Objetivos estratégicos

Freud stated: "that right and left should mean male and female seems quite obvious..."

Chris McManus²⁵ clearly depicts the systematic scheme in burials for several cultures. Obviously the system varied from culture to culture, but some systematic approach may still be identified. The earliest left-right symbolism may be found at the burial pattern of proto-Indo-European peoples, the Kurgans, who dominated Europe at the fourth millenium BC and originated from the Black Sea area.

The Kurgan period

Kurgan (кургáн) is the Russian word (of Turkic origin) for tumulus, a type of burial mound or barrow, heaped over a mostly wooden burial chamber. In 1956 Marija Gimbutas introduced her Kurgan hypothesis combining kurgan archaeology with linguistics to locate the origins of the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) speaking peoples.

In the Kurgan period dead corpses were buried in a semi-flexed position, quite similar to a foetal position, to the right or left side. As a general rule most of the burials identified opposite sides for male and female persons. Man and woman seem to have been considered as mirrored images. At the Kurgan III-IV period the bodies of male and female corpses were oriented east-west, facing to the south. The females were lying on their left side and the males on their right side.

25: Right Hand, Left Hand: The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and … by Chris McManus (2002)

The Beaker periods

The burials at the Beaker periods are younger than the Kurgan period of the 4th millennium BC. The Beaker culture (also Bell-Beaker culture, Beaker people, or Beaker folk²⁶), ca.

2600-2000 BC, is the term for a widely but spottily scattered archaeological culture of prehistoric western Europe starting in the late Neolithic (stone age) running into the early bronze age.

• At the Beaker I period the bodies of male and female corpses were oriented north-south, facing to the east. The females were lying on their right side and the males on their left side.

• At the Beaker II period the bodies of male and female corpses were oriented north-south, facing to the east. The females were lying on their right side and the males on their right side.

• At the Beaker III period the bodies of male and female corpses were oriented east-west, facing to the south. The females were lying on their right side and the males on their left side.

Corded Ware culture

The term "Corded Ware culture" (die Schnurkeramikkultur) was introduced by the German archaeologist Friedrich Klopfleisch in 1883. The name is taken from cord impressions found on the surface of vessels found in archaeological sites across a large portion of central and eastern Europe. Corded Ware culture is associated with the Indo-European family of languages by many scientists.

26: German Glockenbecherkultur

The "Corded Ware culture" was a central and eastern European phenomenon. Its western boundary was the Rhine River. To the south it reached the Alps and occupied the Upper Danube River basin to the mouth of the Morava River.

Carbon-14 dating of the remaining central European regions shows that Corded Ware appeared after 2880 b. C. The pile settlements with Corded Ware in the Alpine foothills, which yield the most accurate information, disappeared about 2440 b.

C. The years between 2300 and 2100 b. C. were a period during which the Corded Ware culture ended in most regions, especially in the southern part of its domain (basins of the Danube, Upper Rhine, Elbe, and Vistula). Only in the Russian Plain did it last until 2000 b. C.

An important observation concerned the orientation of the buried body according to gender. Throughout Corded Ware culture, there was a definite opposition to placing men and women in the same positions in graves.

Inhumation occurred under flat ground or below small tumuli in a flexed position; on the continent males lay on their right side, females on the left, with the faces of both oriented to the south. However, in Sweden and also parts of northern Poland the graves were oriented north-south, men lay on their left side and women on the right side - both facing east.

Originally, there was probably a wooden construction, since the graves are often positioned in a line. This is in contrast with practices in Denmark where the dead were buried below small mounds with a vertical stratigraphy: the oldest below the ground, the second above this grave, and occasionally even a third burial above those.

Other types of burials are the niche-graves of Poland. Grave goods for men typically included a stone battle-axe. Pottery in the shape of beakers and other types are the most common burial gifts, generally speaking. Often decorated with cord, but also incisions and other types of impressions.

The approximately contemporary Beaker culture had similar burial traditions, and together they covered most of Western and Central Europe. While broadly related to the Corded Ware culture, the origins of the Bell-Beaker folk are considerably more obscure, and represent one of the mysteries of European pre-history.

