Rock painting animals. Petroglyphs in Europe
In popular literature, caves with rock paintings are often called the Paleolithic Louvre or Hermitage. The comparison is not entirely successful: any art gallery consists of separate canvases that have little connection with the room. Cave images are adapted to the bends, protrusions and cracks of the rock on which they are applied, using its texture and color scheme.
Attempts to recreate them on models (Altamira 2 and Lascaux 2 caves) showed the complexity of this plan. But it turns out that Paleolithic drawings are even more rigidly tied to certain places in caves than was imagined ten years ago. We have already talked about one of the types of reference - the “sound background” of caves. Recent studies have shown that this background also determines the content of the drawings: images of ungulates are located in the noisiest (in terms of echo level), and cats are located in the most “quiet” areas of the caves.
In 1957, archaeologist A. Leroy-Gourhan began scrupulous accounting work. He re-examined all the monuments of Paleolithic man known at that time, including rock art (63 caves!) and mobile art subjects (engravings on bones, small figurines, etc.). The space of the caves where there are drawings is statistically reliably divided into 7 zones: I - entrance with separate images, II - turns of galleries and narrowings between halls (sometimes each turn is marked with a figurine of a different animal); III - entrances to the niches of the main halls; IV - zone with the latest drawings; V - central parts of walls in halls or extensions; VI - peripheral parts of the central walls; VII - central space in niches. The quantitative ratio of subjects and the order of their arrangement on the walls turned out to be subordinate to a single canon, mandatory for all Paleolithic artists Western Europe. This indicates the presence of a certain unified level of worldview in the Paleolithic.
In the 90s XX century archaeologist E. Anati continued the research of Leroy-Gouran, supplementing it with information about newly discovered caves with drawings (their number has doubled), as well as about coeval rock paintings-petroglyphs on the surface. In total, more than 20 million images from 780 objects were examined. Naturally, a computer was used to process information.
It turned out that cave drawings Neanderthals are practically absent. Their prototype can be considered the so-called “pasta” - wavy lines drawn with several fingers or a multi-toothed tool on clay or on the surface of a rock. It is believed that this is an imitation of griffads - the claw marks of a cave bear. “Cave painting” appeared only among the Cro-Magnons, and first of all - in Africa (40 thousand years ago), then in Europe (34 thousand years ago), much later - in Australia (22 thousand years ago) and in America (17 thousand years ago). thousand years). Human society develops according to the same laws, and therefore the need for drawings manifested itself everywhere, although it did not receive the same expression everywhere.
All stories cave paintings are divided into three large categories: pictograms, psychograms and ideograms.
Pictograms - images of the living world - absolutely dominate. Among them, the most common (90%) are images of animals. Late Paleolithic man was primarily a hunter. Therefore, among the images there are bison and aurochs, goats and rams, horses and deer, mammoths and rhinoceroses. But the quantitative relationship between them is unusual, differing not only from our school ideas, but also from the data given in scientific monographs. The first two places are occupied by a horse and a bison, the third by a reindeer, the fourth and fifth by a bear and a cave lion. But the Paleolithic artist paid only 1% of his attention to the mammoth, the symbol of the Ice Age! These calculations correct the findings of animal bone remains. In some locations, local hunting species come to the forefront (for example, in Crimea - donkeys). But the overall picture does not change.
Many theorists of primitive art base their hypotheses on the assumption that the images on the walls with traces of blows from a dart are a “training class” where the youths of the tribe were taught to find “killing places” on the body of animals, or symbolic hunting as an element of the cult. Statistics show that such drawings are only 2%. But drawings of horses and bison not only predominate (93%), but occupy central places among the compositions of all zones, including in the main, VII zone. This also testifies to the rigid canon to which primitive hunters obeyed. It was not for the sake of hunting success, not for the sake of free art, that they decorated the walls of the caves with drawings. They painted not what they saw, but what the entire tribe or primitive community needed to see.
