Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia By M ...

This seems to us to be a female figure—without breasts—using her hands to pull apart her vulva, much as do many other figures we describe in this book, as well as figures of neutral or dual gender in neighboring geographical areas.¹² For example, one might compare the figure from Lepenski Vir (see figure 7).

Although Klaus Schmidt wrote that Göbekli Tepe was a purely ritual site, with no evidence of habitation such as ovens or fireplaces,¹³ other excavators of the site believe that they have found habitation debris.¹⁴ The structures—round megalithic buildings—contain pillars upon which are carved reliefs of many animals, including the aforementioned lions, snakes, and boars.

In Lepenski Vir, in the Iron Gates region of the Danube River in eastern Serbia, there are several female “fish” sculptures displayed in the Lepenski Vir Museum (these are copies of the originals). One, dating to 6800 BCE, is crouching; her arms reach down to grasp a deeply incised vulva (see figure 7).¹⁵ Near the hands one can see two knobs, which represent breasts. The excavator believed that this sculpture represented a male.¹⁶ There is a strikingly similar figure from the Tarxien megalithic site in Malta,¹⁷ and another display figure from the Hagar Qim megalithic site, also in Malta.¹⁸ The Hagar Qim display figure has one arm raised and one arm down,¹⁹ thus connecting the “display” with the “dance.”

Very similar figures are found in Neolithic China,²⁰ thus indicating that during the prehistoric era, female figures in “display” position expanded throughout Eurasia. A pot from Western China (Liuwan, in the far northwestern province of Qinghai [Kokonur]) depicts a female figure in a display position (see figures 8–9).²¹ The pot dates to the Machang Phase²² (ca. 3000 BCE) of the Majiayao Culture. The figure has a well-defined pair of breasts at the top and what is probably meant to depict a swollen abdomen, perhaps indicating pregnancy, with a distended navel in the