Monday, September 22, 2008

7,000 Years Ago, Neolithic Optical Art Flourished

Earliest Op-Art? Little is known about the Cucuteni-Trypillians. Excavation data revealed that they lived in proto-cities in what is now Romania, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. Their op-art like pottery, as shown in the piece here, was dominated by repeating lines, circles and spirals.

From MSNBC/Science:

An egalitarian Neolithic Eden filled with unique, geometric art flourished some 7,000 years ago in Eastern Europe, according to hundreds of artifacts on display at the Vatican.

Running until the end of October at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican, the exhibition, "Cucuteni-Trypillia: A Great Civilization of Old Europe," introduces a mysterious Neolithic people who are now believed to have forged Europe's first civilization.

Little is known about these people — even their name is wrapped in mystery.

Archaeologists have named them "Cucuteni-Trypillians" after the villages of Cucuteni, near Lasi, Romania and Trypillia, near Kiev, Ukraine, where the first discoveries of this ancient civilization were made more than 100 years ago.

The excavated treasures — fired clay statuettes and op art-like pottery dating from 5000 to 3000 B.C. — immediately posed a riddle to archaeologists.

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