The so called rhyton from Danilo, an archaeological site near the coastal town of Sibenik in Dalmatia, Croatia, is a four-legged Neolithic vessel made of fired clay that according to the consensus of archaeological opinion was most likely a cult vessel used in rituals of unknown origin and content. "Danilo Culture" is the eponymous name bestowed on a culture flourishing in the period from about 5500-4500 BC at Danilo and at some neighbouring sites. This culture had great influence along the eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland and produced a significant number of these vessels. Rhyta, which other Neolithic cultures also made, were dispersed throughout a vast area of southeast Europe, from Greece to the Alps. This book is an in-depth study of that mysterious, prehistoric archaeological artifact which, due to its antiquity, structure and symbolism, has become a kind of universal proto-matrix for all relevant mythological and spiritual structures of the Mediterranean zone of later, historic times.

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface to the English Edition
• Foreword
• Introduction: Archaeology and the Symbol
• 1 The Find
• 2 The Cultural Sphere of the Rhyton
• 3 A Bear or... ?
• 4 Cinnabar
• 5 Shamans
• 6 A Snake, Water and Horns
• 7 A Spiral (Double)
• 8 The Vulva and the Plough
• 9 The Androgyne
• 10 The Phallus
• 11 Conclusion
• Plates
• Bibliography
• Index