Perillos & Old Europe

 

Discoveries in Perillos

Certain statues have been discovered in Perillos. One is less than 20 cm tall and seems to be display what many would term an “alien being”. Indeed, it bears some resemblance to statues discovered in Eridu (Sumer), dating from the Ubaid period (4500-4000 BC). The type of statue is often described as “reptilian” and some authors have seen in them depictions of the ancient Sumerian deities – which they thus classified as reptilian-looking extra-terrestrial beings.

First, let us note that the statue has no clearly identifiable feet, which seem absent as the area of the statue where the feet should be needed to serve as the base for the statue. The two hands of the figure are placed on the sides of the belly. Around its upper torso, there is either a collar or necklace, or the bottom of a mask. The face has two elongated ears, protruding eyes, a nose bridge that goes to the top of the head, an oversized mouth, with small strips above the upper lip, suggesting a moustache. Still, there is nothing human about the face, and whereas some have labelled it “alien”, a side-view of the statue suggests it has more animal than “alien” characteristics.

Another statue is female: it has a pronounced belly and both hands are holding what are clearly female breasts. Its head is missing.

A third statue seems male, with an oversized head, but no clear features. Its hands are along its sides. Its head seems to be wearing a helmet, with the bottom of the head protruding from it. The back of the statue is adorned with 14 dots, placed in four lines: one horizontal on the head, two vertically along the arms and another vertical line in the middle, suggesting a spine.

Finally, there is an enigmatic statue, of what seems to be like a stick, at the top of which is a head. The statue is too heavily eroded to make any clear facial distinctions.

Origins ?

The origins of these statues are Old Europe, as can be attested by consulting books on the subject, including Marija Gimbutas’ The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe.

“Old Europe” is defined as a region stretching from southern Italy in the west, to the coastline of Turkey in the east, Crete and Malta in the south and Czechoslavakia, southern Poland and the western Ukraine in the North. It is referred to as an autochtonous European civilisation, which existed from ca. 7000 to 3500 BC. Its climax is dated to 5000 BC, but as early as the 6th millennium, they used sailing boats. They also used copper and gold for ornaments and tools and even appear to have evolved a rudimentary script.

As such, we immediately note that these statues are indeed there to represent the deities of this ancient culture. Furthermore, we note that the specific identification of these statues are with the so-called “Vinca culture”. The Vinca culture was an early culture of Europe (between the 6th and the 3rd millennium BC), stretching around the course of Danube in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, although traces of it can be found all around the Balkans.

It was named after Vinca, a suburb of Belgrade, where in 1908 several artefacts were found by the first archaeological excavation team lead by Miloje M. Vasic. After the First World War, excavations have occurred since 1924. Vinca came to the attention of European archaeological science between 1929 and 1931.

To find these statues in Perillos therefore means that they are out of place. It is rather rare to find these statues outside of Old Europe. Furthermore, the Perillos cache extends to at least four different statues, rather than just one. Finally, it is clear that there must have been a good reason why someone – at an unspecified date – decided to leave these statues in Perillos.

Comparison

As already mentioned, The statues of Perillos are characteristic of the Vinca culture: from the type of head (deemed to be masks) to the “chimney type” (previously referred to as “stick”) of statue, which is normally described as adorned by a “bird mask”. Even the dotted pattern on the back is typical of Old European artwork.
An example of identical eyes can be found in Crnokalacka Bara, South-East Yugoslavia, as well as at Medvednjak, southeast of Belgrade. The “chimney statue” is similar to one found in Porodin, near Bitola, Yugoslavia, dated to ca. 5000 BC. A statue from Youg has its hands in the same position as those of the first statue.

Interpretation

According to Gimbutas, the style of Old European statues shows a dramatic change in culture, specifically a desire for statues to be dressed, not only with a mask, but also with clothing. Whereas some statues are still nude, the remarkable change that occurred in Europe around this period was that some statues were being shown as dressed.
The most prominent feature of the statues is the mask. To quote Gimbutas: “The Vinca’s artist attached particular importance to the mask and it is the distinctive and unusual features of his sculptural masks that render Vinca statuary so unique.”

The chimney-shaped figure is often interpreted as a depiction of the Bird Goddess. Some have been found attached to the roof of shrine models. These are small-scale models of shrines. The chimney is typical, as found in e.g. the Neolithic mound of Porodin near Bitola. It is normally decorated with a beaked and large-eyed goddess with a necklace, often spreading “protection” over the roof of the shrine, very much in line with later Egyptian depictions of a female deity – angel – spreading its wing out in protection.

Towards Perillos

The artefacts have been uncovered in the Caune cave. This is an impressive and large cave in the valley between Opoul and Perillos, at the foot of Montalhou Perillou, the highest mountain in the region (ca. 800 metres). That the artefacts have been discovered here does not seem to be a coincidence.
Gimbutas herself underlines that the cult of Old Europe is very similar to that of Crete. There, we find a specific reverence to caves, which are often identified as the gods – specifically Zeus. These caves are referred to as the birthplace or tomb of a deity, though sometimes it is also seen as a place of shelter, e.g. Zeus hiding from his father. Caves were often interpreted as the vulva – the belly – of Mother Earth, and as such the presence of statues to the gods was common.
Gimbutas points out that stalagmites in these caves were often singled out for specific worship. This is the case in Crete, but it is clear that the Caune cave in Perillos is equally well-endowed with this feature. An area to the left (when entering) is where these artefacts were recovered, and where there is a higher than elsewhere concentration of crosses, as well as one stalagtite in the form of a head (as seen in profile).
As Tautavel man has shown that this area has been inhabited from our earliest ancestors onwards, it should not come as a surprise that La Caune, like the Tautavel cave nearby, have been singled out for specific worship, and this for many thousands of years. A specific sanctity of the area may furthermore have been the motive why statues from Old Europe ended up in Perillos and this would, of course, fit neatly within the sacred geographical approach that we have seen in the layout of the various sanctuaries of Perillos – including that of the La Caune cave.

Filip Coppens