figures on a particular vessel are usually iden-
tical;
• the figures are portrayed in a dynamic posture,
usually with bent arms and legs;
• no other scenes depicting interaction between people
have been reported.
These features suggest that a single anthropomorphic
figure on a sherd should be interpreted as part
of a dancing scene, originally with several identical
figures depicted around the vessel. It is also clear
that the scenes represent ordinary human beings in
dancing positions and not supernatural powers, as
has sometimes been suggested — e.g. 'male gods'
(Kalicz 1970, 52, pi. 52); 'the great goddess' (Mantu
1992, 315); or the female pantheon created by
215
Yosef Garfinkel
Figure 3. Dancing scenesfrom Iran and west Pakistan: 1) Chigha Sabz, c. 10x12 cm (Schmidt et al. 1989, pi. 67:a);
2) Tchechme Ali, c.llx8 cm (Mecqnenem 1928,fig.24:1); 3) Qabrestan, no scale published (Negahban 1976, fig.
21); 4) Qal'eh Rostam, c. 4.5 x6.5 cm (Bernbeck 1989,fig.29:c); 5) Tepe Sialk, c. 7.5 x4.5 cm (Ghirshman 1938, pi.
LXXV:1); 6) Tepe Sialk, c.Wx9 cm (Ghirshman 1938, pi. LXXXd:10); 7) Tall-ijari A, c. 19 cm diameter (Vanden
Berghe 1966, pis. 50 & 52a); 8) Tall-i Bakun A, c. 12 x 13.5 cm (Langsdorff& McCown 1942, pi. 67:13);
9) Mehrgarh, c. 6 x5 cm (Samzun & Sellier 1983,fig.1); 10) Surab region, no scale published (Dani 1988,fig.11).
Gimbutas, with her 'birth-giving goddess' (1982,176,
fig. 128), 'birth-giving goddess in the shape of a toad'
(1982, 177, fig. 131), 'bee goddess' (1982, 184, figs.
142-4), 'bird goddess' (1989,17) and 'snake goddess'
(1989,170, fig. 169).
Close connections existed between the Near
Eastern and European artistic traditions, as already
emphasized by Nitu (1970):
• The dancing figures appear in that part of Europe
closest to Anatolia.
• This motif appears in the seventh millennium DP in
both regions.
• In this period both regions underwent a similar
socio-economic development — the process of
216
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
Figure 4. Near Eastern examples of highly schematized dancing scenesfrom late eighth and seventh millennium BP:
1) Tell Halaf, c. 6 x5 cm (Oppenheim 1943, pi XChl); 2) Tell Halaf c. 5x6.5 cm (Oppenheim 1943, pi XC:14); 3)
Tell es-Sawwan, c. 13 x5 cm (Breniquet 1992b, fig. L:l); 4) Djafferabad, c. 20x11 cm (Dollfus 1975,fig. 25:1); 5)
Tall-i Bakun A, c. 22 x 13 cm (Langsdorff& McCoivn 1942, pi 67:13); 6) Tall-i Skau, c. 12x10 cm (Stein 1936, pi
XXIV:5); 7) Tepe Yahya, c. 8 x 7.5 cm (Lamberg-Karlovsky & Beale 1986, fig. 4.20:x); 8) Khazineh, c. 4.5x6.5 cm
(Gautier & Lampre 1905,fig. 262); 9) Khazineh, c. 14.5x8 cm (Gautier & Lampre 1905, fig. 264); 10) Chogha Mish,
no scale published (Kantor 1976, fig. 6).
'neolithization', i.e. the adoption of subsistence
strategies for food production and the agglomeration
of large communities into village-type
settlements.
• In stylistic terms, many of the European figures
appear in the same dynamic postures used in
the Near East, and in cases where large parts of
the vessels have been preserved, more than
one figure appears.
On the basis of these points, it seems that the dancing
motif should be interpreted similarly both in the
Near East and in Europe. During the process of
217
Yosef Garfinkel
7)*mmm
\ / in> V/
6
Figure 5. Southeast European dancing scenes: 1) Szegvdr-Tiizkdves, c. 6 x3.5 cm (Korek 1987,fig. 24); 2) Gumehiita,
c. 37 x26 cm (Ionescu 1974,fig. 1:1); 3) Trusesti, c. 65 cm (Muller-Karpe 1968, pi 172:l-la); 4) Dumesti, c.W cm
high of figures (Maxim-Alaiba 1987, fig. 13); 5) Gomolava, no scale published (Gimbutas 1982, pi. 172); 6) Tell
Azmak, c.16 x8 cm (Georgive 1965, pi. 6:d); 7) Trusesti, no scale published (Gimbutas 1982, fig. 144).
'neolithization', some Near Eastern myths and
religious practices were adopted by European communities
(Garfinkel 1994); the dancing figures motif
is one aspect of this complicated and protracted de-
velopment.
Figure 5 presents examples from the following
sites: Szegvar-Tuzkoves (Fig. 5:1), Gumelnita (Fig.
5:2), Truse§ti (Fig. 5:3, 7), Dumesti (Fig. 5:4),
Gomolava (Fig. 5:5) and Tell Azmak (Fig. 5:6).
The sixth millennium BP
In Mesopotamia, Iran and Anatolia the dancing motif
becomes less widespread both in scope and quantity,
appearing more rarely in archaeological
218
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
8
\p a a
\o ooOO
r
13
Figure 6. Later examples ofdancing scenesfrom the Near East: 1) Tepe Gawra, c. 9 x9cm (Tobler 1950, pi
CXLV:398); 2) Tepe Giyan, c. 4 x2.5 cm (Herzfeld 1933,fig.25); 3) Tepe Gawra, c. 2.5 x2.3 cm (Tobler 1950, pi
CLXIII:92); 4) Telul eth-Thalathat V,c.2xl cm (Fukai et al. 1974, pi LX:10); 5) Egypt, unknown provenance, c. 29
cm high (Baumgartel 1955,fig. 14); 6) Hemanieh, c.5x5 cm (Brunton & Caton-Thompson 1928, pi. LXX:6);
7) Mostagedda, c. 15x15 cm (Brunton 1937, pi XVIIMl, pi XIV:802); 8) Naqada, c. 18 cm high (Petrie 1921, pi
XXXVII:77); 9) Hama, c. 8 x3.5 cm (Ben-Tor 1978,fig. 22:1); 10) Byblos, c. 1.7x6 cm (Dunand 1950,201,fig.
209); 11) Syria, unknown provenance, c. 5 x2 cm (Ben-Tor 1978,fig. 22:4); 12) Bab cdh-Dhra', c. 8 x8 cm (Lapp
1989,fig.5); 13) Rosh ha-Niqra, c. 4.5 x5.5 cm (Ben-Tor 1978,fig.9:60).
