Serbia – Vinča: The Cradle of Civilization in Europe

By Sir Vojislav Milosevic, Director, Center for Counter-terrorism (Belgrade, Serbia)

Goddess Serbona, 550 B.C. Goddess Serbona has dress also Vinčan symols on it.  Goddess Serbona depicted as Olympia on a Greek coin, on a Minoan coin, in Assyria, on vase in Egypt.

Vinča

Large, late Neolithic tell site in modern Serbia that gave its name to a culture of the central Balkans (c.5500- 4500 BC). It is characterized by large, long-lived agricultural villages and distinctive painted pottery, including figurines and models.

The Vinča culture flourished from 5,500 to 3,500 BC on the territories of what is now Serbia, Bosnia, Romania and Macedonia. It got its name from the present-day village of Vinča, 10 km east of Belgrade on the Danube river, where over 150 Vinča settlements have been determined.

There is no evidence of war or defences in the townships, and it appears that the Vinča were a peaceful society combining low-level agriculture with foraging and trade. They produced the first known European examples of a ‘proto’-script and were the first people in the world known to smelt copper. They existed in a similar state for almost 2,000 years, following which they appear to have dispersed around the Mediterranean and Aegean.

Vinča settlements were considerably larger than any other contemporary European culture, in some instances surpassing the cities of the Aegean and early Near Eastern Bronze Age a millennium later. The largest sites, some more than 300,000 square metres may have been home to up to 2,500 people.

We are told that they lived in spacious housing and separated their dead in nearby necropolis. They had workshops, which means skilled labour. They worked with several styles of pottery and had their own particular artistic fingerprint which is seen in both early Cretan and Sumerian cultures, which rose following the demise of the ‘Old Europe’ heartland.

Stajstvo: 5500-4000 B.C.E.
The Cradle of Human Civilization

Accoriding to Gordon Childe, “Stajstvo” is the oldest age from where we have obtained reliable facts about human life, development, and movement.

Animal husbandy was already developed, but with the perfection of farming came the first human settlements: smaller towns (Jacque Pirenne).
The lower Danube area is the most fertile and the most likely place for the earliest forms of the agriculture: at theconfluence of the Danube, Tisa, Morava and Sava rivers (Jacque Pirenne).

Jacque Pirenne claims that agriculture did not start in the Middle East: it was already used 1000-2000 years earlier at the lower Danube area.

In the lower Danube area, modern day findings document that bronze was developed 2000 years earlier compared to the Middle East. Bronze in Mesopotamia was first used around 3000 years B.C.E.(Gordon Childe).

During this period, the Egyptyans only knew how to craft stone axes (Gordon Childe). At the end of period of “Stajstvo”, the people living at the lower Danube area crafted the first pottery ever made from clay, and, consequently, the world’s first art which which was an extremely big step in human development (Gordon Childe).

The world’s first and oldest pottery with Vincan symbols and letters.

The Vinčan Script (5500 B.C.E.) is the world’s first fully developed alphabet, containing only 30 letters. The writings can be seen in Serbia: Vinča, Starčevo, Tartary, Tordoš,  Gradesnica, Banjica, Karanovo (Bulgaria). In Greece: Troy and Crete, and in Israel (Palestine) in Fenicia (Jacque Pirenne).

The Vinčan Script (5500 B.C.E.)

Vinčan symbols on figurinas, found in Vinča, Serbia. The symbol is still used today on Serbia’s coat of arms.

The following figurines are excavated at Vinča, dating from period of “Stajstvo”. The last figurine is from is from Knossos which bears a crushing resemblance to the Vincan figurines.

The Vinčans developed the first classic mythology with the world’s first temples and holy scripts. The Vinčan Gods were first and foremost natural phenomena: the Sun, the Heaven, the Earth and fertility; all had their respective pair (Gordon Childe).

The main cities with the temples of the Gods were Vinča, Lepenski vir, Starčevo in Serbia, and Kereš and Karanovo (Bulgaria). Accordingly, the Vinčan mythology was spread to all corners of Helm: the Balkans (Gordon Childe)

Vojislav Milosevic

Director of Center for Counter Terrorism and World Peace (Centra za Anti-Terorizam i Svetski Mir). Milosevic graduated at the Faculty for Political Sciences in Belgrade in 1980 with postgraduate studies in Islamic fundamentalism. He has worked with UNESCO and UNCTAD, a journalist, counselor at the Protocol of the Federal Parliament, speaker, politician, and book author.