Hamangia culture

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Hamangia-Baia Menhir exhibited at Histria Museum

Hamangia was a Middle Neolithic culture in the Dobruja to the right bank of the Danube in Muntenia and up to the northeast of Bulgaria. It is named after the site of Baia-Hamangia.

1 Pottery
2 Figurines
3 Chronology
4 Genesis
5 End
6 Settlements
7 Burial
8 Important sites
9 See also
10 Bibliography

[edit] Pottery

Painted vessels with complex geometrical patterns based on spiral-motifs are typical. The shapes include pots and wide bowls.

[edit] Figurines

Pottery figurines are normally extremely stylized and show standing naked faceless women with emphasized breasts and buttocks. Two figurines known as “The Thinker” and “The Sitting woman” (see photos) are considered masterpieces of Neolithic art.

[edit] Chronology

H. Todorova has divided the Hamangia-culture into four phases. The culture begins in the middle of the 6th Millennium.

[edit] Genesis

The Hamangia culture is connected to the Neolithisation of the Danube-delta and the Dobruja. It includes Vinca, Dudeşti and Karanovo III elements, but may be based on autochthonous hunter-gatherers. The Hamangia culture is characterized by a strong stability.

[edit] End

The Hamangia culture developed into the succeeding Gumelnitsa, Boian and Varna cultures of the late Eneolithic without noticeable break.

[edit] Settlements

Settlements consist of rectangular houses with one or two rooms, built of wattle and daub, sometimes with stone foundations (Durankulak). They are normally arranged on a rectangular grid and may form small tells. Settlements are located along the coast, at the coast of lakes, on the lower and middle river-terraces, sometimes in caves.

[edit] Burial

Crouched or extended inhumation in cemeteries. Grave-gifts tend to be without pottery in Hamangia I. Grave-gifts include flint, worked shells, bone tools and shell-ornaments.

[edit] Important sites

Cernavodă, the necropolis where the famous statues “The Thinker” and “The Sitting Woman” were discovered
the eponymous site of Baia-Hamangia, discovered in 1953 along Lake Goloviţa, close to the Black Sea coast, in the Romanian province of Dobrogea.
Durankulak in Bulgaria

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

Khenrieta Todorova (ed.), Durankulak. Sofii͡a : Izd-vo na Bŭlgarskata akademii͡a na naukite, 1989-2002.
Dumitru Berciu, Cultura Hamangia. Bucureşti: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, 1966.