219
Yosef Garfinkel
assemblages. It is found on a small number of cylinder
seals and their impressions, mainly from Ur
(Legrain 1936, nos. 327-9), Chagar Bazar (Herzfeld
1941, fig. 142), Nippur (Amiet 1961, pi. 18:298),
Nineveh (Collon 1987,153, fig. 677) and Susa (Amiet
1972, pi. 17:678). At the same time, many scenes now
concentrate on different topics altogether: war, animal
herds, people at work, cultic rituals, etc. In Egypt,
dancing scenes appear for the first time on a few
vessels, in the applied technique (Fig. 6:7), as well as
in painting (Fig. 6:5-6, 8).
The third millennium BC
In this period the dancing motif is confined to sites
in the Levant and is found mainly on cylinder seals
(see Fig. 6:9-13). A unique style develops which
spreads from Rosh ha-Niqra in the north to Bab edh
Dhra' in the south (Ben-Tor 1977; 1978; Lapp 1989).
To summarize, the dancing motif first appeared in
the Levant in the ninth millennium DP. During the
eighth and seventh millennium BP it spread eastwards
to Mesopotamia and Iran, as far as Mehrgarh
in western Pakistan. Simultaneously it spread to the
west and to the north — to Anatolia, Armenia, Greece,
the Balkans and southeast Europe. In the seventh
millennium BP the dancing motif reached its zenith
both geographically and quantitatively. In the sixth
millennium BP the motif made its appearance in
Egypt, but in Mesopotamia and Iran it lost its dominance.
From this point on its popularity declined,
until in the third millennium BC the Levant was the
only area still using it as a major motif for the depiction
of interaction between people. At its peak, the
motif was represented in almost every form of artistic
expression in use in the protohistoric Near East:
carving on stone slabs and stone vessels, plastic representation
on pottery vessels, pottery painting,
stamp seals and frescos. By the third millennium BC
the dancing motif was almost exclusively restricted
to cylinder seals.
Structural analysis of the dancing scenes
Analyzing the form and style of the performance in
early village communities represented by dancing
scenes contributes to the field of dance history, which,
in studies of antiquity, usually concentrates on Greek
vases. The history of dance has attracted the attention
of scholars, both on a general level (cf. Sachs
1952; Kraus 1969; Menil 1980; Clarke & Clement 1981;
Anderson 1986) and for specific time periods (cf.
Evans 1930, 66-80; Dolmetsch 1949; 1954; BrunnerTraut
1958; Lawler 1964; Wood 1964; Prudhommeau
1965; Gruber 1981; Goodison 1989). In her study of
the history of dance research A.P. Royce gave the
following description:
Structure and function represent perspectives which
produce very different kinds of information, hence
their utility in studies with a specific focus. Structural
studies of dance traditionally have been concerned
with producing 'grammars' of dance styles.
Functional studies, on the other hand, have concerned
themselves with determining the contribution
of dance to the continued well-being of a society
or culture (Royce 1977,65).
The following aspects of the depictions are relevant
to the dance performance, and should be the subject
of detailed examination:
• the location of the figures on the vessel;
• the presentation of the figures: whether en face or
in profile;
• the position of the body, especially the arms and
legs;
• costumes, objects and animals which accompany
the dancers;
• gender analysis;
• direction of movement: clockwise or counter-clock-
wise;
• the relationship of the figures to each other;
• architectural or other elements depicted in the dancing
scene.
Here we shall concentrate only on one aspect — the
spatial organization of the community at the time of
dance. Three different types of use of space by the
community can be distinguished:
Circle dance
The basic spatial organization of dancing seen in the
archaeological examples is that of a circle. On
rounded pottery vessels and cylinder seals the figures
were arranged around the perimeter in one
horizontal line, parallel to the rim. Circle dance has
many advantages (see below p. 227; Lange 1976,83-
4).
Line dance
Line dance may be represented in two different
groups of painted items.
1. In a few items from western Iran the figures
were arranged in vertical lines on the vessels,
and not horizontally as in most cases (Fig. 4:8-
10). This spatial organization is completely different
from that of a circle and seems more
suitable for portraying a line dance.
2. The dances performed in front of structures do
220
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
not form a closed circle. Such items have been
reported from southern Mesopotamia and Iran
(Figs. 3:6 & 6:1). The question in these cases is
whether the scenes represent a line dance, or
whether the introduction of the structure created
technical difficulties for the depiction of a complete
circle.
Couple dance
This is the rarest type of dance in the archaeological
inventory. I have suggested that the engraved plaque
from £atalhoyuk (Fig. 1:3) should be interpreted as
representing two couples in a dance, and there is
another schematic representation of couples from
Trusesti in southeast Europe (Fig. 5:3).
Most dancing scenes were arranged around the circumferences
of clay vessels or cylinder seals. Items
which are not round, such as stone slabs, wall-paintings
or stamp seals, were only rarely chosen for decoration
with dancing figures. This is clear evidence of
the way the nature of the depicted motif (dancing in
circles) dictated a preference for the specific shape of
the substrate (round objects).
The cultic aspect
The structure of the dancing scenes of the early village
communities demands strict adherence to discipline,
dictating the form of the performance. The
posture of all the figures is the same. All figures are
dressed identically or they are all nude. When holding
objects, such as sticks, all the figures hold identical
objects. All figures turn in the same direction.
The distance between one figure and the next is
uniform. Such requirements are typical of religious
rituals, which demand a strict repetition of verbal
pronouncements, movements, costumes, time and
place of performance. Such requirements are often
described in ethnographic observations concerning
rituals, as noted by Bloch:
the formalization of body movement implies evergrowing
control of choice of sequences of movement,
and when this has occurred completely we
have dance. We therefore find dance, as well as
formalized body movements, typical of religion.
The implications of this transformation from ordinary
bodily control to dance are the same as they
are for language: argument and bargaining with
bodily movements are replaced by fixed, repeated,
fused messages. The acceptance of this code implies
compulsion. Communication has stopped being
a dialectic and has become a matter of repeating
correctly (Bloch 1989,37-8).
Other scholars do not place so much emphasis on
the repetitive elements of the ritual, though the importance
of dance in the process is not overlooked,
as expressed for example by Turner:
Ritual, in tribal society, represents not an
obsessional concern with repetitive acts but an immense
orchestration of genres in all available sensory
codes: speech, music, singing, the presentation
of elaborately worked objects, such as masks; wallpaintings,
body paintings; sculptured forms; complex,
multi-tiered shrines; costumes; dance forms
with complex grammars and vocabularies of body
movements; gestures, and facial expressions. Ritual
also contains plastic and labile phases and episodes,
as well as fixed and formal ones (Turner
1984,25).
