TWO-FACED HUMAN HEAD IN POST-PALEOLITHIC SCULPTURE

Museum of the Origins of Man

TWO-FACED HUMAN HEAD IN POST-PALEOLITHIC SCULPTURE

Fig. 5A1) Anthropomorphic two-faced lithic sculpture. It represents a two-faced divinity like Giano, El-Kronos, Argon, Borea, and so on. The hat is much beautiful, like in all the sculptures of evolued civilizations.
Origin: Babylon.

Fig. 5A2) Anthropomorphic lithic sculptures. Small idols in alabaster or stone. By scholars of ancient religions, they are put in relation with the celestial or solar character of the divinity adored in the temple, and could have votive meaning. These small idols many-eyes enclose traditions of several divinities. The many eyes, like the many arms, in a same sculpture, re-enter in " bifrontism (two-faced) ". The types that have beeen found are four: male; female; couple, male and female with a single mouth, and the little idol with three eyes. Interesting the hats, similar to the first hats known in sculpture in the Paleolithic.
Size: cm. 5 on average.
Origin: temple di Brak, Tell Brak, Valley of Khabur, northern Syria.
Dating: IV millenium B.C.

Fig. 5A3) Lithic sculpture in bas-relief. It represents a man with two-faced head, sitting between two rearing horses. It is called " dominating God of the animals ". Two animals at the sides of the God, are a new recurrent topic in the iconography of the first urban civilizations.
Size: height cm. 30, widht cm. 38, thickness max cm. 17.
Origin: Villaricos, Spain.
Archaeological museum of Barcelona, Spain.

Fig. 5A4) Two-faced Anthropomorphic sculpture in marble. It represents the bust of a man with three bearded heads. It represents the Gaulish God with three heads. We can attribute style, and making, to the classic Greece. Its name is unknown, as there are not been found inscriptions.
Size: height cm. 45 approximately.
Origin: Condat, Dordogne, France.

Fig. 5A5) Anthropomorphic lithic sculpture (Drawing).It represents the head of a bearded man, with three faces and two eyes.
It represents the Gaulish God with three faces.
Size: perhaps cm. 50 approximately.
Origin: Reims, France.

Fig. 5A6) Anthropomorphic lithic two-faced sculpture. It represents two human heads beardless, and lacking in hairs, joined with look in opposite direction; between the two heads, a small head lacking in the particulars of the face.
It represents a celtic-Gaulish God, in origin three-headed; then, for cult reasons (as supported by scholars of this religion), one of the three head has been abolished, but we see trace of it in reduced in size representation.
Size: height cm. 30 approximately.
Origin: Roquepertuse, Mouths of the Rhone, France.
Museum Lapidaire of Marseilles, France.

Fig. 5A7) Lithic sculpture in bas-relief. It represents a riding man with three bearded heads; on the background several human figures. It represents the rider God with three heads. In Ancient Thrace, the God had also two heads. It is a solar God. In Bulgaria have been found hundreds of these steles.
Size: modest dimensions.
Origin: Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

Fig. 5A8) Lithic sculpture in bas-relief. It represents a man with head with three faces, large lips, and a woman and a man. It represents the God three-headed and two divinities. The large lips have meant unknown, however, for how much rare, they are present in the representations in Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and protohistory.
Size: modest dimensions.
Origin: Dennevy, France.

Fig. 5A9) Vase in painted ceramic. Scene of battle between a man and a man with two-faced head, which represents Argon, God generally represented with body strewed of eyes. Generally, this God has one bearded face, and the others beardless.
Origin: Greece.

Fig. 5A10) Two-faced anthropomorphic sculpture in marble. It represents two-faced Janus. This God has been represented in many ways: bearded, beardless, with a bearded face and a beardless, with two old men, with two young people, one old face and the other of young person, and with a remarkable variety of types of styling of hairs and of beard.
Size: approximately to the natural.
Collocation: Roma

Fig. 5A11) Drawing published in XVII century. It represents a man with two-faced head; the wings, a rooster on the head. With one hand he is holding an object not defined, while with the other hand he holds up a fish.
It represents Wejopatis, prussian God of the wind.
From more than a century the America had been conquered. The press was spreaded in Europe, but the Christianity had not still conquered all Europe, as in some zones like Prussia the two-faced Gods till existed. This is an ulterior testimony of how much the religions have roots in the people.
According to the typology of the sculptures of the Paleolithic, this God, having wings, can itself be considered hybrid man-animal.
Origin: Prussia, Germany.

clikka per ingrandire l'immagine

Fig. 5A12) Two-faced Angel holding a book with Christian subjects. (Drawing). The sun, the symbolic moon, and other images are represented. The angel has features of woman, and therefore he is beardless, while the head bound together on the nape is bearded. One of the wings towards the sun is of bird, while the wing behind the moon is of bat.
It has been possible to represent all this religious symbology, for the technical medium that the drawing on paper allows; what was impossible in lithic sculpture all round, but this complex world of symbols, always has been present in the religion, with the word, like still today.

