THE Neolithic Era and its successor, the Bronze Age, do share similarities with regards to the African visual arts traditions.
This article concludes a series of articles that dealt with ceramic pots from Stonehenge. Production techniques and designs must be pointers to some shared technological knowledge and skills.
Common technology was applied in the process of producing pots. That technology preceded the use of a potter’s wheel. Firing was a technology embraced by the Neolithic people at Stonehenge and in Africa. In the case of the latter, that simple technology lives on to this day.
There must have been shared ideas regarding clay and its behaviour when fired. Some difference existed between fired clay and clay which was unfired. The ceramic pots were important as vessels in which various items were preserved and stored. Community members drank water and beverages from clay pots.
Fired pots were more durable compared to unfired ceramic pots. Some items such as liquids leaked from unfired pots. Thus, potters possessed knowledge about fired clay.
Fired pots assumed a quality that made them endure and were thus available where old monuments were built. As we shall see later, even where a clay pot cracked into pieces, the pieces were used for other purposes.
Potters were guided by their communities’ ideology, worldview and beliefs. They pot as they believe. That informed and underpinned the designs of pots.
In both cases, the ceramic pots were embellished to augment aesthetic traits emanating from circular designs. In that regard, clay pots were vessels for items that had utility value.
Some of the items were regarded as provisions for the departed eternal spirits in their journey to the spiritual realm.
No wonder ceramic pots were associated with burials, the sites of transformation where body and soul separate.
At the same time, the ceramic pots bore icons on their external walls. As already indicated, those embraced utility and aesthetic qualities. In most African communities, especially in central and southern Africa, potting was the preserve of women.
The pots themselves are a metaphor of the female human species. Women, through fertility, guarantee the continuity of the human race.
Among the Ndebele the term for making clay pots is the same as that for “making babies” some biological process that results in the creation of babies.
Reports from African traditional gynecologists indicate that in their profession when they deal with impotent couples, clay sherds from old human settlements are part of the items used in the medicinal concoctions that they use.
Clay is largely associated with women. This is a statement that women play a greater role than men do in the creative process.
Unfortunately, I do not know whether potters at Stonehenge were men or women. What we are certain about is that clay pots were associated with burials, in addition to other roles.
At both micro and macro levels we see similar expressions. That translates to the existence of the same cosmology. Eternity is expressed through stone’s solidity, and circularity as expressed through arrangements of stone circles. Ceramic pots express what the sarsen and bluestone walls express on a grand scale.
The link between the circle and the chevron or triangular icon was explained. At Stonehenge, similar icons were identified. Concentric circles were embellished on the ceramic pots. Africa has used the circle in many spheres. A single circle expresses eternity through its having no beginning and no end.
When the circles are arranged in a concentric fashion, they augment a message while at the same time enhancing aesthetics. Concentric circles exhibit repetition, which is an element of African art.
We hope that the ancients who created Stonehenge were equally alert to the interpretation that Africa gives to a circle and concentric circles. Some ceramic pots bore chevron patterns but also freestanding individual triangles.
Given the link between the circle, more specifically the womb, the meaning of a chevron motif becomes.
However, a single triangle fails to express aesthetics. To deal with that shortcoming, potters arrange the triangles or chevron icons in such a way that they are repeated in a longitudinal way.
This translates to longitudinal repetition, which is an element of African aesthetics. There is beauty in repetition. The trait is detectable in cosmic bodies. The sun rises, sets and rises again. That action is repeated on a day-night basis.
The moon does the same on a lunar month basis. A new moon is born and celebrations are held to welcome it. It represents the beginnings of a new life. It waxes and attains full moon status where there is maximum potency which is attended by the holding of various rituals.
Repetitions in the movement of cosmic bodies is common. Humans seek to replicate the heavens within their cultural spheres.
The concentric circles are thus a good example through which art or beauty is expressed. At the same time the design expresses the idea of augmented eternity.
Repetition does not end with two instances that we have cited. An open V-shape, or open triangle may be repeated in all directions. When that happens, the resulting design is a herringbone. These were found on Stonehenge ceramics.
Repetition, in a horizontal plane, resemble a fish’s bones. A herring, a fish was chosen as the name of the repeated open triangle/V
Once again, here we come across repetition of a triangle or open V. Given the link between the triangle and the womb, which is circular in design, the message is the same. Repetition has led to some interpreters of repeated icons to perceive these as carrying different meanings.
What all this leads to is the realization that there is just one basic design which the creative artists reconfigure in order deal with monotony.
Creativity is about coming up with new designs albeit with the basic icons with the same message such as eternity.
The circle seems to rule the cosmos as the ubiquitous building design block.
Beyond the ceramic pots, we shall deal with expressions of traditional spiritual practices. It is clear that Stonehenge had people that are sometimes referred to as shamans.
There are items that were unearthed, which are associated with the shamans who are no different from the African traditional doctors.
Fumigation urns were also unearthed. Those are evidence of spiritual practices that are still in vogue in Africa. Marbles have been identified and are also associated with ball gazing which, in Africa, is referred to as divination.