Talk:False door

Pre-Nuragic false doors

I spent some time doing a fairly thorough research on Sardinian false doors. From the sources in my possession it appears that in Sardinia there are about twenty tombs containing false doors, a number of which are present in the Anghelu Ruju necropolis. Although the infrastructures at Anghelu Ruju were created mostly during the Ozieri culture (started c. 3200 BCE; by the way, this is a BCE article), archaeological evidences indicate a more or less continuous use up to the culture of Bonnanaro (lasted until c.1600 BCE). It is not actually definable in which period within this wide range the false doors were actually carved/painted.

I find it significant that in the book by Lilliu – put into the article by IP 151.35.101.55 without any page reference – there is no mention of false doors where, given the IP's behavior, I expected to find them in the chapter about to the Ozieri culture. instead I found on another source – Demartis, again provided by the IP, and again still without point references – mention of an apparently strong Eastern influence on Sardinian false doors (a claim promptly removed by the IP, since it apparently did not match his POV). For this reason I found appropriate to mark in the lead the greater antiquity of the Sardinian false doors as "possible" compared to the Egyptian ones which, nevertheless, remain much more important, better known and way better attested, to subordinate them to a mere (and contested, as I tried to demonstrate above) chronological order.

The IP version of the page is hardly acceptable, as it seems to suggest that the Sardinian false doors influenced the Egyptian ones, a claim absolutely not supported by authoritative sources and to which the IP has shown his support in a previous edit summary. Khruner (talk) 18:45, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

@Khruner: I need to find time to look at this, which might not be until tomorrow. Interesting point about Demartis but I'm not sure how to check it. Doug Weller talk 09:09, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Khruner Thanks Doug, I have all the mentioned sources in pdf, and Demartis reachs barely a MB, just ask. They are written in Italian, though. BTW now the IP has started hopping and keep reverting without giving any of the asked explanations. Khruner (talk) 17:24, 5 February 2020 (UTC)\

@Khruner: Demartis, writing about the Necropolis of Anghelu Ruju, says "Finally, very interesting are other signs carved or engraved in Tombs A, XIX, XXI, XX bis, XXVIII and XXX, in which it seems to feel a strong oriental influence: the false doors depict the door to the afterlife, according to an iconography that is not exclusive to Sardinia or prehistory. Instead the protomes and taurine horns, executed according to different stylistic modules and often underlined in red, (i.e. the color of blood and regeneration), are the signs of consecration of the hypogea and the schematic representation of the bull that was to protect the sleep of the dead as well as the living who frequented the tombs to perform funeral rites." So the "oriental" certainly belongs. And see Ancient Egyptian afterlife beliefs. Doug Weller talk 17:48, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

And:136 Ui Sardinia prehistoric and nuragic. 1 - Sardinia before the nuraghi Fig. 21. Ossi-SS. S Addu Asile: Major Tomb, plan and section. have been interpreted as alcoves (Chamber Tomb of Sant'Andrea Priu-Bonorva-Sassari and second part of the Tomb of the House in Noeddale-Ossi)Necropoli_di_Noeddale. It has been said in its place, speaking of the houses reproduced in these tombs, of tables and stools, but there is at least one case of a low bench-seat, which surrounds the whole room (anticella of the Tomb of the Windows). We will not return to the reproduction of the circular hearth, because we have already spoken about it. Here we only want to add that, in addition to relief and with a simple cavity, it can be represented by concentric circles engraved and with the addition of red color (Painted Tomb of Mandra Alitine). The recent Neolithic, the culture of San Michele (or Ozieri) 137 All these elements related to the reproduction of the house and, for some tombs, even a certain grandeur can justify the definition of palace-tombs that someone gave them. In this it can be recognized both the reflection of a rather high social position of the individual (and of the group that is around him in life and in death), however obviously the precise intent, appreciated already in life to the same deceased, to rule the himself with a sepulcher that remembered the affection of his loved ones: of those who would later join him to sleep with him without sleep, awakening. 3.3. Decorative elements and rituals in the hypogea But obviously not everything that characterizes these tombs necessarily falls within the intention of reproducing the house of the living: in fact, other elements could be all or part of a magical-religious funerary nature. To stay in an architectural topic, we intend to refer first of all to the false door, that is to the relief depiction of a false door or blind door which - with various "monsters" or horizontal and vertical framing and the clearly protruding architrave itself - is reproduced in a twenty tombs, distributed in north-western Sardinia c, in smaller numbers, in the central one (eg Tomb I of Santu Pedru and Tomb IX of Campumajore-Busachi-Orista-no). It occurs mainly on the back wall of the main cell. If, as is believed by most, the hypothesis that it was intended to indicate in this way the presence, in relation to the house of the living, of other environments in addition to the main one must be excluded",

