Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: J. Przedwojewska-Szymańska / PASI.
The head of the male figurine is decorated with tattoos or scarification. Made between 410 and 380 B.C.

Here’s a story to tickle the frustrated archaeologist in you. I say “frustrated” because I’m not aware of any actual archaeologists who follow this blog, but many of us find the mysteries of of the field fascinating.

Sonja Anderson wrote recently at the Smithsonian about the excavation in El Salvador of “puppets that resemble modern toy dolls” with movable parts. They look like humans, but creepier.

“Researchers have discovered a trove of ancient clay puppets at an archaeological site in El Salvador, ” Anderson reports. “The five carved figurines are about 2,400 years old, and they may help shed new light on an ancient Mesoamerican society.

“Jan Szymański and Gabriela Prejs, two archaeologists from the University of Warsaw, discovered the artifacts atop a ruined pyramid at the site of San Isidro. As they write in a new study published in the journal Antiquity, the items are known as Bolinas figurines: rare puppet-like artifacts that have been found in other ancient Central American sites, such as the early Maya site Tak’alik Ab’aj in Guatemala.

“All of the recently discovered Bolinas figurines have open mouths. The two smallest puppets measure around four inches and seven inches, while the other three stand at about a foot tall. These larger figurines have detachable heads and small holes in their necks and craniums. As the researchers write, this allows for ‘a string to be passed through the neck and tied on the top of the head.’ …

“Compared with neighboring countries, El Salvador’s pre-Columbian history is poorly understood, according to a statement from Antiquity. Excavations are challenging due to the country’s high population density, and volcanic eruptions over thousands of years have damaged and buried archaeological sites.

“ ‘Very little is known about the identities and ethnolinguistic affiliations of the creators of ancient settlements that predate the arrival of Europeans in the early 16th century,’ Szymański says in the statement. ‘This gets worse the further back in time we look.’

“The San Isidro site is a complex of mostly clay structures built by an unknown group, and it remains largely unexcavated. The researchers found the Bolinas figurines while digging at the top of the site’s largest pyramidal structure. Through carbon dating, they’ve concluded the five figurines were made between 410 and 380 B.C.E. [Before Current Era].

“ ‘This finding is only the second such a group found in situ, and the first to feature a male figure,’ Szymański says in the statement. The male puppet sports what appear to be facial tattoos, and the other four are female.

“The researchers think that these versatile Bolinas figurines could have been used during ‘rituals that would involve recreation of some actual events or mythical events,’ Szymański tells IFL Science’s Benjamin Taub.

“ ‘In Mesoamerican thought, still visible today, to recreate something was to actually create it,’ he adds. ‘So if a ruler decided to commission a sculpture of himself, he was effectively cloning himself, allowing himself to look over his people even when he was away.’ …

“Figurines like these have been found in Guatemala and elsewhere in El Salvador, and jade pendants unearthed nearby resemble similar artifacts discovered in present-day Nicaragua, Panama and Costa Rica, per the statement. As such, the ancient inhabitants of San Isidro may have been connected to distant peoples.

“ ‘This discovery contradicts the prevailing notion about El Salvador’s cultural backwardness or isolation in ancient times,’ Szymański adds. ‘It reveals the existence of vibrant and far-reaching communities capable of exchanging ideas with remarkably distant places.’ ”

Reading this story, I kept thinking about a clay figure from a completely different culture, the golem. Wikipedia says the golem “is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. … In modern popular culture, the word has become generalized, and any crude anthropomorphic creature devised by a sorcerer.”

There must be something in human nature that needs to invent these creatures.

More at the Smithsonian, here. No firewall.

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