OZIERI CULTURE, CIRCA 2500-2000 B.C.

Stone idols, quite frequently depicting females, ranging from highly abstract to naturalistic, were produced by Prehistoric peoples throughout the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Kilia idols from Anatolia, their heads turned up as if gazing at the stars, and Cycladic female figures, with their arms folded and their feet flexed, are perhaps the best known creations of the 3rd millennium B.C. These idols survive in considerable numbers and are now dispersed throughout Europe and the U.S. in institutional and private collections. The minimalist expression of the human form perfected by these ancient craftsmen exerted a strong influence on the artists of the 20th century, such as Brancusi.
Further to the west on the island of Sardinia, during the same period, female idols of several varieties were also produced, but as the Anatolian and Cycladic were local phenomena, it is highly unlikely that there was any cultural interchange between the east and central Mediterranean. The splendid female idol presented here comes from the Ozieri Culture of Sardinia, which takes its name from the town in the north of the island where the first excavations took place. Only very few such cruciform female idols survive. For another of similar scale and style from Senorbi, now in the National Archeological Museum, Cagliari, see no. 1 in J. Thimme, Kunst und Kultur Sardiniens vom Neolithikum bis zum Ende der Nuraghenzeit.