Prehistoric Europe

Michelangelo's ram heads (commonly believed to be 'disguised' fallopian tubes) may have roots in Neolithic artwork.

The study, 'Hidden Symbols of the Female Anatomy in Michelangelo Buonarroti's Ceiling in the Sistine Chapel', which was published in the Clinical Anatomy journal in 2016, garnered widespread attention. The majority of global news outlets presented it in positive terms.

However, a few publications expressed scepticism and offered counter-arguments. One article for instance concluded: 'But linking the bucranium symbol, which dates back to the Neolithic, with an understanding of female anatomy [which is not believed to have been] commonly known until well after Michelangelo's time, is quite a stretch'.

The present study does not aim to directly address such criticisms. Instead it seeks to provide additional evidence which supports the hypothesis that Michelangelo may consciously have incorporated symbols of female anatomy in his work.

If Neolithic societies could metaphorically represent the fallopian tubes, it becomes even more plausible that Michelangelo, with his advanced anatomical knowledge, could do the same. The focus here is on the European Neolithic Cucuteni-Tripolye culture which produced pottery with intricate designs - abstract, anthropomorphic, or zoomorphic - including the bucranium symbol, a pivotal element in discussions of female anatomical symbolism in the Sistine Chapel.

Shown here is an example of stylised depictions of cats with elongated necks and exaggerated tails, with similar transfigurations being seen in bird motifs on Cucuteni pottery

Why the fallopian tubes are metaphorically depicted

Given the temporal distance of the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture, over five thousand years ago, the study has to rely on indirect evidence, employing a method which is similar to that used by Deivis de Campos and colleagues in their investigation of Michelangelo's symbolic use of anatomy.

While Neolithic populations are often perceived as being primitive, the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture was notably advanced. It featured proto-urban settlements, sophisticated artefacts which emphasised spirals, an early grasp of mathematical concepts, and abstract symbols which predated Taoism and Jainism.

These included motifs which are reminiscent of Yin-Yang or hooked crosses. Additionally, anthropophagy - disturbing by modern standards - was likely practiced, as was the case in other prehistoric societies.

This context of human dissection, combined with curiosity about reproductive processes, provided the conditions for metaphorical depictions of female anatomy.

Why then were such representations metaphorical rather than literal?

The answer lies in the cultural context of Cucuteni-Tripolye, where abstraction and symbolism dominated artistic expression. Animals, for instance, were stylised, with exaggerated features, emphasising transfiguration over realism.

Thanks to an astonishing number of archaeological finds the Cucuteni-Tripolye (or Trypillia) is one of the best-known prehistoric civilisations in Romania, Moldova, and western Ukraine, emerging in the late Neolithic and continuing into the early Chalcolithic (Copper Age)

A culture of fertility with symbols of fecundity

At its height between about 4000-3500 BC, the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture boasted the largest settlements in Eurasia, with some of those housing thousands of structures and populations which exceeded twenty thousand individuals.

Spanning modern Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova, this agrarian society was organised along proto-democratic lines. It eschewed monumental architecture in favour of a fertility-focused spirituality.

Evidence includes 'The Assembly of the Goddesses' from the Isaiia archaeological site. This has yielded twenty-one stylised objects in the form of phalluses, and an initiation vessel featuring an erotic act. Then there is the pregnant figure from the Ghelaesti site (see above image) and numerous statuettes which emphasise female fecundity.

Female silhouettes with six or seven 'fingers', which transfigures the anatomical notion of a hand with five fingers so that the larger number of fallopian 'fingers' can be included

Pelvic 'tentacles' and hands with many fingers

Unique amongst ancient cultures, some Cucuteni-Tripolye artefacts depict female figures with 'pelvic tentacles', something which is absent in other civilisations.

These features, plausibly being symbolic of fallopian tubes, align with the anatomical hyperbole which has been observed in Michelangelo's work.

Some of those can be emphasised here, starting with the image above and continuing from that.

Near the possible fallopian tube can be observed another symbol in the stylised image which closely resembles the vulva symbol found in the Aurignacian sculpture from 'La Ferrassie' (the original is displayed at the Musée National de Préhistoire, Les Eyzies, France).