Sometimes drawings of ancient man are paleozoological mysteries. For example, of the 93 known rock carvings of cave lions, only 13 are “typical” lions; the rest look like a lion and a tiger at the same time. Paleobiologist M. Rousseau suggested that the cave lion is a hybrid of a lion and a tiger, which was once found in natural conditions. He even suggested names for the hybrids now living in zoos around the world: tiger + lioness = tigon, lion + tigress = liger... In the Gorozomza cave ( South Africa) a drawing of a bear, which did not live in Africa, and... a brontosaurus (extinct about 140 million years ago) was discovered. The supposed authors of the drawings, the Bushmen, settled in these places only 3.5 thousand years ago...
The second place among pictograms is occupied by images of a person. But in Paleolithic cave painting there are almost no images of people as a species. Among hundreds of images of animals, it is extremely rare to come across figures in which one can suspect something human. Sometimes these are diagrams like lines with a thickening at one end, sometimes some kind of muzzle or figure with a human body, but with the head of an animal. All this is completely incomparable with realistic drawings of animals. Some archaeologists see them as hunters performing magical rituals, others believe that they are characters of myths and legends. Among the images and sculptures made from a wide variety of materials - clay, stone, bone, horn - females predominate (92%). Usually they reproduce a mature woman with a small head, convex breasts, powerful buttocks and thighs - in a word, with everything that provided (and provides today) emotions, normal reproduction and raising offspring. The artist and sculptor seem to rejoice at the opportunity to exaggerate the natural female forms: they contain the health of subsequent generations and the prosperity of the family. Paleolithic Venuses are not goddesses (then they would have been standard in every cave). But no: we will not find two identical figures! The figurines clearly reflect the cult of real women.
It is curious that sculptures of Paleolithic Venuses are common in the periglacial region and do not go far to the south. It was not by chance that they “chose” a cool climate. Two seasons of the year are clearly distinguished here: summer - hunting, “male”, and winter - sedentary, “female”. And the more stable the settlement, the higher the role of a woman in the life of the community, the stronger the cohesion of the clan around her.
The second most numerous (although there are only 5%) are images of people in general. Usually these are not living beings (“our own”), but dead ones (“strangers”). The third and fourth places (1.5% each) are occupied by drawings of birds and amphibians. Archaeologist V.N. Toropov believes that in the minds of Paleolithic man they are clearly opposed to the “basic” animals - ungulates and predators. The relationship between their images, unclear at first glance, symbolizes one of the oldest models of the universe in the history of mankind - the cosmic tree. Birds populate the top of the composition (the skies); ungulates and predators occupy its center, personifying earthly existence; snake-fish are symbols of the underworld. This cosmogonic scheme is so stable that in its basic ideas it has survived the era of its creators, remaining to this day the basis of the cultural traditions of many peoples of the world.
There are significantly fewer psychograms that do not have a specific meaning and are created under the influence of emotions, and geometric contours and ornaments. Among psychograms, a special place is occupied by schematic signs that represent symbols of gender. V.N. Toropov found that combinations of male and female symbols are usually concentrated in V, the most significant zone of caves with Paleolithic drawings. In our time, especially from the position of Freud, according to whom every object that has a length greater than its width (tower, minaret, stalagmite) is a symbol of the phallus, and every void (tunnel, cave, ring) is a symbol of the vulva, it is easiest to reduce everything is about sex... It was sexual visions that inspired N. Gumilev to write beautiful lines:
There is a secret cave underground,They also encourage our French colleagues to publish collections of photographs dedicated to the “women of the caves.”
There are tall tombs there,
The fiery stars of Lucifer, -
Slender harlots wander there.
Our ancestors were more modest... and wiser. They did not take their pleasure away from procreation. According to the observations of B.L. Bogaevsky, Paleolithic drawings are characterized by paired images: male and female symbols, male and female bison, couple reindeer. Perhaps they had a special meaning and were aimed at growing the community and increasing the number of game animals?
Along with figurative and symbolic images, Paleolithic art left us a lot of objects decorated with various ornaments. Diamonds, circles, rectangles, meanders and other figures form various groupings in which it is difficult to find meaning. Moscow professor A. Roginsky suggested that the ornament is, as it were, opposed to the artistic image. The image is created as an attempt to consolidate reality, as a result of the struggle with fast-flowing time, as a reaction to the increasing complexity of life, the rapid change of impressions, exhausting the still weak nervous system of primitive man. If the Cro-Magnon man had spoken, he could hardly have said better to Goethe: “Stop, just a moment, you are beautiful!” Not being able to speak, he captured this moment...