In any case, the dancing motif does not reflect a
simple pastime but rather religious rituals. The major
role of the dance in rituals has been explained in
the new Encyclopaedia of Religion as follows:
The power of dance in religious practice lies in its
multisensory, emotional and symbolic capacity to
communicate. It can create moods and a sense of
situation in attention-riveting patterns by framing,
prolonging, or discontinuing communication.
Dance is a vehicle that incorporates inchoate ideas
in visible human form and modifies inner experience
as well as social action (Hanna 1987,203).
The same author has also described the various
multisensory aspects in an earlier work:
The dance medium has communicative efficacy as
a multidimensional phenomenon codifying experience
and directed toward the sensory modalities
— the sight of performers moving in time and
space, the sounds of physical movement, the smell
of physical exertion, the feeling of kinesthetic activity
or empathy, the touch of body to body or to
performing area, and the proxemic sense — has the
unique potential of going beyond many other audio-visual
media of persuasion (Hanna 1979, 24).
The dance experience is therefore a religious experience,
in which the individual expresses his or her
worship, adoration and respect towards the supernatural
powers. The influence of this activity on the
individual has been described as follows:
To the participant it is a vehicle for self-expression
and a release of inner tensions. This psychic outpouring
restores vitality and refreshes the whole
person. This effect was evident in the behavior of
people after a ceremony was over. The completed
event had a psychological effect on all present and
there was a prevailing sense of deep satisfaction
(Moore 1979,308).
221
Yosef Garfinkel
Another aspect of the dance, usually associated with
rhythmic movement in a circle, is the transformation
of the mind into various stages of trance and ecstasy.
Lange provides a convenient summary:
Dance as a means of achieving trance has a physiological
effect on the brain of the performer and
thus promotes dissociation. (Hyperventilation, exhausting,
whirling, turning, circular, rotational
movements — all affect the sense of balance and
equilibrium, and eventually cause dizziness.) It
must have been early on that 'primitive' man discovered
the trance-like property of dance if performed
in particular circumstances (Lange 1976,
66-7).
With the introduction of various stages of trance, the
participants in the ceremonies feel that the supernatural
powers actually participate in the dance. The
'other' world and this world are thus combined together
in the dancing circle.
We do not know which religious rituals are
expressed in the dancing scenes of the early village
communities, but from ethnographic observations
one can observe that dancing activity is attested in a
variety of contexts, including ad hoc occasions. They
include medicine dances (healing), fertility dances,
initiation dances, marriage dances, funeral and scalp
dances, war dances, astral (moon, sun, rain) dances
(Sachs 1952,62-77,124,131), and calendrical rituals.
It seems that with the increase of social complexity
the ad hoc rituals were transferred to the household
or the family level, while on the community level
calendrical ceremonies were emphasized (Rappaport
1971; Flannery 1972b, 401-12). In any case, dance
played an important part in the ritual in both ad hoc
and calendrical rituals. Such extensive use of dance
was not integrated into the official religious ceremonies
of western civilization:
The European has lost the habit and capacity to
pray with movement. The vestiges of such praying
are the genuflexions of the worshippers in our
churches. The ritual movements of other races are
much richer in range and expressiveness. Late civilisations
have resorted to spoken prayer in which
the movements of the voice become more important
than bodily movements. Speaking is then often
heightened into singing. (Laban 1971,5)
At this point, wall-paintings from Qatalhoyuk which
were described as 'dance of the hunters' and 'hunting
rites' (Mellaart 1967,174-5), should be re-examined.
In some of them human figures are seen
skipping around an exceptionally large animal. The
way the figures are shown differs from the other
figures discussed so far:
• There is no uniformity in the presentation of the
figures. They are portrayed at different sizes.
• The body motions are not uniform. Some of the
figures are presented in a dynamic position
indicating running or jumping, others stand or
lie down.
• The dress is not uniform. While most of the figures
are wearing a loincloth, some are not.
• There is no uniform direction of movement, and
the figures are not arranged in circles. The figures
face various directions simultaneously.
• There is no attempt to express rhythm, for example
by placing the figures at uniform distances
from each other.
In the scenes from £atalhoyuk there is no strict organization
of posture, nor of the direction of movement.
There is none of the formalization so typical of
rituals. These paintings thus probably represent hunting
scenes — another aspect of interaction between
people. The subject in this case emphasizes virility
and not religious ceremony.
Linguistic aspects
The circle is the basic dance structure that appears in
the early dancing scenes of the Near East. Dancing is
a typical cultic activity, and it is interesting to see
that in some Semitic languages of this geograpical
region there exist semantic fields which include circular
and other ceremonial activities.
Hebrew
In Hebrew the word Jiag covers a semantic field which
includes:
'Festival'. In the Old Testament the term liag is restricted
to the festivals associated with the pilgrimages.
In association with the Temple in Jerusalem
the term hag is used for Tabernacles, Passover and
Pentecost (Loewestamm 1965). The term hag is also
mentioned in relation to other cultic centres: Shiloh,
where it is associated with dancing activities (Judges
21:19-21) and Beth El (1 Kings 12:32-3).
'Go in a circle, creating a circle'. The concepts of festival
and creation of a cycle are covered by the same
semantic field. Two roots are involved here, hzug and
hgg, both morphologically and functionally close. It
has already been suggested that this linguistic situation
indicates that in early times the festival was
celebrated by circle dances (Mandelkern 1896, 369;
Loewenstamm 1965). The archaeological finds presented
in this work support the linguistic observation.
Thus the language preserves an ancient stratum
222
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
of the concept. The festival day is the day of dance,
when all the community gathers together in a common
circle.
Furthermore, it should be noted that the three festivals
designated hag in the Old Testament are
calendrical rituals associated with the most basic
agricultural activities: Tabernacles is the gatheringin
festival (Jiag ha-assif), the end of the fruit harvest as
well as the time for ploughing and sowing for the
next agricultural cycle; Passover is associated with
the beginning of the barley harvest; and Pentecost
with the beginning of the wheat harvest. This indicates
a strong link to agriculture in general and to
two cereals (wheat and barley) in particular. In the
context of Judaism these festivals were also given
historical significance, but the agricultural background
fits well into the simple Neolithic agricultural
context, rather than urban or pastoral contexts.
Aramaic
In Aramaic, as in Hebrew, the word hinga covers a
semantic field which includes both circles and festivals
(Jastrow 1903,458).
