_UDK 903.2'i2/'i6(4-0i3+5)"633/634"_
Documenta PraehistoricaXXXV (2008)
Embodiment and visual reproduction in the Neolithic:
the case of stamped symbols
Robin Skeates
Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK
Robin.Skeates@durham.ac.uk
ABSTRACT - This paper explores the cultural and conceptual dimensions of ceramic (and stone)
stamps found at Neolithic and Copper Age sites in Western Asia and Southern Europe, dating to
between the eighth and third millennia BC. Based upon a recent study of their archaeological deposi-
tion contexts, their surviving forms and regional variations in their style, they are discussed here in
terms of their biographies, their reciprocal relations with people, and their embeddedness in cultural
processes. More specifically, they are interpreted with reference to a pair of key cultural processes
that characterise the material culture of Neolithic Eurasia: embodiment and visual reproduction.
IZVLEČEK - V članku raziskujemo kulturne in konceptualne vidike keramičnih (in kamnitih) pečat-
nikov iz neolitskih in bakrenodobnih najdišč zahodne Azije in južne Evrope iz časa med osmim in
tretjim tisočletjem p.n.š. Na podlagi študija arheoloških kontekstov, kjer se pojavljajo, njihovih oblik
in regionalnih stilističnih variant, razpravljamo o njihovih biografijah, njihovem medsebojnem raz-
merju z ljudmi in njihovem mestu v kulturnih procesih. Natančneje, interpretiramo jih v razmerju
do dveh kulturnih procesov, ki zaznamujeta materialno kulturo neolitske Evrazije: poosebljanje (em-
bodiment) in vizualne reprodukcije.
KEY WORDS - stamps; stamp seals; pintaderas; embodiment; visual reproduction
Introduction
This paper is concerned with exploring the cultural
and conceptual dimensions of one of the most visu-
ally striking categories of portable artefact found at
Neolithic and Copper Age sites in Western Asia and
Southern Europe, variously described as stamps,
stamp-seals or 'pintaderas'. Previous studies of these
objects have tended to focus on the typological clas-
sification and stylistic comparison of their decorative
motifs, at the same time as speculating on their func-
tional and social significance (e.g. Buchanan 1967;
Collon 1990; Cornaggia-Castiglioni 1956; Cornag-
gia-Castiglioni & Calegari 1978; Dzhanfezova 2003;
Makkay 1984; 2005; Türkcan 2007). It has been
suggested, for example, that they were used as
stamps to print or impress culturally significant pat-
terns onto a range of materials (e.g. cloth, skin, bread
and clay). It has also been claimed that their repea-
ted application to certain kinds of people and prop-
erty could have been used either in socio-economic
transactions, to mark identity and ownership, or in
ritual performances, to signify and enhance spiritual
potency. I have recently published a revised account
of these objects (Skeates 2007), in which I explored
these artefacts' various biographies, their reciprocal
relations with people, and their embeddedness in
cultural processes, with particular reference to their
archaeological deposition contexts, their surviving
forms, and regional variations in their style (c.f. Pri-
jatelj 2007). Here, I want to summarise some of my
conclusions, at the same time as developing some of
my interpretations with reference to the themes of
embodiment and visual reproduction.
Frequency, distribution and resemblances
Stamps made of baked clay were widespread, but ge-
nerally infrequent, material elements of Neolithic
and Copper Age cultures in parts of Eurasia, which
originated in the Near East and spread westwards via
communicative human groups to South-East Europe,
Greece, Italy and Corsica, between the eighth and
third millennia BC. Both resemblances and differ-
ences are exhibited by these objects across this large
span of space and time. For example, clear similar-
ities have been noted between the material, shapes
and decorative techniques of the stamp seals of Nea
Nikomedeia in Greek Macedonia and earlier exam-
ples from ^atalhöyük in Central Turkey (Rodden
1965). On the other hand, rows of impressed points
are an exclusively North Italian decorative element,
which predominate in the Liguria region in North-
West Italy.
Materials and production
Some of these stamps were made of stone. These in-
cluded relatively highly valued, rare, durable and co-
loured stones, which were skilfully and laboriously
carved, drilled and polished, particularly in Mesopo-
tamia from the sixth millennium BC, but also occa-
sionally as far away as Greece.