Salvation from nervous overload is repetition of images, their standardization, and then stylization. In pacifying identity, apparently, lies the secret of the emergence of rhythm, ornamental, highly stylized art, in which one could “dissolve” and create artificial silence in the soul for a while. Primitive man needed to repeat impressions in order to recover from their continuous change. Well, the rhythm of one’s own body, which has a biological and cosmic nature, determined the structure of the ornament and “tuned” it to some magical repetitions.
The least numerous are ideograms (indicative signs). They can be very simple (a vertical or horizontal line, something resembling the head of an arrow or dart) or more complex (it is assumed that a single silhouette at the entrance to a cave has a prohibitive meaning).
Let's try to briefly answer the last question: why did Paleolithic man draw? There are plenty of hypotheses about this. Here is the thesis of “art for art’s sake” (primitive man simply took pleasure in drawing mammoths and deer); and the assumption about the memorial nature of the drawings depicting a successful hunt; and the hypothesis about the “educational” purpose of images. French Paleolithic researcher A. Begouin at the beginning of the 20th century. ridiculed such cabinet constructions, inviting their authors to crawl with him through the caves where the most ancient works of painting and graphics were hidden. In the Font-de-Gaume cave you have to squeeze through a narrow gap, in Nio you have to crawl for more than half a kilometer at a low speed, in Toc d'Auduber you have to swim along an underground river and climb up a narrow pipe, in Pasiegues, on the contrary, you have to go down into a sheer well. .. The same can be said about the latest finds (Kapova Cave in the Urals, etc.). When creating drawings for his own pleasure, a person would choose other places - accessible, noticeable, perhaps illuminated. An artist who wants to perpetuate a certain event did not I would like to draw animals over old images...
No, for our distant ancestors, engravings and paintings on rocks were not simple fun, but part of secret religious ceremonies, without which primitive man could not imagine the well-being of his community. They had to be carried out in hard-to-reach places, hidden from prying eyes. That is why caves were chosen for their departure.
Dublyansky V.N., popular science book
Cro-Magnons, who lived on earth 30 thousand years ago, used simple drawings to express their feelings and emotions. But the cave paintings of primitive people cannot be called primitive, since they were created by people with extraordinary artistic talents. Drawings of primitive people in caves are graphic and three-dimensional images, bas-reliefs on the walls. Many such drawings are known today: in France (southwestern part), Spain (northwestern part), Italy, even in Russia, Serbia and England there are single copies.
Rock paintings and pictures of primitive people are unique and most often resemble a two-dimensional image. At the same time, techniques that help convey volume began to be used only during the Renaissance. Rock art is replete with images of rhinoceroses, bison, mammoths, and deer. Also in the drawings there are scenes of hunting, people with arrows and spears are depicted. Occasionally there are drawings of fish, plants, and insects. The colors used to make the drawings do not fade and fully convey their original brightness. It is difficult to imagine a person who has no idea what rock paintings are (photos will help you understand this).
Where did the first people draw?
Hard-to-reach areas of caves located hundreds of meters from the surface were great place for drawing. This is explained primarily by the cult significance of rock carvings, which require the performance of a certain ritual. Drawing was such a ritual. Melted and still hot fat from wild animals, tufts of moss or wool were poured into the bowls. Then the artist began to work in the light of stone lamps.
What are the rock paintings called?
The rock paintings of the ancients are called petroglyphs (Greek - to carve a stone). There are drawings made in the form of symbols or symbols. Pictures contain great amount Valuable information about the life of representatives of the ancient population reveals traditions and historical events that influenced ancient man.
Later drawings were made in the form of symbols or symbols. Man initially sought to express thoughts through signs and writing. Painting brought the onset of this moment closer, becoming a transition period between graphic drawings and writing. The images are called pictograms. For example, on the territory of Armenia, archaeologists discovered designs reminiscent of all known ancient alphabets. The oldest images found here were created more than 9,000 years ago. Prehistoric cave paintings are pictures created by the first people.
