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oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
@serbiaireland
Nov 20, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
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Thread: These 3 strange terracotta tablets, resembling decorated loafs of bread, are examples of over 300 similar tablets made by the early bronze age people of Central Europe between 2100-1400 BC... Image
They appear for the first time in Northern Italy, and are also found in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Romania... docplayer.org/docview/70/626… Image
Their meaning and their function are still unknown, which is why the scholars refer to them as "enigmatic tablets"...de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Brotlaibi… Image
They were found almost exclusively in people's homes, sometimes several together, which is why they are believed to have had profane purpose... ImageImage
Tablets contain the same symbols: points, cups, cupels or circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, grooves, cruciform motifs, rhombuses, spirals, dashes...

A recent survey of the tablets has the same sequences of symbols, even on tablets found in distant sites... Image
This points to the distinct possibility that these tablets were used for storing and exchanging information between distant and different communities, connected through trade...
One possible explanation for the use of the tablets is that these were bills or checks, like tally sticks...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_sti… Image
When used a bills, a matching pair of incised sticks was created, usually by splitting one incised stick into two halves, one half going to the creditor, the other half to the debtor...
The sticks recorded what was payed, and what could be collected if you possessed the correct matching tally stick...
In case of "enigmatic tablets", the "identical" patterns would be made on two such tablets, recording the deal. The tablet could then be exchanged for promised goods anywhere along the trade network...Once...after which the tablets were broken...
Interestingly, the "enigmatic tablets" disappear at around the same time that the first Linear B inscriptions appear in Mycenaean Greece (1400 BC)...

This website contains the list of all the so far discovered "enigmatic tablets": museocavriana.it/tavolette-enig…

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More from @serbiaireland

oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Dec 29, 2024
Thread: Another interesting detail from this Daunian globular pottery askos, made in Canosa di Puglia and dated to 350BC-325BC, "painted with bands of decoration. This consists of flora and fauna, geometric patterns and swastikas"... metmuseum.org/art/collection…Image
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Is this the symbol? Christmas cake from Serbia with the sun and "the hands of god" cross. The hands of god cross by itself in the next picture. The hands of god represent 4 seasons with 3 months each, which means that the god whose hands these are is the Sun Image
Image
Read 4 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Dec 28, 2024
Thread: Daunian globular pottery askos, made in Canosa di Puglia and dated to 350BC-325BC, "perhaps for funerary use, painted with bands of decoration. This consists of flora and fauna, geometric patterns and swastikas"...

That's it? metmuseum.org/art/collection…Image
What about this detail? A curly swastika with each arm connected to a sun. Two of which are red and two of which are black. Image
That this is not a one off squiggle, can be seen from the fact that we find the same motif on this Daunian askos from the Heinz Weisz collection christies.com/en/lot/lot-572…Image
Read 7 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Dec 17, 2024
Thread: Finnish illustrator Aleksander Lindeberg (1917-2015) Image
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Read 8 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Nov 22, 2024
Thread: Boreas (1903) by John William Waterhouse...

Boreas is the Greek god of the cold north wind, storms, and winter.

When I saw this picture first, I thought: Why did John William Waterhouse depict Boreas as a young woman wrapped in a black/grey veil? Image
I wondered if he did this because Romans depicted Winter as a woman covered with a black veil...

I talked about Winter here
The problem was that The Roman winter was an Ugly Old Hag...And the woman on John William Waterhouse's painting was young and beautiful. I was sure I was missing something important, but I didn't know what...
Read 9 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Oct 22, 2024
Thread: Buckle up, this is going to be quite a ride.

Meet Cetus, Poseidon's pet which he released on people that really pissed him off. Usually kings with beautiful daughters.

3rd c. BC mosaic depicting Cetus, from Ancient Kaulon, Calabria, Italy Image
Two most famous Cetuses 🙂 were so called Æthiopian (Levantine) Cetus and Trojan Cetus. This thread is about them, the two beautiful babes that were supposed to be sacrificed to them to appease them and the two heroes who strongly objected to such arrangements...

Here we go:
Queen Cassiopeia boasted that she and her daughter Andromeda were more beautiful than the Nereids. This angered Poseidon so much that he sent the sea monster Cetus to attack Æthiopia (Levant)...
Read 37 tweets
oldeuropeanculture Profile picture
Sep 27, 2024
Thread: Two days ago I wrote this analysis of this Early Mesopotamian bowl. But ever since I wrote it, I can't stop thinking about the "bundle of stylised reeds" and what does it actually look like...Here is why:
This is part of the full object description from the museum page: "...The animals are crouched before a bundle of stylised reeds (not shown), much like the reeds carved into a door at the base of the Ziggurat of Anu..."
Anyone seen this door? Is this what this "bundle of stylised reeds" looked like? Like these two "bundles of stylised reeds" depicted behind Inanna on the Uruk (Wakra) vase ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warka_VaseImage
Read 14 tweets

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