This suggests that the genital organs were likely depicted on each thigh. Both symbols appear in the image of the same goddess, but from behind.

Image originally used when the Museum of History and Ethnography in Targu Neamt opened on Tuesday 5 December 2023, with a temporary exhibition entitled 'Discovery Discovers Cucuteni from the peri-Carpathian area of Moldova'

The same figure with enigmatic pelvic tentacles featured on the cover of a scholarly volume, 'Studies in Honour of Professor Dumitru Boghian, 65th Anniversary', Editura Mega:

Again, the pelvic 'tentacles' are present below, in this photo of an item from the collection of the National History Museum of Moldova.

Here it can be seen that there is also a connection between the pelvic 'tentacles' and the hands, in a photo which comes from the collection of the National History Museum of Moldova.

It is also worth noting the association between the pelvic tentacles and those on the fingers, leading to the following clue which can be found via the Trușești site in Botoșani County.

A unique pottery design as seen on remains from a find from Botosani in Romania, with illustrations to fill in the gaps in the original designs

It can be seen that female silhouettes exist with six or seven 'fingers', which transfigures the anatomical notion of a hand with five fingers, suggesting a correlation with the larger number of fallopian 'little fingers'.

Additionally, the picture above of the Ghelaesti find depicts a pregnant woman with six fingers on each hand, indicating that this is not an isolated representation.

Another artefact can be examined below which suggests that the hands are transfigured to resemble pelvic tentacles.

Above is a stylisation of a pottery item, with the image coming from the article 'Cucuteni-Tripolye or Moldova 7,000 Years Ago' on the Voloshin website.

Additionally, hundreds of small statues from the Cucuteni-Tripolye culture have been discovered, all of them lacking hands. This absence highlights the fact that, when hands are depicted, they likely serve as a form of allegory.

This study continues in the forthcoming feature, Anthropophagy in the Cucuteni, coming soon.

Main Sources

Luke Hutchinson - Growing the Family Tree: The Power of DNA in Reconstructing Family Relationship (2004, reproduced in the Proceedings of the First Symposium on Bioinformatics and Biotechnology BIOT-04)

Alexandra Bolomey - New Discoveries of Human Bones in a Cucuteni Settlement (Archaeological Research, 1983)

Andreas G Nerlich, Johann C Dewaal, Antonio Perciaccante, Serena Di Cosimo, Laura Cortesi, Judith Wimmer, Simon T Donell, & Raffaella Bianucci - Did Michelangelo paint a young adult woman with breast cancer in 'The Flood' (Sistine Chapel, Rome)? (Breast, 2024)

Anne Dambricourt Malassé, Pavel Dolukhanov, Michel Louis Séfériadès, & Leonid Subbotin - Funeral Meal and Anthropophagy in Gumelniţa Chalcolithic Civilization in the North-western Black Sea area (2008)

Deivis de Campos, Tais Malysz, João Antonio Bonatto-Costa, Geraldo Pereira Jotz, Lino Pinto de Oliveira Junior, Jéssica Francine Wichmann, Guilherme Reghelin Goulart, Marco Antonio Stefani, & Andrea Oxley da Rocha - The hidden symbols of the female anatomy in Michelangelo Buonarroti's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel (Clinical Anatomy, 2016)

Donatella Lippi, Tommaso Susini, Simon Donell, Raffaella Bianucci - Intertwining art, religion and anatomy: did Michelangelo Buonarroti influence Berengario da Carpi's representation of a maternal death? (Matern Fetal Neonatal Medicine, 2022)

Sergiu Haimovici - The Human Bone with Possible Marks of Human Teeth Found at Liveni Site (Cucuteni Culture) (Studia Antiqua et Archaeologica, IX, 2003)

Online Sources

Bisserka Gaydarska , Marco Nebbia, & John Chapman - Trypillia Megasites in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2019)

Voloshin website

Images and text copyright © original owners and Christian Horgos respectively. An original feature for the History Files which was also submitted to other platforms.