Artifacts
Artifacts of this culture consist most notably of terra cotta pottery, bichrome & trichrome painted
using predominately black, red, and white mineral-based paints.
"The quality of the Trypilian ceramic production surpassed all contemporary creations of Old Europe.
"(ref *1)
Trypilian artifacts shown: various pottery, bone and flint knives.
The large, standing pot is appox. 26cm high)
(Photo by Tania Diakiw O'Neill) (ref *4)
A terra cotta scale-model of a two-storied building was found at the Trypilia site in Ukraine.
Excavation at Cucuteni showed this unique Trypilian model was a representation of actual two-story structures of this culture.(ref*1)
Female forms and figurines (many painted or incised, some with fertile-field symbols), as well as various animals and zoomorphous vessels, sleighs, all scale-modeled in terra cotta or clay, have also been found.
The finer, more elaboate forms (figurines, pots, jars, bowls, amphorae, and two-bowled joined vessels) were ornamented with painted or incised lines, spirals and egg-shaped motifs, and other shapes and/or line elements such as parallel or cross-hatched lines in enclosed fields, and zig-zags with or without hooks.
There were also articles of everyday use such as spindle whorls and loom weights, and everyday gray pottery made of undecorated clay mixed with sand and small broken shells.
Interestingly, impressions of plain evenweave cloth (ref*3) and pattern-woven textiles (ref*5) have been found on the bottoms of some Trypilian pottery, showing they had been set to air-dry on that woven cloth before being fired.
These lands are known to grow flax (linen) and hemp since time immemorial.
This workaday use of evenweave fabric, the clay spindle whorls and loom weights all indicate that
this population was agrarian, with well-developed textile crafts of spinning, weaving, and very likely needlework, which was used to join cloth and make clothing. No actual cloth has survived from that culture to our time.
However, the symbols that are found on the artifacts of Trypilia and those associated with the Great Goddess have persisted into the present in most Ukrainian folk arts, especially those of pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) and textile arts, including Ukrainian folk embroidery.
(Future links being constructed; stay tuned.)
"Trypilia - Ukraine's Neolithic Culture"
First posted February 01,1996
Updated Sept 24,2000;
May.28, 2007
Copyright 1996 - Tania Diakiw O'Neill.
email to
tdo@netaxs.com This ends this presentation on Ukraine's "Trypillya" Culture.
