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On Bicephalous Images and Eurasian-American Links

by LEVON H. ABRAHAMIAN Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Academy of Sciences of Armenian S.S.R., Charentz Str. 15, Yerevan 375025, U.S.S.R. 15 xii 84 In his stimulating paper Mundkur (CA 25:451-82) discusses the "bicephalous 'animal style' "in a wide range of art pieces, from man-animal pairs to simple forked sticks presenting, as Murray (CA 25:475) notes, binary imagery rather than bicephalous animals. Of course, Mundkur can choose any term he considers convenient for the material he is discussing, but the term chosen may limit the investigator in his study (cf. Mundkur's correct notes on "ornamental" terms, p. 454) or, on the other hand, reveal the method he is employing. Thus the term "bicephalous" may lead one to seek only the presence of two heads without paying due attention to the way these heads are connected and in what compositions (as many archaeologists are inclined to do), and this reduces the authenticity of the analysis, especially that of a diffusionist one. Mundkur concludes his reply to his opponents (especially Kubler, p. 478) with the proposition that grist for the mill be brought by comparativists before constructing a model. And though we are thankful to Mundkur for his hard comparative work, I'm afraid the grist brought has some admixtures in it because of the pre-model that exists in the mind of the comparativist: the idea of "man-to-animal or animal-to-animal transformations that characterize the tribal world of dualistic spirits" (p. 474). I think this world of dualistic spirits is not the only (or the main) source of the artistic style discussed. Images of this type, e.g., on figures 23 and 24, appear side by side with the symmetrical image of figure 22, but the latter (with those of figures 9, 32, 40, 46, 56, and some others) has its roots, I think, in the no less archaic (and more archetypical) scheme of the cosmic tree (arbor mundi), which dates to the Upper Paleolithic and is so universal and stable that a long-term epoch can be named for it (Toporov 1973:150). In figure 22 there are representatives of the cosmic tree's three vertical parts: whales (underworld), bears (middle world-though in some cases they may be of the underworld), and thunderbirds (upper world), the theme of vertical growth being expressed by the flight of the birds (see Demirkhanian 1982:159). The three representatives of the cosmic tree structure are not always present simultaneously-see the Mesoamerican data cited by Mundkur (p. 471) on bird-serpent, jaguar-serpent, and bird-serpent-jaguar combinants, jaguar as a "tree animal" having a real opportunity to link the three worlds. But as a rule the middle part of the tree is occupied by ungulates, very often by cervines. Serpent symbolism with its numbers, I think, has little to do with cardinal points (cf. p. 473). The symbolism of even numbers connected with serpents (and with evil in general) leads one to rather complex schemes demanding special analysis (cf. quadricornutus binarius, the name given to the devil by the medieval alchemist Gerard Dorn (Jung 1958:??104, 180). The number four connected with cardinal points belongs to the horizontal structure of the cosmic tree (and the inhabitants of its middle part), the number three to its vertical structure (Toporov 1973). As Frolov (1984) has recently proposed, some cultures can be connected with the number three (their preferred images being linked with the vertical structure of the cosmic tree, i.e., serpents and birds) and others with the number 4 (their preferred images being linked with the horizontal structure, e.g., cervines). Mundkur shrewdly suggests that the antler may serve as a model for the most primordial symbol, but I think it is not a means to "convey a sense of spiritual dualism and human links