Visual investigation of animal motifs in Tall-i Bakun’s earthenware

Pre-historic pottery investigating is one of the sources that provide a lot of information about the life and art of that time. Among Iranian arts, Pottery is of a greater antiquity, originality and importance and represents people’s culture, beliefs and traditions more than any other art. After basket weaving, pottery has been the first lasting art of mankind. By investigating earthenware motifs, we understand that designs and motifs are sometimes tools or references to express a subject and a matter, and sometimes indicate religious beliefs. One of the most important prehistoric regions and civilizations in the fifth and fourth millennium BC, which has a variety of certain earthenware in terms of the shape of the vessel and type of its motifs, is Tall-i Bakun near Persepolis, which is divided into two parts, Bakun A and B. Pottery production more than the residents’ needs indicates that Bakun’s Buff-wares and Slip-painted Pottery were exported to the surrounding areas. The pen smoothness, the exaggeration of the form and the abstraction are the prominent features of the motifs of this region. Having symbolic meanings as well as being an introduction to visual and alphabetical lines is one of the reasons for the importance of these motifs. In terms of implementation, they are drawn in both naturalistic and abstract forms. The purpose of this research was to collect and investigate the animal motifs obtained from earthenware and pottery pieces in this area in terms of visual features and qualities.  Therefore, the author seeks common visual features in these motifs. The present study is fundamental in terms of purpose and has been done through a descriptive-analytical method and Library research in data collecting. Finally, after collecting the mentioned patterns and motifs and removing analogous items, 98 of the 178 motifs obtained from these found pottery pieces and earthenware were related to animal motifs and were examined with table tools. A number of these examples are given. Using table tools, animal motifs were divided into three groups: Quadruped, Birds, and Reptiles. According to the research findings, Quadrupeds which include goats and sheep, Canidae and other Quadrupeds, are at the forefront of animal motifs, with a frequency of 43%, which shows their great importance in the life and beliefs of the people of the region. In the next rank, reptiles include lizards, scorpions, fish and insects, accounting for about 35% of all animal motifs. In terms of the motif’s location, the horizontal rectangle ranks first, with 66% and the rest are located in the vertical and square rectangles. As for the dominant line, Bakuni has used 67% of curved lines in animal design. The predominant direction is also divided into six groups: horizontal, vertical, oblique, horizontal and oblique, vertical and oblique, horizontal and vertical, that most of the reviewed motifs have a predominant horizontal direction. Regarding the texture quality it should be said that 77% of the patterns and motifs do not have special textures and flat colors have been used in drawing them. The composition of these motifs also used asymmetry in 64% of them.