Discovery context:

This whistle was found on the sidewalk of a flea market in Paris.

General description:

This whistle is a ram with broad twisted horns. Hidden between the horns and visible in a front view, the head of another small ram emerges.

The eyes are represented by deep holes painted in blue. The tail is represented by a broad half ring.

The decoration:

The top of the whistle is painted in yellow and the lower half in white. Red features underline the body. The yellow part of the body is mottled in blue and red.

Typology:

A pipe whistle is inserted in the body of the animal. In the Heide Nixdorf's classification, it is about the B3 type: tubular whistle inserted in the figurine.

Analyze:

No mystery with the origin of this whistle. Its style of decoration and its typology are typical of the whistles of Central Asia: Uzbekistan and Tadzhikistan.

The whistles of these republics are particularly spectacular and our whistle fits well in this tradition.

Tadzhikistan as Uzbekistan share cultures thrusting their roots in a very old and rich history. The art of the north of Tadzhikistan is very close to the Uzbek art and the culture of these areas are difficult to dissociate. This explains the similarity of the whistles of these countries.

In the 1970's, this potter working in Oura-Tioube was a master in making whistles in the shape of lions, dragons and other fantastic figures reaching sometimes more than 40 cm height .

We can learn in the book that granny Chamro is a potter in the village of Uba, province of Buchara. To paint her whistles, she only uses blue, red, green and yellow paintings which she applies with joinded feathers.
The actors of the tale are other animal whistles and in this history, the fantastic animals whistles more simply prove to be horses, lions or elephants.

To know the history of the lion and the horse, the whistle lovers will have to find a storyteller who will be able to make them find again their heart of child...

These Uzbek or Tadzhik whistles call for many questions. Why so many figural whistles have on the back the same small animal? Is it to represent the animal and its young? In many cases, it is just a piece of clay

What were the old shapes of these whistles? The importance of these Central Asian areas in the diffusion of the historical culture is well known also the old models of these areas would make it possible to advance in the knowledge of the history of the whistles in Europe.