Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 53 (1) 2025   doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2025.53.1.034-043

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Masks and Sculptured Human Heads in Early Neolithic Complexes of Northern Mesopotamia

T.V. Kornienko

Voronezh State Pedagogical University, Lenina 86, Voronezh, 394043, Russia

This study focuses on sculptural representations of human heads and faces and related sources from Northern Mesopotamia, dating to the 10th to early 8th millennia BC. Consideration is given to archaeological context, placement relative to other ritually meaningful objects and complexes, and to material traces of actions performed with them. The distribution of masks and separate sculptural and relief images of the human head, in Northern Mesopotamia in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN), is determined in its western and central regions during the Late PPNA, Early and Middle PPNB periods. The tradition of manufacturing such objects, like the custom of burying or otherwise ritually manipulating separate human skulls, had been practiced in the Levant at least since the Upper Epi-Paleolithic. Many PPN masks and sculptured heads were found in contexts resembling those relating to human crania (and sometimes postcrania) in ritual complexes. Ritual actions with human skulls and sculptural representations of human heads were apparently based on similar religious beliefs broadly aimed at the wellbeing of the community, its security, stability, and reproduction.

Keywords: Northern Mesopotamia, Pre-Pottery Neolithic, human head motif, mask, sculpture, funerary rite