Arabic
In Arabic the term Iwjj is used to describe a man who
goes on pilgrimage to Mecca. What is the origin of
this word? The Encyclopaedia of Islam suggests that
'probably the root hzvg, which in north as well as
South Semitic languages means "to go around in a
circle" is connected with it' (Wensinck 1986). The
special activity carried out by the pilgrims in Mecca
is the circling of the Ka'aba and its holy stone seven
times. Since the entire pilgrimage seems to be named
after this circling activity, that must be the most
central part of the process. It thus seems that the
semantic uniqueness of the word Jtag both in biblical
Hebrew and in Arabic reflects ancient traditions
which combined pilgrimages to holy places and cultic
dances performed there.
Syriac — dancing and mourning
In Hebrew the root rqd is used to describe dancing
activity. In Syriac it is used to describe the activity of
mourning (J. Greenfield, pers. comm.). The juxtaposition
of dancing (melultu) and mourning {sipittu)
appears also in ancient Mesopotamian texts (W.
Hallo, pers. comm.). The common semantic field
demonstrates that in the ancient Semitic milieu, funeral
services included dancing. This is not a unique
phenomenon. Mourning dances have been reported
in ethnographic observations (cf. Sachs 1952, 74-5;
Morphy 1994) and were depicted on ancient art objects.
In ancient Egypt mourning dances appeared
on wall-paintings in graves (Brunner-Traut 1958,61).
In Mycenaean and Philistine contexts in the second
half of the second millennium BC, mourning female
figurines were attached to the rims of round clay
vessels (Iakovidis 1966; Dothan 1982,237-15). A few
such figures were applied around the edge of each
vessel, indicating that the ceremony was carried out
in the form of a circle dance. These items come from
graves (Iakovidis 1966). The archaeological evidence
also includes a number of items discovered in graves
which depict dancing ceremonies: a holemouth jar
from Tin el-Jarba (Fig. 2:10), a fenestrated pedestal
bowl from Tall-i Jari A (Fig. 3:7) and a jar from
Naqada (Fig. 6:8). The find spot of these items may
indicate that the dances shown were mourning ritu-
als.
Functional analysis of dance
The function of dance within its social context in
traditional communities has been addressed by many
scholars:
The dance . . . is essentially a joint and not an
individual activity and we must therefore explain
it in terms of social function, that is to say we must
determine what is its social value (Evans-Pritchard
1928,446).
The purpose of dance can be understood also in
terms of the larger social structure, the standardized
social form through which conceptualization and
action occurs. This relates to the nature of participation
criteria and the dancer's relations to, and
means of coping with, the broader social structure.
Dance is part of networks of social stratification
and other processes that organize interconnected
activities of the members of a society (Hanna 1979,
23-4).
Dance is not an entity in itself, but belongs rightfully
to the wider analysis of ritual action, and it is
in this context that one can approach it analytically
and grant it the attention it demands. In a very
important sense, society creates the dance, and it is
to society that we must turn to understand it (Spencer
1985, 38).
The dancing scenes should be understood against
the background of their social context, i.e. the village
communities of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods.
Ethnographic observations can be used to gain a
wider view of dancing in pre-state societies. Many of
the observations carried out by modern anthropolo-
223
Yosef Garfinkel
gists in traditional societies are devoted to dance.
There is a vast literature on specific case studies, as
well as works devoted to the anthropology of dance
within a wider theoretical framework (cf. Rust 1969;
Lange 1976; Royce 1977; McNeill 1995).The question
is not why people dance, but rather why dancing
was used so often as an artistic motif by the early
village communities.
Of special interest to our study are observations
on the Bushmen of South Africa, since there
exists abundant documentation of both the dancing
(Marshall 1969; Biesele 1978; Katz 1982) and artistic
symbolic expressions of this people (Vinnicombe
1976; Lewis-Williams 1981; Lewis-Williams &
Dowson 1989). In Bushmen societies, dance is extremely
important in daily life:
!Kia, and its setting of the !kia dance, serves many
functions. It is the IKung's primary expression of a
religious existence and a cosmological perspective.
It provides healing and protection, being a
magicomedical mode of coping with illnesses and
misfortune. The !kia at the dance also increases
social cohesion and solidarity. It allows for individual
and communal release of hostility. Finally,
the dance alters the consciousness of many members
of this community. As individuals go into
!kia, others at the dance, participating in various
ways and to various degrees, themselves experience
an alteration in their state of consciousness.
An atmosphere develops at a dance whereby individual
experiences of !kia can have a contagious
effect on others (Katz 1976,286).
On the other hand, dance is not a major motif in
Bushman artistic expressions (Vinnicombe 1976,307-
19; Lewis-Williams 1981, 19; Lewis-Williams &
Dowson 1989). Compared to the art of the early village
communities of the Near East and southeast
Europe, two points are apparent.
Vie subjects depicted
Various forms of interaction between people are depicted
in Bushman art. A quantitative analysis from
two different areas produces the following results.
• In the Drakensberg region of Natal, out of 4530
documented scenes the following activities were
noted (Vinnicombe 1976,363, table 2): hunting
(8 per cent), dancing (5 per cent), fighting (3
per cent), other (5 per cent), and uncertain (79
per cent). When the recognized scenes alone
are taken into account the dancing scenes constitute
about 20 per cent.
• Tn all the samples so far available from the South
Eastern Group there is a clear but not overwhelming
emphasis on human figures and social
activities. At Giant's Castle 59.8% of the
total sample of 1,335 representations are of
human beings (this figure includes therianthropes);
at Barkly East, 53.9% of the representations
are of human beings. Most of these
human figures are depicted in social groups,
walking, running, sitting, dancing, fighting and
hunting; the lone human figure is comparatively
rare' (Lewis-Williams 1981,19).
Dancing here is just one motif among many others,
and it is by no means the dominant one, as it is in the
case of the early village communities.
Uniformity offigures
In Bushman dancing scenes there is no uniformity in
either the shape or function of the figures. Paintings
may represent complex cultic scenes with figures of
different sizes performing different tasks (Vinnicombe
1976,307-19; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1989,
figs. 14,15,17-18). From ethnographic information,
these pictures are interpreted as religious ceremonies
with a shaman officiating (Lewis-Williams &
Dowson 1989,30-36). Some Bushmen claim that the
paintings were drawn by shamans (Lewis-Williams
& Dowson 1989,36).
Thus we have, on the one hand, an example of
the Bushman, where equality is not expressed on art
objects, and on the other the early village communities
of the Neolithic which were undergoing rapidly
increasing social stratification, while their symbolic
expression emphasized egalitarianism. This clearly
indicates that we must examine not only the social
context of the dance but also the social context of the
dancing scenes.
