Some more images from the beautiful Burkina Faso (Tiébélé region) traditional architectures. Round houses, made with mud-bricks, are the most common type.
Curiously, the decorations of the houses strongly recall the portuguese prehistoric schist plaques (image 5) - as well as the angular motifs of megalithic art in the Bend of the Boyne (Ireland) area, or in the NW of Iberia.
The same basic motifs are also found in some of the Near East Neolithic sites...
Entoptic motifs?
Universal signs?
It is curious to note that these motifs could be somehow inspired on (or have some kind of link to) the basketry patterns (image 4). Some Tiébélé houses display also plastic motifs, loke crooks (image 1), breasts, snakes, in bas-relief. All these motifs are present in Alentejan neolithic contexts...
2 comments:
I always see the schist plaques, also, as 'doors', a kind of doors of perception. It's an easy way to think, but...
I now see clear a door (image 4) that looks like a schist plaque. Somehow i'm attempted to imagine similar doors in the alentejan dolmens.
I do not want, by no means, to be trustworthy in what i'm about to say, but only as a stundent looking for some answers for some questions (that have few answers, and lots of quetions themselves...). I'm really into this explanation of shamanistic and entoptic theories about rock art. But I also think very oftenly about the abondancy of some of the geometric representations on rocks in the environment itself (in the nature, and in the man-made constructions such as the walls of the villages, geometry of the villages, etc.)
What I have to say is this: When I was young, in highschool, i clearly remember that once we were asked to make a draw or a pattern of some kind to make a Arraiolos Tapestry. I recall very well that I made a pattern of zig-zags and lozenges. Could this mean something? Or not? Can schollars of this matters follow this lead? The lesser age we have, the less we are subject to the vicissitudes of daily life, news and the world. By analysing draws made by young children, could we reach some conclusion? Or has it already been done?
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