More commonly, however, they are made of unex-
ceptional clays, which their makers probably ob-
tained from relatively accessible local sources, and
then worked, perhaps alongside the production of
other commonplace and more unusual clay-based
products such as daub, pottery vessels, clay tokens
and ceramic figurines. Small numbers were quickly
modelled by hand, a few quite roughly, and then
smoothed. When dried to leather-hard, they were
neatly engraved using a range of simple and famil-
iar cutting tools and techniques, perhaps sometimes
following the lines of preliminary markings. They
were then converted into a solid state through fir-
ing, probably in simple hearths, ovens or bonfires,
possibly together with other artefacts, with only
loosely controlled oxidising and reducing condi-
tions, which gave them variable, matt and earthy,
surface colours. The general impression is, then, that
these baked clay examples were made by people in
a relatively unspecialised 'domestic mode of produc-
tion', using readily available resources, with only li-
mited investment in materials, time and skills.
Form
It is above all the forms of the stamps' bodies that
set them apart as a distinctive category of artefact
(Fig. 1). The key component is the flat or curving
face, which serves as the well-proportioned platform
for the visually striking engravings that cover it
more-or-less completely. (Very occasionally, exam-
ples occur with two faces situated at opposite ends
of a handle.) The primary importance of the face
may seem self-evident, but is emphasised both by
the evolution of cylinder seals which increased the
surface area that could be engraved, and by the fact
that on neither artefact type was the appearance of
the engraved surface ever compromised by perfora-
tion. The second most important component of the
artefact is the handle positioned centrally on the op-
posite side of the face(s), which is generally plain,
with the exception of some 'figurine seals' from sites
in Macedonia whose handles are incised with a hu-
man face (Naumov, this volume). In a minority of
examples, the handle was perforated prior to firing.
Function
These features, combined with the relatively small
size and light weight of the objects, indicate that
they were primarily designed to be hand-held por-
table artefacts. More specifically, historic and ethno-
graphic parallels and experimental reconstructions
lend weight to the traditional archaeological asser-
tion that these objects were primarily tools used by
people as stamps used to print and impress decora-
tive motifs.
They may have been made to last, given the fact that
only small numbers appear to have been produced
at most Neolithic sites, and in relatively durable ma-
terials, and the fact that some were intended by their
makers to be suspended. Indeed, some appear to
have been suspended from peoples' necks and
wrists, to judge from their positioning in relation to
a few articulated bodies in inhumation burials. From
a strictly practical point-of-view, this would have
helped people retain, carry around and look after
these special artefacts, without having to hold them
constantly in their hands, as they engaged in vari-
ous activities. But I do not think that this explains
fully why these examples were attached to the hu-
man body, and I shall say more about this below.
More specifically, the clay stamps may have been re-
tained and repeatedly re-used by, and on, the same
and different people and objects, even over genera-
tions. This process could have led to their becoming
worn, clogged-up and damaged, either until their
use was no longer required or until they were com-
pletely broken (either accidentally or intentionally).
But the fact that they were never repaired, unlike
some fineware pots, also indicates that they were
replaceable, even disposable.
Fig. 1. 'Pintaderas' from the Puglia region, South-East Italy (after
Skeates 2007^. 1. Cala Tramontana, 2. Cala degli Inglesi, 3. Punta
Vuccolo, 4. Grotta Scaloria, 4. Grotta Scaloria, 5. Pulo di Molfetta, 6.
Grotta Santa Croce, 7. Cave Mastrodonato, 8-9. Grotta Sant'Angelo,
10. Caverna dell'Erba, 12-14. Grotta dei Cervi, 15-17. Grotta delle Ve-
neri.
post-depositional damage and
wear, right up to the present day.
It is less clear what kinds of things
would originally have been
marked by the stamps, although
it is safe to assume that stamping
practices would have varied over
space and time. Two alternative
techniques can be distinguished.
On the one hand, stamps can be
used to print coloured images
(either monochrome or multi-co-
loured) onto materials such as
human skin, leather, textiles and
paper. This is done by coating or
filling the image raised in relief
or sunk in hollows with a sticky
or dry pigment, and then trans-
ferring this in reverse to a dry or
lightly oiled recipient surface by
direct pressure. In Neolithic Ro-
mania, Macedonia and Italy, hints
of this practice may be provided
by the traces of pigments identi-
fied on the faces and in the gro-
oves and holes of a few stamps.