Why were dancing scenes the most popular,
indeed almost the only subject used to describe interaction
between people in the protohistoric period?
And why did they lose their prominent position
with the rise of urban societies? In the Near East and
southeast Europe the dancing motif predominated
in a period in which large village communities, based
on food production, were developing. Archaeological
evidence shows that this was a period when concentrations
of population of unprecedented size
emerged, accompanied by social stratification. It became
necessary to create leadership and decisionmaking
apparatuses, and at the same time it was
essential to tie the community together and
strengthen the individual's sense of belonging, so
that the community would not disintegrate.
Two books published in the last decade — The
Domestication of the Human Species (Wilson 1988) and
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Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
The Domestication of Europe (Hodder 1990) — deal
with the process of 'Neolithization'. They emphasize
the importance of the house, each from a different
point of view. Wilson states that: 'the separateness
and privacy of the household is a source of aggravation,
stress, and divisiveness. Can this inherent 'contradiction'
in domesticated society be countered?'
(Wilson 1988,168).
Hodder, on the other hand, ignores the tension
between individual houses and the society:
The household is a production unit and it is through
that production that the larger social unit is to be
constructed . . . Any social conflict, whether between
men and women, old and young, local group
and local group, could be negotiated in terms of
the need better to control 'the wild' by bringing it
within the control of 'the domus' (Hodder 1990,
38-9).
It is not clear how the dwelling units, the activity
areas of individuals, were developed into symbols
of the 'domestication of the society'. Hodder discusses
the house/domus as an isolated phenomenon,
but houses do not stand alone. They are organized
together in villages. The village stands for the community
while the house stands for the individual.
The omission of the term 'village' from the index in
Hodder's book, and the omission of Flannery's classic
article on the village in the Near East and
Mesoamerica (1972a) from the bibliography best symbolize
Hodder's weakest link. The house is the individual's
territory within the village. The walls not
only symbolize the individual, but actually separate
him or her from the community. By closing the door
the individual physically disconnects him- or herself
from the rest of the village.
Increasing individuality is a process that has
been reflected in architecture. Some early camp-sites
represent a 'bee-hive' (communal) pattern of settlement,
like the Natufian settlement at Hayonim Cave
(Bar-Yosef 1991, fig. 1), or Pre-Pottery Neolithic B
desert camp-sites such as Wadi Tbeiq (Bar-Yosef 1982)
and Nahal Issaron (Goring-Morris & Gopher 1983).
The early village settlements of the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic A are characterized by individual round
household structures (Flannery 1972a). With the development
of a more complex economy and social
organization in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B villages,
the individual houses became more and more elaborate
in shape, size and building materials. The round
shape was replaced by a rectangular outline (Flannery
1972a). House size increased from c. 20-30 sq.m in
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A to 60-100 sq.m in Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B. Lime plaster become an important
component of Pre-Pottery Neolithic B building, regardless
of its complex production and redistribution
(Garfinkel 1987).
The development of the private dwelling was
not a process which took place in isolation. It was
part of a larger development (ignored by Wilson)
which may explain the individual's focus on his or
her private abode. This process (in the Natufian and
Neolithic periods) was the concentration of large
groups of people together on an unprecedented scale.
In the Upper Palaeolithic and the Epipalaeolithic
periods we are familiar with hunter-gatherer sites
whose size does not exceed several hundred square
metres. In the Natufian period we find for the first
time camp sites of several thousand square metres.
In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period sites appear
whose size exceeds ten thousand square metres, such
as Jericho (25,000 sq. m), Netiv Hagdud (18,000 sq. m)
and Gilgal (10,000 sq.m). In Pre-Pottery Neolithic B,
sites over a hundred thousand square metres in area
are known, such as 'Ain Ghazal and Basta. A steep
growth in the size of the human group dwelling
together at the same site can be observed. Population
growth supercedes the intimacy found in smallscale
communities. Society becomes more formalized.
Alienation, as well as competition and suspicion, is
felt by many individuals. Individuals react to this
situation by focusing on the personal dwelling, in
which they can find a means of escape from society
at large.
To counter these segregation tendencies at the
individual level, two kinds of community-level cohesion
activity can be distinguished in the archaeological
record of these early village communities.
Construction of public buildings. The best examples
are the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A tower and walls at
Jericho (Kenyon 1981, pis. 203-6), the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B wall and Building 8 at Beidha (Kirkbride
1968; Byrd 1994, fig. 7), the skull house at gayonii
(Ozbeck 1988) and the temple building at Nevali
£ori (Hauptmann 1993). These examples, however,
are limited to a small number of sites.
Public religious ceremonies. These are reflected in various
finds which make their first appearance in the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period:
• large art and cult objects including plaster and
limestone anthropomorphic statues, masks and
plastered skulls;
• construction of public religious structures like the
above-mentioned temple at Nevali £ori and
the skull house at (^ayonii;
225
Yosef Garfinkel
• transformation of burial customs from the individual
level to the community level. In the first
early village communities, care of the dead was
part of the household duties and burial took
place near to or under the floors of the dwelling
units. Later on this duty became a community
responsibility with the appearance of the
skull house at Qayonu and formal cemeteries
located outside villages.
• dancing scenes, the visual expressions of such ceremonies.
By dancing, holding hands and moving
in a circle, the individual is physically fused
into the group, which becomes one entity.
The greater attention paid to the individual level,
reflected in the dwelling units, is paralleled by increasing
attention to the community level, as seen in
public religious ceremonies. The process reached its
peak in the ninth millennium DP, when dwelling structures
became extremely elaborate with rectangular
plans, large dimensions and plastered floors. This is
exactly contemporary with the formative period during
which the basic cultic and religious concepts of
the ancient Near East were crystallized (Garfinkel
1994). While band societies are characterized by ad
hoc rituals, basically consisting of rites de passage and
successful hunting and healing ceremonies, more
complex social organizations of tribes and chiefdoms
perform calendrical rituals (Flannery 1972b, 411-12,
fig. 1). It seems that the appearance of large cult
objects such as anthropomorphic statues, masks and
plastered skulls at Pre-Pottery Neolithic B sites was
not only associated with public rituals (Rollefson
1983; 1986), but was more specifically connected with
calendrical rituals. Dancing, an activity performed
at the community level, was emphasized during these
developments and became a common artistic motif.
Since dancing is a public activity, it requires a
degree of co-ordination and formalization:
Time. The community must gather at a time which is
acceptable to all.
Space. An acceptable location must be selected.
Dancedecoration. All participants are required to equip
themselves with uniform dress and accessories. In
this way the appearance of equality of all members
of the community is achieved.
Posture. All are obliged to perform the same combination
of bodily signs in the same order.