Technique and materials
What motivated people to draw? Just the desire to create beauty or the need to perform and capture a special ritual? Making a rock engraving was not so easy, especially if the paint was applied into deep slits, which the ancient painter carved with a rough cutting tool. It could have been a large stone chisel. Such a tool was discovered at the site of the ancient people of Le Roc de Serre. During the Middle and Late Paleolithic period, the technique of performing rock paintings of primitive people was more subtle. The outlines of the engravings were carved several times with shallow lines. Even then, shading and combined painting were used. There are similar images on the tusks and bones of animals that belong to the same period.
Rock paintings, photo in Altamira Cave
The paint of primitive man was all shades of ocher, which were used as a red dye, charcoal and manganese ore. Chalk and bat guano were also used. The future paint was ground using bone or stone. The resulting powder was mixed with animal fat. Ancient people even had prototypes of modern tubes. They stored paints in hollow parts of animal bones, both sides of which were sealed with a hardened lump of the same animal fat. There were no other colors, such as green or blue.
Primitive artists used bones or sharp sticks as brushes, the ends of which were split. They also used pieces of wool that were tied to bones. First we drew the outline and then painted it in. But there are other images as well. For example, a handprint that has been splattered with paint through a reed.
Ancient people had no idea about the composition or proportions of the body. They were drawing large predators and against their background - tiny mountain goats. But this did not stop them from creating masterpieces comparable to the modern idea of painting. The accuracy of the representation of objects and animals is amazing, and the drawings of ancient people in caves captured in stone ancient animals that had long since become extinct. The visual effect was enhanced by the fact that the image was applied to a rock ledge.
What did primitive people draw?
The cave paintings of ancient people are a manifestation of emotional and vivid imaginative thinking. Not everyone could create such masterpieces, but only those in whose subconscious visual images arose. Those who were overwhelmed with vivid images transferred them to the plane of the rocks.
There is an assumption that with the help of rock paintings visions were transmitted, a person expressed himself and passed on the life experience he received. But most scientists adhere to the version about the cult significance of the drawings: they were probably created before the hunt. Thus, the person tried to influence the result, to attract the preferred animal during the hunt.
The disappearance of some animals and climate change have led to a serious change in human activity. Now he spent more time raising animals and cultivating the land. There was less time left for hunting. This was also reflected in rock art. The drawings were no longer done deep in the cave, but outside. Images of humans were now becoming more common. Animals that were domesticated were also depicted in cave engravings (fox hunting scenes). Schematic drawings became widespread: triangles, straight or winding lines, a jumble of colored spots.
If earlier hunting scenes were most often depicted, now they also included ritual dances, battles, and grazing. There are many such drawings in Spain.
Where can you see rock art?
In France, in the caves of Lascaux and Chauvet, drawings were discovered that date back to approximately the 18th-15th millennia BC. e. They depict horses, cows, bulls, and bears. In Spain, in the Altamira cave, hunting scenes were depicted by ancient artists so skillfully that if you look at them with a blazing fire, you get the impression of objects moving. In Africa there is a whole complex of caves with rock paintings. These are Laas Gaal in Somaliland and Tassilien Adjer in Algeria. Rock paintings have also been discovered in Egypt (Swimmers Cave), Bulgaria, Bashkiria, Argentina (Cueva de las Manos Cave) and many others.
Objects of art or primitive reflection of reality?
It is impossible to put an equal sign between primitive “art” and modern one. But when considering ancient images, modern art historians rely on familiar formulations, going far beyond the specifics of primitive art. Today in the art world there is an author of a work, and there is a consumer. Ancient artists created their creations only because they had the ability to draw and felt the need to depict the reality around them or significant events. They had no ideas about art or were blurry, but the images that filled their consciousness found a way out into the world through their creator, who, most likely, was considered by their fellow tribesmen to be endowed with supernatural power.
