The story of the 6,000-year-old “lovers’ vessel”. Discovered in Romania, unique in the world

The “Lover Bowl” – an art object dating from the Eneolithic – Gumelniţa Culture, unique in the world, exhibited at the Giurgiu County Museum, represents a real treasure that takes us back in history, to ancient times.

Those interested can come to see it at the Giurgiu County Museum and discover the spiritual concerns of prehistoric people, taking a journey in time, more than six thousand years ago.

The story of the 6,000-year-old “lovers’ vessel”. Discovered in Romania, unique in the world

The bowl with lovers was discovered in 1975 at the Sultana Malu Roşu archaeological site and is dated to 4,300 – 4,100 BC, Eneolithic, Gumelniţa Culture.

“We must remember that living on these terraces of the Danube has been attested since the 10th millennium BC, so we have 12,000 years on this segment and we have extraordinary evidence of the fact that those who lived, whether temporarily or permanently, in these areas had spiritual concerns.

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The vessel represents, from my point of view, as a historical concept, a creation similar to the Thinker from Hamangia.

We are talking about a ritual vessel, truncated, with two anthropomorphic statuettes, basically there is a man and a woman in the middle of it. It is very likely that the vessel was used in the marriage ritual.

The man is in a sitting position, exactly as I said, correspondence with Hamangia”, said the director of the Giurgiu County Museum, Gabriel Dumitru.

It speaks of the uniqueness and value of the art object from six thousand years ago.

“Looking at this vessel we come to ask ourselves the question: how prehistoric were the prehistoric people, because, beyond that arm of the man who embraces the woman offering protection, for the spiral drawn inside it, we could make a comparison with the way I spin the stars”, Gabriel Dumitru pointed out.

The bowl with lovers is made of clay, about the size of an average straw, about 20 centimeters in diameter.

According to the website of the County Museum, the plastic combination impresses with its originality, in the sense that it does not find analogues in any other Neolithic culture.

The vessel is decorated with geometric motifs, represented by rows of rhombuses and triangles, painted in white on a red-brick background. In the center of the vessel, on the inside, is a pair of anthropomorphic statuettes, placed on a kind of bench. While the man’s right arm is placed on the belly, the left, longer one, is positioned behind the neck of the female statuette.

With a slightly larger size than the female statuette, the male one is simply modeled and covered in white, with a red band in the abdominal area as decoration.

In turn, the female statuette has simple facial features: the nose is raised, the nostrils are represented by two punctures, and the mouth is represented by an incision. Red and white lines are drawn on the body and arms, and a spiral painted with the same colors can be seen on the legs.

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“The red color has been preserved after so many years, it’s something very interesting, think that at the time in question there was no question of the existence of the potter’s wheel or of knowing that they had pigments for coloring. That red color reminds us of a mixture of iron oxide.

The geometric motifs somehow resemble a willow or laurel leaf, but most likely a willow because, being discovered on the banks of the Danube, it is the most suitable environment for this type of tree, and the representation for that reason, from my point of view, I say it here as a historian, not as the director of the Museum, it refers exactly to that union that we somehow live now, in the traditional family, that is, I, the man, protect you, that’s why my left arm is somehow more big, comes to surround, to protect the woman precisely because that spiral will give birth to what will carry on our legacy, namely our children.

Nothing like this has been found in the area of ​​the Danube basin, and such ritual vessels would still be somewhere in South America, but there we are already talking about civilizations that transcend the prehistoric period and are somehow located in the Middle Ages,” explained the director of the County Museum George.

Symbols of the Tree of Life and Axis Mundi?

The man’s protective gesture of putting his left arm around the neck of the female statuette could be the expression of his mental states and the values ​​of his inner universe.

The anthropomorphic pair placed in the middle of the vessel alongside the spiral and coloring motif can be seen as substitutes for the Tree of Life and the axis of the world (axis mundi), suggesting the idea of ​​life and periodic renewal, according to the Giurgiu Museum website.

Another interesting aspect of the “Lover Bowl” is the fact that it was discovered almost whole, in the reconstruction it can be seen that only a few pieces were broken and the rest of the bowl is almost entirely original.

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“The vessel with lovers” has been in exhibitions all over the world, it was also present in London, in Tokyo and in the USA, it is our piece of resistance, it is a shame that there are no augmented programs so that especially children can come and see that here there was a continuity, first of all, of living and that those prehistoric people, whom I believed with a stick, could make a work of art over six thousand years ago”, said the director of the Giurgiu County Museum, Gabriel Dumitru.

Those who want to see this object and thus travel to the past, in ancient times, can do so by crossing the threshold of the Museum.