Thousands of mysterious clay figurines found in Japan are still controversial in the scientific world. Now it turns out that these statuettes have relatives in different parts of the world. And everyone has similar … eyes!
"Banzai" translated from Japanese means "ten thousand years and one year." With this greeting, the Japanese, as it were, wish a person good health for 10 thousand years. And the figure is not accidental: at least 10 thousand years ago, that is, long before the advent of agriculture, the first inhabitants of the eastern islands already mastered the art of ceramics, cooked their own food in dishes and lived in villages.
Their distinctive jomon-style ceramics (rope trail) were decorated with the imprints of a rolled rope on wet clay. Ceramics gave the name to the whole era (jomon-jidai) of the Japanese Neolithic (VIII-I millennium BC). However, samples of Jomon ceramics were found, which are not 10, but 12 and even 13 thousand years old.
In other parts of the planet, people will learn this art thousands of years later (in China, for example, in 3 thousand years). It turns out that the pottery of the Japanese islands is the oldest in the world. In general, there is a certain inconsistency in the dating of the Jomon period. Some experts believe that there was also the so-called pre-pottery period - from 20,000 BC. But something else is more important for us now. A typical sign of the Jomon era is dogu figurines made of baked clay.
Strange dolls
The height of the dogu figures is from 3 to 30 centimeters. To date, more than 15 thousand of them have been found. According to legends, they were made by the giant people who once lived in Japan. Perhaps they are not giants, but no one knows for certain where the first settlers of the Japanese islands came from, who lived there even before the appearance of the Ainu people.
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In any case, some characteristic elements of this period are in the art of the aborigines of Australia and Oceania, Africa (Sahara), Polynesia (New Hebrides), Central America (Amazon) and some other places on the planet. It seems that the origins of the oldest layer of these cultures should be sought in the sunken lands. Or even in deep space.
The purpose of most jomon pottery items is more or less clear - household utensils, dishes, hunting and fishing gear. But these "dolls" … There is still no exact data on the purpose of the dogu. But the most intriguing feature of the figurines is their oversized eyes.
Sun protection? Or from the snow?
Some particularly elaborate figurines have oversized sunglasses on their faces. This special category of figurines is called Shakkoki Dogu, or "clay figurines with dark glasses." If we assume that these are really glasses, then the longitudinal slits on the lenses resemble sun shields on the helmets of modern spacesuits.
Or primitive "snow goggles", something like those that are used by the Eskimos today - opaque, with a small horizontal cut. They significantly limit the amount of sunlight entering the eyes, because we all instinctively squint in the sun. Glasses, of course, are simple, but they never fog up. Apparently, when the people of the Jomon culture moved to the islands from somewhere in the south (if not from another planet), then on wide plains covered with white snow and reflecting sunlight, they simply needed such glasses - without such protection, they could go blind.
Diving goggles?
In Japanese mythology, a lot is said about the inhabitants of the deep sea, the so-called kappa. They had fins and flippers and, most importantly, possessed knowledge that they passed on to people. So maybe the "glasses" have to do with water?
Let's take a closer look at the figurines: why aren't deep-sea diving suits? Their streamlined shape is by no means accidental. Since spacesuits have to resist high water pressure, using a spherical shape that can better distribute impact forces is a technically correct solution.
Figures are usually covered with some kind of intricate intricate pattern. It looks like he's depicting a tattoo. Surprisingly, the oldest known reference to Japan, the third century Chinese manuscript Gisiwajinden, mentions "Wa men": they jump into the water for fish and shells, paint special designs on their faces and bodies.
Once upon a time, they did this to scare off underwater predators, and later the drawings became decorative. Different tribes have different body painting, the size of the picture is different - according to the rank of the person. And the "land of Wa" is Japan. And while the tribal tattoo style did not find a continuation among the Japanese, it can still be seen today in other Pacific people such as Maori in New Zealand.
The markings on the face of dogu figurines were the subject of research conducted in 1969 by D. Takayama. He concluded that the drawings were indeed a tattoo.
Links with the world of the departed
This interpretation, however, is not undeniable. Otherwise, what should we think of the Brazilian clay figurines found in Santarem, in the Amazon? After all, this pottery dates back to ancient times - up to two thousand years. We know even less about the people of Santarem than about the predecessors of the Ainu, but a female figure with hands on her stomach and specific eyes seems strangely familiar to us.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that one of the most famous archaeological finds, the mask of Agamemnon, found by Heinrich Schliemann, who was looking for Troy, has similar eyes, and this mask is two thousand years older than the figures from Santarem. But she's not wearing glasses! Basically, all over the world we can find works of ancient art - a face with closed eyes. It is possible that similar styles arose, independently of each other, in different places and at different times. For example, let's compare the same mask of Agamemnon and the modern mask of one of the African tribes.
Dr. Gento Hasebe, based on the similarity of the dogu helmets with the wooden masks he discovered in Africa, suggested back in 1924 that they were actually mourning masks. So, perhaps, dogu figurines were used in the burial ritual - to provide the deceased with a magical connection with another world? Then it's no wonder their eyes are closed.
Astronaut eyes?
The idea of ancient astronauts is several decades ahead of the work of its most famous propagandist, Erich von Deniken. For the first time such an assumption was expressed back in the 1950s by the Russian science fiction writer A. P. Kazantsev.
The Chin San Tomb (Kyushu Island, Japan), dated 2000 BC, depicts an ancient king welcoming seven flying discs. It is not surprising, therefore, that, as Professor of the University of Tokyo X. Munsterberg writes in his book "The Art of Japan", the Jomon peoples lived in the Stone Age, and they wore their figurines in costumes reminiscent of space! A helmet with slit-like slits and a collar through which the head freely passes, and a spiral ornament are noteworthy.
Let us think, what symbol could be understood by any intelligent creatures, wherever they lived? Spiral. Many galaxies in the visible part of space have this shape. In a word, the Jomon people saw it all. Otherwise, how could they with such details so carefully reproduce all the details of a modern space suit?
Spacesuit lenses?
NASA specialists in 1964 and 1990 analyzed the dogu figurines and came to the conclusion that they really look like a humanoid creature in a spacesuit. On the head is a modern hermetic space helmet. In most cases, two large round lenses are visible on the helmet, and on the heads of some figurines there is only one lens covering the entire upper part of the face.
The longitudinal slits on the lenses are analogous to the sun shields on the helmets of modern space suits. There are also fasteners connecting the parts of the suit, hatches for examining the helmet (steel side) and on the shoulders (for repairing the manipulator mechanisms) and, what is especially noteworthy, there is a breathing filter with holes in the hermetically sealed helmet! Such a detail made by people of the Stone Age is difficult to imagine.
In almost all dogu, in the area of the mouth and cheeks, you can see three round protrusions - like sockets for connecting cables of intercom and hoses of the respiratory system. The sleeves and legs of the suit are inflated, as if the air pressure inside the suit is greater than outside.
The AX-5 rigid spacesuit concept was developed at NASA around 1985, but it may only really be needed in the future - the spacesuits will become solid, durable, multi-layered, with complex connections to provide better protection for those who will fly on Mars and beyond. These are, in fact, armored suits.
But how could it happen that similar "cosmic" motives are found in different parts of the world? Only a mother ship circled around the Earth, from which the aliens landed in one place of the Earth, then in another! Or, perhaps, they have come to Earth several times.
In any case, dogu figurines make us think and tie together the history of our civilization from ancient Troy to future flights to distant galaxies. This means that the people of the Jomon culture really deserve the admiration with which we perceive their creations today - thousands of years later …