Michael

I'm planning to submit an article to an archaeologically-oriented internet journal. The article is now more-or-less completely written. But with regard to an important detail, I need help. And I would very much appreciate the assistance of interested forum users with children aged between three and four years old.

The article features a picture of a Palaeolithic female figure (referred to below), and I am concerned to show that the figure appears to represent something simple and obvious, and really quite down to earth. But there's a problem with this. For my audience is entirely adult. And notoriously, adults sometimes have a problem recognising the obvious.

Accordingly, the article begins by urging the reader to show the picture of the female figure to a small child, and to ask the child a simple question. I have tried this many times using a hard copy of the picture; but I have never had the opportunity to try the experiment using an electronic version of the picture, displayed on a screen.

So please could I ask any suitably intrigued forum users with three- to four-year-old children to show them the picture referred to below. And pointing to the object which the figure holds aloft, in her right hand, please ask: "What's that?" or "What's she holding?"

mamab

Michael,

I tried to take a look at the picture, but the link didn't work. I took the spaces out, tried a couple of different things, and still had no luck. If you'd like to PM me, I'll see what I can do.

Kaytee

I had a hard time too. There are spaces between all the . as well, on both sides!! So I got it to work, its an interesting picture. I don't have any kids that age though, just wnated to see it

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Michael

Thanks for your reply Mamab,

Apparently I can't send you a private message until I have a post count of 10. (Currently, my post count is 1.) But I have just amended my original message by adding "http: // ".

Note that there are now twelve spaces to be removed.

I have checked the link, and it's definitely working.

Many thanks.

Tom

I "linkified" the link. That precaution is in place to prevent "link spammers" from joining the board just to link to their site(s) - this post doesn't qualify.

On second thought - I'll attach the image here.

Attached Images

menhir6g.JPG (55.5 KB, 3 views)

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Michael

Thanks very much, Tom.

In case anyone's interested, I have pasted the first part of my 10,000-word article here below. This may help to indicate why I'm interested in the verdict of small children regarding the identity of the object held aloft by the female figure. (It's a 20,000-year-old bas relief from France, incidentally, sometimes known as 'the Goddess of Laussel'.)

However, I have replaced three words of the text below with 'x's, since those three words are a major clue to what I believe to be the identity of the object that's symbolically represented by the evident bison's horn held aloft by the figure.

Of course, small children don't say it's a bison's horn. They normally say it's something else. At least, they do when you show them a hard copy of the picture. But I'm not sure about what they might say when shown an electronic version of the picture. Hence my postings to this forum.

I should also say that I don't believe there is a correct answer to the question to be asked of a small child. For example, if the child ate a croissant for breakfast, then the child may say the object is a croissant! That would be fine. And I'd very much like to know about it, please.

Not Right:

Language is a mirror in which the whole spiritual development of mankind reflects itself.

Klein’s Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language – Introduction (Dr. Ernest Klein)

“The female figurines,” wrote mythologist Joseph Campbell, “are the earliest examples of the ‘graven image’ that we possess”.

When exactly it was that they began to appear – from the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria, to Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, to the foothills of the French Pyrenees – is for our purposes here unimportant. Well over a hundred examples of these enigmatic items are known of. And this article is not about some new interpretation of their significance. Rather, it’s an enquiry into the modern failure to remark that a proper understanding of their primary symbolic significance had never really needed much interpretation – perhaps anything but.

Try showing the picture of the figure from Laussel to a three- to four-year-old child. (It’s called a figure, rather than a figurine, because it’s a bas-relief.) And pointing to the object held aloft by the figure, in her right hand, ask the child: "What's that?" or "What’s she holding?" But first, what do you think the small child will answer?

Small children – just as well as adults – may sometimes see things (or may seem to see things) which are not really there to be seen, of course. But if in response to the above question they tend to come out immediately with the very same answer, and if it is an answer unexpected by most modern adults (especially by those who remain uninspired even by the sight or sound of the magic words ‘xxxxxxxxx xx xxx xxx’), then this should serve to remind us that infants sometimes have an eye for things which their socioculturally-adjusted seniors may completely fail to recognise and acknowledge. It would certainly be worth investigating.

There is one thing which, not uncommonly, small children tend to notice about the picture unprompted: not untypically, they immediately announce their observation that the figure has no feet. And indeed the general apodality of the Palaeolithic female figures and figurines is well noted by experts, and puzzled over. Certainly it can sometimes seem that the artist had some kind of point to make with this lack: these female forms sometimes appear to be pointedly apodal. And if this appearance reflects artistic intention, then it’s evidently a point not entirely lost on many a small child.

By referring to the judgement of small children regarding the object in the hand of the figure from Laussel, I will show that the proper explanation of her apodality seems to be quite simple and obvious. And I will thereby demonstrate that the primary symbolic significance of all the Palaeolithic female figures and figurines seems simple and obvious too. Then I will address the main issue: namely, how modern experts (and the rest of us) could have failed to think of something so simple and obvious before.

Also still very much at issue amongst experts is the most appropriate nomenclatural designation for these works of Palaeolithic art. And that ‘Goddess figure’ and ‘Goddess figurine’ are the right and proper Modern English names for the works of this genre is another thing I aim to show.

Kaytee

I haven't read it yet, but I will tonight!

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