On this basis researchers conclude that the internal organization of the Corded Ware people was based on a definite assignment of gender roles. The right to burial was not equal for both genders. There were many more male burials, fewer female, but the rarest were those of children (children were often buried together with an adult).

Corded Ware pottery

The prototype of the Corded Ware culture, German Schnur-keramikkultur is found in Central Europe, mainly Germany and Poland, and refers to the characteristic pottery of the era:

twisted cord was impressed into the wet clay to create various decorative patterns and motifs. It is known mostly from its burials, and both sexes received the characteristic cord-decorated pottery. Whether made of flax or hemp, they had rope.

In fact the rope may refer to the basic idea of the biblical weaving technology (Byssus), which also has been found at the chieftain's grave at Hochdorf.

A rope is a length of fibres, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed cord, line, string, and twine.

In a sense of improving strength twisted cord may have been used to symbolize the power of marriage in which male and female partners join forces. The symbolism has also been described by Tacitus by “oxen joined in the same yoke”:

“This they esteem the highest tie, these the holy mysteries, and matrimonial Gods. That the woman may not suppose herself free from the considerations of fortitude and fighting, or exempt from the casualties of war, the very first solemnities of her wedding serve to warn her, that she comes to her husband as a partner in his hazards and fatigues, that she is to suffer alike with him, to adventure alike, during peace or during war.

This the oxen joined in the same yoke plainly indicate, this the horse ready equipped, this the present of arms.”

It is hard to believe the rope used in the Corded Ware should merely represent some decoration instead of symbolizing a divine command to join forces by marriage. To me the rope in the Corded Ware equalizes the weaving technology in the red

& blue clothes to produce the divine purple colour, which has been described in the books Exodus and Chronicles.

Comparison to the Gagarino idol

Both the Kurgan period (4th Millenium b. C.) and the "Corded Ware culture"-period (2880 b. C.-2000 b. C.) buried their women left sided and their men right sided as mirrored images, both facing towards the east. Generally the buried bodies are located to face the dawn's position and/or the sun. Facing the east and the south may refer to contacting the divine sun and the sun's birth at dawn.

These positions are equivalent to the small sculpture in ivory of mammoth cm 14.8 high found in a Palaeolithic site (evolved Gravettian, about 21,800 years ago) at Gagarino²⁷, Ukraine.

In this sculpture two full-bodied human beings have been joined together by the neck. A similar androgynous head-to-head-position has been found at the grave of Sungir (near Moscow).

27: Visit the source at: Institute for Ice Ages Studies

Fig. 14: Comparing head-to-head-positions

The bodies are united by the heads, but turned to the opposite directions. Here we could see again the mystical concept of the unity of polarity.

Left-right differences at the Gogo people

The left-right oriented gender differences may be found in more recent languages as well. In Central Tanzania the Gogo people define the right hand as muwoko wokulume, "the male hand", whereas the left hand is identified as muwoko wokucekulu, "the female hand".

The Gogo people of Tanzania will also define the right side as

• the side the male partner lies on during intercourse and

• the side on which male persons are to be buried.

In contrast the left side is the side:

• the female partner lies on during intercourse and

• on which female persons are to be buried.

Ochre

Ritual pouring with red ochre has been registered in a great number of graves. A discussion paper suggests a reference between biology and red colour pigments. Red colour pigments became a symbolic vehicle through recognizing and relating.

These developments led to the transformation of red ochre into human (female) blood, a basic element in the symbolism of the

"mother" prevalent in present-day societies but probably also developed by Upper Palaeolithic and successive peoples.

References to androgynous symbolism

Mirrored burial positions suggest references to other androgynous symbolism such as:

• Plato's androgynous creation legend

• The Zohar's and other biblical androgynous creation legends

• The sculpture found at Roquepertuse

• the etymology of the divine names (e.g. Dyaeus, IHVH, IU-piter and dUI).

• and many others...

An overview of these symbolisms will be documented in the next chapters of the Scribd-document The Sky-God Dyaeus.

28:Red Ochre and Human Evolution : A Case for Discussion