Seated Idol of Pazarzhik

Neolithic Age. Circa 4,500 BC. Pazardzhik, Bulgaria.

Although the exact circumstances of the discovery are unknown, the clay figure from Pazardzhik is the most important seated female figure from the New Stone Age in Bulgaria, due to its design.

FERTILITY GODDESS?
The clay statue was found in an Early Stone Age hill settlement during railway construction near Pazardzhik in what is today Bulgaria. Unfortunately, the circumstances are very poorly documented. The object came into the imperial and royal Coin and Antiquities Collection through a collector at the start of the 1870s. In 1892 it was transferred to the NHM together with five similar but much smaller and simpler figures of the same type. The figure from Pazardzhik has a hollow lower part and represents a woman sitting on a round stool, with her hands on her hips. The nostrils, mouth and lower body openings were made by piercing the damp clay. The body is decorated with scratches, leading to speculation about tattooing or body painting. The surface of the dried and leathery clay was brilliantly polished before firing. Because there are easily dated parallel objects from southern Europe, there is no doubt that the figure was made around the middle of the fifth millennium BC. As a type, the sitting female figure probably arose somewhat earlier in Bulgaria, in the middle Neolithic Age, and spread from there to central Europe. Interpretation is difficult after over 6,500 years, but many researchers see her as a goddess or a symbol of a divine principle – perhaps the oldest representation of a Demeter embodying fertility?