The bird-shaped vessel from Poduri

Narration text

We have now climbed to the upper floor, to the room of sculptural masterpieces. We begin with a vessel that looks like a bird. Archaeologists call it ornithomorphic, from the Greek word for bird.

It comes from Poduri and belongs to the Cucuteni A phase. Notice how the maker suggested the bird's rounded body, while the painted ornament seems to imitate plumage. Birds appear often in the prehistoric art of south-eastern Europe.

They may have been seen as messengers between sky and earth, or simply tied to the seasons: their arrival announced spring and the start of farm work. For a farming community, that sign mattered enormously. In this room you will meet three kinds of representation: anthropomorphic, meaning human; zoomorphic, meaning animal; and ornithomorphic, like this one.

What they share is that they go beyond mere usefulness: they are objects through which people expressed their beliefs.