Fig. 5A13) Anthropomorphic lithic two-faced sculpture . It represents a man sitting with two head joined for the nape, and look in opposite direction. It represents two-faced January; it is associated to others 11 statues, and everyone represents a month of the year.
Age: XIII century, a.D.

Fig. 5A14) Anthropomorphic two-faced lithic sculpture. It represents a man sitting with two head, and look in ahead. It represents " two-faced January that warms himself at the fire ": in fact, little fires are represented at its feet.
This sculpture is placed outside the Cathedral of Parma, and being supported by the wall, probably has the two head in parallel, to the contrary of other January (Janus) two-faced (Fig. 5A13) that is inside the Cathedral, and that has the two head joined for the nape with look in opposite direction.
The presence in a Christian Cathedral of two sculptures of two-faced Janus (one within and the other outside), demonstrates that this divinity, even if was not in the cult of the Christians, was still in the believes of the people. Otherwise, no allow by the priests to collocate them.
Collocation: Cathedral of Parma, Parma, Italy.
Age: XIII century a.D.

Fig. 5A15) Anthropomorphic two-faced wooden sculpture. It represents half human head of living, and half human head of defunct, that seems nearly a skull. We do not know the meant of the opened wide mouth.
Size: height cm. 30 approximately.
Origin: Central Africa.
Museum Royal of Central Afrique, Tervuren, Belgium.

Fig. 5A16) Two-faced anthropomorphic wooden sculptures. It is one of the many versions of the bifrontism (two-faced), where, rather than to be a body and two heads, there are two heads joined for the nape, and two bodies joined for the back. These two sculptures probably come from localities far one from the other, as they represent two different varieties of Homo sapiens sapiens; one of low stature and one of high stature. Also the styles are different. Men of low stature are represented with a realistic style, nearly caricaturale, while men of high stature are realized in an elegant style, that aims to lengthen the head, and to reduce some particulars of the face, and to abolish eyes. Moreover, they have the body decorated with recordings. The religion is in common to the two sculptures.
In photography, there is also a sculpture in wood, that represents a phallus, cult object.
Size: approximately mt. 1.30 with the stool.
Origin: Central Africa.
Museum Royal of the Central Afrique, Tervuren, Belgium.

Fig. 5A17) Anthropomorphic lithic two-faced sculpture. It represents Triloknath, divinity currently in the cult.
Collocation: Triloknath Temple, Sends.
Age: XVI century a.D.

Fig. 5A18) Anthropomorphic two-faced lithic sculpture. It represents God Agni with two heads, that symbolizes "domestic and sacrificale fire".
Origin: India.
Age: II century B.C.
Museum Guinet, Paris.

Fig. 5A19) Anthropomorphic wooden two-faced sculpture. It is a mask for dance, for cult rituals.
Origin: Ekoi, Region of the Cross River, Nigeria.

Fig. 5A20) Anthropomorphic two-faced sculpture in limestone. It represents a man with two heads, that represents an "ancestor ". This is a local aspect of transformation of the religion from a cult to an other, maintaining equal the typology of the representation, that is the anthropomorphic idol with two heads
However, it is not excluded, that also in the Paleolithic, there was a cult of the ancestors, connected to similar representations.
Origin: New Ireland.
Museum fur Volkerkunde, Hamburgh, Germany.

Fig. 5A21) Two-faced anthropomorphic sculpture (particular). Human figure with three heads, and six arms. It represents Ashura, one of the eight guardians of Buddha, and smaller divinity.
Origin: Japan. Nara period, 734 a.D.

Fig. 5A22) Anthropomorphic two-faced sculpture in bronze ( Drawing).
It represents a man with a head with four faces.
It is a male divinity.
Size: height cm. 17.3.
Origin: Iraq.
Age:1800 - 1700 B.C.
Oriental Institute, University of Chicago (USA)

Fig. 5A23) Ceramic two-facedvanthropomorphic sculpture . It represents a naked woman with two heads. It represents a divinity connected to the cult of the fecundity. This sculpture is presented again (Fig. 8A9)in section regarding " venus " and goddesses mothers.
This type of sculpture has been found in remarkable amount, constituted from several types of heads, beyond this type: one head with two faces; two heads assembled in an only head with look ahead, and various types of hairdos or hats, some of which published in this site.
Size: height from cm. 6 to cm. 13, on average cm. 10.
Origin: Tlatilco, Mexico.
Dating: 1100 - 500 B.C.

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