On the other hand, stamps can
also be used to impress their
solid patterns in soft materials,
such as clay, dough, butter and
wax. In the Near East, they were
certainly used in this way, to
mark clay sealings, from as early
as the sixth millennium BC.
They could then have been discarded or more for-
mally deposited in or around the variety of places
where they were used. According to the limited avail-
able details regarding their archaeological deposi-
tion contexts in Western Asia and Southern Europe,
they ended up on the floors of houses, kitchens,
workshops, storerooms and religious buildings, in
settlement pits and refuse areas, in cave deposits,
and in inhumation graves, during the course of an
overlapping range of economic, social and ritual
practices. They then undoubtedly sustained further
Either way, the use of stamps re-
sults in the surface of other things
becoming loaded with symbolic
messages and cultural meanings,
in varying degrees of perma-
nence. The key significance of these tools, in other
words, is not so much the archaeologically surviving
artefacts but the symbols that they helped people to
generate.
Symbols
On the stamps, relatively explicit, albeit stylised,
figurative representations of animal, human and
supernatural forms, as well as objects and scenes,
were confined to the Near East and Anatolia, where
they became increasingly standardised from the
sixth millennium BC. With the exception of these,
the engraved faces of the clay stamps exhibit a wide
but culturally and technically constrained set of ab-
stract patterns, based upon subtle permutations of
repeated elements. These range from simple groups
of lines and points to more visually and cognitively
challenging geometric and curvilinear shapes, and
combinations, including spirals, meanders and inter-
locking designs. These were carefully organised with-
in, and framed by, the outline of the stamp's face,
which was predominantly rectilinear, but also took
other regular shapes and even figurative forms.
Embodiment
Abstract decorative designs such as these characte-
ristically form bold, clear-cut shapes, and structured,
repetitive and balanced patterns. A good example is
provided by a broken specimen from the settlement
site of Cala degli Inglesi in South-East Italy (Zorzi
1949-50.228). This has a rectangular outline with a
curved end, which frames a simple and regular in-
cised motif of a zigzag band containing circles (Fig.
1.2). Occasionally, however, one encounters other
designs that are more visually unstable and confus-
ing, and that can disturb the normal optical and
cognitive functioning of the viewer. Two relevant
examples, also from South-East Italy, are a pair of
specimens from the ritual cave site of Grotta dei
Cervi (Lo Porto 1976.638). Both have a simple rec-
tilinear outline, but a complex maze-like pattern of
interlocking rows of meander motifs (Fig. 1.13—
14). More specifically, such examples can deliver a
powerful graphic impact, particularly where rhyth-
mic patterns, figure-ground tensions and slight asym-
metries cause optical dynamism and ambiguity. In
this way, they have the power to attract, captivate,
even dazzle, the eye of the beholder.
Furthermore, in anthropologically-documented cases,
noted, for example, by the late Alfred Gell, compa-
rable visually powerful art-forms have sometimes
been perceived in traditional societies as not only
having a dazzling 'anaesthetic' effect on the senses,
but also as being embodied by efficacious human-
like social agency and even supernatural potency
(Gell 1992). In other words, the visual disturbances
caused by the decorative designs are sometimes in-
terpreted as evidence of a magical superhuman
power emanating from the object, and as evidence
of the magical prowess of the craftsperson and
owner. It is no coincidence, then, that they can be
strategically exploited by various people, particularly
when displayed during the course of social ceremo-
nies or ritual performances.
I think this way of seeing might also be relevant to
the prehistoric stamps and their patterns. In other
words, I would like to suggest that they too may
have been valued as pleasing and potent ancestral
symbols that animated the Neolithic material world
with human-like social agency and sacred power.
Meanings, reproduction and attachments
Abstract images depend upon agreed social con-
ventions to encode and express meanings about the
world or human life. These may be clear and overt,
but they can, equally, be open, malleable and ambi-
guous. I do not, therefore, want to guess at any spe-
cific meanings that may or may not have been ascri-
bed to these images by different people, in different
places and times. Instead, I want to think a bit more
about the reproduction and attachments of these
images.
What sets stamps apart from other hand-held artis-
tic tools, such as brushes, gouges and sharp points
(which were also used in the Neolithic to produce
similar images on a range of media), is their ability
to reproduce - simply, quickly and manually - a
large number of almost identical copies of an origi-
nal graphic image, without significantly compromis-
ing the potency or 'aura' of the original (Benjamin
1968). This process of reproduction was also ex-
tended over long distances of time and space in the
Neolithic, by the manufacture of new stamps with
patterned designs that recalled and reproduced the
style of other stamps, and well as, in some cases,
also transforming this style.
