| Embroidery >>> Dictionary of Symbols >>> Origin of Embroidery. |
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Scientists state that the art of embroidery is much older than weaving. The statement looks reasonable. While weaving needs a certain level of technology, needlework requires only needle, thread, and skill. One of the theories of the origin of embroidery is based on the discovery made by Russian scientists: paleontologist V. I. Bibikova and her husband, archaeologist S. N. Bibikov. Mr. Bibikov studied artifacts excavated at the Mezen archaeological site (now Ukraine) in 1965. Scientists date the Mezen pre-historic settlement as about 10,000 BC (so-called Upper Paleolithic Period). Items found there (tools, ritual cups, statuettes of a goddess) were made of clay, stone, and bones. The latter belonged to herbivores inhabited southeastern Europe at that time. All articles founded were engraved with diamonds, zigzags, and a regular pattern of winding and interlocking lines (so-called meanders). Said engravings contained red paint when objects were made. At the time of the research, there was only a small amount of pigment left. With no doubt, such a decoration was a ritual one. But, its meaning and purpose seemed completely obscure. This enigma was solved when Mrs. Bibikova compared figurines found at Mezen with similar, but more ancient, ones, which were made of mammoth bones. Older statuettes had no any etching on them at all. Instead, they were covered with natural pattern of diamonds and winding lines. Thin stripes of dentine – dark-red pigment mammoth bones contained – formed these geometrical shapes. The reasoning of Mezen inhabitants became clear. For their ancestors, the mammoth had been a source of life for millennia. Meat for food, skin for shelters and clothes, bones for spears and idols – everything had been obtained from this animal. The Great Mammoth was sanctified as The Divine Giver. It became a symbol of life, and of everything connected with life: satiety, safety, hunter’s luck, and wealth. Parts of The Great Mammoth – bones, tusks, and skin – were thought to possess magical powers. Therefore, things carved of mammoth bones had been believed twice as useful and supernaturally powerful: symbolically, the magic of The Mammoth was transmitted to them through the material they were made of. The natural dark-red dentine pattern on both bones and items confirmed it. Beside cups and statuettes, some items of unknown usage and strange shape were excavated at Mezen. Archaeologists termed them “birds”. These “birds” looked somewhat like stamps; their “work surface” was engraved with the ornament familiar to researchers: diamonds and winding lines (meanders). Similarly to other artifacts founded at Mezen, “stamps” had traces of a red paint on them. But, a pattern engraved on “birds” was significantly larger than the one covered tools and figurines of a goddess. The purpose of these artifacts was uncovered accidentally. Researchers noticed that relation between dimensions of natural dentine diamonds and the size of a pattern engraved on “birds” was the same as the ratio of size of bony statuettes to an average human height. It was concluded that items in question were used exactly as stamps, for a ritual body painting. If a priestess printed dentine-like ornaments on her skin, she became alike to an idol made of bone. In accordance to a concept of sympathetic magic (similar appearance led to similar abilities), a woman with decorated body was thought to obtain supernatural power of a goddess. Gradually, patterns themselves started to be thought as magical. Ornaments were divided into parts, and each part became a separate symbol of a fixed shape and distinct meaning. The idea of ornamenting clothes followed plausibly from a decoration of a body. Traditional cultures perceived clothing as another skin. So, magic signs had been simply transmitted from "inner" surface of a body to an "outer" one. |
Sources (in Russian)
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