So what is the difference between rock art and ordinary modern art? The only difference is that the first drawings were made by artists of the Paleolithic era, and rock was used as a canvas. Of course, the phenomenon of creativity is associated with the interaction of all spiritual forces and the release of emotions in a special way. A person could create something new and important for himself, but the awareness of this phenomenon occurred gradually. The Cro-Magnon man lived in a cultural environment in which there was no division into separate spheres of activity. But the ancient people did not have leisure in our understanding, since their life was not divided into strict work and rest. The time when a person was not fighting for existence, he devoted to performing rituals and other actions important for the well-being of the tribe.
Traditionally, rock paintings are called petroglyphs, this is the name given to all images on stone from ancient times (Paleolithic) up to the Middle Ages, both primitive cave rock carvings and later ones, for example, on specially installed stones, megaliths or “wild” rocks.
Such monuments are not concentrated somewhere in one place, but are widely scattered across the face of our planet. They were found in Kazakhstan (Tamgaly), in Karelia, in Spain (Altamira cave), in France (Fond-de-Gaume, Montespan caves, etc.), in Siberia, on the Don (Kostenki), in Italy, England, Germany, in Algeria, where gigantic multicolor paintings of the Tassilin-Ajjer mountain plateau in the Sahara, among the desert sands, were recently discovered and created a sensation throughout the world.
Despite the fact that cave paintings have been studied for about 200 years, they still remain a mystery.
Rock paintings of the Hopi Indians in Arizona, USA, depicting certain kachina creatures. The Indians considered them their heavenly teachers.
According to the generally accepted theory of evolution, primitive man remained a primitive hunter-gatherer for many tens of thousands of years. And then he suddenly had a real insight, and he began to draw and carve mysterious symbols and images on the walls of his caves, rocks and mountain crevices.
Famous Onega petroglyphs.
Oswald O. Tobisch, a man of generous and varied talents, spent 30 years studying more than 6,000 cave paintings, trying to reconstruct some logical system that unites them. When you get acquainted with the conclusions of his research and numerous comparative tables, it literally takes your breath away. Tobish traces the similarities of a variety of rock paintings, so that it seems as if in ancient times there was a single proto-culture and universal knowledge associated with it.
Spain. Rock art. 11th century BC
Of course, millions and millions of cave paintings did not appear at the same time; very often (but not always) they are separated by many millennia. In other cases, drawings were created on the same rocks over several millennia.
Africa. Rock painting. VIII - IV centuries BC
Nevertheless, it is a striking fact that many rock paintings in various parts of the world arose almost simultaneously. Everywhere, be it Toro Muerto (Peru), where tens of thousands of rock paintings have been found, Val Carmonica (Italy), the vicinity of the Karakoram Highway (Pakistan), the Colorado Plateau (USA), the Paraibo region (Brazil) or southern Japan, - almost identical symbols and figures were found everywhere. Of course, I cannot help but note that each individual place has its own, strictly localized types of images that cannot be found anywhere else, but this in no way clears up the mystery of the striking similarity of the remaining drawings.
Australia. XII - IV century BC
If we consider all these images with all their attributes and symbols, it appears amazing experience that the sound of the same calling trumpet suddenly rang out across all continents: “Remember: the gods are those who are surrounded by rays!” These “gods” are in most cases depicted as much larger than other little men. Their heads are almost always surrounded or crowned with a halo or halo, as if shining rays are emanating from them. In addition, ordinary people are always depicted at a respectful distance from the "gods"; they kneel before them, prostrate themselves on the ground, or raise their hands to them.
Italy. Rock painting. XIII - VIII centuries BC
Oswald Tobisch, specialist in rock paintings, who has traveled all over the world, with his tireless efforts has come even closer to solving this ancient secret: “Perhaps this striking similarity in the images of deities is explained by “internationalism”, incredible by our standards today, and humanity of that era, quite possibly, was still in the powerful force field of the “primordial revelation” of the one and omnipotent Creator?”
Dogu's space suit. The world's oldest depiction of a spacesuit. The discovery of cave art galleries raised a number of questions for archaeologists: what did the primitive artist paint with, how did he paint, where did he place the drawings, what did he paint and, finally, why did he do it? The study of caves allows us to answer them with varying degrees of certainty.
