Iberian Peninsula to the indus

The Iliad
, full of sexual transgressions, or the roman myth of the rape of the sa-
bines. this condition is also expressed in iconography, with, for example, the rape 
of the lapiths by the Centaurs or battles with Amazons, women who wanted to do 
without men. As recent events remind us, this constant tension between the sexes 
has persisted in all societies right up to our day. thus it is reasonable to think that, 
rather than evoking “fertility”, these prehistoric statuettes of nude female figures 
express a particular conception of sexuality. Beyond that, not much more can be said. 
froM tHe neolitHic revolution 
to tHe firSt StateS
While these themes persist, they are transformed with the neolithic revolution and 
the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, introduced 12,000 years ago in 
the near east and independently in other areas of the world. Animals are still rep-
resented, but now mostly wild animals, like the urus of Çatalhöyük depicted 8,000 
years ago in frescoes and in authentic ornaments made of clay. this would continue 
into historical epochs, as in the hunting scenes on Assyrian bas-reliefs. in egypt, 
however, some divinities had a half-human, half-animal body (falcon, cow, crocodile, 
etc.), just as they did in india.
the exhibition at the giancarlo ligabue foundation gathers numerous objects 
testifying to the ongoing representation of the female body with manifest sexual 
attributes during the neolithic period, from sardinia and india to greece and Ara-
bia. the neolithic revolution was quickly superseded, however, during the fourth 
millennium, by a new, even more radical revolution – the urban revolution and its 
far-reaching consequences. thus the world’s first states formed in a succession of 
civilizations, beginning with egypt, passing through mesopotamia, iran and Central 
Asia to reach india, followed shortly thereafter by China and the Americas. 
in these societies with their organization increasingly hierarchical, their cities 
planned from above and resources centralized, the visible power became definitively 
male. While love and sexuality remained relevant and continued as the prerogative of 
particular divinities, such as inanna in mesopotamia and later Aphrodite in greece, 
the majority of figural representations were of male divinities and male sovereigns, 
typically with weapons. War became a constant concern that was constantly por-
trayed, and so it remains. in effect, statues of “great men” or monuments to the dead 
with victorious warriors or wounded soldiers in the centre of squares only perpet-
uate this tradition, in democracies as well as authoritarian regimes. meanwhile, 
the female body continues to be profusely represented, only now in an art that has 
become “secular” and commercial, in billboards and magazines. the long story that 
began 40,000 years ago has not ended yet.
D.J-P.
1
Nude steatopygous figure seated
on a throne flanked by felines
Catal Huyuk, Turkey
VI millennium BC
Painted clay
Anadolu Medeniyetler Muzesi, Ankara

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35
trAnsCulturAl routes ACross 
tHe mediterrAneAn
T
he history of seafaring in the mediterranean goes back to the hunter-gather-
ers of the Palaeolithic times. middle Palaeolithic stone tools, dating to more 
than 50,000 years, have been found on some Aegean islands, and there are 
claims for even earlier navigation. seafaring seemingly intensified around 10,000 
BC, with groups of hunter-gatherer-fishermen conducting hunting expeditions on 
Cyprus, exploiting obsidian, a natural glass of volcanic origins from milos in the 
Cyclades and giali in the dodecanese, and settling in Crete and on several Aegean 
islands. 
this long-standing familiarity with the sea explains why, when the first farmers 
of the levant and Anatolia started expanding out of their initial homes, the mediter-
ranean immediately became a major route of expansion. travels by sea offer major 
advantages compared to land travels, not so much in terms of speed but because, 
at a time when wheels and carts were not yet in use, they permitted to carry heav-
ier loads and avoided repeated negotiations or conflicts with the locals around the 
route. no craft of this period has been preserved, but sturdy reed boats – such as 
the