"Fertility" Idols of the Ancient World
The real reason why these sorts of objects still remain so mysterious and enigmatic?
Objects like these will never be understood by academia. They CANNOT be understood by academia. They are inseparable from the mental horizon in which they were fashioned, and this mental horizon is so starkly opposed to the mentality of modern man as to almost occupy two distinct worlds.
It was not that man saw something, like a plant growing, and fashioned a deity vaguely based on that conception of "fertility". That is the only way our contemporaries can conceptualize this. It was that that "force" penetrated and permeated his very being, his very existence. There was nothing to "conceptualize" because it was laid bare in in the very existence of Ancient Man. And we can no longer see it, and thus see objects like this and find ourselves hopelessly puzzled.
And we will always be puzzled. Because the truth is that to grasp the true nature of these objects would instantly collapse the distance between subject and object, a distance that the academic lens requires for analysis. That is the ONLY way the true essence of these symbols can be understood.
This understanding, however, cannot be articulated. That is why these objects were fashioned. That is the raison d'etre of their form.
Objects like these will never be understood by academia. They CANNOT be understood by academia. They are inseparable from the mental horizon in which they were fashioned, and this mental horizon is so starkly opposed to the mentality of modern man as to almost occupy two distinct worlds.
It was not that man saw something, like a plant growing, and fashioned a deity vaguely based on that conception of "fertility". That is the only way our contemporaries can conceptualize this. It was that that "force" penetrated and permeated his very being, his very existence. There was nothing to "conceptualize" because it was laid bare in in the very existence of Ancient Man. And we can no longer see it, and thus see objects like this and find ourselves hopelessly puzzled.
And we will always be puzzled. Because the truth is that to grasp the true nature of these objects would instantly collapse the distance between subject and object, a distance that the academic lens requires for analysis. That is the ONLY way the true essence of these symbols can be understood.
This understanding, however, cannot be articulated. That is why these objects were fashioned. That is the raison d'etre of their form.
