Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels
Апстракт
According to the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary Online, a stick figure is “a simple picture of a person in which the head is drawn as a circle and the body, arms, and legs are drawn as lines.” A partial synonym for this word is stickman, defined in the Collins Free Online Dictionary as
“a human figure drawn in thin strokes.” As not all such drawings represent humans, even if the majority of them do so, in this paper I will mostly stick to the term stick figure drawings. The stick figures are universally recognisable symbols, among the most widely known in the world. Their
roots can be traced back to deep prehistory, to the time of cave drawings and petroglyphs, and such symbols are still very much present to this day and used for many different purposes around the globe, which was only to accelerate in the early days of personal computers.
In the absence of evidence of graffiti on long-perished “canvases”, such as wooden or clay walls of modest houses, the present article ...will focus on simple (although attractive) incisions on early
medieval pottery, namely the stick figures which decorated some vessels – mostly but not exclusively from the Avar milieu. Building on a small corpus assembled as early as the beginning of the nineteen-seventies by Jovan Kovačević, this overview will mention several more objects, including those made from metal, antler and bone. However, the main task will be discussing the meaning of those pottery signs in the Early Middle Ages, rather than compiling an exhaustive list of finds – at any rate, this group is small in number. As such it has not been specifically
discussed in a key monograph on Early Avar pottery by Tivadar Vida.
Кључне речи:
Stick figures / Early medieval pottery / AvarsИзвор:
Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission, 2024, 239-255Издавач:
- Belgrade : University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy
- Belgrade : Institute of Archaeology
Институција/група
Археолошки институт / Institute of ArchaeologyTY - CHAP AU - Bugarski, Ivan PY - 2024 UR - http://rai.ai.ac.rs/handle/123456789/1627 AB - According to the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary Online, a stick figure is “a simple picture of a person in which the head is drawn as a circle and the body, arms, and legs are drawn as lines.” A partial synonym for this word is stickman, defined in the Collins Free Online Dictionary as “a human figure drawn in thin strokes.” As not all such drawings represent humans, even if the majority of them do so, in this paper I will mostly stick to the term stick figure drawings. The stick figures are universally recognisable symbols, among the most widely known in the world. Their roots can be traced back to deep prehistory, to the time of cave drawings and petroglyphs, and such symbols are still very much present to this day and used for many different purposes around the globe, which was only to accelerate in the early days of personal computers. In the absence of evidence of graffiti on long-perished “canvases”, such as wooden or clay walls of modest houses, the present article will focus on simple (although attractive) incisions on early medieval pottery, namely the stick figures which decorated some vessels – mostly but not exclusively from the Avar milieu. Building on a small corpus assembled as early as the beginning of the nineteen-seventies by Jovan Kovačević, this overview will mention several more objects, including those made from metal, antler and bone. However, the main task will be discussing the meaning of those pottery signs in the Early Middle Ages, rather than compiling an exhaustive list of finds – at any rate, this group is small in number. As such it has not been specifically discussed in a key monograph on Early Avar pottery by Tivadar Vida. PB - Belgrade : University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy PB - Belgrade : Institute of Archaeology T2 - Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission T1 - Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels EP - 255 SP - 239 UR - https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rai_1627 ER -
@inbook{ author = "Bugarski, Ivan", year = "2024", abstract = "According to the definition from the Cambridge Dictionary Online, a stick figure is “a simple picture of a person in which the head is drawn as a circle and the body, arms, and legs are drawn as lines.” A partial synonym for this word is stickman, defined in the Collins Free Online Dictionary as “a human figure drawn in thin strokes.” As not all such drawings represent humans, even if the majority of them do so, in this paper I will mostly stick to the term stick figure drawings. The stick figures are universally recognisable symbols, among the most widely known in the world. Their roots can be traced back to deep prehistory, to the time of cave drawings and petroglyphs, and such symbols are still very much present to this day and used for many different purposes around the globe, which was only to accelerate in the early days of personal computers. In the absence of evidence of graffiti on long-perished “canvases”, such as wooden or clay walls of modest houses, the present article will focus on simple (although attractive) incisions on early medieval pottery, namely the stick figures which decorated some vessels – mostly but not exclusively from the Avar milieu. Building on a small corpus assembled as early as the beginning of the nineteen-seventies by Jovan Kovačević, this overview will mention several more objects, including those made from metal, antler and bone. However, the main task will be discussing the meaning of those pottery signs in the Early Middle Ages, rather than compiling an exhaustive list of finds – at any rate, this group is small in number. As such it has not been specifically discussed in a key monograph on Early Avar pottery by Tivadar Vida.", publisher = "Belgrade : University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade : Institute of Archaeology", journal = "Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission", booktitle = "Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels", pages = "255-239", url = "https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rai_1627" }
Bugarski, I.. (2024). Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels. in Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission Belgrade : University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy., 239-255. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rai_1627
Bugarski I. Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels. in Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission. 2024;:239-255. https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rai_1627 .
Bugarski, Ivan, "Stick figures on early medieval pottery vessels" in Pots as media: Decoration, technology and message transmission (2024):239-255, https://hdl.handle.net/21.15107/rcub_rai_1627 .