Simbolic structures in Japods funeral kultur

Abstract

The author investigates iconographic, and especially semantic, structure of Japod's banquet scene with fish on the urn from Ribić (Bihać) within the following context: a) the overall Japod's funeral figurative framework as presented on the urn of the north-western Bosnia, b) related periadriatic, protohistorical phenomena from the funeral cult. As the primary comparative material the author chose the banquet scene with fish which is found on the tomb Stella from Daunia. Japod‘s banquet scene has evident symbolic structure: banquet ritual is presented as a symbolic act which idealizes the earthly fertility, vitality, and harmony and symbolizes the yearning to carry this over to the other world. The fundamental function is given to the multilayered and ambivalent symbolic meaning of the fish, that is, the water. Japod's (and Daunia‘s) banquet, as a symbolic bridge between this and the other world is pictorial transposition of certain ideas from Japod‘s eschatological concept. In the structure of this, in essence unknown, concept, we can discern the thought that Japod‘s other world is imagined to be in, perhaps, heavenly spheres which are opposite to dark and irrational forces. This conclusion is indirectly drawn from a) Japod‘s banquet and Japod's scene of the Last voyage with the bird - a symbol of deceased soul (urn from Golubić) and b) Daunia's banquet with fish and Daunia's scene with bird hunt which symbolically point to the realization of higher spiritual state and to certain immortality.