vinča figurine plovdiv 44b and its inverse

Plovdiv Regional Archaeological Museum, inventory 44b. Baked clay figurine, seated, 8.3 cm tall, recovered from Karanovo horizon VI in 1961. Standard Vinča features: cylindrical neck, incised eyes, arms folded at the abdomen. Dated to approximately 4700 BCE.

The catalogue entry runs six lines. It notes seven incised marks on the left flank. It does not note that the same seven marks appear on the right flank in reversed order and inverted orientation.

I found this by accident. The museum published a set of rotating 3D scans in 2019 for a virtual exhibition. Most of the scans are low resolution. 44b is high resolution. You can turn it.

The left side, top to bottom: chevron, comb (four teeth), single vertical stroke, X, comb (four teeth), chevron, dot-in-bracket.

The right side, top to bottom: dot-in-bracket, chevron, comb (four teeth, reversed), X, single vertical stroke, comb (four teeth, reversed), chevron.

Read the right side bottom to top and the marks match the left. Each individual mark is also flipped along its vertical axis where flipping produces a distinguishable form. The X is symmetrical, so it looks the same. The single stroke is symmetrical. The chevron opens the other way. The comb faces the other way. The bracket around the dot opens the other way.

Seven marks. One pair symmetrical under reflection at the center (the X). Three pairs that require the reversal to match.

The dot-in-bracket sign is not in Winn's 1981 catalogue of Vinča signs. It is not in Merlini's expanded 2009 catalogue. I have looked. It appears on figurine 44b and on no other Vinča object I can find published.

I have seen the mark before. I will not say where here.

The Plovdiv catalogue does not mention the right-side marks. I emailed the curator on August 19. The reply, received August 23, from an assistant, said the right side has "decorative scoring consistent with the period" and that no formal analysis has been done. Attached was a photograph. The photograph was of the left side.

I asked again for the right side. The second reply, August 25, said the object was temporarily unavailable for imaging.

The 2019 scan is still online. I downloaded it.

Count of marks on the left: seven. Count of marks on the right: seven. Count them again.

Karanovo VI produced 41 figurines with lateralized incision, according to Nikolov's 1989 site report. Nikolov's list gives inventory numbers. 44b is not on the list. The list ends at 44a and resumes at 45.