Art history; Prehistoric and early historical art: Eye idol

Eye idols were used by some prehistoric cultures of the Old and New Worlds, usually as amulets for protection against evil.

These are usually facial representations on ceramics, which have been documented in many parts of the world and over a long period of time: Pottery with depictions of eyes, two eyes with emphasized eyebrows and sometimes a nose, has been found in Stone Age megalithic tombs in Northern Europe; in Denmark, the early Danes decorated pots with eye idols in the Bundsø style around 3000 BC for about a quarter of a millennium; eye motifs have also been found in other parts of Europe, sometimes together with megalithic monuments.

were more advanced eye symbols: In ancient Egypt, the Udjat eye of the god Horus was believed to heal and was therefore quite impressively adorned: bit.ly/2BFPCp0; in Mesopotamia (Iraq), an entire eye temple was discovered at Tell Brak, featuring beautifully abstract black and white alabaster figurines made around 2800 BC with suggested faces formed from eyes, eyebrows, and forehead wrinkles (even then!), sometimes two pairs of eyes or two heads superimposed, sometimes eyes with crowns, sometimes clearly with eyes that identified deities.

In Los Millares, Spain, stylized idols made of stone, bone, or terracotta were reduced to large, round owl eyes in the 3rd millennium BC; in Kültepe, Turkey, alabaster idols with bodies, three necks, and faces consisting almost entirely of ringed eyes were created around 1950–1800 BC; Cyprus produced terracotta board idols with concentric circles for eyes around 2000 BC.

In America, eyes were symbols of rain; the culture around the regularly drying Mississippi River developed human head and face depictions around 900 BC with forked or winged eyes that could become independent and often caused tears to flow (things weren't always better in the past).

This worldwide use of eye symbolism seems very obvious from today's perspective; dot-dot-dash doesn't actually require a huge effort from the creative part of the brain. So why do eye symbols appear – almost simultaneously all over the world – precisely now, when the first upright Homo sapiens were no longer crawling around in Africa almost 2 million years ago, and Homo sapiens is already 200,000 years old?

Could the development of advanced civilizations be directly linked to brain development? For 12,000 years, settled life, agriculture and food storage, more security, more food and more brains; and around 3000 BC, a few hundred generations later, does this “increased brainpower” begin to manifest itself in flowers?

Without considering the lengthy periods of brain development, what remains of these ideas is: “What is obvious and reasonable is thought of everywhere and eventually prevails” – a thought that could greatly reassure some contemporaries in the second decade of the 21st century, in which this lexicon is being written.