Sofalineh

Sofalineh

A Study and Analysis of Human Motifs on a Pottery Artifact from Neishabur Baloch Hill

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Hadi Sabori 1
Reza Bolandi 2
1 PhD student in Prehistoric Archeology, Isfahan Art University, Isfahan, Iran.
2 Master's student, Department of Archeology, Golestan Non-Profit University, Gorgan, Iran
Abstract
The remains of the past human history provide an inadequate picture of the material and spiritual aspects of life. Reconstructing the ideological and belief aspects of ancient societies based on historical remains is relatively a demanding task that requires interpretive approaches, attentiveness to the ideological and intellectual foundations of societies in their own temporal and spatial scale and comprehensive analysis of data related to such issues. From the excavations of the Baluch Neolithic area in the western part of Neishabur plain, a piece of pottery with human motifs was obtained; unique due to its time and place scale. Our information about the Neolithic period in northeastern Iran, especially Khorasan, is scanty. The evidence obtained from Baloch hill is important in the field of ideological thinking and the reconstruction of the intellectual process of Neolithic societies in the archaeological white region of the country, where a not very clear picture of its cultural developments in the prehistoric era is available. On the other hand, this unique motif identified on the mentioned piece of pottery and its analysis in terms of drawing style and aspects of iconography in the Neolithic period are of interest. In the following article, an attempt is made to study the historical-cultural contexts of the Neolithic period in Khorasan, Iran and by analyzing archaeological and ethnological data and a comparative analysis and thematic classification of similar examples of such clay motifs in the Near East, detailed information regarding the material and spiritual aspects of this artwork is obtained.
Research aims:

Analytical-comparative study and classification of the human motif of Baloch hill regarding time and place context.
The use of archaeological information and ethnographic data in order to explain the conceptual and ideological meaning of the human motif of Baloch Hill.

Research questions:

What are the material and spiritual aspects of these human motifs in the time scale of the Neolithic period?
Do these dance-like human motifs show the continuity of indigenous-local traditions over several thousand years?
Keywords
Nishapur
Baloch Hill
Neolithic
pottery
human motifs
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Sofalineh
Volume 1, Issue 2
September 2025
Pages 103-119