Genesis of Religion: The Emergence of Zoolatry on the Materials of Rock Paintings (original) (raw)
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Genesis of Religion: The Emergence of Zoolatry on the Materials of Rock Paintings.pdf
Религиоведение, 2018
The article deals with the correlation of ancient rock paintings and early forms of religion, zoolatry. The content of the article covers the territories of the Amur River basin, as well as the adjacent territories of North-Eastern Eurasia. The empirical part of the article is based on the materials of the author's field studies. The article systematizes the materials of the latest scientific data on rock paintings in Western Europe (Spain, France) and South-East Asia (Indonesia). The article focuses on the images of Pleistocene animals – woolly rhinos, bison and horses. Rock paintings show that zoolatry was one of the earliest forms of religion. In some regions (Franco-Cantabria, Indonesia) according to rock paintings zoolatry dates back to the period of about 40,000 BC and earlier; in other regions (Amur region, Northeast Eurasia) it existed about 12,000–10,000 BC. This periodization is due to the gradual settlement of human populations of the territories and local features of cultural development. By the end of the Pleistocene – the beginning of the Holocene, at the turn of the Upper Paleolithic – Early Neolithic, zoolatry had spread to a huge part of the human-populated territory: from Western to Eastern Eurasia and from Northern Eurasia to South-East Asia and Australia. In the context of the geography of religion zoolatry is one of the biggest phenomena of religious life 12,000–10,000 BC. The latest scientific discoveries in the field of origin and development of mankind and culture not so much solve the theoretical problems of the genesis and evolution of religion, as they are actualized at a new level of knowledge. In the context of new discoveries the problems of localization of early centers of the religious genesis, migration of religious traditions, interaction of autochthonous and allochthonous factors of morphogenesis of religion in the culture of different species of Homo and geographically different human populations are of particular importance. Key words: rock paintings, rhinoceros, bison, horse, Pleistocene, Holocene, Paleolithic, Neolithic, religion, zoolatry, symbolic culture.
The Genesis of Religion Emergence of Zoolatry Based on the Materials of Mobile Art
Религиоведение. 2020. № 1 Religiovedenie [Study of Religion]. 2020. No. 1, 2020
The article reveals the main stages of the study of the most ancient zoomorphic samples of mobile art and their interpretation as religious phenomena. The content of the article covers the territory of Western and Central Europe. Figurative zoomorphic sculptures of the Early Aurignac period testify to the existence of the Upper Paleolithic zoolatry already in this initial period. Zoolatria, a religiously motivated veneration of animals, was woven into other early forms of religious beliefs and practices. Zoolatry found expression in various types of magical actions. One evidence of this is the intentionally deformed animal figures. However, most modern researchers agree that zoolatry cannot be reduced only to the beliefs and practices of hunting magic. Figurative images are the building blocks of imagination, paving the way for mythology. Therioanthropomorphic images are of particular importance. Zooanthropomorphic and therioanthropomorphic images indicate the existence of mythological representations in some local communities. In different local communities, mythological representations, the characters of which were zoo- and zooanthropomorphic creatures, were different. The mythological therioanthropomorphic images of creatures of a different nature in relation to people and animals corresponded to the mythological image of a special space in which there was a reality similar to them – the reality of other being, which dominates the everyday reality of human existence. The existence of ideas about other being as superreality is a defining sign of religion. Based on the materials of zoo- and zooanthropomorphic samples of mobile art in Western and Central Europe, the presence of religion in the forms of developed zoolatria dates from the early Aurignac, with a time of about 40 000 calendar years ago.
Study of Religion, 2020
Генезис религии: возникновение зоолатрии по материалам мобильного искусства Восточной Европы и Сибири Аннотация. Восточная Европа и Сибирь являются территориями раннего расселения разных групп человечества. На Русской равнине первые стоянки людей современного анатомического типа датированы временем около 40 тыс. л.н. В Сибири группы Homo erectus появляются в эпоху нижнего палеолита. Позднее здесь расселялись денисовцы, неандертальцы и люди современного анатомического
Orientalistica, 2019
Резюме: доисторические петроглифы крупных влаголюбивых и полуводных животных в вади египетской Восточной пустыни (слона, жирафа, гиппопотама, крокодила) рассматривались некоторыми учеными как одно из важнейших свидетельств влажности древних климатов Северной Африки. Сегодня в науке преобладают подходы, отрицающие реальность этой фауны и вкладывающие в ее наскальные изображения вдали от Нила разного рода символические смыслы. В контексте своей гипотезы об образовании в VII-IV тыс. до н. э. в Египте между Асиутом и Фаюмом огромного озера автор статьи возвращается к петроглифам Восточной пустыни как к палеогеографическому источнику для реконструкции климата и гидрологии водосбора египетского Нила в среднем голоцене.
