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

Figure 11. Pot depicting figure with “finny” arms and shoulders. Western China, Machang Phase of Majiayao Culture, ca. 2300 BCE. Charlotte and John Weber Collection. 1992.165.8. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

and it is quite widespread in the Neolithic, especially in Eastern Europe, where it is definitively associated with female figurines.²⁶

Other pots from the far Northwest of China (Qinghai or Gansu province) dating to the third millennium BCE depict more abstract female figures in display position (see figures 11–12). They have four or five (the number alternates) finny protuberances extending from the elbows and knees that exactly mirror those of the figure on the Liuwan pot. The legs and arms of these more abstract figures are absolutely identical to the legs and arms of the woman on the Liuwan pot.²⁷