Direction ofmovement. All participants are obliged to
move in the same direction, whether counter-clockwise
or clockwise.
Rhythm. All are obliged to move at the same tempo.
Dance is thus an activity through which society instills
collective discipline in its members. The participant
in the dance accepts the rules of the
community. This provides a means of internalizing
discipline in a period without police, army or prisons.
Internalization was achieved not through fear
but through bodily activity — a form of group
therapy. The tremendous energy brought together
was a tool for unity and the creation of ethnic identification.
It is thus a dramatic and ecstatic experience,
sometimes heightened by the use of special dress
and face coverings, and sometimes by stripping. The
message conveyed is at group — or community —
level rather than focused on the individual. This
situation has been described by Rappaport:
The virtue of regulation through religious ritual is
that the activities of large numbers of people may
be governed in accordance with sanctified conventions
in the absence of powerful authorities or even
of discrete human authorities of any sort. As such,
it is plausible to argue that religious ritual played
an important role in social and ecological regulation
during a time in human history when the arbitrariness
of social conventions was increasing but
it was not yet possible for authorities, if they existed
at all, to enforce compliance (Rappaport 1971,
38).
It thus seems that dancing scenes appeared in the
ancient Near East at a time of tribal social organization,
and gradually fell out of use with the development
of the state (Fig. 7).
With the foundation of states at the end of the
sixth millennium DP, art was integrated into the lifestyle
of the elite, and was used as a tool for enhancing
authority, political propaganda and economic
interests (Winter 1987; Porada 1986; Larsen 1979,
297-390). Dance, which was no longer the main tool
for promoting community cohesion, was removed
from the agenda of the upper classes, and almost
disappeared from the artistic record. The process of
social and economic change, to which dance is subject
has been described by Lange in relation to the
modern world, but the same observation might be
made for the ancient Near East at the rise of the first
states:
As soon as the cultural integrity of a human group
splits, the traditional dance becomes lost, because
it ceases to retain its vital social significance. The
226
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
e
o
8
03
I
•a
1
Dancing Scenes
Band Tribe Chiefdom
Social Organization
State
Figure 7. Correlation between socialorganization, social
stratification and the appearance of dancing scenes in
early village communities.
urbanised type of life requires new media, and the
intruding new elements cannot be absorbed quickly
enough. There is no longer time, place or need to
follow the old patterns of dance. Nor may dance
respond to the demands of the new situation (Lange
1976, 111).
Cognitive aspects of the dancing scenes
There is now a growing archaeological literature on
issues such as ritual and cultic performance. These
Works deal mainly with the analysis of cult objects
and temples, i.e. the material remains of ritual activities.
Marcus and Flannery, for example, combined
three methodological approaches when dealing with
ancient Zapotec ritual and religion: (1) the direct
historical approach; (2) the analysis of public space
and religious architecture; and (3) the contextual
analysis of religious paraphernalia (Marcus &
Flannery 1994, 55). Evidence for dancing, however,
is totally different, since we do not have direct remains
of such activity. What we do have in hand
from the past are depictions of dance which are not
'objective' photographs, but the results of cognitive
processes which function as filters, eliminating the
less important aspects of an event and emphasizing
its essence (Fig. 8). This is where cognitive analysis
comes in, focusing on the process that transfers reality
into depiction.
Cognitive archaeology is the study of past ways
of thought from material remains (Renfrew et al.
1993; Renfrew & Zubrow 1994; Zubrow 1994). The
importance of pictorial relationships has been summarized
as follows:
We can obtain the greatest insight into the cognitive
map of an individual or a community by representation
in material form of that map, or at least
a part of it. . . But the more general case is that of
depiction, where the world, or some aspect of it, is
represented so that it appears to the seeing eye
very much as it is conceived in the 'mind's eye'
(Renfrew & Bahn 1991,363).
The foregoing analysis of dancing scenes has emphasized
that they depict public religious ceremonies.
They thus open a window as to the cognitive
map of early village communities.
Dance symbolized rituals in the cognitive map
of these early village communities. Religious experience
was obtained through the ecstatic, high-energy
activity of dancing. Furthermore, the most commonly
depicted elements of the dance are not related to
costumes or body positions, but rather to:
a) the arrangement of the figures around the circumference
of round objects (pottery vessels and
cylinder seals), and
b) the identical appearance of the figures in a scene.
Thecircle
The importance of the circle in dancing has been
emphasized throughout the presentation of the data
and its analysis.
• Most of the scenes were depicted around the circumference
of round items, such as pottery vessels
or cylinder seals. This type of 'endless motif
creates a circle of dancing figures.
• The identity of dancing circles with religious ceremonies
is apparent from linguistic evidence.
The term Ing covered both meanings in some
Semitic languages: 'festival' and 'going in a
circle'.
Ethnographic observations emphasize the importance
of dancing in pre-state societies. In such societies
dancing is usually carried out in circles.
Community
Rituals
Cognitive
Map
Dancing
Scenes
Figure 8. The cognitive map as afilter between the
community rituals and the dancing scenes.
227
Yosef Garfinkel
These points demonstrate that in the cognitive
map of the early village communities the most important
aspect of the religious experience, the core of
the ceremonies, was the dance circle. The circle could
be interpreted on different levels.
The individual level
Each participant builds the circle with his or her
own body. By performing in the circle, each individual
expresses worship, respect and adoration of
the supernatural powers to whom the ritual is dedicated.
The torsion, rhythmical and ecstatic movement
is the contribution of each individual to the
religious ceremony. This behaviour is the equivalent
of the prayers and animal sacrifices that appear later
in complex societies.
The community level
The circle is created by the arrangement of people at
the same time and place, moving in the same direction.
The circle thus symbolizes the community. Beyond
the realm of symbols, the circle is also the
community itself at the time of its congregation.
TJw cosmological level
Cosmological components tend to have a cyclical
appearance, like the four seasons, the moon, seedtime
and harvesting, etc. The circular movement imitates
these cyclical events.
The circle is a powerful structure, and has the potential
to fulfil all the four main components of ritual
summarized by Renfrew & Bahn (1991,359).
Focusing ofattention. In the circle, people are arranged
around the circumference and all look to the centre.
The centre of the circle is the focus of which the
dancers are very aware . . . the natural point of
attention, and for this reason it has been used so
often as the site of the symbol around which the
dance takes place, e.g. a fire, killed animal, offering,
altar, newly-wed couple, maypole, etc. (Lange
1976,84).
The circle, like a temple temenos, delineates a territory,
and the participants are disconnected from the
outer world, focusing solely on the religious ceremony.
This point is especially relevant for the early
village communities which had not yet constructed
large cultic buildings.
