Ceramics with Oculate Decoration from the Middle and Lower Douro Basin

Abstract

This study analyses the ceramics with oculate decoration known from the lower and middle Douro basin, focusing on their contexts of provenance and emphasising the stylistic substratum in which they are found, in order to understand their relationship with local imagery. In this way, we sought to access the assimilation processes of an allogenic motif, of peninsular circulation, at the scale of the site and taking into account its social function. It seems that the oculate motif - a symbol with a high ideological content - on ceramics 1) was reinterpreted locally, following the dominant decorative schemes; 2) first came into circulation in significant places within the sphere of the symbolic system and only later, in the second half of the 3rd millennium BC, did it spread throughout the residential places, which may correspond to a change in its social status or meaning.

Keywords

• sun-eye motif
• neolithic-chalcolithic
• contexts
• iconography
• dissemination
• assimilation
• simbolic system