"144 Prehistoric and Nuragic Sardinia. I ¦ l.a Sardinia before the nuraghi Fig. 25. Evolution of the corniform figures of the domus de janas (according to G. landa ". Returning to the more clearly bovine symbols, it must be said that there are various examples in which the horns, depicted in a rigid rectangular "U" (ie open rectangle at the top), are inscribed one inside the other in two, three or even four vertical pairs, which adorn and protect an internal hatch or a false door (two couples in the Tomb I of San-tu Pedru-Alghero, three in the Tomb III of Brodu-Oniferi-Nùoro, four in the Tomb rv of Brodu). Sometimes the open rectangle sign was repeated without a precise order many times on one or more walls of the main cell (Vili Tomb of Sos Furri-ghesos-Anela-Sassari). In the case of the Painted Tomb of Mandra Antine-Thiesi-Sassari, alongside large lowered comas - decorated in the center by The recent Neolithic, the culture of San Michele (or Ozieri) 145 opposing triangles for the vertex, arranged both above and on the sides of the door and of the door and made both in relief and in red paint - there are mysterious black squares. from which hang disks of the same color. Other records also hang from horned patterns. If references to solar cults were to be recognized in these discs, the nearby schematic bovine image would also be involved. Undoubtedly, a different interpretation suggests the association of red horizontal rectangular strips in relief (meaning the triple large horns, lowered) with two squares of the same technique, one on each side of the hatch and of the false door (Tomb II of Sos Furrighesos). Here we are certainly faced with the maximum stylistic evolution of the bovine representations of the hypogea, when it comes to total abstraction, that is, to the maximum stylization of the original naturalistic symbols (which had appeared, for example, in the Tomb VI of Sos Furrighesos, in that of Scala Piccada-Alghero-Sassari and in the Tomb II of Grugos-Busachi-Oristano). If there is no doubt that the horizontal stripes correspond to the horns, it is very likely that the boxes next to them mean the ears, since horns, head and ears (never froge and eyes) clearly appear in the naturalistic reproductions to which we have mentioned . It remains to be explained how this interpretation agrees with that of the twelve rectangular relief squares which decorate an internal cell of the Tomb A of Anghelu Ruju-Alghero: for these which are preceded in the other cells by eight naturalistic-style protomes (but without ears) , in fact, it was considered possible to propose that it is the concept of opus non".

And:"138 l / i prehistoric and nuragic Sardinia. Sardinia before the nuraghi Fig. 22. Alghcro-SS. Necropolis of Santu Pedru Tomb I or of the Vasi Tetrapodi, axonometry. pale (like what you actually have in the Tomb of the Cape of Sant'Andrea Priu), there is no other explanation except that it is, to be clear, a kind of infernal door, not very dissimilar therefore from what is found in the stage Christian sarcophagi; although it is a very ancient idea, if the image of a door-knocker already appears in Egyptian tombs of the HI millennium (Ancient Kingdom. 2850-2200 av. C.) c it returns after many centuries in the hypogean ethnische tombs and in those of the Lycian in Anatolia. Basically it is the concept of the afterlife door that closes to definitively separate the deceased from his living II recent Neolithic. Ixi culture of San Michele (or Ozieri) 139 ri, in his journey without return to the world of darkness. And if honor, devotion, love and fear of a return of the dead to physical reality come together in this manifestation of the funeral ritual and the conceptions of life and death that inspires it, this closed door could offer the living the necessary magical protection . But this is not enough: just as the house of the living is defended by the action of the bad pushed, through the mysterious power of the divine entities that create and defend life, so the same entities defend the underground abode of the deceased and with him (and perhaps also from him) the living themselves. By this we mean referring to symbols. of naturalistic inspiration, which are also found carved in tombs and which must also have been present in homes. In them it was considered possible to recognize the concept of the divine couple, that is, of the forces that precisely, with their sacred marriage, create, renew and protect life in the Universe. One female and one male have been interpreted as the manifestations of a father god and a mother goddess and this is valid if it is accepted that already at that time and on this island the first passage from more or less animistic magic to religion. These divinities, or at least these entities, can in fact recognize themselves more or less clearly in symbolic figures engraved or carved (sometimes even painted red) on the walls, on the pillars and even in the external facade of the hypogea type do-mus de janas. The most common symbol is that of the horns or the bovine protome (or head), usually interpreted as a symbol of the bull and therefore of the male divinity. It appears in as many as 95 i-pogei (i.e. about 4.75% of the total)." Doug Weller talk 19:04, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

As anyone can see, I believe I have been faithful to the sources to which I referred, and that the current version of the article actually corresponds to them. I'm currently gathering some new sources but I need time as (like Contu) these are not – or at least not properly – digitized and require reading entire paragraphs to get any information on this very narrow topic. Khruner (talk) 11:52, 9 February 2020 (UTC)