Boundary zone between this world and the next. The
rhythmic movement in the circle can alter the state
,of consciousness and propel the mind into various
stages of trance (Ludwig 1969,11; Lange 1976,66-7).
The implications of trance for dance have been described
as follows: 'In their ecstasy they literally stand
outside. Frequently the dance stretches beyond the
immediate social milieu to some higher association
with spiritual beings, who possess the dancers' (Spencer
1985,28). Thus trance is a metaphysical situation,
a mystic experience, both for the persons in trance
and the observers around them. From a cognitive
point of view it may be understood as an actual
contact between this world and the other.
The widespread nature of this phenomenon has
been studied by Bourguignon:
The presence of institutionalized forms of altered
states of consciousness in 90% of our sample societies
(N=488) represents a striking finding and suggests
that we are, indeed, dealing with a matter of
major importance, not merely a bit of anthropological
esoterica. It is clear that we are dealing with
a psychobiological capacity available to all societies,
and that, indeed, the vast majority of societies
have used it in their own particular ways, and
have done so primarily in a sacred context
(Bourguignon 1973,9-11).
Presence of the deity. The circle can be organized
around sacred items, such as divine symbols, holy
trees, or any other cultic objects.
Participation and offering. The circle is the 'activity
area' where the ritual is actually performed.
Taking into account all these aspects, it is not surprising
that in the cognitive map of the early village
communities the circle of human figures was identified
and used as the symbol of public ritual.
Uniformity of the figures
Another phenomenon repeated in the dancing scenes
is that the figures in each scene are uniform, with the
exception of rare cases in which males and females
are portrayed together and the differences are gender-related.
This uniformity created equality between
all members of the community. There are no individual
features. No figure is emphasized over and
against another. This conception is crystallized in
the Halafian and Samarran painted linear style (Fig.
4:2-3), in which the individuals are so schematic that
the main emphasis is on the circle itself. This approach
differs from artistic expressions in state societies,
where the king or priest is depicted larger than
other figures surrounding him. On the other hand,
the South African Bushmen, one of the best exam-
228
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
pies of an egalitarian society, also produced dancing
scenes in which the participants are not uniform in
size, dress or posture. The uniformity apparent in
early village community dancing scenes is thus outstanding
and unique. It seems that both social and
functional aspects are involved here.
The social context
The dancing scenes express an ideology of equality
between all members of the community. In reality,
however, this was a period in which revolutionary
changes took place in the social organization of human
societies, with increased stratification. The final
result of these processes was the establishment of
states, with formalized kingship, aristocracy, priesthood,
bureaucracy, army and police, supported by a
sophisticated system of documentation made possible
by the invention of writing. Both hunter-gatherer
societies and urban societies maintained a relatively
static relationship between different segments of the
community. In the millennia in which social organization
developed from egalitarian to the state, however,
relationships were dynamic with an acceleration
of inequalities among different members of society.
It is exactly at this stage, no earlier and no later, that
the participants in dance scenes are always shown as
being ideologically equal (Fig. 7).
In the dancing scenes of the early village communities
of the Near East and southeast Europe, we
perceive that the ideology reflected in cult and art
reverses the social processes which were occurring.
There exists a clear polarity between reality and the
ideology reflected in the art objects. Marxist archaeology
offered the following interpretation of such
situations:
The social order must be legitimized and the principles
upon which control is based justified. One of
the most powerful means of achieving this is the
active production of a normative consensus naturalising
and misrepresenting the extant nature of
asymmetrical social relations so that they appear
to be other than they really are. (Miller & Tilley
1984,7)
According to this definition, the dancing scenes of
the early village communities can be described as a
means of screening and masking the growing social
stratification.
In the Levant, in contrast to Mesopotamia and
Egypt, smaller social units continued to exist, even
when city states began to emerge in the Early Bronze
Age (third millennium uc). Urbanization in this region
was not accompanied by the construction of
public structures on the scale known from Mesopotamia,
by writing or monumental art, or by extremely
rich tombs like the royal cemetery at Ur or the pyramids
of Egypt. Perhaps for this reason, the dancing
motif continued in this region into the third millennium
BC as the main representative of interaction
between people, although other scenes were added
(Beck 1995).
The ceremonial context
The uniformity of the dancers in size, dress, body
position, direction of movement and accompanying
objects suggests uniformity in the function of the
participants in the ceremony. All fulfil exactly the
same function and none can be pointed out as having
a special role. Even in a scene from Egypt, in
which notable differences between the figures are
visible (Fig. 6:5), all the men are portrayed identically,
as are all the women. The differences result
from differences in gender. In this the dancing scenes
differ from examples from other social contexts, such
as urban societies in the Near East (cultic scenes
from Mesopotamia from the third millennium BC in
which different participants perform different tasks:
Amiet 1961, pi. 17:282; pi. 102:1353-5); or huntergatherer
societies in South Africa (complex cultic
scenes with figures of different sizes performing different
tasks: Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1989, figs.
14-15, 17-18; perhaps with a shaman officiating:
Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1989, 30-36). From the
cognitive point of view, the functional uniformity
of all the participants in each scene indicates the
equality of their contribution to the ritual process.
Each individual is on the same level of importance,
with no indication of priests, shamans, or
other such persons. Does the uniformity of the
dancing scenes illustrate the theological concept
that all members of the community are equal in the
eyes of the gods?
Communication aspects
The dancing scenes clearly have communicative
value, i.e. function as a means of information exchange.
This concerns not the dancing activity represented,
but the function of the objects on which it
was depicted. Pottery vessels were the commonest
medium. The function of pottery decoration as a
means of information exchange has attracted much
scholarly attention (cf. Wobst 1977; Pollock 1983;
David et al. 1988; Conkey & Hastorf 1988; Braun
1991). In analyzing the communicative value of the
dancing scenes, the basic questions to be asked
are 'Who drew these scenes?' and 'Who were the
229
Yosef Garfinkel
intended audiences?'. The limitations of the archaeological
data prevent a direct answer to these questions,
but certain observations can be made.
The type ofvessels
The vessels chosen for dancing scenes are usually
small or medium-sized: cups, small bowls, pedestal
bowls and medium-sized jars. These are fine and
delicate 'table ware' vessels, not outstanding cultic
items. The pottery assemblages at the sites where
these items were found also included coarse,
undecorated vessels which could have served for
cooking and storage.
The context
In most cases the vessels were unearthed in domestic
activity areas and not in ritual contexts such as
temples. A few items were discovered in graves.
Furthermore, when the items decorated with dancing
scenes went out of use, probably when broken,
they were simply discarded. Such items were never
intentionally buried, as were cultic items of these
periods (Garfinkel 1994). Thus the vessels did not
serve as containers for gifts presented to supernatural
powers in religious ceremonies.