Furthermore, the stamps and their motifs also echo
(but do not precisely reflect or reproduce) the ap-
pearance of other contemporary, decoratively elabo-
rated and culturally significant, products made of
plaster, clay and coloured pigments. These include
decorated house and cave walls, ceramic vessels,
clay tokens, and anthropomorphic figurines, all of
which sometimes occur in the same archaeological
contexts as the stamps, but do not appear to have
been decorated by them. Similarities may also have
existed with archaeologically 'invisible' organic ar-
tefacts, including the products of weaving. Through
the selective reproduction, transmission and trans-
formation of a culturally-defined set of potent, mem-
orable and communicative images, then, diverse ele-
ments of Neolithic material culture were ordered,
Fig. 2. 'Pintadera' fragment from the Final Neo-
lithic inhumation cemetery at Cala Tramontana,
San Domino island, South-East Italy. Zorzi collec-
tion, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Verona.
unified and perhaps also subtly differentiated, by
patterns of resemblance and contrast established
over long distances of time and space.
The same, of course, also applies to the diverse pro-
ducers and consumers of these objects and images,
who belonged to extended networks of communica-
tive early farming communities in Western Asia and
Southern Europe, (and even neighbouring hunter-
gatherers, in the case of an example found recently
in a Mesolithic context at the site of Basi in Corsica -
B. Weninger pers. comm. 2007). Through this exten-
sive process of visual reproduction of culturally sig-
nificant information, people stamped order and sig-
nificance onto their world. These powerful graphic
signatures could have repeatedly attached, revealed
and reproduced significant cultural concepts and
relations across different people, their material world
and the supernatural, during the course of the over-
lapping range of social, economic and ritual prac-
tices where they were produced and displayed. As
the late Alfred Gell once stated, 'Decorative pat-
terns applied to artefacts attach people to things,
and to the social projects those things entail.' (Gell
1998.74) In other words, these powerful cultural
symbols could have repeatedly highlighted social
and cultural relationships or attachments between
various categories of object and people, in the vari-
ety of mundane situations and more overtly ritual
performances where they were displayed to audi-
ences. More specifically, they could have been used
to express a range of culturally and personally sig-
nificant concepts: of classification, identity, owner-
ship, protection, potency, authenticity, and so on.
The act of stamping, then, is likely to have been a
highly significant cultural activity.
This process of attachment extended to the human
body. It is quite possible that, in some cases at least,
the stamps were used to mark people's bodies with
potent cultural symbols. Connections with the body
are also emphasised by the Macedonian 'figurine
seals'. But we also know that some of the stamps
themselves were attached to parts of the human
body, via their perforated handles, including within
symbolically significant mortuary deposits. This bod-
ily attachment of the stamps suggests that at least
some were valued as carefully curated, culturally
meaningful, tools, intimately associated with the
bodies of particular individuals, which could not be
left behind, even in death. These examples might
even have been used as personal amulets (c.f.
Skeates 1995). In this way these stamps could, like
the patterns they carried, also have been used as
personal markers of protection, identity, and so on,
which reinforced relations between different peo-
ple, their material world and the supernatural.
The same could apply to the large and perhaps in-
tentionally fragmented example from Cala Tramon-
tana in South-East Italy (Zorzi 1958). One decorated
half of this was placed in a grave (Fig. 2), the other
decorated half perhaps having been retained in cul-
tural circulation, possibly as a tangible and symbolic
marker of ongoing links between the newly-dead
and their surviving relatives (c.f. Chapman 2001).
Conclusion
By exploring the conceptual dimensions of stamps
and their symbols, then, I hope to have contributed
not only to the biography of a distinctive category of
archaeological artefact, but also to our understand-
ing of a pair of cultural processes - those of embo-
diment and visual reproduction - that characterise
the material culture of Neolithic Eurasia.
-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS-
I am very grateful to Professor Mihael Budja for in-
viting me to contribute this paper to the 14th Neolithic
Seminar in Ljubljana, and to Agni Prijatelj and Goce
Naumov for some stimulating discussions regarding
stamps and stamping.
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