Sacral graffiti on ceramics from the early Phanagoria
Drevnosti Bospora (Antiquties of Bosporus) vol. 24, 2019
A substantial lack of information about Ancient Greek cults in the early Phanagoria makes us turn to the graffiti, found during the excavations of this city. Eleven inscriptions on ceramic sherds (Ionic and Attic vases), dating from the third quarter of the VIth - IVth centuries BC, are published in the article. Graffiti № 1 (540–500 BC) and №10 (Vth century BC) are devoted to Hera, graffito № 2 (4th quarter of VIth century BC) – Apollo. Before their publications there are no any written evidence concerning to the cults of Hera and Apollo for the Bosporos in the third quarter of the VIth – Vth centuries BC. The inscriptions make it impossible for to believe a temenos was situated in the territory of the “Upper City” in Phanagoria, where was its acropolis in the third quarter of VIth – Vth centuries BC. Temples of Apollo and Hera were located somewhere in the temenos. The graffito № 2 indicates that Apollo was worshiped in the city almost from the period of its foundation. The dedications of Hera point out a keeping of traditional beliefs inherent in Ionian Greeks by inhabitants of Phanagoria. The epigraphic data related to the cult of Apollo Iatros in Phanagoria has still referred to a period not earlier than the first half of Vth century BC (graffito № 6). So far, the new dedications from Phanagoria are not correlated with the generally accepted concept of Apollo Iatros as the supreme deity patron of the Ionian colonists in the Cimmerian Bosporos. At the same time, it is not supported by the hypothesis that Apollo Iatros was worshiped in Phanagoria only after the inclusion of it in the Spartokidai state at the end of Vth century BC. The dedication of Aphrodite is incised in the graffito № 5 (the first half of V century BC). It denotes that a temple of Aphrodite acted apparently in the acropolis of Phanagoria in V century BC. Only ceramic inscriptions (graffiti №№ 7, 8, 9) inform of a worship of Hermes in the early Phanagoria. So, it is impossible to suspect an existence of Hermes temple in the city in the Classical period. Hermes Agaphos was worshiped in "Southern City" – a trade and handcraft part in the early Phanagoria. This epithet of the deity is found only in the early inscriptions from Panticapaeum and Phanagoria. Graffiti №№ 3, 4, 11 are votive inscriptions cut out in offerings (vases) to some deities. They correspond to the formulas in dedicated inscriptions of the VIth - the first half of Vth centuries BC in the cities of the ancient Mediterranean, which were allocated to M. Lazarini. Graffiti № 3 mentions a name of Naikas (Ναϊκᾶς). This name is firstly met in anthroponomy not only of Phanagoria, but also of the Northern Black Sea. Earlier it was known only in an inscription of the Late Hellenistic time from Caria.
Jade" patterns on painted ceramics of the Neolithic era
Философия и культура
Painted ceramics occupy an important place in ancient Chinese art and are the result of creative activity of people of primitive society. A large number of Neolithic patterns on ceramics are similar to those signs and symbols that were made on jade products of the same period. Such patterns resembled drawings made by hand and represented realistic and abstract ornaments, plant, zoomorphic patterns, etc. Thus, the subject of this study is the so-called "jade" patterns on painted ceramics of the Neolithic era. The object of the study are objects of painted ceramics of the Neolithic era in China. Special attention is paid to the consideration of the specifics of ceramic products, as well as the features of their decors. The semantics of images on objects of Chinese painted ceramics is complex and ambiguous. The study revealed that it is associated with the development of human thinking, people's understanding of natural phenomena, awareness of the changing seasons, as wel...
Andrey P. Zabiyako, Wang Jianlin. Shitouren Petroglyphs and Phallic Images in Rock Art.pdf
Аннотация. Статья посвящена открытому авторами в декабре 2015 г. в Северо-Восточном Китае новому археологическому памятнику с наскальными изображениями, который получил название Шитоужэнь. Памятник находится на территории горного массива Малый Хинган. Центральный образ Шитоужэньантропоморфное фаллическое существо, сакральный образ фаллических культов. Фаллические образы наскальных изображений и связанные с ними мифологические представления, ритуальные действия являлись одним из средств религиозномагического обеспечения чадородия. Они акцентировали значимость мужской репродуктивной силы, указывали на её источник -фаллическое существо, духа или первопредка. Авторы полагают, что расположенные рядом с фаллической фигурой округлое пятно и овал представляют собой женские знаки, символы вульвы. Фаллический образ и женские знаки являются визуальным выражением фундаментальной для архаического сознания идеи деторождения, продолжения рода, преемственности и единства поколений, берущих начало от одного предка. Наскальные изображения Шитоужэнь относятся к группе таёжных петроглифов Евразии эпохи бронзы -раннего железного века. Надёжная этнокультурная атрибуция петроглифов Шитоужэнь пока не представляется возможной.