The palette of primitive man was poor: it had four main colors - black, white, red and yellow. To obtain white images, chalk and chalk-like limestones were used; black - charcoal and manganese oxides; red and yellow - minerals hematite (Fe2O3), pyrolusite (MnO2) and natural dyes - ocher, which is a mixture of iron hydroxides (limonite, Fe2O3.H2O), manganese (psilomelane, m.MnO.MnO2.nH2O) and clay particles. In caves and grottoes of France, stone slabs were found on which ocher was ground, as well as pieces of dark red manganese dioxide. Judging by the painting technique, pieces of paint were ground and mixed with bone marrow, animal fat or blood. Chemical and X-ray structural analysis of paints from the Lascaux cave showed that not only natural dyes were used, mixtures of which give different shades of primary colors, but also quite complex compounds obtained by firing them and adding other components (kaolinite and aluminum oxides).
Serious study of cave dyes is just beginning. And questions immediately arise: why were only inorganic paints used? The primitive man-gatherer distinguished more than 200 different plants, among which were dyeing ones. Why are the drawings in some caves made in different tones of the same color, and in others - in two colors of the same tone? Why did the colors of the green-blue-blue part of the spectrum enter early painting for so long? In the Paleolithic they are almost absent; in Egypt they appear 3.5 thousand years ago, and in Greece only in the 4th century. BC e. Archaeologist A. Formozov believes that our distant ancestors did not immediately understand the bright plumage of the “magic bird” - the Earth. The most ancient colors, red and black, reflect the harsh flavor of life at that time: the sun's disk on the horizon and the flame of a fire, the darkness of the night full of dangers and the darkness of the caves bringing relative peace. Red and black were associated with opposites ancient world: red - warmth, light, life with hot scarlet blood; black - cold, darkness, death... This symbolism is universal. It was a long way from the cave artist, who had only 4 colors in his palette, to the Egyptians and Sumerians, who added two more (blue and green) to them. But even further from them is the 20th century cosmonaut who took a set of 120 colored pencils on his first flights around the Earth.
The second group of questions that arise when studying cave painting, concerns drawing technology. The problem can be formulated as follows: did the animals depicted in the drawings of Paleolithic man “come out” of the wall or “go into” it?
In 1923, N. Casteret discovered a Late Paleolithic clay figure of a bear lying on the ground in the Montespan cave. It was covered with indentations - traces of dart strikes, and numerous prints of bare feet were found on the floor. A thought arose: this is a “model” that incorporates hunting pantomimes around the carcass of a dead bear, established over tens of thousands of years. Then the following series can be traced, confirmed by finds in other caves: a life-size model of a bear, dressed in its skin and decorated with a real skull, is replaced by its clay likeness; the animal gradually “gets to its feet” - it is leaned against the wall for stability (this is already a step towards creating a bas-relief); then the animal gradually “retracts” into it, leaving a drawn and then a pictorial outline... This is how archaeologist A. Solar imagines the emergence of Paleolithic painting.
Another way is no less likely. According to Leonardo da Vinci, the first drawing is the shadow of an object illuminated by a fire. Primitive begins to draw, mastering the “outlining” technique. The caves have preserved dozens of such examples. On the walls of the Gargas cave (France) 130 “ghost hands” are visible - human handprints on the wall. It is interesting that in some cases they are depicted with a line, in others - by filling in the external or internal contours (positive or negative stencil), then drawings appear, “torn off” from the object, which is no longer depicted in life-size, in profile or frontally. Sometimes objects are drawn as if in different projections (face and legs - profile, chest and shoulders - frontally). Skill gradually increases. The drawing acquires clarity and confidence of the stroke. Using the best drawings, biologists confidently determine not only the genus, but also the species, and sometimes the subspecies of an animal.
The Magdalenian artists take the next step: through painting they convey dynamics and perspective. Color helps a lot with this. The horses of the Grand Ben cave, full of life, seem to be running in front of us, gradually decreasing in size... Later this technique was forgotten, and similar drawings are not found in rock paintings either in the Mesolithic or Neolithic. The last step is the transition from a perspective image to a three-dimensional one. This is how sculptures appear, “emerging” from the walls of the cave.