Geographical distribution
The dancing scenes have a wide geographical and
chronological distribution and dominate the scenes
depicting interaction between people.
Quantitatively
Pottery vessels decorated with dancing figures are
rare at each specific site. In Halafian sites, for example,
most of the pottery decoration is geometric. Thus
some scholars who analyzed the Halafian painted
style overlooked the dancing scenes (Le Blanc &
Watson 1973; Wickede 1986). The vessels were not
produced on a large scale.
What can be deduced about the communication role
of these vessels from these four observations? Delicate
small and medium-size vessels which were not
produced on large scale were obviously not for daily
use. It thus seems that these vessels were used on
special occasions, but since they are found in domestic
contexts they may have served for meals associated
with religious ceremonies. The vessels could
have been manufactured before the main calendrical
rituals as part of the preparations. They were used
as a means for increasing awareness within the com-
munity.
These vessels were intended to emphasize the
importance of the dance and the activities associated
with it — congregation and public ceremonies — for
the members of the community. As Royce explains
(1977, 154), dancing in non-literate societies fulfills
the functions of writing: transmission of information,
teaching, documentation, etc. Thus dancing activities,
and the vessels decorated with dancing
scenes, functioned as a means of enhancing social
structures in early village communities. An alternative
Marxist interpretation could suggest that the
dancing scenes were a weapon in a social struggle
between different segments of society. The manufacture
of the decorated vessels could have been controlled
by the elite, emphasizing equality and
egalitarianism, and masking the ever-increasing social
stratification.
Duration of the motif
One of the amazing things about the depiction of
dance in early village communities is that it maintained
its importance as the dominant motif for describing
interaction between people for almost 4000
years. In the Levant this dominance lasted even
longer down to the third millennium BC.
The long duration of the dancing motif is not
an isolated phenomenon. Other symbolic expressions
that developed in these early village communities
had a similar or even longer duration. As data accumulates,
it becomes increasingly clear that the PrePottery
Neolithic B period was a formative era for
the cult and mythology of the ancient Near East. The
following examples emphasize this point:
• anthropomorphic statues, perhaps related to the
myths of human creation in the Sumerian and
biblical traditions (Amiran 1962);
• plastered skulls and the depiction of death using
plaster on the skull and tooth removal, reminiscent
of the Canaanite Poem of Aqht from
Ugarit (Margalit 1983);
• deliberate burial of cultic objects (Garfinkel 1994);
• the earliest appearance of cult structures (temples)
from Nevali £ori. The £aydnu 'skull house'
can be understood as a public ceremonial building
functioning as a 'death temple';
• the earliest appearance of building models (temples?)
at Jericho and (^ayonii;
• the use of standing stones, the biblical masseboth, at
Jericho;
• the earliest appearance of masks from Nahal Hemar
Cave and Basta;
• the earliest appearance of monumental art objects,
such as anthropomorphic statues, at Jericho,
230
Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes
'Ain Ghazal and Nevali £
• the earliest appearance of cattle figurines at sites
such as Jericho, Munhata and 'Ain Ghazal;
• so-called 'coffee bean' eyes, a well-known artistic
motif on anthropomorphic figures in the
protohistoric Near East, appear at Jericho on a
plastered skull and on an unpublished anthropomorphic
statue (Garfinkel 1995,31-2);
• dancing motifs, as discussed in this work;
• the first appearance of seals, a very characteristic
example of the ancient Near Eastern artistic
tradition, at Jericho, Ugarit and Bouqras
(Wickede 1990,40-49).
• To complete the picture, mention should be made
of suggested continuity from the Neolithic onwards
in the cult of fertility and 'Great Mother
Goddess' worship. This approach seems too
general, since on one hand, every female figurine
can be associated with such a concept, and
on the other hand, female figurines appear in
the archaeological record before the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B period.
The appearance of all these aspects together clarifies
that we are looking at a cognitive system in which
the dancing motif is not an isolated phenomenon.
The basis of this system was congregational ceremonies
in which entire communities actively participated
in dancing.
Why does Pre-Pottery Neolithic B appear to be
the formative era, rather than an earlier or a later
period? Unlike Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, which was
still a period of 'trial and error', the Pre-Pottery
Neolithic B saw the foundation of well-established
villages with rectangular architecture (Flannery
1972a; Redman 1978, 142-76). Village communities
remained the basic type of settlement in the Near
East for some four thousand years (Redman 1978,
177-213; Nissen 1988,39-64). Only in the second half
of the sixth millennium BP did urban societies and
state-level communities start to develop in Mesopotamia.
This process, popularly designated 'the urban
revolution', depended heavily upon the food-producing
economy and the social organization founded
in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period: 'Although the
formation of cities and states has produced spectacular
material and written evidence, the earlier
organizational innovations of prehistoric villagers
created the structure that enabled later civilizational
developments' (Redman 1978, 213). Since the symbolic
expressions referred to here were formulated
in Pre-Pottery Neolithic B along with new socioeconomic
structure, they survived as part of the same
system for several thousand years.
Conclusions
The principal strategies used in the Near East and
southeast Europe from the ninth to the sixth millennium
BC to promote the bonding of individuals into
communities, and of individual households into villages,
were public assemblies for religious ceremonies.
The archaeological examples discussed in this
article are pictorial expressions of this activity and
shed light on it. The importance of these ceremonies
is also borne out by ethnographic observations of
pre-state communities, in which dance is indeed the
most important component in religious ceremonies.
In periods before schools and writing, community
rituals, symbolized by dance, were the basic
mechanism for conveying education and knowledge
to the adult members of the community and from
one generation to the next. The lengthy duration of
dance depiction as a dominant artistic motif, together
with its penetration across wide geographical areas
(from west Pakistan to the Danube basin) testify to
the efficiency of the dancing motif as a powerful
symbol in the evolution of human societies.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by grants from the
Robert H. and Clarice Smith Center of Art History
and by the Faculty of Humanities, both of the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. During the preparation
of this study I had the opportunity to exchange
ideas with various scholars: C. Renfrew, F. Hole, V.
Zbenovich, A. Hetz, W. Hallo, H. Hauptmann, S.
Marinescu-Bilcu, M. Petrescu-Dimbovita and CM.
Nantu. Technical assistance was provided by M.
Sarig, S. Halbrich, G. Hivroni, and L. Taylor-Guthartz.
Finally I would like to thank Irene Platka. Her photographs
of dancing shadows inspired this study.
YosefGarfinkel
Institute ofArchaeology
Vie Hebrew University
Jerusalem 91905
Israel
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