Which of the above points of view is correct? A comparison of the absolute dating of figurines made of bones and stone indicates that they are approximately the same age: 30-15 thousand years BC. e. Maybe in different places did the cave artist take different paths?
Another of the mysteries of cave painting is the lack of background and frame. Figures of horses, bulls, and mammoths are scattered freely along the rock wall. The drawings seem to hang in the air; not even a symbolic line of ground is drawn under them. On the uneven vaults of caves, animals are placed in the most unexpected positions: upside down or sideways. No in drawings of primitive man and a hint of the landscape background. Only in the 17th century. n. e. in Holland the landscape is designed into a special genre.
The study of Paleolithic painting provides specialists with abundant material for searching for the origins of various styles and trends in modern art. For example, a prehistoric master, 12 thousand years before the advent of pointillist artists, depicted animals on the wall of the Marsoula cave (France) using tiny colored dots. The number of similar examples can be multiplied, but something else is more important: the images on the walls of caves are a fusion of the reality of existence and its reflection in the brain of Paleolithic man. Thus, Paleolithic painting carries information about the level of thinking of a person of that time, about the problems that he lived with and that worried him. Primitive art, discovered more than 100 years ago, remains a real Eldorado for all kinds of hypotheses on this matter.
Dublyansky V.N., popular science book
About ancient rock paintings.All over the world, speleologists in deep caves are finding confirmation of the existence of ancient people. Rock paintings have been perfectly preserved for many millennia. There are several types of masterpieces - pictograms, petroglyphs, geoglyphs. Important monuments of human history are regularly included in the World Heritage Register.
Usually on the walls of caves there are common subjects, such as hunting, battle, images of the sun, animals, human hands. People in ancient times attached sacred meaning to paintings; they believed that they were helping themselves in the future.
Images were applied using various methods and materials. For artistic creativity animal blood, ocher, chalk and even bat guano were used. A special type of painting is ashlar painting; they were carved into stone using a special chisel.
Many caves have not been sufficiently studied and are limited in visiting, while others, on the contrary, are open to tourists. However most of precious cultural heritage disappears unattended, unable to find her researchers.
Below is a short excursion into the world of the most interesting caves with prehistoric rock paintings.
Ancient rock paintings.
Bulgaria is famous not only for the hospitality of its residents and the indescribable flavor of its resorts, but also for its caves. One of them, with the sonorous name Magura, is located north of Sofia, near the town of Belogradchik. The total length of the cave galleries is more than two kilometers. The halls of the cave are colossal in size, each of them is about 50 meters wide and 20 meters high. The pearl of the cave is a rock painting made directly on the surface covered with bat guano. The paintings are multi-layered; there are a number of paintings from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods. The drawings of ancient homo sapiens depict figures of dancing villagers, hunters, many strange animals, and constellations. The sun, plants, and tools are also represented. Here begins the story of the festivities ancient era and about the solar calendar, scientists assure.
The cave with the poetic name Cueva de las Manos (from Spanish - “Cave of Many Hands”) is located in the province of Santa Cruz, exactly one hundred miles from the nearest settlement- the city of Perito Moreno. The rock painting art in the 24-meter-long and 10-meter-high hall dates back to the 13th to 9th millennia BC. This amazing painting on limestone is a voluminous canvas decorated with hand traces. Scientists have built a theory about how the amazingly clear and clear handprints turned out. Prehistoric people took a special composition, then took it into their mouths, and blew it forcefully through a tube onto a hand placed against the wall. In addition, there are stylized images of humans, rheas, guanacos, cats, geometric figures with ornaments, the process of hunting and observations of the sun.
Enchanting India offers tourists not only the delights of oriental palaces and charming dances. In north central India there are huge rock formations of weathered sandstone with many caves. Ancient people once lived in natural shelters. About 500 dwellings with traces of human habitation remain in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The Indians named the rock dwellings Bhimbetka (after the hero of the Mahabharata epic). The art of the ancients here dates back to the Mesolithic era. Some of the paintings are insignificant, and some of the hundreds of images are very typical and striking. 15 rock masterpieces are available for contemplation by those who wish. Mainly, patterned ornaments and battle scenes are depicted here.
Both rare animals and venerable scientists find shelter in the Serra da Capivara National Park. And 50 thousand years ago, our distant ancestors found shelter here in caves. Presumably, this is the oldest community of hominids in South America. The park is located near the town of San Raimondo Nonato, in the central part of the state of Piaui. Experts have counted more than 300 archaeological sites here. The main surviving images date back to 25-22 millennium BC. The most amazing thing is that extinct bears and other paleofauna are painted on the rocks.
The Republic of Somaliland recently separated from Somalia in Africa. Archaeologists in this area are interested in the Laas Gaal cave complex. Here you can see rock paintings from the 8th-9th and 3rd millennium BC. On the granite walls of majestic natural shelters scenes of life and everyday life of the nomadic people of Africa are depicted: the process of grazing livestock, ceremonies, playing with dogs. Local population He does not attach importance to the drawings of his ancestors, and uses caves, as in the old days, for shelter during the rain. Many of the studies have not been properly studied. In particular, problems arise with the chronological reference of masterpieces of Arab-Ethiopian ancient rock paintings.
Not far from Somalia, in Libya, there are also rock paintings. They are much earlier, dating back almost to the 12th millennium BC. The last of them were applied after the birth of Christ, in the first century. It is interesting to observe, following the drawings, how the fauna and flora changed in this area of the Sahara. First we see elephants, rhinoceroses and fauna typical of quite humid climate. Also interesting is the clearly visible change in the lifestyle of the population - from hunting to sedentary cattle breeding, then to nomadism. To get to Tadrart Akakus, you need to cross the desert east of the city of Ghat.
In 1994, while walking, by chance, Jean-Marie Chauvet discovered what later became famous cave. She was named after the speleologist. In the Chauvet cave, in addition to traces of the life activity of ancient people, hundreds of wonderful frescoes were discovered. The most amazing and beautiful of them depict mammoths. In 1995 the cave became state monument, and in 1997, 24-hour surveillance was introduced here to prevent damage to the magnificent heritage. Today, in order to take a look at the incomparable rock art of the Cro-Magnons, you need to obtain special permission. In addition to mammoths, there is something to admire; here on the walls there are handprints and fingerprints of representatives of the Aurignacian culture (34-32 thousand years BC)
In fact, the famous Cockatoo parrot is the name of the Australian national park it does not matter. The Europeans simply mispronounced the name of the Gaagudju tribe. This nation is now extinct, and there is no one to correct the ignorant. The park is home to Aboriginal people who have not changed their way of life since the Stone Age. For thousands of years, Indigenous Australians have been involved in rock painting. Pictures were painted here already 40 thousand years ago. In addition to religious scenes and hunting, there are stylized stories in drawings about useful skills (educational) and magic (entertaining). Among the animals depicted are the extinct marsupial tigers, catfish, and barramundi. All the wonders of the Arnhem Land plateau, Colpignac and the southern hills are located 171 km from the city of Darwin.
It turns out that the first homo sapiens reached Spain in the 35th millennium BC, this was the early Paleolithic. They left strange rock paintings in the Altamira cave. Artistic artifacts on the walls of the huge cave date back to both the 18th and 13th millennia. In the last period, polychrome figures, a peculiar combination of engraving and painting, and the acquisition of realistic details became interesting. The famous bison, deer and horses, or rather, their beautiful images on the walls of Altamira, often end up in textbooks for middle school students. The Altamira Cave is located in the Cantabria region.
Lascaux is not just a cave, but a whole complex of small and large cave halls located in the south of France. Not far from the caves is the legendary village of Montignac. The paintings on the cave walls were painted 17 thousand years ago. And they still amaze with their amazing forms, akin to modern graffiti art. Scholars especially value the Hall of the Bulls and the Palace Hall of the Cats. It’s easy to guess what prehistoric creators left there. In 1998, the rock masterpieces were almost destroyed by mold caused by an improperly installed air conditioning system. And in 2008, Lascaux was closed to preserve more than 2,000 unique drawings.
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